by Ellen Wood
“What right had she to attempt to enter it at all, locked or unlocked, I should say, Mr. Strange!” returned Lennard severely. “And the best of it was, she laid the blame upon us, asking what business we had to put dead people into public rooms.”
“She is a curious sort of woman, I fancy, Lennard.”
And the more I thought of her, the more curious I found her. The door between the two rooms had been locked, and the key was lying in the corner of the mantelpiece. Lady Clavering must have searched for the key before she could open the door and enter the room.
With what motive had she entered it?
CHAPTER VI.
THE MISSING WILL.
Mr. Brightman was buried on the Thursday, and Mr. Serjeant Stillingfar came up from circuit for the funeral. Three or four other gentlemen attended, and myself. It was all done very quietly. After that the will was read.
He had not left as much money as might have been expected. I suppose the rate at which they lived had absorbed it. Nearly the whole of it was vested in trustees, who would pay the interest to Mrs. Brightman until her death, when it would all descend unconditionally to Annabel. If she married again, one half the yearly income at once went to Annabel. To my surprise, I was left executor. Mr. Brightman had never told me so. Of the two executors originally appointed — for the will had been made many years — one had recently died, and Mr. Brightman had inserted my name in his place. That all the work would fall upon my shoulders I knew, for the other executor had become a confirmed invalid.
With regard to our own articles of partnership, provided for by a recent codicil, they were very favourable to me, though somewhat peculiar. If Mr. Brightman died before I was thirty years of age, two-thirds of the net profits of the business were to be paid to Mrs. Brightman for three years; but if I had passed my thirtieth year when he died, only half the profits would go to her. After the first three years, one-third of the profits would be hers for three years more; and then all would revert to me absolutely.
I wanted some years yet of thirty. But it was an excellent and lucrative practice. Few men fall into so good a thing when they are still young.
“So there you are, Charles, the head of one of the best professional houses in London,” remarked my uncle Stillingfar, as he took my arm when we were leaving the house. “Rather different from what your fate might have been, had you carried out your wish of going to the Bar. My boy, you may be thankful that you know nothing of the struggles I had to go through.”
“Do you still feel quite well and strong, uncle?” I asked, after a bit.
“Yes, I do, Charles. I suppose you think I am growing old. But I believe I am more capable of work than are many of my juniors who are now on circuit with me. With a sound constitution, never played with, and a temperate way of life, we retain our energies, by God’s blessing, to an older age than mine.”
That was no doubt true. True also that he must be making heaps of money. I wondered what he meant to do with it. He had been very liberal to me as long as I needed help, but that time was over.
The sad week passed away. On the following Monday I set to professional business in earnest: the previous week had been much given to matters not professional. One of the first things to be attended to was to prove the will of Sir Ralph Clavering, and, in the course of the morning, I unlocked the iron safe in the front room to get it. Nothing was ever placed in that safe but wills and title-deeds, and these were never placed anywhere else. But where this particular will was hiding itself, I could not tell, for I turned over every paper the place contained without coming to it. “More haste less speed,” cried I to myself, for I had been doing it in a hurry. “I must have overlooked it.”
So I began again and went through the papers carefully, paper by paper. I had not overlooked it, for Sir Ralph’s will was certainly not there.
Now, was I awake or dreaming? Was there a fairy in the walls to remove things, or was the house bewitched? — or what was it? I went and examined the Clavering papers, which were in Mr. Brightman’s desk in the adjoining room — my room, which had been cleaned and put straight again. But the will was not amongst them. I searched other drawers and desks in vain. Then I called up Lennard.
“Do you know anything of Sir Ralph Clavering’s will? I cannot find it.”
“It must be in the safe,” he replied.
“It is not in the safe. Lennard, this is very strange: first that bag of money, and now the will.”
“Oh, but it cannot be,” returned Lennard, after a pause. “That the gold went, appears to be too plain, but who would take a will? Money might be a temptation, if any stranger did enter Mr. Brightman’s room that night, but — —”
“It has been proved almost beyond doubt that no one entered, and yet the money went. Lennard, there’s something not canny at work in the house, as the Scotch say.”
“Do not think it, Mr. Strange,” he replied warmly. “The gold appears to have gone in some mysterious manner, but the will cannot be gone. Depend upon it, it is in the safe.”
I had a great respect for Lennard’s judgment, but I had as great confidence in my own eyesight. I unlocked the safe again, and, taking out the parchments, one by one, handed them to Lennard that he might read their titles. “There,” said I, when we had reached the last; “is the will amongst them?”
Lennard’s face had turned grave. “This is very extraordinary!” he exclaimed. “Mr. Brightman would not put it anywhere else.”
“He never put a will up in any other place than this since I have been with him, Lennard; and I myself saw him put it in; held the light for him: it was in the evening of last Tuesday week, after he came back from Sir Ralph’s funeral. It has gone after the gold.”
“No, no,” he cried, almost in agitation; “it has not, it has not: I will never believe it.”
