“Caroline!”
She caught his wrist and pulled herself up.
“You must! I tell you I know. You’ve got to go away. It’s killing me.”
“Caroline!”
She pushed back the hair from her eyes, and staring over his shoulder, she saw Miss Silver peering round the door. The neatly netted front disappeared a fraction of a second too late. There was a discreet knock.
When Miss Silver entered, Caroline’s face was hidden again. Mr. Richard Treherne was on his feet. If anyone was embarrassed, it was not the visitor.
“I thought I heard voices,” she said brightly. She addressed a glowering young man. “I hope Miss Caroline is feeling better-but I only came to inquire, not to disturb her. I feel sure she needs quiet and should on no account be disturbed, but I thought I might just inquire.”
Richard strode to the door and out of the room. For a moment Miss Silver looked after him with a peculiar expression on her face. Then she approached the bed.
“Miss Caroline,” she said, “I am a stranger, but my business in this house is to help Miss Treherne who brought me here. I think you need help too. You are in great trouble-you know something which you are afraid to tell. Believe me, the truth is always best. Sometimes it is easier to speak to a stranger than to someone in the same family. If you will tell me what is troubling you, I will do my best to help you. I have no connection with the police, and this affair is not as yet in their hands. It is still possible for me to help you. But if you will not speak to me, let me urge you very strongly to cross that passage and go to Miss Treherne. She loves you dearly. There is nothing that you could not tell her. If you remain silent, great harm may come of it.”
There was a pause. Then Caroline raised herself upon her elbow. Her eyes were wide and blank with misery, her features pinched and drawn, her color ghastly. Miss Silver looked at her with compassion. She spoke in a gentle voice.
“I heard what you said just now. You told Mr. Richard that you knew. What is it that you know? It would be better for everyone if you would say.”
Caroline stared at her. She said rather wildly,
“I can’t think-I’m ill-I want to think. Oh, won’t you please go away?”
Miss Silver nodded.
“Very well, I will go away and leave you to think over what I have said. I do not wish to hurry you, but it will be better for everyone if you will make up your mind as quickly as possible.”
She went out of the room and shut the door. As she did so she saw the girl sink back again and hide her face.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Rachel Treherne’s door opened. Miss Silver was beckoned in.
“Will you please come here. I must speak to you. Something has happened.”
Miss Silver looked at her with interest. It was quite obvious that something had happened. This was a Rachel Treherne she had not met before, alert, businesslike, angry-yes, certainly very angry.
Rachel shut the door and walked away from it, but remained standing.
“Miss Silver, my bank manager has just rung me up. A cheque bearing my signature had been presented, and as it was for a very large sum, he thought it best to refer to me before cashing it.”
“Yes?” said Miss Silver.
“The cheque was made out to my brother-in-law Ernest Wadlow, and was endorsed by him in favor of his son Maurice. It was not crossed.”
“Did you write this cheque, Miss Treherne?”
Rachel’s head lifted. She said in a perfectly level voice,
“I gave my brother-in-law a cheque for a hundred pounds three days ago. He asked me not to cross it.”
“Did he say why?”
“I understood that he wanted the money for Maurice, and that he thought the uncrossed cheque would be more convenient.”
“And it is this cheque which is in question?”
Anger made a very handsome woman of Rachel Treherne.
“I don’t recognize the amount. I gave Ernest a cheque for a hundred. The cheque presented was for ten thousand.”
Miss Silver looked very grave.
“I do not understand,” she said. “The figure would be altered easily enough, but the words-Miss Treherne, it would be impossible to change one hundred into ten thousand, unless the forger took the risk of simply making the alterations and initialling them-and with so large a sum there would be no chance of that succeeding. The drawer would inevitably be referred to.”
Rachel shook her head.
“The words were not altered-they were forged. The number of the cheque is not the same as the one I drew-it is the next one. And that cheque is missing from my book. Either Ernest or Maurice must have torn it out and copied the cheque I drew-with a difference. I felt bound to tell you about it.”
Miss Silver said, “Yes-” in rather an abstracted tone.
