The Black Cabinet

by Patricia Wentworth

  “Perhaps it’s amongst his papers,” said Chloe. She took the key out of the cabinet door as she spoke, and pulled out one of the drawers at random. Mr. Wroughton stood by and watched her, his hands in his pockets. He did not talk, and he did not move, but just stood there—a big man in rough clothes, who looked a good deal out of place in the pale, faded room.

  Chloe did not allow her Uncle Walter’s collection to delay her for very long. It was, to tell the truth, a sufficiently depressing spectacle. There was moth in some of the drawers, and a general air of decay. The bright colours that had pleased her so much as a child were dull and lifeless in this November light. She felt no desire to linger under Mr. Wroughton’s eye, gazing at these mouldering relics. After a very brief inspection she locked the cabinet and turned away.

  “I’m going out,” she announced; and five minutes later she banged the front door behind her and began to skirt the house.

  It was a blowy, blustery day, but she was in shelter until she turned the north corner and met a great buffet of wind that beat the colour into her face and made her laugh and gasp for breath. She swung round and raced before it down the gravelled path that led past the stables to the walled garden. The wind ran with her like a noisy, shouting companion, past the walled garden—she had no fancy for enclosed spaces to-day—and on over rough grass to a little spinney of larches all bare and delicate against a lead-coloured sky.

  Chloe flung her arms about one of the trees, and turned to face the wind, glowing and happy. The depression which clung about the house like a mist was all gone. She wondered at the Chloe who had stood so meekly before Mr. Wroughton with hardly enough spirit to ask for her own keys. She whistled this Chloe down the wind with a scornful toss of the head, and leaning there with her arms about the swaying larch, she began to make plans.

  There were no horses at Danesborough. She must have a horse. Not this week, but surely next week she might buy a horse and have riding lessons without being considered hard-hearted. She must learn to drive a car too. There were at least three to choose from—the big Daimler limousine; the Napier touring car; and the little A.C. two-seater—that was the one she had set her heart upon. But there seemed to be a tendency to regard it as Mr. Wroughton’s car. Not for the first time, Chloe had a sudden, vivid feeling that Mr. Wroughton was too much in evidence.

  “When I am of age” she said to herself and leaned her cheek against the rough bark of the little larch tree. She began to make pleasant plans. When Mr. Wroughton had seen Chloe leave the house, he went into the study and asked for a trunk call. Whilst he waited for it to come through he stood looking down into the fire with a heavy frown on his face. He did not look jovial any more.

  As he stood there the door opened, and Emily Wroughton hesitated on the threshold.

  “What is it?” said Wroughton over his shoulder, his voice rasping on the words. “Come in or stay out—I don’t care which, but for heaven’s sake, make up your mind!”

  “If you’re busy—I—” said Emily, “I mean—I don’t want to interrupt you.”

  “Well, don’t do it then! I’m expecting an important call.”

  She backed out of the room, half closed the door, and then opened it again.

  “It was about the servants, Leonard. I mean that is—perhaps another time—I didn’t know you were busy.”

  Wroughton swung round, the telephone bell rang, and Emily shut the door in a flurry. Wroughton was scowling as he picked up the receiver. Through his “Hullo!” he was aware of Emily slowly and cautiously releasing the handle of the door. He said “Hullo!” a second time, and then, “That you, Stran?”

  The voice that answered him was familiar.

  “Yes. What’s up? You sound peeved.”

  “No, it’s nothing—Emily fussing round the door like a hen, that’s all.”

  He listened, and heard her withdraw on tiptoe. At the other end of the line Stran laughed.

  “I was afraid the heiress had cut up rusty.”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Bordering on it?”

  “No. But I can’t quite make her out. One minute she’s as frank and open as a child, and then shuts down like a clam.”

  “As how?”

  “She told me to-day that she knew where the safe was—said he’d told her, and asked me for the thingummyjig key. And then when I tried to find out whether she knew the word she shut down and talked about her Uncle Walter’s butterflies.”

