Chloe fell into a pleasant dream of herself of age, fully mistress of the situation, dismissing Leonard Wroughton with dignified hauteur, and then making a glorious bonfire with the contents of Mr. Dane’s safe.
“I’d do it too, if I could only stick it out till February. But I simply cant.”
She fell to thinking of how she could get hold of the other letters. After all, Wroughton must leave the house sometimes; and if the worst came to the worst, she must simply get rid of Emily by telling her that she wanted to be alone. Open defiance was about as likely from Emily Wroughton as from an earwig. Chloe laughed all to herself, she didn’t know why she had thought of an earwig, but, once thought of, there was certainly a likeness. “The—the sort of pointedness, and always being a fuss,” she explained to herself.
She passed an outlying cottage or two, skirted the vicarage garden, and turned into Two Man Lane.
It was just at the bottom of the lane, where it came out at the end of the village street, that she heard herself hailed, and turned to see Dr. Golding’s locum emerge from a cottage garden on her right. Chloe did not very much like Dr. Jennings.
In the capacity of Wroughton’s friend he had been to Danesborough several times, and each time she had liked him a little less. Dark, good-looking, clever, and more than a little underbred, he did not improve upon acquaintance.
“Hul—lo, Miss Dane! What luck! I was just thinking it never does anything but rain in this damn climate, and—er, there you were—a regular sun-burst, so to speak!”
Chloe said “How do you do?” in rather frigid tones. To her annoyance, Dr. Jennings continued to walk beside her, turning when she turned, and producing half a dozen letters, which made it quite evident that his objective was the same as her own.
“I forget—did you know Golding at all? Worthy old chap of course, but frightfully behind the times.”
“I met him,” said Chloe. “I liked him awfully.”
“Worthy,” said Dr. Jennings in a patronizing tone. “Of course, a practice like this is absolute stagnation. Except for one thing, I shall be glad enough to get back to town.”
If he intended Chloe to ask what the one thing was, he was disappointed. She said nothing. As they came in sight of the post office she took out of her pocket the letter which she had written to Mr. Hudson, and prepared to cross the road.
A car had stopped in front of the little post office, which was also a general shop, and two of its occupants had got out and were deep in conversation with a couple who had just emerged from the shop. Chloe looked at these people, wondering who they were. It came over her with a sudden pang of loneliness that she didn’t know them, that she didn’t know anyone, and that it was strange—surely it was strange—that no one had been to call. Those women looked nice. One of them as quite young.
Just for the moment that these thoughts passed through her mind, Chloe stood still on the edge of the path. She was about to move, when, with a quick “Allow me,” Dr. Jennings took the letter out of her hand, and, putting it with his own, walked briskly across the road to the post office. The car hid him from view for the briefest possible space. Chloe saw him emerge from behind it, greet its occupants, and push the whole batch of letters into the slot in the post office wall.
He was back again in a moment, and was instantly made aware of her sharp annoyance.
“Why did you do that?” Her tone was biting. To her surprise, he looked at her gravely.
“I’m awfully sorry—it must have seemed rude. I’ll explain if you’ll let me walk a little way with you. Really, Miss Dane, I had a reason.”
“A reason?” (What an extraordinary thing to say! What did he mean?) “What reason?”
“I’ll tell you—I’m really sorry if I seemed rude, ere, just let’s get round the corner into the lane, and I’ll tell you why I did it.”
They walked in silence to the corner. Then Chloe spoke stiffly:
“Well, Dr. Jennings?”
Again that odd, grave look.
“Well, Miss Dane, the fact is the whole household at Danesborough is in quarantine, and I oughtn’t to have let you come into the village at all. I didn’t think there would be anybody about on such a wet day, and I chanced it. But I really couldn’t let you go across and post your letter, with Lady Adderley sitting there in her car, and Miss Adderley and her cousin standing talking to the Goddards just where you’d have to pass right through them to get to the letter-box—now, could I?”