One very slight hope came to me. Mr. Brightman might have given it into the custody of Sir Edmund Clavering. But then Sir Edmund would surely have said so when he spoke to me about proving the will. The loss of the money was nothing to this, for that had been easily replaced, and there was an end of the matter; but this loss could not be replaced, and there was no knowing what the end would be. It might be little short of ruin to Sir Edmund Clavering, and nothing short of ruin to me: for who would continue to employ a firm liable to lose wills?
I was greatly occupied that day, but the missing will lay upon me as a nightmare, and I forced time for a dash up to Sir Edmund Clavering’s hotel in the afternoon, bribing the cabman to double speed. By good luck, I found Sir Edmund in, and inquired if he held possession of the will.
“Mr. Brightman holds the will,” he replied. “Held, I should say: I cannot yet speak of him in the past tense, you see. He took it home with him after Sir Ralph’s funeral.”
“I know he brought it home, Sir Edmund; but I thought it possible he might since then have given it into your possession. I hoped he had, for I cannot find the will. I have searched for it everywhere.”
“Not find the will!” he echoed. “Perhaps you have looked in every place but the right one,” he added, with a slight laugh. “I can tell you where it is.”
“Where?”
“In the iron safe in Mr. Brightman’s room.”
“It was placed there — we never put wills anywhere else; never — but it is not there now. May I ask how you knew it was there, Sir Edmund?”
“Because on the day but one following the funeral I came to town and had an interview with Mr. Brightman in his room. It was on the Thursday. Perhaps you remember that I was with him that day?”
“Quite well.”
“During our consultation we differed in opinion as to a certain clause in the will, and Mr. Brightman took it out of the safe to convince me. He was right, and I was wrong; as, indeed, I might have known, considering that he had made the will. He put it back into the safe at once and locked it up. When are you going to prove the will? It ought to be done now.”
“I was going to set about it
this very day; but, as I say, I cannot find the will.”
“It must be easy enough to find a big parchment like that. If not in the safe, Mr. Brightman must have put it elsewhere. Look in all his pigeon-holes and places.”
“I have looked: I have looked everywhere. —— Just as I looked some days before for the bag of sovereigns,” I mentally added.
But Sir Edmund Clavering was determined to treat the matter lightly: he evidently attached no importance to it whatever, believing that Mr. Brightman had only changed its place.
I went home again, feeling as uncomfortable as I had ever felt in my life. An undefined idea, a doubt, had flashed into my mind whilst I had been talking to Lennard. Imagination is quicker with me, I know, than with many people; and the moment a thing puzzles me, I must dive into its why and wherefore: its various bearings and phases, probable and improbable, natural and unnatural. This doubt — which I had driven away at the time, had been driving away during my gallop to Sir Edmund’s, and whilst I was conversing with him — now grew into suspicion.
Let me explain how I arrived at this suspicion. When I found the will had disappeared from the safe — when I searched and searched in vain — I could only come to the conclusion that it had been stolen. But why was it taken? From what motive? Why should that one particular parchment be abstracted, and the others left? Obviously, it could only have been from interested motives. Now, who had an interest in getting possession of the will — so that it might not be proved and acted upon? Only one person in the whole world — Lady Clavering. And Lady Clavering had been alone in the room where the safe was for nearly half an hour.
If she had obtained possession of the will, there was farewell to our ever getting it again. I saw through her character at that first interview: she was a woman absolutely without scruple.
But how could she have got at it? Even supposing she knew the will was in the iron safe, she could not have opened it without the key; and how could she have obtained the key?
Again — if Lady Clavering were the guilty party, what became of my very natural suspicions that the will and the gold were both taken by the same hand? And with the gold Lady Clavering could have had nothing to do. Look at it as I would, perplexities arose; points difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile.
Lennard met me in the passage on my return. “Is it all right? Has Sir Edmund got it, sir?”
“No, no; I told you it was a forlorn hope. Come upstairs, Lennard. Sir Edmund has not the will,” I continued, as we entered the front room. “He says that when he was here last Thursday week, Mr. Brightman had occasion to refer to the will, took it from the safe, and put it back again. Therefore it is since that period that the theft has taken place.”
“Can you really look upon it as stolen?” Lennard uttered, with emphasis. “Who would steal so valueless a thing as a will?”
“Not valueless to everyone.”
“No one in the house would do such a thing. You have a suspicion?” he added.
“Yes, I have, Lennard.”
He began to pace the room. Lennard was, in truth, completely upset by this loss. “Of whom?” he presently jerked out. “Surely not of Leah!”
“Of Leah! Oh no!”
“I fancied you suspected her in the matter of the money. I feel sure she was innocent.”
“So do I. Leah no more took the money than you or I did, Lennard. And what should she want with the will? If I made her a present of all the wills in the safe, she would only light her fires with them as useless lumber. Try again.”
But he only shook his head. “I cannot catch your drift, sir.”
“To all persons, two excepted, the will would be as useless as to Leah. One of those two is Sir Edmund; and he has it not: the other is Lady Clavering.”
“But surely you cannot suspect her!” exclaimed Lennard. “You cannot suspect Lady Clavering!”
“To say that I suspect her would perhaps be too strong a word, Lennard. If my doubts rest upon her at all, it is because she is the only person who could have an interest in getting possession of the will; and she is the only stranger, as far as I can recollect, who has been alone in this room sufficiently long to take it from the safe.”