  “Do you think she knows anything?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “No idea?”

  Wroughton hesitated.

  “I believe she does know,” he said at last.

  “Well, if she does know, she’ll be using what she knows. The woman doesn’t live who could keep her hands off a secret that she’s got the key to. That’s where you come in, old thing. You’ll have to do a good deal of sitting up and taking notice. Speaking for myself, I really can’t afford to let the lady get going. The old man kept what he was pleased to call ‘my receipts’ and everything else apart, I’m bound to get ’em back. So look lively.”

  “Suppose you come down and take a hand.”

  “Next week.” Stran’s voice was very cool and easy. “I’ll give her time to get thoroughly bored, and then roll up casually and renew our acquaintance.”

  “All right. She’s pretty well fed up already, Emily’s not exactly a gay companion.”

  “Not exactly! Well, so long.”

  Wroughton replaced the receiver, rang off, and went to the door.

  “Emily!” he shouted at the top of his voice.

  Chapter XII

  Breakfast was apt to be a silent meal at Danesborough. Mr. Wroughton, coming in late, was sufficiently occupied with the important business of eating; and Emily, nervously busy with the tea things, had learned in the course of years not to risk a snubbing. She made one remark every morning to Chloe:

  “You should pour out, you really should, Miss Dane. I don’t feel I ought to be doing it.”

  “I hate pouring out,” said Chloe on the morning after the little scene about the key. “I simply hate pouring out. Let’s make Mr. Wroughton do it for a change if you’re tired of it.”

  “Oh, no!” said Emily, in a frightened whisper. “Oh, dear no! Oh, please, Miss Dane, you won’t suggest such a thing, will you?” She very nearly dropped the milk-jug in her fright as Leonard Wroughton came into the room and shut the door noisily behind him.

  Chloe felt amusement pass into pity tinged with scorn. To be so much afraid of a man—of any man! It was pitiable. Emily Wroughton wanted shaking. Why didn’t she stand up to the man, and bite him when he snubbed her? Chloe looked at her shrinking behind the tea-cups—the wispy hair; the nervous gestures; the unbecoming black jumper, far too low in the neck. She looked away with a frown.

  Mr. Wroughton was at the side table, helping himself to kidneys and bacon. The silence irked her. She reached for the marmalade pot, and innocently cast a bomb into the stillness.

  “Who is Stran?” she said, and helped herself to marmalade.

  The question was addressed to Emily, and Emily began to answer it, but got no further than a repetition of the name.

  “Stran”—she said, and then Mr. Wroughton came forward and set down his plate with a clatter. Chloe repeated her question.

  “Yes, Stran. Who is Stran?” And this time Leonard Wroughton took up the word.

  “Why, what made you ask that?” he said.

  “Mr. Dane spoke of him,” said Chloe. “Just mentioned him, you know; and it’s such an odd name.”

  “Stran is short for Stranways—not so odd really.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Just an acquaintance of Mr. Dane’s. You’re not very likely to come across him. What did Mr. Dane say about him?”

  Chloe’s eyes had a sparkle in them; Mr
. Wroughton’s domineering stare had roused her temper. He had no business to look at her, or at any woman, like that.

  “Oh, he just mentioned him,” she said, and went on eating toast and marmalade.

  Something about this little encounter made her better pleased with herself. She had stood up to the Wroughton man and seen him subside into flushed silence. It helped to obliterate the memory of her meekness the day before. Chloe was not at all accustomed to being meek, and she had no intention of letting Leonard Wroughton bully her.

  She had her first driving lesson later on that morning, and came home fairly intoxicated with the air, the speed, and the new sense of power.

  “It’s like having wings almost,” she said to herself as she ran up the steps and into the hall. And there, just by the study door, she heard her own name:

  “No, Miss Dane is not in, I’m afraid.”

  Chloe ran into the room, and saw Leonard Wroughton at the telephone.

  “I’m just back. Glorious! Is that some one for me?”

  He handed her the receiver, and she asked,

  “Who is it?”