“Quarantine?” said Chloe.
“Yes. We didn’t want to frighten you, so you weren’t told.”
Chloe’s head lifted and her eyes flashed.
“I’m not easily frightened. And I ought to have been told. What is it?”
“One of the housemaids—she was removed in an ambulance the day before yesterday whilst you were out in the car.”
“What is it?” said Chloe again.
Dr. Jennings looked still more gravely concerned. She would hardly have known the rather facetious young man who had compared her to a sun-burst.
“I’d rather not say. I may have my own opinion; but I’d rather not say what it is until I get confirmation. Meanwhile, I’m afraid—I’m afraid I must be very strict about the quarantine. It’s really necessary and serious. Nobody at Danesborough ought to leave the grounds until we know a little more. I don’t want to frighten you, but, as I said before, I’ve got my own opinion.”
“Thank you,” said Chloe, “I’m not in the least frightened. I think it would have been much better if you had explained all this before. I’m not a child, and I ought to have been told. Goodbye, Dr. Jennings.”
Dr. Jennings reverted to the manner of gallantry.
“Not so easily rid of me, I’m afraid!” he said, with the rather conscious laugh which Chloe disliked so much. “It’s my lucky morning, you know, because I’ve got to go up and see Wroughton about this business, and was expecting a dull tramp, instead of which I get the chance of a walk with you.”
Chapter XVI
Dr. Jennings was easily satisfied if he derived any pleasure from his walk with Chloe. He had, to be sure, the opportunity of learning her profile by heart; but the profile of a coldly monosyllabic damsel is an unsatisfactory thing to contemplate for any length of time. By the time they arrived at the house Dr. Jennings’ gallantry had worn thin, and his temper rasped. He shut the study door behind him with something of a bang.
Wroughton pushed back his chair and started up, flushed and anxious.
“Well—well—did you get it?”
Jennings gave a half shrug of the shoulders, took a letter out of his pocket, and tossed it to Wroughton.
“Of course I got it. There it is.”
“How did you manage? She didn’t suspect?”
“No, of course she didn’t. I’m not that sort of mug. If I can’t do a thing without bungling, I don’t do it at all. As it happened, it was child’s play. I had my own letters in my hand, and I took hers to post them with. The Adderley crows were blocking the road in front of the post office, and I came the heavy professional manner over her and worked off that quarantine stunt which we agreed upon. It came in very handy, and she lapped it all up.”
Wroughton turned the letter over, breathed heavily on the flap, and with care and patience got it open. It was quite short, almost as short as the fragments which Wroughton had read that morning:
“Dear Mr. Hudson,
“I want to tell you that I can’t take Mr. Dane’s legacy. I know I can’t do anything legally until I’m of age; but I wanted to let you know that as soon as I possibly can I shall refuse it.
“Yours sincerely,
“Chloe Dane.”
As Wroughton exclaimed, Dr. Jennings came Hid looked over his shoulder. He emitted a long thistle, and then said:
“What rot!”
Wroughton was swearing. Ch
loe, Mr. Dane, and the maker of the safe behind the black cabinet seemed to share his invective pretty equally between them.
“If there were any way of getting into the damn thing without blowing up the house with dynamite, I’d chance it and snap my fingers at her,” he said furiously.
“Steady on. You’re making rather a noise, you know, Len. Dynamite’s a bit drastic. But I seem to have heard of safes having holes drilled in ’em.”
“Not this one. It’s the new Baker–Bernstein patent. I was with the old man when he saw it through all the tests. Can’t do a thing to it without blowing the house up too.”
“All right. Don’t crumple that letter; it’s got to go on to old Hudson by the next post.”
“Why?”
“You make me tired. I’m a law-abiding citizen and don’t you forget it. Reading a letter’s one thing, and suppressing it’s quite another. Old Hudson’s got to get this precious twaddle by the morning post.”
“I don’t trust Hudson an inch. I know those cautious men; they’ll go back on you every time they get rattled. That’s why I had to have the letter.”
