Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  The tone was not exactly insolent: but it was cool and significant, wanting in respect. When I would have asked him how he dared so to address a young lady, the words were arrested by Janet. I thought she had gone mad.

  “Oh, get me away, Mr. Ludlow, for Heaven’s sake! Don’t let him take me! Oh what shall I do? what shall I do?”

  “What you’ve got to do is to get for’ard out o’ this here passage and not block up the way,” struck in the policeman. “I bain’t after you now; so you’ve no call to be afeared this time. Pass on that way, sir.”

  I drew her onwards, and in half-a-minute we were in the open air, clear of the throng. Cattledon, who seemed to have understood nothing, except that we had stopped the way, shook Janet by the arm in anger, and asked what had come to her.

  “It was the same man, aunt, that Mrs. Knox called in,” she gasped. “I thought he had come to London to look for me.”

  Miss Cattledon’s answer was to keep hold of her arm, and whirl her along towards the outer gates. Anna and I followed in wonder.

  “What is it all, Johnny?” she whispered.

  “Goodness knows, Anna. I — —”

  Cattledon turned her head, asking me to go on and secure a cab. Janet was helped into it and sat back with her eyes closed, a shiver taking her every now and then.

  Janet appeared at dinner, and seemed as well as usual. In the evening Helen tore the skirt of her thin dress: and before she was aware, the girl was kneeling by the side of her chair with a needle and thread, beginning to mend it.

  “You are very kind,” said Helen heartily, when she saw what Janet was doing.

  “Oh no,” answered Janet, with an upward, humble glance from her nice eyes.

  But soon after that, when we were describing to Helen and Miss Deveen the sights at the Colosseum, and the silence of the buried village after the avalanche had fallen, Janet was taken with an ague fit. The very chair shook; it seemed that she must fall out of it. Anna ran to hold her. Miss Deveen got up in consternation.

  “That Colosseum has been too much for her: there’s nothing so fatiguing as sightseeing. I did wrong in letting Janet go, as she is still weak from her illness. Perhaps she has taken cold.”

  Ringing the bell, Miss Deveen told George to make some hot wine and water. When it was brought in, she made Janet drink it, and sent her upstairs to bed, marshalled by Cattledon.

  The next morning, Wednesday, I was dressing in the sunshine that streamed in at the bedroom windows, when a loud hulla-balloo was set up below, enough to startle the king and all his men.

  “Thieves! robbers! murder!”

  Dashing to the door, I looked over the balustrades. The shrieks and calls came from Lettice Lane, who was stumbling up the stairs from the hall. Cattledon opened her door in her night-cap, saw me, and shut it again with a bang.

  “Murder! robbers! thieves!” shrieked Lettice.

  “But what is it, Lettice?” I cried, leaping down.

  “Oh, Mr. Johnny, the house is robbed! — and we might just as well all have been murdered in our beds!”

  Every one was appearing on the scene. Miss Deveen came fully dressed — she was often up before other people; Cattledon arrived in a white petticoat and shawl. The servants were running up from the kitchen.

  Thieves had broken in during the night. The (so-called) breakfast-room at the back presented a scene of indescribable confusion. Everything in it was turned topsy-turvy, the secretary had been ransacked; the glass-doors stood open to the garden.

  It seemed that Lettice, in pursuance of her morning’s duties, had gone to the room, and found it in this state. Lettice was of the excitable order, and went into shrieks. She stood now, sobbing and shaking, as she gave her explanation.

  “When I opened the door and saw the room in this pickle, the window standing open, my very blood seemed to curdle within me. For all I knew the thieves might have done murder. Just look at the place, ma’am! — look at your secretary!”

  It’s what we were all looking at. The sight was as good as moving house. Chairs and footstools lay upside down, their chintz covers untied and flung off; the hearthrug was under the table; books were open, periodicals scattered about; two pictures had been taken from the wall and lay face downwards; every ornament was moved from the mantelpiece. The secretary stood open; all its papers had been taken out, opened, and lay in a heap on the floor; and Janet Carey’s well-stocked work-box was turned bottom upwards, its contents having rolled anywhere.