Rachel’s foot tapped the floor.
“Either my brother-in-law or his son had planned to rob me of this money-they may both have been concerned. Ernest and Mabel are quite besotted about Maurice. They had been pestering me to give them just this sum, and I had refused. So somebody forged that cheque. Now I want you to think what bearing this may have on what happened yesterday.”
Miss Silver gazed at her mildly.
“A person who had just forged your signature to a cheque for ten thousand pounds would be the last person on earth to push you over a cliff before that cheque had been cleared. Your death would have rendered it quite valueless.”
“I know that. But think of it this way. You forge a cheque, you let it go out of your hands, and then you begin to think what a frightful risk you have run. Even if it goes through, even if you get the money, there’s bound to be a day of reckoning. You may not be prosecuted, but you are bound to be exposed and ostracized. You won’t be a part of the family any more. Don’t you think you might cast about you for some way out?” Her voice hardened. “Maurice would have come in for just that ten thousand pounds if I had been killed last night.”
“And your brother-in-law?”
“Five thousand. But Mabel would have thirty thousand.”
“Under your present will?”
“Yes-that was my father’s wish.”
“Destroy that will, Miss Treherne, and inform your family that you have destroyed it.”
“I have told you that I won’t do that. I would rather die than not get to the bottom of all this.”
Miss Silver nodded.
“And you could bear to find Mr. Ernest or Mr. Maurice there. It would lift a load off your heart, would it not?”
“Miss Silver!”
Miss Silver looked at her steadily.
“Now you are vexed. But it is true. If I could prove to your satisfaction that the attempt on your life had been made by your brother-in-law or his son, you would be very grateful to me.”
Rachel lifted her eyes. Anger flamed and went out. A look of direct simplicity took its place.
“Yes, that is true. You see I don’t love them-really. So it wouldn’t hurt that way-I could bear it. It’s not like thinking that someone you love-has been hating you-all the time.” She made an abrupt movement. “I must see Ernest at once. I should like you to be here. I don’t think we can go on pretending that you are a governess.”
Miss Silver said, “No.”
Rachel rang the bell, and Ivy was despatched to ask Mr. Wadlow if he would come upstairs to Miss Treherne’s sitting-room. They waited for him in silence. Rachel at her writing-table, Miss Silver seated unobtrusively in a low chair at the fire. She had, for once, no knitting to occupy her hands. They rested idly in her lap. The expression of her face was stern and thoughtful.
Ernest Wadlow came in after his usual hurried manner- always a little short of time, always a little inclined to consider himself aggrieved. Neusel, stretched out at full length upon the hearth-rug, twitched an ear, opened an eye, and growled softly in his throat. Mr. Wadlow looked at him with distaste.
“Did you want me, Rachel? Of course if you did-if there is
anything I can do. I was looking up my Pyrenean notes. I am thinking of Pyrenean Pilgrimage as a title. I must say alliteration appeals to me. Or, alternatively, Pyrenean Pilgrims, or Pyrenean Peregrination. Which do you prefer?”
“I’m afraid I can’t give my mind to it just now. I want to speak to you about a very serious matter.”
Ernest’s eyebrows went up fantastically high. They indicated that his sister-in-law had obviously forgotten the presence of a stranger. One does not discuss a serious matter with a stranger sitting by the fire obviously prepared to listen.
Rachel had no difficulty in interpreting the eyebrows. She said,
“Please sit down, Ernest. Miss Silver is acting as my adviser in this matter.”
It took so little to make Ernest Wadlow look worried that the immediate puckering of the lines about his eyes and mouth could not be considered as indicative of an uneasy conscience. The frown which drew his brows together gave him a puzzled look. He said,
“My dear Rachel-” And then, “I really cannot see-”
“Please do sit down,” said Rachel. “Now Ernest-you remember my giving you a cheque for a hundred pounds three days ago?”
Mr. Wadlow appeared pained.
“I had thought it a private matter. But it does not signify-you are naturally quite at liberty. The circumstance is, of course, within my recollection.”