“Well, you’ve got the letter. What about it?” Wroughton came closer, dropped his voice to an angry whisper, and said:
“That’s where Stran comes in. She opened the safe last night, took out some of the letters—, don’t know how many—and burnt them”—his colour deepened almost to purple—“burnt them! And if she gets a chance, she’ll burn the whole lot. With the letters burnt and the old man’s fortune gone into the Treasury, where do you and I come in?”
“Well,” said Dr. Jennings, “I should still be a rising young professional man, but you, I expect would be in Queer Street.”
“It’s up to Stran. If he can’t come over a little milliner girl out of a raw provincial town, well, he’s more of a fool than I ever took him for. He’s got the field all to himself; and if he can’t marry her and get her to change her mind about the money before February, well— The bother is, she can’t stay here till February, or we lose the letters, thought I had her watched day and night, but she got away with them once, and she may again, must get her out of here.”
Dr. Jennings folded up Chloe’s letter, replaced it in its envelope, and stuck it down.
“I’ve thought out quite a good dodge for that,” he said. Then he laughed. “Stran’s going to earn his money hard. I swear I don’t envy him is heiress. He’s welcome to her for me.” Wroughton shot a glance of sudden suspicion at him.
“Have you been having a shot at her yourself? That’s not in the bargain.”
“Oh, she’s not my style,” said Dr. Jennings easily.
Chloe heard the telephone bell that afternoon, and got to the instrument before Wroughton did.
She heard him come into the room behind her and say, “It’s almost certainly for me.” With the receiver at her ear, she threw a smilingly defiant look over her shoulder.
“Now why should it be? I have got some friends, you know, Mr. Wroughton.” Then, as a voice on the line reached her, she turned, nodded to him, and added, “This happens to be one of them; so if you wouldn’t mind—”
As the door closed, she spoke into the telephone: “Yes, I heard you—and I recognized your voice too. I just had to get rid of some one who was in the room. When are you coming to see me?” Michael Foster at the other end of the line hesitated, and then said,
“I—well—I’m not sure.”
To Chloe’s horror, she felt something like a lump in her throat. She wanted to see Michael—she wanted to see him very much indeed—not only because he came from right outside the horrid circle of suspicion and ill will. He stood for the old, light-hearted life in Maxton. Chloe thought of Maxton with yearning.
“You’re not coming?” The dismay in her voice startled her as much as it pleased Michael.
“I—I—well, you must know that I’d come if could. I’ve been counting on it most awfully But I’m not on the job I expected to be on, and and—”
The tears rushed hot and stinging into Chloe’ eyes. With a jerk she pushed the receiver back on to its hook, rang off with energy, and then stood there, biting her lip and feeling as if her last friend had forsaken her. She was furious with Michael for not coming, furious with herself for caring whether he came or not, and most furious of all with the little solacing whisper that said, “Perhaps—perhaps, after all, he’ll come.”
On her way up to dress for dinner that evening, it occurred to Chloe that she would ring up Miss Allardyce and ask her whether she had filled her place. She didn’t mean to stay in Maxton all her life, but she might do worse than go back there while she looked about her. At the moment Maxton stood for home and safety.
She opened the study door without any thought that Wroughton might be there—he usually went to dress early and came down late; but as the door opened she heard his voice within and drew back quickly. The door shut without any sound, but just before it shut she heard him say, “Stran rang up,”—just those three words and no more.
Chloe ran upstairs, glad to have avoided an awkward encounter. She had a passing wonder as to whom Wroughton had been telephoning to. So “Stran” had rung up that afternoon! Chloe began to be rather intrigued about Stran. It would have been curious if it had been his call that she had answered instead of Michael Foster’s. “How wild Mr. Wroughton would have been!” she reflected with a spice of malice.
Chapter XVII
Chloe beguiled the evening with some serious plan-making. She would ring up Ally in the morning, and find out whether she would take her back.
