“In the den I have just mentioned. There was a bright light in the hall behind me and I could see her figure quite plainly. She was holding a folded paper clenched against her breast, and her movement was so mechanical that I was sure she was asleep. She was coming this way, and in another moment she entered this room. The door, which had been open, remained so, and in my anxiety I crept to it and looked in after her. There was no light burning here at that hour, but the moon was shining in in long rays of variously coloured light. If I had followed her—but I did not. I just stood and watched her long enough to see her pass through a blue ray, then through a green one, and then into, if not through, a red one. Expecting her to walk straight on, and having some fears of the staircase once she got into the hall, I hurried around to the door behind you there to head her off. But she had not yet left this room. I waited and waited and still she did not come. Fearing some accident, I finally ventured to approach the door and try it. It was locked. This alarmed me. She had never locked herself in anywhere before and I did not know what to make of it. Some persons would have shouted her name, but I had been warned against doing that, so I simply stood where I was, and eventually I heard the key turn in the lock and saw her come out. She was still walking stiffly, but her hands were empty and hanging at her side.”
“And then?”
“She went straight to her room and I after her. I was sure she was dead asleep by this time.”
“And she was?”
“Yes, Miss; but still full of what was on her mind. I know this because she stopped when she reached the bedside and began fumbling with the waist of her wrapper. It was for the key she was searching, and when her fingers encountered it hanging on the outside, she opened her wrapper and thrust it in on her bare skin.”
“You saw her do all that?”
“As plainly as I see you now. The light in her room was burning brightly.”
“And after that?”
“She got into bed. It was I who turned off the light.”
“Has that wrapper of hers a pocket?”
“No, Miss.”
“Nor her gown?”
“No, Miss.”
“So she could not have brought the paper into her room concealed about her person?”
“No, Miss; she left it here. It never passed beyond this doorway.”
“But might she not have carried it back to some place of concealment in the rooms she had left?”
The woman’s face changed and a slight flush showed through the natural brown of her cheeks.
“No,” she disclaimed; “she could not have done that. I was careful to lock the library door behind her before I ran out into the hall.”
“Then,” concluded Violet, with all the emphasis of conviction, “it is here, and nowhere else we must look for that document till we find it.”
Thus assured of the first step in the task she had before her, Miss Strange settled down to business.
The room, which towered to the height of two stories, was in the shape of a huge oval. This oval, separated into narrow divisions for the purpose of accommodating the shelves with which it was lined, narrowed as it rose above the great Gothic chimney-piece and the five gorgeous windows looking towards the south, till it met and was lost in the tracery of the ceiling, which was of that exquisite and soul-satisfying order which we see in the Henry VII chapel in Westminster Abbey. What break otherwise occurred in the circling round of books reaching thus thirty feet or more above the head was made by the two doors already spoken of and a narrow strip of wall at either end of the space occupied by the windows. No furniture was to be seen there except a couple of stalls taken from some old cathedral, which stood in the two bare places just mentioned.
But within, on the extensive floor-space, several articles were grouped, and Violet, recognizing the possibilities which any one of them afforded for the concealment of so small an object as a folded document, decided to use method in her search, and to that end, mentally divided the space before her into four segments.
The first took in the door, communicating with the suite ending in Mr. Brooks’s bedroom. A diagram of this segment will show that the only article of furniture in it was a cabinet.
It was at this cabinet Miss Strange made her first stop.
“You have looked this well through?” she asked as she bent over the glass case on top to examine the row of mediaeval missals displayed within in a manner to show their wonderful illuminations.
“Not the case,” explained Hetty. “It is locked you see and no one has as yet succeeded in finding the key. But we searched the drawers underneath with the greatest care. Had we sifted the whole contents through our fingers, I could not be more certain that the paper is not there.”
Violet stepped into the next segment.
This was the one dominated by the huge fire-place. A rug lay before the hearth. To this Violet pointed.
Quickly the woman answered: “We not only lifted it, but turned it over.”
“And that box at the right?”
“Is full of wood and wood only.”
“Did you take out this wood?”
“Every stick.”
“And those ashes in the fire-place? Something has been burned there.”
“Yes; but not lately. Besides, those ashes are all wood ashes. If the least bit of charred paper had been mixed with them, we should have considered the matter settled. But you can see for yourself that no such particle can be found.” While saying this, she had put the poker into Violet’s hand. “Rake them about, Miss, and make sure.”
Violet did so, with the result that the poker was soon put back into place, and she herself down on her knees looking up the chimney.
“Had she thrust it up there,” Hetty made haste to remark, “there would have been some signs of soot on her sleeves. They are white and very long and are always getting in her way when she tries to do anything.”
Violet left the fire-place after a glance at the mantel-shelf on which nothing stood but a casket of open fretwork, and two coloured photographs mounted on small easels. The casket was too open to conceal anything and the photographs lifted too high above the shelf for even the smallest paper, let alone a document of any size, to hide behind them.