“Ernest-what did you do with that cheque?”
“My dear Rachel, surely that is my affair.”
Rachel said, “No.” And then, “I’m afraid I must press the question. Did you send it to your bank?”
“No, I did not.”
“Did you endorse it in someone else’s favor?”
“Really, Rachel!”
“Did you?
“Er-no.”
“Did you cash it yourself?”
“You know perfectly well that I have had no opportunity of doing so.”
“Then have you still got it?”
“No, I have not.”
“Then, Ernest, will you tell me what you did do with it?”
Mr. Wadlow straightened his pince-nez.
“I find all these questions very hard to understand. They appear to me to have a-a tendency which I would rather not particularize, but if I were forced to do so-”
Rachel leaned forward with her elbow on the table.
“What’s the good of talking like that, Ernest? Something has gone wrong about that cheque, and I naturally want to know what you did with it. The bank has just rung me up.”
Ernest Wadlow gave a sigh of relief.
“I suppose she forgot to sign her name. She has not your experience in business matters. But that is scarcely her fault. If the terms of your father’s will had been different-”
“Ernest, what are you talking about? She? Did you give the cheque to Cherry?”
Mr. Wadlow registered indignation and surprise.
“Cherry? Certainly not! She has her dress allowance.”
“Then it was Mabel-you gave the cheque to Mabel?”
“I did.”
Rachel bit her lip. She repeated her sister’s name.
“You gave it to Mabel? I never thought of that. Do you know what she did with it?”
Ernest fidgeted. The pince-nez dropped, and he had to stoop down to retrieve them. Once more in an upright position, he was seen to be slightly flushed.
“Had you not better ask her?”
“You endorsed that cheque to Mabel and gave it to her?”
“And I suppose she was not aware that the bank would require her signature. But to speak of an omission of that sort as a serious matter-” He gave a slight offended laugh.
Rachel opened a drawer, drew out a cheque-book, and handed it across the table.
“Will you look at the last two counterfoils, Ernest. The last but one belongs to the cheque I gave you. The one next to it has never been filled in. Maurice presented the cheque belonging to that about three-quarters of an hour ago. The manager was not satisfied and rang me up. The cheque was made out to you and endorsed to Maurice. It was for ten thousand pounds.”
Ernest Wadlow’s mouth fell open. His chin dropped and his eyes stared. They were pale eyes, and with the white showing all about them in a ring they looked paler still. The open mouth was pale too, and the furrowed cheeks were gray.
Miss Silver got up from her chair and came over to him. She put a hand on his shoulder and said firmly and quietly,
“Pull yourself together, Mr. Wadlow. This has been a shock. I will get you a glass of water.”
He still had that dazed look when she came back with a tumbler from Rachel’s bathroom. He gulped the water down, and then bent forward, still clasping the glass.
“You did not know-did you?” said Miss Silver. She looked over his bowed head at Rachel. “I think it is Mrs. Wadlow whom you must ask for an explanation. This cheque was made out for the sum to which she considered Mr. Maurice Wadlow was entitled. I find no difficulty in believing that she forged it. No one who had ever had anything to do with the management of money could have supposed for a moment that a cheque for so large an amount could be cashed across the counter without reference to the drawer. I suspected Mrs. Wadlow immediately. It is probable that Mr. Maurice believed the cheque to be genuine. I can hardly imagine-”
Ernest Wadlow leaned to the writing-table and set down the tumbler with a force that cracked it. He said in a loud, unsteady voice,
“Stop-stop! You’re driving me mad!” He blazed at Rachel. “What’s this woman talking about? I don’t know who she is, and I don’t know what she’s saying. Ten thousand pounds-across the counter-an open cheque! It’s lunacy! I never heard of such a thing! And you ask me to believe that Mabel-that Maurice-”
Miss Silver had seen the door move as he began to speak. It was opened now with a jerk and Mabel Wadlow walked in. She was highly flushed, and she appeared to have forgotten that the stairs brought on her palpitations.
She shut the door with quite a vigorous push and said angrily,
“Maurice doesn’t know anything about it!”