  “This must be your work, George,” said Miss Cattledon, turning on the servant-man with a grim frown.

  “Mine, ma’am!” he answered, amazed at the charge.

  “Yes, yours,” repeated Cattledon. “You could not have fastened the shutters last night; and that is how the thieves have got in.”

  “But I did, ma’am. I fastened them just as usual.”

  “Couldn’t be,” said Cattledon decisively, who had been making her way over the débris to examine the shutters. “They have not been forced in any way: they have simply been opened. The window also.”

  “And neither window nor shutters could be opened from the outside without force,” remarked Miss Deveen. “I fear, George, you must have forgotten this room when you shut up last night.”

  “Indeed, ma’am, I did not forget it,” was the respectful answer. “I assure you I bolted the window and barred the shutters as I always do.”

  Janet Carey, standing in mute wonder like the rest of us, testified to this. “When I came in here last night to get a needle and thread to mend Miss Whitney’s dress, I am sure the shutters were shut: I noticed that they were.”

  Cattledon would not listen. She had taken up her own opinion of George’s neglect, and sharply told Janet not to be so positive. Janet looked frightfully white and wan this morning, worse than a ghost.

  “Oh, goodness!” cried Helen Whitney, appearing on the scene. “If ever I saw such a thing!”

  “I never did — in all my life,” cried Cattledon.

  “Have you lost any valuables from the secretary, Miss Deveen?”

  “My dear Helen, there were no valuables in the secretary to lose,” was Miss Deveen’s answer. “Sometimes I keep money in it — a little: but last night there happened to be none. Of course the thieves could not know that, and must have been greatly disappointed. If they did not come in through the window — why, they must have got in elsewhere.”

  Miss Deveen spoke in a dubious tone, that too plainly showed her own doubts on the point. George felt himself and his word reflected upon.

  “If I had indeed forgotten this window last night, ma’am — though for me to do such a thing seems next door to impossible — I would confess to it at once. I can be upon my oath, ma’am, if put to it, that I made all secure here at dusk.”

  “Then, George, you had better look to your other doors and windows,” was the reply of his mistress.

  The other doors and windows were looked to: but no trace could be found of how the thieves got in. After breakfast, we succeeded in putting the room tolerably straight. The letters and bills took most time, for every one was lying open. And after it was all done, Miss Deveen came to the conclusion that nothing had been taken.

  “Their object must have been money,” she observed. “It is a good thing I happened to carry my cash-box upstairs yesterday. Sometimes I leave it here in the secretary.”

  “And was much in it?” one of us asked.

  “Not very much. More, though, than one cares to lose: a little gold and a bank-note.”

  “A bank-note!” echoed Janet, repeating the words quickly. “Is it safe? — are you sure, ma’am, the note is safe?”

  “Well, I conclude it is,” answered Miss Deveen with composure. “I saw the cash-box before I came down this morning. I did not look inside it.”

  “Oh, but you had better look,” urged Janet, betraying some excitement. “Suppose it should be gone! Can I look, ma’am?”

  “What nonsense!” exclaimed Helen. “If
the cash-box is safe, the money must be safe inside it. The thieves did not go into Miss Deveen’s room, Janet Carey.”

  The servants wanted the police called in; but their mistress saw no necessity for it. Nothing had been carried off, she said, and therefore she should take no further trouble. Her private opinion was that George, in spite of his assertions, must have forgotten the window.

  It seemed a curious thing that the thieves had not visited other rooms. Unless, indeed, the door of this one had been locked on the outside, and they were afraid to risk the noise of forcing it: and no one could tell whether the key had been turned, or not. George had the plate-basket in his bed-chamber; but on the sideboard in the dining-room stood a silver tea-caddy and a small silver waiter: how was it they had not walked off with these two articles? Or, as the cook said, why didn’t they rifle her larder? She had various tempting things in it, including a fresh-boiled ham.

  “Janet Carey has been ill all the afternoon,” observed Anna, when I and Helen got home before dinner, for we had been out with Miss Deveen. “I think she feels frightened about the thieves, for one thing.”

