“Oh no, my dear. I’ll be glad to do anything,” persisted the lady.
“Well, then—I’m afraid it will be a lot of trouble to you, but if you are going anywhere near, and going soon, I would be so glad if you would take a message from me to someone.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed speculatively, but she kept insisting that it would be no trouble at all.
“And I could bring you word again,” she said, brightening.
“Oh, there won’t be any word to bring,” said Christobel quickly. “It’s just that I would like some message to get to my old nurse early tonight, that is, soon, right away! You see, I always go see her when I come back from the city. She was my nurse when I was a child. She counts on my visits, and I’m not sure I can get time. Father hasn’t told me when he is planning for me to go back to school, and if it should be early in the morning, I couldn’t get to her before I left. You see she works, and she has to leave early. Would you mind driving to her rooming house and telling her personally—you know, I could send a servant, but it wouldn’t mean the same as sending a friend.” In her eagerness to be rid of her caller, Christobel was outdoing herself in cunning. “Would you be so good as to tell her that I hoped I could come tonight, but it isn’t going to be possible, and I’ll try to make it tomorrow night if I can stay here over Sunday. But if I don’t come, she’ll know it was because I couldn’t. I’d be so grateful. I won’t forget it.”
“Why, of course,” said Mrs. Romayne unenthusiastically. “I’ll do it, gladly. Only—wouldn’t it be better if you wrote? I could send my chauffeur, and then perhaps I could help you here.”
“Oh, no,” said Christobel in alarm, “I would rather not do that. She—she might be hurt! She—well, you could explain how it is that I had something to do for Father—and—well, if a lady took the trouble to call, it would mean so much more to her. I wouldn’t have suggested it, only you were kind enough to offer—” She ended lamely, a pretty distress in her face. She felt like a young hypocrite, but she was in a fever to get rid of her guest. She was sure she heard soft footsteps again overhead, and she was trying to think what she ought to do next. Mrs. Romayne was slowly, almost reluctantly putting on her wrap. One could see that she did not want to go.
“Well, my dear, part of my errand this evening was to ask you and your dear father—and your young brother, of course, if he is still here, to come and take dinner with me tomorrow night. I think it will be so lonely for you here, and it may help to tide you over the first day.”
“I couldn’t promise, Mrs. Romayne. I don’t know Father’s plans, you see. We haven’t had a minute to talk together since I came. Not a minute alone, I mean.”
“Well, when will your father be back? Soon?”
“I can’t tell how soon,” said Christobel in despair.
“Suppose I come back in about an hour and we all talk about it together? That would be lovely, wouldn’t it?”
“Oh, no, please, Mrs. Romayne. Not tonight,” said Christobel, almost in tears of despair. “We would rather be all by ourselves tonight, if you don’t mind.”
“Oh, well of course,” said the lady, with the least bit of a quiver of hurt in her voice and a drooping appeal in her attitude. “I thought it might be kind of homelike to have a woman around this first night. Not so strange. It’s always strange after a funeral. Don’t you want me to come? I could stay all night with you just as well as not, dear child.”
Christobel barely saved herself from a shudder at this.
“Not tonight, Mrs. Romayne,” she said with a newborn dignity.
So at last the lady withdrew, taking the address of Maggie the nurse, and promising to call Christobel and let her know what had been the result of her visit.
Christobel apologized for the absence of the butler and showed her guest out with as much sweet apology as she could muster then watched with relief from the dark window of the big reception room to see the car drive away into the night. Then she turned and tried to think what to do next. She could distinctly hear scurrying feet above.
Slowly she walked toward the stairs and quietly went up. As she went she tried to reason.
The servants were all too evidently in a panic over the absence of the keys. Had she been wrong to take them away? Perhaps she had only precipitated trouble. They would have had time to secrete whatever they had taken. Ought she perhaps to call the police? Oh, if her father would only come! He had spoken of having to stop in his office for some papers. Would it do any good to call him there?
She was halfway up the stairs by this time, and then, to her great relief, she heard her father’s key in the door. Turning, she flew down to meet him.