  A man’s voice came to her:

  “Oh, is that Miss Dane?”

  “Yes, it is. I’ve just come in.”

  “It’s Michael Foster speaking.”

  “Oh, how nice!” said Chloe with naive truthfulness. After the funerary gloom of the last few days, how nice to hear Michael’s cheerful voice; how nice to speak to somebody young! She looked up from the instrument and gave Mr. Wroughton a cool little nod of dismissal.

  “It’s a friend of mine. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind shutting the door.”

  “That’s ripping of you,” was Michael’s answer. “I—I went down to Maxton two days ago, an you weren’t there.”

  “No, I was here.”

  “They told me that—I saw your Miss Allardyce, and she told me. And the reason I rang you up—”

  There was a pause. It lasted such a long time that Chloe said, “Are you there?”, and said it twice.

  “Yes, I’m there—I mean, I’m here—I mean the reason I rang you up—”

  There was another pause.

  “I do wish you wouldn’t keep going away,” said Chloe. “It’s perfectly horrible when you don’t know whether there’s anyone at the other end of the line or not—I simply hate it. Do go on.”

  “I am going on,” said Michael. “What I’m trying to say is this, only I don’t know if you’ll think it awful cheek”

  Chloe gave a little gurgle of laughter.

  “Do tell me what it is. If you only knew how deadly, deadly dull I’ve been.”

  “Have you?” Michael sounded rather hopeful.

  “Bored stiff,” said Chloe succinctly.

  “Then perhaps—well, what I mean to say is, I may be down in your direction next week. I think I’m booked for a job that’ll take me past Danesborough, and—and I was wondering whether you would let me come and see you.”

  “I should love it,” said Chloe.

  “May I really?”

  “Yes, of course you may.”

  Chloe went to her room singing. She had snubbed Mr. Wroughton; she had driven a car for twenty miles; and Michael Foster was coming to see her next week. The gloom that broods over Danesborough lifted.

  It was as she passed the drawing-room door on her way down to lunch that Chloe decided to open the safe.

  “I’ve just let myself get silly about it,” she said “I don’t expect there’s a thing inside it except stocks, and shares, and bonds, and fusty, mouldy business sort of things like that. I’ll just open it and have done with it. I didn’t know I could be such an idiot about anything; and if I can’t pull myself together, I’ll just grow into a trampled worm like that poor, wretched Emily.”

  At this point the poor, wretched Emily joined her. Chloe slipped her hand inside Mrs. Wroughton’s arm and spoke warmly, impulsively:

  “Why didn’t you come out this morning? It was simply ripping. Why don’t you drive?”

  “I—I shouldn’t care to—I haven’t got the nerve.”

  Chloe gave the thin arm a little squeeze.

  “Why are you frightened of things?” she said. “I hate to see people frightened.”

  Emily Wroughton looked nervously over her shoulder; they were in the hall, and Chloe’s voice carried so.

  “My dear Miss Dane, please, please!” And then, as they came into the empty dining-room, she asked in her quick, jerky way:

  “Aren’t you frightened sometimes?—when people are vexed—when you can’t please them! When one tries very hard to please people, and they are never quite pleased, quite satisfied, it gives one such a terribly fluttered feeling—at last that’s what I find.”

  “People,” of course, meant Leonard Wroughton. Chloe accepted the faint attempt at camouflage.

  “I wouldn’t try so hard if I were you,” she said with a little glow of indignation in her voice. Chloe might resolve to open the safe at the earliest opportunity, but that opportunity was not easy to come by. For one thing, Emily Wroughton was for ever at her elbow. Or if by chance she disappeared for an hour, it seemed impossible to cross the hall without encountering Mr. Wroughton. It was, of course, quite open to Chloe to tell either Leonard Wroughton or his wife that she wished to be left alone in the drawing-room in order to go through Mr. Dane’s private papers. There were moments when she thought of taking this course; and there were other moments when she was upon the point of wiring to Mr. Hudson to come down and open the safe with her. Reason suggested one of these courses. But stronger than reason was the instinct that held her back—Mitchell Dane’s face; Mitchell Dane’s voice; fragments of his talk.