“As a matter of fact, I expect she’ll simply jump at me.”
She would also ring up Miss Tankerville, and ask to be put up for a night or two while she looked for a room.
“No. Bother! I can’t do that because of this wretched quarantine. How stupid! I wonder how long it lasts—I ought to have asked.”
Dismay took hold of Chloe. She did not feel as if she could bear to stay another forty-eight hours at Danesborough. She had planned it all so nicely. Somehow she must get the remaining letters out of the safe. But she couldn’t burn them here. She realized that the servants would talk if her grate continued to overflow with masses of black ash. As a matter of fact, they were talking already, for she had heard Jessie say something to the under housemaid when she ran upstairs to put on her hat that morning. It wouldn’t do, it wouldn’t do at all. No, she would get out the letters, take them down to Maxton with her, and burn them there, where it would be nobody’s business but her own. She would have to watch her opportunity of course.
She went upstairs early; but she did not undress. There was a comfortable fire in her room, and she took a book and sat down by the shaded reading-lamp.
An hour passed. And then, just as she was getting sleepy, there came a tapping on the door, and the handle was turned gently. “Thank goodness I locked it. Now who on earth—”
There was another tap, a little louder; and then Emily Wroughton’s voice, raised in a timid whisper:
“Miss Dane—Miss Dane—”
Chloe yawned of design.
“What is it?” she said in startled tones. She hoped she sounded sleepy enough.
“I saw a light under your door; it looked—it looked like fire.”
Chloe permitted herself a sleepy giggle.
“Dear Mrs. Wroughton, do go to bed, I was reading a little.”
“You’re sure you’re all right?” “
Yes, of course.”
Emily stood another minute at the door. In sudden exasperation Chloe snicked the light out, yawned again, and said good-night in the drowsiest voice she could manage, after which she heard Emily move, and caught the sound of her slow and altering retreat. She waited in the dark for perhaps half an hour, and then went downstairs to the drawing-room, locking the bedroom door behind her.
She had no
intention of being caught by Wroughton to-night. If he came down—and Emily’s visit convinced her that he meant to come down—she was not going to be caught at a disadvantage, as she had so very nearly been caught last night.
She slipped through the drawing-room door, closed it behind her, and found her way to the middle one of the three long windows which faced the terrace. Here she sat down on the broad window-seat and waited. She was exactly opposite the cabinet. The curtains screened her admirably. If Leonard Wroughton had not looked behind them last night, he was not at all likely to do so to-night. Then, when he had been and gone, she could clear the safe at her leisure. She hoped that he would come quickly, for the room was cold, and she wished now that she had slipped on a coat before coming down. She was still in her black velvet dinner dress. In her own room she had been more than warm enough, but here the cold and silence crept in on her.
She moved presently, turning to the window and pressing her face close to the glass in an attempt to see out; but she could distinguish nothing. The night was dead dark, and a thick mist hung upon the pane. Chloe thought longingly of Maxton High Street, with its lamps and its lighted shops. An affectionate memory of the new cinema, with its double arch of little, brilliant, vulgar lights, and its three hideous arc lamps, very nearly brought tears to her eyes. She turned impatiently from the window, and heard what she had been waiting for—the sound of the opening door.
Instantly she was a-tingle with excitement. It was Wroughton of course; but she must see him to watch what he would do. She leaned forward, parting the curtains by just the smallest space imaginable, and saw Leonard Wroughton stand in the door-way, his hand on the switch of the electric light, the room brilliant before him under the sudden glare of all the chandeliers. He spoke over his shoulder to some one behind him.
“All right,” he said, and came into the room followed by Dr. Jennings.
They crossed to where the black cabinet stood in its alcove. And then Jennings said something in a low voice. Chloe strained, but could not catch a word. She saw Wroughton take a pair of fine steel pliers out of his pocket and fiddle with the lock of the cabinet. He had it open in a trice.
The Black Cabinet Page 10