Her face told him something had happened, and with a cautious look around and up the stairs, he drew her within the curtains of the small reception room. Randall stood beside them, his eyes growing large with excitement as Christobel talked.
“A lady came to call!” said Christobel, trying to keep the tremble out of her voice.
“A lady?”
“Yes. A Mrs. Romayne. She said she was a very dear friend of the family.” Her eyes sought her father’s face with a quick anxious questioning.
“Yes?” he asked, watching his daughter with a face that showed no emotion whatever.
“She asked for me,” said Christobel, hurrying on with her story. “We were sitting in this room, over there on the couch, and I heard sounds in the room overhead. It sounded like people walking hurriedly in their stocking feet. It kept up for several minutes, and I remembered that you told me to keep my eyes and ears open. So I excused myself for a minute to go and see what it was. I heard the steps coming along the hall as I started up the stairs, so I went very cautiously. Looking up, I saw three wide shadows like three women with a lot of things in their arms, moving fast across the wall just above the first landing. But when I got to the top of the stairs, I could only see the back wall. I could only see the back of one of the figures passing through the swing door to the back hall. I couldn’t tell which one it was, because the hall was pretty dark—only the light at the head of the stairs was burning, but I think it was Marie. I thought she had dark hair, but she carried so much in her arms, I couldn’t be sure. She had a very large suit box piled high with clothes, and one slipped off the top and stuck in the door. I guess she didn’t know it went right off, or perhaps she heard me coming and was afraid. Anyway, she dropped the dress—it was red velvet with a diamond pin on the shoulder—and I went quietly and picked it up. It’s in your room now. And then when I came out I saw something glittering in the dark, and it was a little scarf with jewels on it, but it was shut in the door. When I went to pull it out, I saw the door was not locked, and there was a bunch of keys dangling from the lock.
“I didn’t have much time to think what to do. I was afraid they were planning to come back for more things. So I locked the door as fast as I could and came right downstairs again. But I heard those footsteps again in the hall just as Mrs. Romayne was leaving, only they were gone when I started up again, and then I was glad to hear your key in the lock.”
She finished with a catching of her breath almost like an excited sob.
“Where are the keys?” asked her father.
“Under the cushion in your big leather chair upstairs,” said Christobel. “The scarf is up there, too.”
“Dad, don’t you want me to call the police?” asked Randall excitedly.
“No, Son, we’ll handle this, I guess. At least don’t get the police in on it till we see what really has happened. You go very quietly into the kitchen and stand at the foot of the back stairs. Lock all the back doors and take the keys out, and just wait. Don’t let anybody get by, see? Probably, there’s nothing much to it. They’ll just likely be frightened. But one of them might try to get away with something valuable. It has been done before. Chris, you go upstairs as usual and shut your door loud enough to be heard, so that if anybody is listening, they’ll think you have gone into your room, and then slip
quietly back out and stay inside my room till I call you. Now, are we ready?”
Christobel ran upstairs quite naturally, went down the hall humming, and suddenly remembered that humming was not a thing people usually did in a house where there had been a death. She stopped the humming but gave her door a bigger slam than it had probably ever had before, and then she tiptoed noiselessly back to her father’s room.
Mr. Kershaw had found the keys, and Charmian’s room was already unlocked, the door standing wide open, the room ablaze with light. The hall light was also turned on.
Mr. Kershaw stood in the open door and beckoned her to come with him.
“See if you can find those fur coats,” he whispered, and Christobel, feeling that she was entering forbidden ground, went excitedly through her stepmother’s closet.
The closet was a good-sized room in itself, and there were rows and rows of gowns on hangers all around, many of them carefully covered with muslin covers or bags of flowered chintz. But several dresses were on the floor, and some bags and covers were thrown carelessly aside, as if someone in great hurry had been there. One delicate evening frock of soft material like a delicate pink cobweb was trailed along the floor near the door as if it had been dropped and overlooked. But nowhere, either on shelves or floor or in the outer room, were there any suit boxes such as would be used to send a fur garment from the store. It did not take long for the two to discover that both of the fur coats, if there were fur coats, had been taken elsewhere.