Lennard was incredulous. “But she had not the key of the safe. She could not have opened it without it.”
“I know — I see the improbabilities that encompass my doubts; but I can think of nothing else.”
“Where was the key of the safe?” asked Lennard.
“In that back room; and in Mr. Brightman’s deep drawer — the drawer from which the gold was taken,” was my grave answer. “And she could not have got at it without — without passing him.”
Lennard’s face grew hot.
“And the key of that drawer was here, in my own pocket, on the bunch.” I took out the bunch of keys as I spoke — Mr. Brightman’s bunch until within a few days — and shook it before him.
“What mystery has come over the house, about keys, and locks, and things disappearing?” Lennard murmured, as a man bewildered.
“Lennard, it is the question I am asking myself.”
“She could never have gone in there and passed him; and stood there while she got the key. A young and beautiful woman like Lady Clavering! Sir, it would be unnatural.”
“No more unnatural for beauty than for ugliness, Lennard. Unnatural for most women, though, whether pretty or plain.”
“But how could she have divined that the key of the safe was in that drawer, or in that room?” urged Lennard. “For the matter of that, how could she have known that the will was in the safe?”
Truly the affair presented grave perplexities. “One curious part of it is that she should have called you up with her screams, Lennard,” I remarked. “If she had only that moment opened the door, and seen — what frightened her, she could not have been already in the room hunting for the key. Were the screams assumed? Was it all a piece of acting?”
“It would take a subtle actress to counterfeit her terror,” replied Lennard; “and the best actress breathing could not have assumed her ghastly look. No, Mr. Strange, I believe what she said was the fact: that, weary of waiting for her carriage, she had walked about the room, then opened the door, and passed into the other without any thought except that of distracting her ennui.”
“She must have looked about for the key of the door, mind you, Lennard.”
A man has rarely been placed in a more disagreeable predicament than I felt to be in then. It was of no use temporising with the matter: I could only meet it boldly, and I sent that evening for Sir Edmund Clavering, and laid it before him. I told him of Lady Clavering’s visit, and hinted at the doubt which had forced itself on my mind. Sir Edmund jumped to the conclusion (and into a passion at the same time) that she was the culprit, and declared he would apply for a warrant at Bow Street on the morrow, to take her into custody. With extreme difficulty I got him to hear reason against anything of the sort.
Lennard, who had remained, came round to Sir Edmund’s opinion that it must inevitably have been Lady Clavering. Failing her, no shadow of suspicion could attach itself to anyone, sift and search into the matter as we would.
“But neither was there as to the gold,” was my rejoinder.
Then after they were gone, and I sat by the fire in the front room, and went over the details dispassionately and carefully, and lay awake the best part of the night, going over them still, my suspicions of Lady Clavering lessened, and I arrived at the conclusion that they were too improbable to be well founded.
Nevertheless, I intended to pursue the course I had decided on: and that was to call upon her. She, like Sir Edmund, was now staying in London, at an hotel. Not to accuse her, but to see if I could not, indirectly, make out something that would confirm or dissipate my suspicion.
I went up in the course of the morning. Lady Clavering was sitting alone, her widow’s cap on the sofa beside her. She hurried it on to her head, when the waiter announced me.
“It i
s so hot and ugly,” she exclaimed, in tones of excuse. “I sit without it when I am alone. So you have condescended to return my visit, Mr. Strange. I thought you gentlemen of the law took refuge in your plea of occupation to ignore etiquette.”
“Indeed it is not out of deference to etiquette that I have called upon you to-day, Lady Clavering, but — —”
“You have thought better of your refusal: you have come to say you will undertake my business!” she interrupted, eyes and looks full of eagerness.
“Nor yet that,” I was forced to reply, though, in truth, I should have been glad to conciliate her. “I am sure you will find many an advocate quite as efficient as I should be. The day you were at our house, did you happen to see — —”
“Mr. Strange, I must beg you, as a gentleman, not to allude to what I saw,” she interposed, in tones of alarm. “I think it was inexcusable on your part not to have informed me what was in the next room.”
“Pardon me, Lady Clavering; it would have been an unnecessary and unpleasant piece of information to volunteer: for how could I possibly foresee that you would be likely to enter that room?” I might have added — look for the key, unlock it, and go into it.
“I never saw a dead person in my life,” she rejoined; “not even my husband; and I shall not easily recover from the shock. I would give anything rather than have been exposed to it.”
“And so would I, and I shall always regret it,” was my warm apology.
“Then why do you introduce the subject?”
“I did not intend to allude to that; but to your having sat in the front room I must allude; and I know you will excuse my asking you the question I am about to put to you. Did you happen to see a parchment lying in that front room: on the table, or the side-tables, or — anywhere, in short? We have missed one: and if you chanced to have noticed it, it would be a great assistance to us, as a proof that we need not carry our researches further back than that day.”
“I don’t remember that I saw any parchment,” she carelessly rejoined. “I saw some papers, tied round with pink tape, on the table; I did not notice them particularly. I pray you not to make me think about that afternoon, or you will have me in hysterics again.”