  Chloe knew at last that she could force herself to open the safe. But she must be alone and secure against interruption. She must be alone because she was afraid—in spite of everything she was afraid—of what that safe might contain. She would open it. She would make herself open it. But she must be alone.

  Three days slipped away, and the safe remained shut. To get away from the Wroughtons Chloe had to leave the house. Leave it she did, and drove herself for mile on glorious mile, forgetting everything in this new, vivid delight. But when the drive was done, there was Danesborough to come back to—Danesborough and the Wroughtons. Each day as she came back into the house she felt that clinging something close in about her like a mist and chill her glowing thoughts greyness.

  On the fourth day she saw her opportunity. Leonard Wroughton went to town by the twelve fifteen. He took a suit-case with him, and Emily explained that he was going to stay at his club. “I don’t suppose he’ll be back till late to-morrow, or perhaps not till next day. Leonard does so hate to be asked questions.”

  “Yes, I’ve noticed that,” said Chloe.

  Emily made a nervous movement.

  “Oh, men are like that. Lots of women are so silly—they will ask questions, and expect a man to tell them where he goes, and what he does, and just when to expect him back. It’s very foolish indeed—it really is. Leonard simply can’t bear to be asked questions. And I never dream of asking him what he’s going to do, or when he is coming back, though it’s dreadfully awkward sometimes—about meals, you know, or if anyone wants to see him. I just have to say that I’ve no idea when he’ll be back.”

  Chloe laughed a little indignantly.

  “And what happens when you go away? Do you just drift off into the blue, and let him guess when you’ll be back?”

  A singular look crossed Mrs. Wroughton’s face—a momentary eagerness passing into terror.

  “Oh, of course not. Oh, my dear Miss Dane what things you say!”

  Chloe laughed again.

  “Try it!” she said, and ran upstairs.

  In her own room she sat down and made a plan. Here was her opportunity of opening the safe and getting it and
its tiresome contents off her mind. She decided to wait for the night. Emily would be sure to cling to her like a burr all day, with just that timid persistence which it is so hard to rebuff without actual brutality. The fact that Leonard Wroughton used this brutality towards his wife a dozen times a day made it impossible for Chloe to be otherwise than gentle. No, she would wait until the house was quiet, and Emily and the servants asleep. Then she would go down to the living-room, open the safe, and dispose once and all of her own ridiculous fears and fancies.

  Chapter XIII

  Chloe sat up in bed, lit a match, and looked at her watch for the sixth time. It was only half-past eleven. She blew out the match with an impatient puff. Never, never, never in this world had time crawled so. Every hour of the long day, every dull minute of a dull evening, added to Chloe’s feeling that an intolerable stretch of time lay between her and the moment when she had made her plan that morning. It was only that morning, but it felt like years, and years, and years—the sort of years that prisoners endure when they haven’t even got oakum to pick and are driven to tame rats and spiders. With a whimsical twist of her thought Chloe regarded Emily as, not a rat or a spider—imagination baulked at that—but as a prisoner’s mouse, a thin, anxious mouse, with beady eyes and an air of having been half-starved for years. Poor Emily! It would be dreadful to be like that.

  Chloe slipped an inch or two deeper into the drowsiness which waits on those who sit in the dark defying sleep. She was awake—yes, of course she was awake—but all the same she distinctly saw Emily Wroughton with a pink, pointed nose and large mousy eyes through which the light shone, with a red glare. She woke with a jerk, and lit another match. It was a quarter to twelve.

  “I won’t go down till twelve,” said Chloe to herself. “I said I wouldn’t, and I won’t.”

  She twirled the match between her fingers, and let it burn down, down until the flame scorched her hand. Then she blew it out, shook up her pillows, and began to think how quickly a quarter of an hour can pass when you don’t want it to.