Mr. Kershaw looked sharply around the room and stooped to pick up a bit of yellow paper. There it was, the slip that had come with the sable coat. Twenty-seven hundred dollars! He silently held it out for Christobel to see and then stuffed it into his pocket.
“All right! That’s enough. Now you go into my room out of sight. If I should whistle, you can call the police department. You’ll find the number at the top of the front page of the directory right there on the telephone table. Otherwise, keep still till I call you.”
Christobel stepped into her father’s room and waited in the dark. She was very much excited, but suddenly she realized that she was very happy, too. For she was doing something with her father at last. It wasn’t very much perhaps, but she was in his confidence, working with him just as any other girl might have done. It made her so glad that she felt a hot tear steal out from under her lashes and roll down her cheek, but all alone in the dark she smiled it away, tossing the hair back from her hot forehead. Oh, it was great to be working with her father, even in a sordid little thing like catching some thieving servants.
Suddenly, she heard her stepmother’s bell ring, the bell with which she had always called her maid.
There was silence for a moment, and then the bell rang again, and after an instant there came hurried footsteps. Christobel, looking out from the shelter of the dark room, saw Marie halt outside in the hall and look with frightened eyes toward the wide-open door of her former mistress’s room as if she expected to see a ghost.
Then Mr. Kershaw spoke. “Marie, where have you put those two fur coats that my wife purchased a few days before her illness?”
There was a moment of frightened silence, and then Marie spoke in a little choked voice. Christobel could see her hand go nervously to her throat.
“Oh!” she said, trying to make her voice sound assured. “Why, I’ll get them. I took them to my dressing room and put them under my bed. I just couldn’t rest easy at night, knowing they were over here and I was responsible for them. I didn’t want to bother you at this time, Mr. Kershaw.”
Mr. Kershaw eyed her sharply.
“You may bring them at once,” he said severely. “I’ll go with you and carry the boxes back myself.”
“Oh, but no, that’s not necessary!” protested the frightened girl eagerly. “I can carry them quite easily.”
“I prefer to go,” said the master of the house calmly, “and while we are there we’ll just bring back the other things that belonged to Mrs. Kershaw. There are a number of dresses missing—” He pointed to the confusion reigning on the floor of the wardrobe, whose door stood wide open. “And some jewels!” He snapped a jewel case shut. “Christobel!” he called, raising his voice. “You may come, too.”
“Oh, but Mr. Kershaw,” said Marie anxiously, “I just took a few things over to give them a cleaning and mending so that everything would be in good order in case you wanted me to pack them away.”
Marie was clever. She was regaining her confidence. She almost smiled at her master. But Mr. Kershaw did not smile. He seemed to be looking straight through her. He stalked gravely along with her, keeping time with her quick nervous feet as she hurried to do his bidding.
Marie made one more stand at the swing door.
“You just wait here, please, Mr. Kershaw,” she said in suave tones. “My room’s not in such good order as I’d like it to be when you see it. These have been busy days you know—” She tried to put across another smile. “I’ll bring everything to you.”
For his answer, the householder held open the door for her to pass. Christobel followed like a silent shadow behind, giving her brother a signal as she passed the top of the back stairs and saw him look up in wonder.
So Randall Kershaw came nimbly and silently up and joined the procession into the short side hall that led to the servants’ rooms.
It was quite a surprise to the cook and the parlormaid, arrayed as they were in some of their dead mistress’s garments. The cook had stuffed herself into a delicate evening affair of thread lace over a pale rose lining, and her bulk had promptly split the frail French seams from neck to hem. But the cook had not discovered the damage yet and went sailing up and down the little hall, one hand waving a pink ostrich feather fan back and forth, the other fingering joyously a long chain of amethysts that hung about her fat red neck. She had her head turned, watching the train coming after and admiring herself like a child, and thus she came face-to-face with the master of the house as he stood at the entrance to the hall.
She let forth such a scream as might have aroused the neighborhood. It brought the parlormaid out of her bedroom, arrayed in Charmian’s black velvet and the short white evening wrap of ermine. She stood there guiltily, too frightened to even scream, and while they faced their master, caught red-handed, Marie dived like a shadow into her own room and brought forth the sable coat, holding it out with one hand and its big cardboard box in the other.
