“Why? Does it matter?”
“Yes, yes, it matters. Tell me, did any one see her?”
Mally had been considering.
“Mr. Craddock was in the room, but I don’t believe he knew she was there.”
Mrs. Craddock looked terrified.
“If Paul saw her—”
“I don’t think he did. She was behind the curtain, and when I opened the door, she looked out at me and made a face. But he had his back to her, telephoning.”
“And then?”
“I went across and pulled the curtain back. He didn’t look round, and—no, he couldn’t have heard anything either. She pulled away from me and ran out of the room. And he was very busy, talking all the time and giving a message from Sir George; and I don’t believe he knew anything about Barbara being there. But—but why does it matter? Mrs. Craddock, I really ought to go.”
Mrs. Craddock clutched her arm. Mally saw with surprise that she was trembling.
“No, wait—I must tell you. My brother mustn’t know about Barbara being in the study.” She dropped her voice so much as to be scarcely audible. “If Paul knows, he’ll tell him. But you won’t—will you?”
“But why?”
“Because—Oh, my dear Miss Lee, you don’t know my brother. He spoils Barbara in most things; but he has a terribly violent temper, and he has forbidden her to go into the study. She took some paper once to draw on, and he—he caned her for it. It seems too dreadful, but he did. He won’t have her draw, you know. And—and—he mustn’t know, he really mustn’t know.” Mrs. Craddock dropped her voice still further and shook quite dreadfully. “Miss Lee, she screamed. It was—oh, terrible! I couldn’t bear it again. He mustn’t know.”
“Well, I shan’t tell him,” said Mally briskly. “Dear Mrs. Craddock, do sit down and compose yourself. You’ll see it’ll be quite all right. And now I really must go and find that little demon and scold her.”
Mally found her little demon miraculously transformed into the Angel Child of romance. With neatly brushed hair and an expression of seraphic calm, Miss Barbara Peterson sat bolt upright at the schoolroom table doing sums.
Mally’s lecture slid smoothly from a shield of impenetrable virtue. When told how bad she had been, Barbara sighed, glanced at the cornice, and observed:
“Yes, Mally darling, but I do want to get on with this sum, and you’re interrupting me dreadfully.”
Downstairs in the study Sir George Peterson sat with his chair pushed back from the writing-table, staring incredulously at his secretary.
“Craddock! Craddock, what are you saying?”
The bright pink color in Paul Craddock’s cheeks had changed and hardened till it looked like clumsy daubs of paint.
“It’s gone,” he said. “It’s gone!”
“What are you saying? Pull yourself together.”
“It’s gone,” said Paul Craddock in an odd, breathless voice that sounded as if he had been running very fast uphill. He stood on the farther side of the table, his two hands holding the edge of it, his big shoulders stooped forward. His whole frame shook a little as things seem to shake in a heat haze.
“How? And when?” Sir George spoke sharply.
“Just now. She must have taken it.”
“Who?”
“That girl, Miss Lee—she came in. It’s gone.”
Sir George fixed him with an icy look.
“May I suggest, for the second time, that you should pull yourself together and tell me quickly and exactly what you suppose to have happened. Whine about it afterwards in prison, which is where you’ll certainly find yourself if you lose your nerve. Now! Drop your hysterics and tell me what happened.”
Paul Craddock drew a deep breath, put his hand to his long throat, and swallowed once or twice.
“I beg your pardon, sir. It was so sudden—I got rattled. I’m all right now.”
Sir George nodded.
“Tell me exactly what happened. So far you’ve merely been incoherent.”
“It knocked me over. You know, sir, I always thought I ought to lock the door when I was decoding anything. But you said ‘No.’”
“Of course I said ‘No.’ You might just as well advertise a criminal conspiracy, and have done with it. Get on and tell me what happened?”