  “Ill for nothing!” returned Helen slightingly. “Why should she be frightened any more than we are? The thieves did not hurt her. I might just as well say I am ill.”

  “But she has been really ill, Helen. She has a shivering-fit one minute and is sick the next. Cattledon says she must have caught cold yesterday, and is cross with her for catching it.”

  “Listen,” said Helen, lowering her voice. “I can’t get it out of my head that that old fortune-teller must have had to do with it. She must have seen the secretary and may have taken note of the window fastenings. I am in a state over it: as you both know, it was I who had her up.”

  Janet did not come down until after dinner. She was pale and quiet, but not less ready than ever to do what she could for every one. Helen had brought home some ferns to — transfer, I think she called it. Janet at once offered to help her. The process involved a large hand-basin full of water, and Miss Deveen sent the two girls into the breakfast-parlour, not to make a mess in the drawing-room.

  “Well, my dears,” said Miss Deveen, when she had read the chapter before bed-time, “I hope you will all sleep well to-night, and that we shall be undisturbed by thieves. Not that they disturbed us last night,” she added, laughing. “Considering all things, I’m sure they were as polite and considerate thieves as we could wish to have to do with.”

  Whether the others slept well I cannot say: I know I did. So well that I never woke at all until the same cries from Lettice disturbed the house as on the previous morning. The thieves had been in again.

  Downstairs we went, as quickly as some degree of dressing allowed, and found the breakfast-room all confusion, the servants all consternation: the window open as before; the furniture turned about, the ornaments and pictures moved from their places, the books scattered, the papers of the secretary lying unfolded in a heap on the carpet, and a pair of embroidered slippers of Helen Whitney’s lying in the basin of water.

  “What an extraordinary thing!” exclaimed Miss Deveen, while the rest of us stood in silent amazement.

  Lettice’s tale was the same as the previous one. Upon proceeding to the room to put it to rights, she found it thus, and its shutters and glass-doors wide open. There was no trace, except here, of the possible entrance or exit of thieves: all other fastenings were secure as they had been left over-night; other rooms had not been disturbed; and, more singular than all, nothing appeared to have been taken. What could the thieves be seeking?

  “Shall you call in the police now, ma’am?” asked Cattledon, her tone implying that they ought to have been called in before.

  “Yes, I shall,” emphatically replied Miss Deveen.

  “Oh!” shrieked Helen, darting in, after making a hasty and impromptu toilet, “look at my new slippers!”

  After finishing the ferns last night they had neglected to send the basin away. The slippers were rose-coloured, worked with white flowers in floss silk; and the bits of loose green from the ferns floated over them like green weeds on a pond. Helen had bought them when we were out yesterday.

  “My beautiful slippers!” lamented Helen. “I wish to goodness I had not forgotten to take them upstairs. What wicked thieves they must be! They ought to be hung.”

  “It’s to know, mum, whether it was thieves,” spoke the cook.

  “Why, what else can it have been, cook?” asked Miss Deveen.

  “Mum, I don’t pretend to say. I’ve knowed cats do queer things. We’ve two on ’em — the old cat and her kitten.”

  “Did you ever know cats unlock a secretary and take out the papers, cook?” returned Miss Deveen.

  “Well, no, mum. But, on the other hand, I never knowed thieves break into a house two nights running, and both times go away empty-handed.”

  The argument was unanswerable. Unless the thieves had been disturbed on each night, how was it they had taken nothing?

  Miss Deveen locked the door upon the room just as it was; and after breakfast sent George to the nearest police-station. Whilst he was gone I was alone in the dining-room, stooping down to hunt for a book in the lowest shelf of the book-case, when Janet Carey came in followed by Cattledon. I suppose the table-cover hid me from them, for Cattledon began to blow her up.

  “One would think you were a troubled ghost, shaking and shivering in that way, first upstairs and then down! The police coming! — what if they are? They are not coming after you this time. There’s no money missing now.”

  Janet burst into tears. “Oh, aunt, why do you speak so to me? It is as though you believe me guilty!”