“It’s here, all safe,” chirped Marie in a high, unnatural voice. Then she turned on her two confederates.
“And you all, what are you doing with Mrs. Kershaw’s things? Parading around like so many children? What business have you to be touching the things I brought to my room to clean, I’d like to know?”
“I was only tryin’ it ta see how I would look,” whined Mary, the cook. “I’ve allus hankered fer a black lace dress. I just wanted to see how becomin’ it might be! And anyhow, it’s tore!” she said, suddenly getting a view of herself in Marie’s mirror through the doorway. “Mrs. Kershaw give this ta Marie because ’twas tore, and I knew Marie wouldn’t mind. It’s Marie’s dress, this is, Mr. Kershaw.” Mary felt that she was doing well, not only providing an excuse for herself, but getting in well with Marie, for now the dress would be Marie’s.
But the master was not deceived.
“Take it off!” he demanded. “Go to your room and take that dress off. But first, take off that necklace and give it to me.”
“Aw, but Mr. Kershaw,” protested Mary glibly, “this is me own string of beads that Mrs. Kershaw gave me for a keepsake.”
“You can’t put anything like that over on me,” said the master of the house sternly. “Hand them to me at once. That is not a string of beads. Those are valuable stones, and you know it. Now, go into your room and take off that dress, and bring it to me with everything else you have taken that belonged to my wife. No, Clara, you can’t go until you have given me the ermine wrap, and then you may go and take off that velvet dress.”
He put out a heavy hand and caught the frightened parlormaid by the arm, stripping the lovely satin-lined wrap from her shoulders and handing it to Christobel.
He turned back to the huddled servants. Marie stood sullenly in her doorway, and Clara and the cook were crying. “Now,” he said sternly, “you may bring me everything you have taken from my wife’s apartment. If there is a single thing missing, your rooms will be searched, and you will be prisoners until it is done. Randall, call up the police station and ask them to send a couple of officers over here at once. Let them wait downstairs until I call for them.”
The three frightened women scuttled into their rooms and hurried out of their borrowed finery, hastening to get together every scrap of anything that had ever belonged to the house. They even burrowed deep into their trunks and brought out things taken months before and so long hidden that they had been forgotten.
“We meant no harm,” twittered the cook as she produced a handful of small jewelry purloined from time to time when she happened to be left alone in the house.
“Bring everything!” said the master of the house sternly. “Your rooms will be thoroughly searched, and if there is found a thread of anything that does not belong to you, you will be imprisoned.”
With a moan of mingled hope and fear, the cook bounced back into her room and looked for more ill-gotten gain, and presently a generous pile of dry goods, jewelry, and even table linen and silver were assembled in a heap in the outer hall. When the three burly officers arrived and stalked past the subdued women, they stood humiliated in a row, the parlormaid and the cook weeping convulsively. Marie, with her shrewd eyes cast down, had a sullen look on her pretty, clever face.
“Now,” said Mr. Kershaw when the officers had searched each room carefully and found only a few questionable things that the women said they had “forgotten,” “I’ll give you three just half an hour to pack your belongings and get out. The officers will remain on guard outside your doors while you are doing it.”
Mary and Clara began to whine and plead and promise all sorts of things for the future, if he would only let them stay. Not Marie. She knew her work was over in that house, her mistress dead. She had planned a big scoop on a large scale with her confederates, had failed, and now all she wanted was to slip away into the unknown and begin a new life in a new place. She cast withering looks of scorn at the other two, who wept copious tears as they packed, hurrying with trembling fingers and furtive glances at the watching officers. She had only resentment and contempt for them. If it hadn’t been for their careless clumsiness, she might have gotten away with her own story. But those two had to appear all decked out! They had not been careful at all, in spite of her warning after she found the keys were gone and after the eerie ringing of the bell from the apartment of a dead woman. They should have known and been on their guard. There was vengeance in Marie’s eyes as she packed.
Ransom Page 4