“I took Varney’s last code message out of the safe and sat down to decode it. It was the one that came last night—I told you. When I’d nearly done, Jenkinson rang up. I went over to your table and gave him the message you left. He kept me on the line whilst he went and saw Magnay. And when he came back, he went on about wanting to talk to you personally. Whilst I was in the thick of it, the door opened and Miss Lee looked in. I thought she was going away again, but she didn’t. She went across the room to the window first. Then she went out. When I went back to my table, Varney’s message was gone. She must have taken it.”
Sir George got up.
“Come round to the telephone and show me how you were standing. Like that? Sure?” He went over to the door. “And Miss Lee came in here? And went across to the window?” He began to walk in the direction indicated. “Stop me where you lost sight of her.”
Paul Craddock stopped him midway between door and window.
“And then?”
“I don’t know. Jenkinson was being very pressing—I was attending to him—I didn’t look round.”
“Ah! You left a decoded message from Varney lying on your table, and you didn’t look round. How long was Miss Lee in the room?”
“Not more than a minute. I can’t say for certain. I think she walked to the window and back again—but I was talking—I didn’t notice.”
“You didn’t hear the rustle of paper?”
“I should have looked round quick enough if I had. I just saw her come in, and then—I didn’t really see her go out because I’d turned a little more this way. But I heard the door shut. Jenkinson kept me another five minutes gassing about nothing, and I’d just got back to my table when you came in. She must have taken it.”
“How long had you been here before she came to the door?”
“I don’t know—quarter of an hour, twenty minutes perhaps.”
“And you haven’t left the room since?”
“No. Why?”
Sir George walked to the nearest window without replying. Heavy curtains of maroon velvet hung from ceiling to floor, looped back with tasselled cords as thick as a man’s wrist. He looked behind each curtain, passed to the other window, and lifted the curtain that had screened Barbara. It would not have hidden a grown-up person, but the child, kneeling on the floor, had been able to pull the ample folds about her below the looping. Paul Craddock’s writing-table, making an angle with the window-frame, had helped to screen her.
Sir George crossed to the last curtain, lifted it, and let it fall again. Then, turning, he surveyed the room. It afforded no other possible hiding-place.
“Yes,” he said grimly, “it looks as if she had taken it. But why? Why?”
Craddock threw him a glance full of fear. He moistened his lips and said:
“No one would have taken it unless they had known what they were taking. She hadn’t a minute to think. If she hadn’t come here as a spy——”
Sir George interrupted him.
“You think that?” He spoke curiously.
“What else is there to think? If she didn’t come here as a spy, what possible motive could have made her snatch that paper from my table? It’s not the first time she has done that sort of thing either. Only a practised hand, and a cool one, would have risked it and brought it off without making a sound.”
Sir George had come back to his chair. He sat with an elbow on the table, looking down, his face frowningly intent.
“Yes,” he said at last; and then, “What was on the paper? Just what had you decoded? Can you remember? Go over there and sit down and write it out.”
Paul Craddock hesitated, then turned about and flung himself into the chair before hi
s own table. For a few moments his pen moved rapidly. Then he got up and laid the scribbled paper in front of his chief.
There was a moment’s silence. Sir George stared at the paper and set his jaw. Then he reached for the matches, lit a taper, and watched Mr. Craddock’s oddly written half-sheet of note-paper blacken and fall into ash.
He had put out his hand to the table bell, when Paul Craddock asked sharply and nervously:
“What are you going to do, sir?”
“Send for Miss Lee—have her searched if necessary. She’s probably got the paper on her.”
“No, sir, wait! That won’t do.”
Sir George looked at him icily, his hand still on the bell.
“Wait? Till she gets away with it? Are you by any chance turning an honest penny over this yourself?”
Craddock ignored the insult. His sense of his own peril rendered him impervious to anything else.
“No—sir—think! It won’t do. Say she’s got the paper—say we get it from her. She goes straight to Scotland Yard and tells them what’s happened. You can’t have her down and search her as if she’d taken a brooch or a ring.”
“Or my sister’s diamond. Yes. There’s something in it.”