The chairs, of which there were several in this part of the room, she passed with just an inquiring look. They were all of solid oak, without any attempt at upholstery, and although carved to match the stalls on the other side of the room, offered no place for search.
Her delay in the third segment was brief. Here there was absolutely nothing but the door by which she had entered, and the books. As she flitted on, following the oval of the wall, a small frown appeared on her usually smooth forehead. She felt the oppression of the books—the countless books. If indeed, she should find herself obliged to go through them. What a hopeless outlook!
But she had still a segment to consider, and after that the immense table occupying the centre of the room, a table which in its double capacity (for it was as much desk as table) gave more promise of holding the solution of the mystery than anything to which she had hitherto given her attention.
The quarter in which she now stood was the most beautiful, and, possibly, the most precious of them all. In it blazed the five great windows which were the glory of the room; but there are no hiding-places in windows, and much as she revelled in colour, she dared not waste a moment on them. There was more hope for her in the towering stalls, with their possible drawers for books.
But Hetty was before her in the attempt she made to lift the lids of the two great seats.
“Nothing in either,” said she; and Violet, with a sigh, turned towards the table.
This was an immense affair, made to accommodate itself to the shape of the room, but with a hollowed-out space on the window-side large enough to hold a chair for the sitter who would use its top as a desk. On it were various articles suitable to its double use. Without being crowded, it displayed a pile of magazines and pamphlets,
boxes for stationery, a writing pad with its accompaniments, a lamp, and some few ornaments, among which was a large box, richly inlaid with pearl and ivory, the lid of which stood wide open.
“Don’t touch,” admonished Violet, as Hetty stretched out her hand to move some little object aside. “You have already worked here busily in the search you made this morning.”
“We handled everything.”
“Did you go through these pamphlets?”
“We shook open each one. We were especially particular here, since it was at this table I saw Mrs. Quintard stop.”
“With head level or drooped?”
“Drooped.”
“Like one looking down, rather than up, or around?”
“Yes. A ray of red light shone on her sleeve. It seemed to me the sleeve moved as though she were reaching out.”
“Will you try to stand as she did and as nearly in the same place as possible?”
Hetty glanced down at the table edge, marked where the gules dominated the blue and green, and moved to that spot, and paused with her head sinking slowly towards her breast.
“Very good,” exclaimed Violet. “But the moon was probably in a very different position from what the sun is now.”
“You are right; it was higher up; I chanced to notice it.”
“Let me come,” said Violet.
Hetty moved, and Violet took her place but in a spot a step or two farther front. This brought her very near to the centre of the table. Hanging her head, just as Hetty had done, she reached out her right hand.
“Have you looked under this blotter?” she asked, pointing towards the pad she touched. “I mean, between the blotter and the frame which holds it?”
“I certainly did,” answered Hetty, with some pride.
Violet remained staring down. “Then you took off everything that was lying on it?”
“Oh, yes.”
Violet continued to stare down at the blotter. Then impetuously:
“Put them back in their accustomed places.”
Hetty obeyed.
Violet continued to look at them, then slowly stretched out her hand, but soon let it fall again with an air of discouragement. Certainly the missing document was not in the ink-pot or the mucilage bottle. Yet something made her stoop again over the pad and subject it to the closest scrutiny.
“If only nothing had been touched!” she inwardly sighed. But she let no sign of her discontent escape her lips, simply exclaiming as she glanced up at the towering spaces overhead: “The books! the books! Nothing remains but for you to call up all the servants, or get men from the outside and, beginning at one end—I should say the upper one—take down every book standing within reach of a woman of Mrs. Quintard’s height.”
“Hear first what Mrs. Quintard has to say about that,” interrupted the woman as that lady entered in a flutter of emotion springing from more than one cause.
“The young lady thinks that we should remove the books,” Hetty observed, as her mistress’s eye wandered to hers from Violet’s abstracted countenance.
“Useless. If we were to undertake to do that, Carlos would be here before half the job was finished. Besides, Hetty must have told you my extreme aversion to nicely bound books. I will not say that when awake I never place my hand on one, but once in a state of somnambulism, when every natural whim has full control, I am sure that I never would. There is a reason for my prejudice. I was not always rich. I once was very poor. It was when I was first married and long before Clement had begun to make his fortune. I was so poor then that frequently I went hungry, and what was worse saw my little daughter cry for food. And why? Because my husband was a bibliomaniac. He would spend on fine editions what would have kept the family comfortable. It is hard to believe, isn’t it? I have seen him bring home a Grolier when the larder was as empty as that box; and it made me hate books so, especially those of extra fine binding, that I have to tear the covers off before I can find courage to read them.”
O life! life! how fast Violet was learning it!
“I can understand your idea, Mrs. Quintard, but as everything else has failed, I should make a mistake not to examine these shelves. It is just possible that we may be able to shorten the task very materially; that we may not have to call in help, even. To what extent have they been approached, or the books handled, since you discovered the loss of the paper we are looking for?”
“Not at all. Neither of us went near them.” This from Hetty.