  “Don’t be a simpleton, Janet,” rebuked Cattledon, in softer tones. “If I did not know you were not, and could not, be guilty, should I have brought you here under Miss Deveen’s roof? What vexes me so much is to see you look as though you were guilty — with your white face, and your hysterics, and your trembling hands and lips. Get a little spirit into yourself, child: the police won’t harm you.”

  Catching up the keys from the table, she went out again, leaving Janet sobbing. I stood forward. She started when she saw me, and tried to dry her eyes.

  “I am sorry, Miss Carey, that all this bother is affecting you. Why are you so sad?”

  “I — have gone through a great deal of trouble lately; — and been ill,” she answered, with hesitation, arresting her tears.

  “Can I do anything for you? — help you in any way?”

  “You are very kind, Mr. Ludlow; you have been kind to me all along. There’s nothing any one can do. Sometimes I wish I could die.”

  “Die!”

  “There is so much unhappiness in the world!”

  George’s voice was heard in the hall with the policeman. Janet vanished. But whether it was through the floor or out at the door, I declare I did not see then, and don’t quite know to this day.

  I and Cattledon were allowed to assist at the conference between Miss Deveen and the policeman: a dark man with a double chin and stripes on his coat-sleeve. After hearing particulars, and examining the room and the mess it was in, he inquired how many servants were kept, and whether Miss Deveen had confidence in them. She told him the number, and said she had confidence in all.

  He went into the kitchen, put what questions he pleased to the servants, looked at the fastenings of the doors generally, examined the outside of the window and walked about the garden. George called him Mr. Stone — which appeared to be his name. Mr. Stone had nothing of a report to bring Miss Deveen.

  “It’s one of two things, ma’am,” he said. “Either this has been done by somebody in your own house; or else the neighbours are playing tricks upon you. I can’t come to any other conclusion. The case is peculiar, you see, in-so-far as that nothing has been stolen.”

  “It is very peculiar indeed,” returned Miss Deveen.

  “I should have said — I should feel inclined to say — that the culprit is some one in the house
— —”

  “It’s the most unlikely thing in the world, that it should have been any one in the house,” struck in Miss Deveen, not allowing him to go on. “To suspect any of the young people who are visiting me, would be simply an insult. And my servants would no more play the trick than I or Miss Cattledon would play it.”

  “Failing indoors then, we must look out,” said Mr. Stone, after listening patiently. “And that brings up more difficulty, ma’am. For I confess I don’t see how they could get the windows and shutters open from the outside, and leave no marks of damage.”

  “The fact of the window and shutters being wide open each morning, shows how they got out.”

  “Just so,” said Mr. Stone; “but it does not show how they got in. Of course there’s the possibility that they managed to secrete themselves in the house beforehand.”

  “Yesterday I thought that might have been the case,” remarked Miss Deveen; “to-day I do not think so. It seems that, after what occurred, my servants were especially cautious to keep their doors and windows not only closed, but bolted all day yesterday, quite barring the possibility of any one’s stealing in. Except, of course, down the chimneys.”

  Mr. Stone laughed. “They’d bring a lot of soot with ’em that way.”

  “And spoil my hearthrugs. No; that was not the way of entrance.”

  “Then we come to the question — did one of the servants get up and admit ‘em?”

  “But that would be doubting my servants still, you see. It really seems, Mr. Stone, as though you could not help me.”

  “Before saying whether I can or I can’t, I should be glad, ma’am, to have a conversation with you alone,” was the unexpected answer.

  So we left him with Miss Deveen. Cattledon’s stays appeared to resent it, for they creaked alarmingly in the hall, and her voice was tart.

  “Perhaps the man wants to accuse you or me, Mr. Johnny!”

  We knew later, after the upshot came, what it was he did want; and I may as well state it at once. Stone had made up his mind to watch that night in the garden; but he wished it kept secret from every one, except Miss Deveen herself, and he charged her strictly not to mention it. “How will it serve you, if, as you say, they do not come in that way?” she had asked. “But the probability is they come out that way,” he answered. “At any rate, they fling the doors open, and I shall be there to drop upon them.”