A curious look passed like a flash over Paul Craddock’s face. He came a little nearer and dropped his voice.
“Aunt Lena’s diamond. Yes, it would have been quite easy if she’d only taken that. Why shouldn’t she have taken it?”
“What do you mean, Craddock?” said Sir George very deliberately.
Paul stooped forward and laid his closed hand on the table in front of Sir George.
“What’s this?”
The hand opened slowly. On the palm of it lay the Mogul’s diamond in its circle of little brilliant leaves.
CHAPTER IX
Mally and Barbara were still doing sums, when the door opened and Sir George came in.
“Lessons?” he said; and then, “Do you know, I’d rather like to stay and plumb the depths of Barbara’s ignorance. Don’t let me disturb you. Carry on just as if I were not here.” He strolled over to the sofa as he spoke, sat down in the corner of it, and took up a book.
The lessons proceeded, Mally hoping that her consternation was not apparent, and Barbara continuing to be unnaturally seraphic. Sir George made no comment. He appeared to be reading; yet Mally was aware that his attention was focused upon her—upon her, not Barbara. He did not look at her, but she was conscious of a most disturbing attention. Never in all her life had she been so glad to hear the lunch bell ring.
Mr. Craddock was at lunch, and conversation fluttered about the loss of Mrs. Craddock’s diamond ornament. The poor lady herself made feeble endeavors to change the subject, but even the most devious paths led back again to diamonds, or thefts, or mysterious losses that were never cleared up. It was a most uncomfortable meal, for Barbara, discarding the rôle of Angel Child, was inclined to be pert, whilst Mrs. Craddock hovered nervously on the verge of tears and Sir George was by turns sarcastic and silent.
When the coffee came in, Mally got up and excused herself; Barbara was supposed to rest after lunch and there were still the lesson-books to put away. A good deal to her surprise, Sir George emerged from a prolonged fit of silence to say:
“Oh, don’t go without your coffee, Miss Lee.”
“I really don’t want any.”
Sir George frowned.
“Nonsense! Sit down and drink it. What difference does it make whether you put Barbara to bed at half-past two or five-and-twenty to three?”
Paul Craddock had taken his coffee and was dropping candied sugar into it slowly and thoughtfully. He took three spoonfuls and stirred his cup with a curious smile that made Mally feel like a volcano. What business had he to smile like that?
Mrs. Craddock looked at her imploringly, and Mally took a cup from the tray and drank the coffee with one quick gulp.
“Now, Barbara,” she said, and they went upstairs together.
“Do you like coffee? I don’t,” said Barbara, hopping on one leg round the table.
Mally made a face.
“I didn’t like that,” she said. “It had a perfectly horrid taste. Don’t hop, Barbara. Make haste.”
“Must hop,” said Barbara calmly.
“Not when I say ‘No.’”
“Must. You see, I’ve simply promised my left leg not to walk on it till I go to bed.” Barbara’s tone was mournful and earnest.
Mally made a dive at her, picked her up, shook her, and ran laughing and panting into the bedroom, where she deposited her with a bump in the middle of the bed. After a rather riotous five minutes decorum was restored. Barbara and a golliwog were tucked up under an eiderdown, and Mally went back into the schoolroom.
She sat down on the sofa, yawned, and took up the book Sir George had been reading. She felt suddenly so sleepy that she would have liked to be Barbara under the eiderdown. She yawned again, opened the book, and found herself reading the same sentence over and over, with no idea what it meant. She stared at the page and saw the lines running one into the other. She closed her eyes so as not to see them, and slipped down into the sofa corner, with her head against the arm and a sound like rushing water in her ears.
She did not know how long she slept, or how deeply; but she woke suddenly, with a start that shook her from head to foot and a little choking cry. The start and the cry had come with her out of a dream in which she was running, running, and running down a steep and stony road. Something was running after her. There was no sound of following feet, yet something followed. She started, cried out, and was awake.