Ernest sprang up.
“Mabel!”
“I knew Rachel would try and put it on Maurice! She has never made the slightest effort to understand him or appreciate him. It isn’t any good her saying she has, because she hasn’t. If she had the slightest feeling for a mother’s anxieties she would have given him the money when I told her how necessary it was that he should have it and be prevented from going to Russia, where he might catch anything, and if he brought me a Bolshevist daughter-in-law, it would break my heart. But what does Rachel care about that? She only cares about the money. And it isn’t even as if it was her own money-it was my father’s, and morally half of it is mine! Are you going to send me to prison, Rachel, for taking some of my own money in order to save my only son from getting shot in a cellar or poisoned with bad drains?”
“Mabel,” said Ernest in a shaking voice-“you can’t know what you’re saying. Rachel, she doesn’t know what she’s saying. Mabel-”
“Be quiet!” said Mabel at the top of her voice. “I know perfectly well what I’m saying. I did the whole thing myself. I thought of it the minute I saw the cheque Rachel had given you. And how she had the nerve-what was the good of a miserable hundred pounds when Maurice wanted ten thousand? So I made up my mind what I was going to do, and I did it very well.” Mabel actually preened herself. “I got another cheque, and I copied the hundred pounds one, only I put ten thousand instead of a hundred. And nobody could possibly have told that it wasn’t Rachel’s signature, so I can’t imagine what all the fuss is about.”
All this time Rachel Treherne had been sitting back in her chair, her face quite without expression, her eyes raised to her sister’s face. She might have been watching a scene in which she had no concern. She spoke now in a cool and level voice.
“Banks are not usually asked to pay so large a sum across the counter on an open cheque. The manager asked Maurice to wait, and
rang me up.”
Mabel’s face became convulsed.
“What have they done to him?” She caught at Ernest, and he put his arm about her.
“To Maurice? Nothing at all. Hadn’t you better sit down, Mabel?”
Mrs. Wadlow allowed herself to be piloted to the most comfortable armchair. She clutched her side and inquired eagerly,
“Then you told them it was all right?”
Rachel’s eye brows went up.
“Certainly not. I stopped the cheque.”
“But Maurice-Rachel; have you no feelings? Can’t you see that you are torturing me?”
“I told the manager there was some mistake,” said Rachel coldly.
Ernest bent solicitously over his wife.
“My dear, I beg of you-you will suffer for this.”
“What will he think?” said Mabel with a rending sob.
“That you or Ernest have forged my name.” Rachel’s tone was extremely dry. “I am afraid that Maurice will not get that ten thousand.”
The sound of the lunch bell came up from the hall below. Neusel, who throughout these agitations had remained plunged in slumber, sprang up instantly and trotted to the door.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Civilized life is at the mercy of its own routine. Whatever may be happening in a household, breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner follow one another inexorably. Birth, marriage, divorce, meetings, partings, estrangements, love, hate, suspicion, jealousy, battle, murder, and sudden death- through all these comes the sound of the domestic bell or gong, with its summons to eat and drink. Whether you die tomorrow or today, another meal is served.
Rachel Treherne paused at Caroline’s door, heard no sound, and followed the Wadlows downstairs. She was glad to concern herself with ordering a tray to be sent up, and when she turned to the room again discovered that there would have to be two trays. Mabel had disappeared, and Ernest, with reproach in eye and voice, informed her that an attack of palpitations was imminent, and that he had taken it upon himself to insist upon a recumbent position and perfect quiet.
“She over-taxes her strength. We should not have allowed her to excite herself. She will be prostrated for the rest of the day. Yes, certainly some lunch-her strength must be maintained. Light and nutritious food at very frequent intervals, and she should never be thwarted or allowed to over-tax her strength-those are the exact expressions used by Dr. Levitas. No one has understood Mabel’s constitution as he did. I blame myself, but I cannot exonerate you, Rachel-no sisterly kindness, no attempt to calm her, no concern about her health.” All this in low, agitated tones, with a nervous polishing of the pince-nez and small fidgeting movements.
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