“Nor any one else?”
“No one else has been admitted to the room. We locked both doors the moment we felt satisfied that the will had been left here.”
“That’s a relief. Now I may be able to do something. Hetty, you look like a very strong woman, and I, as you see, am very little. Would you mind lifting me up to these shelves? I want to look at them. Not at the books, but at the shelves themselves.”
The wondering woman stooped and raised her to the level of the shelf she had pointed out. Violet peered closely at it and then at the ones just beneath.
“Am I heavy?” she asked; “if not, let me see those on the other side of the door.”
Hetty carried her over.
Violet inspected each shelf as high as a woman of Mrs. Quintard’s stature could reach, and when on her feet again, knelt to inspect the ones below.
“No one has touched or drawn anything from these shelves in twenty-four hours,” she declared. “The small accumulation of dust along their edges has not been disturbed at any point. It was very different with the table-top. That shows very plainly where you had moved things and where you had not.”
“Was that what you were looking for? Well, I never!”
Violet paid no heed; she was thinking and thinking very deeply.
Hetty turned towards her mistress, then quickly back to Violet, whom she seized by the arm.
“What’s the matter with Mrs. Quintard?” she hurriedly asked. “If it were night, I should think that she was in one of her spells.”
Violet started and glanced where Hetty pointed. Mrs. Quintard was within a few feet of them, but as oblivious of their presence as though she stood alone in the room. Possibly, she thought she did. With fixed eyes and mechanical step she began to move straight towards the table, her whole appearance of a nature to make Hetty’s blood run cold, but to cause that of Violet’s to bound through her veins with renewed hope.
“The one thing I could have wished!” she murmured under her breath. “She has fallen into a trance. She is again under the dominion of her idea. If we watch and do not disturb her she may repeat her action of last night, and herself show where she has put this precious document.”
Meanwhile Mrs. Quintard continued to advance. A moment more, and her smooth white locks caught the ruddy glow centred upon the chair standing in the hollow of the table. Words were leaving her lips, and her hand, reaching out over the blotter, groped among the articles scattered there till it settled on a large pair of shears.
“Listen,” muttered Violet to the woman pressing close to her side. “You are acquainted with her voice; catch what she says if you can.”
Hetty could not; an undistinguishable murmur was all that came to her ears.
Violet took a step nearer. Mrs. Quintard’s hand had left the shears and was hovering uncertainly in the air. Her distress was evident. Her head, no longer steady on her shoulders, was turning this way and that, and her tones becoming inarticulate.
“Paper! I want paper” burst from her lips in a shrill unnatural cry.
But when they listened for more and watched to see the uncertain hand settle somewhere, she suddenly came to herself and turned upon them a startled glance, which speedily changed into one of the utmost perplexity.
“What am I doing here?” she asked. “I have a feeling as if I had almost seen—almost touched—oh, it’s gone! and all is blank again. Why couldn’t I keep it till I knew—” Then she came wholly to herself and, forgetting even the doubts of a moment since, remarked to
Violet in her old tremulous fashion:
“You asked us to pull down the books? But you’ve evidently thought better of it.”
“Yes, I have thought better of it.” Then, with a last desperate hope of re-arousing the visions lying somewhere back in Mrs. Quintard’s troubled brain, Violet ventured to observe: “This is likely to resolve itself into a psychological problem, Mrs. Quintard. Do you suppose that if you fell again into the condition of last night, you would repeat your action and so lead us yourself to where the will lies hidden?”
“Possibly; but it may be weeks before I walk again in my sleep, and meanwhile Carlos will have arrived, and Clement, possibly, died. My nephew is so low that the doctor is coming back at midnight. Miss Strange, Clement is a man in a thousand. He says he wants to see you. Would you be willing to accompany me to his room for a moment? He will not make many more requests and I will take care that the interview is not prolonged.”
“I will go willingly. But would it not be better to wait—”
“Then you may never see him at all.”
“Very well; but I wish I had some better news to give.”
“That will come later. This house was never meant for Carlos. Hetty, you will stay here. Miss Strange, let us go now.”
* * * *
“You need not speak; just let him see you.”
Violet nodded and followed Mrs. Quintard into the sick-room.
The sight which met her eyes tried her young emotions deeply. Staring at her from the bed, she saw two piercing eyes over whose brilliance death as yet had gained no control. Clements’s soul was in that gaze; Clement halting at the brink of dissolution to sound the depths behind him for the hope which would make departure easy. Would he see in her, a mere slip of a girl dressed in fashionable clothes and bearing about her all the marks of social distinction, the sort of person needed for the task upon the success of which depended his darlings’ future? She could hardly expect it. Yet as she continued to meet his gaze with all the seriousness the moment demanded, she beheld those burning orbs lose some of their demand and the fingers, which had lain inert upon the bedspread, flutter gently and move as if to draw attention to his wife and the three beautiful children clustered at the foot-board.
The Anna Katharine Green Mystery Megapack Page 206