She was sitting up, facing the door into the corridor, and the door was closing. Mally did not know why this frightened her so; but the slow, slow movement of that closing door turned her cold with terror.
The door ceased to move; the handle turned a little; the latch clicked—and that was all. There was no sound of a withdrawing foot. There was no sound at all. Mally sat in a dead silence, and was cold with fear. She could not take her eyes from the door, and the drowsiness, which she had only half shaken off, flowed and ebbed, and flowed and ebbed again.
It was the thought of Barbara that roused her and brought her trembling to her feet. If there was anything wrong, she must go to Barbara. Then, as she began to move, the fear and the drowsiness were gone together, leaving her wondering at herself.
Really, at her age, to drop alseep and wake up scared to death because she had had a dream! “Idiot!” she said to herself. All the same it was time for Barbara to get up.
She went to the door that led into the bedroom, and turned the handle. The door was fast. She shook it, but it held. She was calling “Barbara—Barbara!” when a sound behind her made her swing round with a little cry. Sir George Peterson was coming into the room, with Mr. Craddock behind him.
Paul Craddock shut the door, and Sir George said in a low, grave voice:
“Barbara is not in her room.”
Mally cried out:
“What has happened?”
His eyebrows rose.
“To Barbara? Nothing. She was removed by my orders. You will not see her again.”
“Sir George!”
“Does that surprise you?”
Mally’s chin went up. She stood leaning against the locked door, wondering if this was still a dream.
“It does—very much. Will you explain?”
“Does it need explanation?”
Mr. Craddock had not come very far into the room. He stood leaning over the back of a chair, staring maliciously at Mally, whilst Sir George stood grave and erect by the table, with a hand resting lightly upon one of Barbara’s copy-books.
“Sir George—what is the matter? What do you mean?”
“Don’t you know? My dear Miss Lee, this is a delightful but quite unconvincing display of innocence. You really have a great deal of histrionic ability. But just at the moment, I’m afraid, it’s wasted. Will you kindly give me back the paper which you took
off Mr. Craddock’s table this morning?”
Mally put her hand behind her and gripped the handle of the door. It was a quite instinctive movement, but it had the effect of a denial.
Sir George came a step forward.
“Come, hand it over!” he said very harshly.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
He seemed to control himself with an effort.
“Miss Lee, I don’t want to be hard on you. It was my sister’s loss that opened our eyes. It was an act of the most criminal stupidity to take so marked a jewel as the Mogul’s Diamond. But we are not anxious for a scandal. Give back the pendant and the paper that you were foolish enough to take this morning, and we shall not prosecute.”
Mally listened to these unbelievable words without making the slightest sign that she had heard them. In a sense it may be said that she did not hear. The sound of them fell upon her ears, but her mind made nothing of them. She said in a quiet, puzzled voice:
“I don’t understand—I don’t know what you are saying.”
And just at that moment Paul Craddock laughed.
It was something in his laugh that brought Mally sharply to herself. She saw Sir George turn a look of frowning anger upon his secretary and then face her again with a grave and judicial air.
“Miss Lee, what is the use of taking up this attitude? You came into this house in a position of trust. You have abused that trust. I feel that I am in part to blame—I made too few inquiries. But Mrs. Armitage is an old friend——” He broke off, made a gesture as if waving something away, and then went on, using a harder tone: “Well, I was precipitate, and I’m paying for it. Now, I don’t want a scandal, for Barbara’s sake, for my own sake, and for my sister’s sake—she will in any case be most terribly upset. Give back the jewel and the paper, and I won’t prosecute.”
Mally was still gripping the handle of the door behind her. Her fingers seemed to have grown to it; she could not move; they were cold and stiff. Her mind had begun to take in the words of Sir George’s accusation; but they were just words.
“I haven’t got any paper.”
The instinct that made her take hold of the words last heard was one that did her more harm than she could guess, for it confirmed both the men in their conviction that she not only had the paper, but knew its value.
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