by Michael Sims
“Miss Monroe, I suppose, has her own maid?”
“No, she has not. The maid—an elderly native woman—who left Pekin with her, suffered so terribly from sea-sickness that, when they reached Malta, Miss Monroe allowed her to land and remain there in charge of an agent of the P. and O. Company till an outward bound packet could take her back to China. It seems the poor woman thought she was going to die, and was in a terrible state of mind because she hadn’t brought her coffin with her. I dare say you know the terror these Chinese have of being buried in foreign soil. After her departure, Miss Monroe engaged one of the steerage passengers to act as her maid for the remainder of the voyage.”
“Did Miss Monroe make the long journey from Pekin accompanied only by this native woman?”
“No; friends escorted her to Hong Kong—by far the roughest part of the journey. From Hong Kong she came on in The Colombo, accompanied only by her maid. I wrote and told her father I would meet her at the docks in London; the young lady, however, preferred landing at Plymouth, and telegraphed to me from there that she was coming on by rail to Waterloo, where, if I liked, I might meet her.”
“She seems to be a young lady of independent habits. Was she brought up and educated in China?”
“Yes; by a succession of French and American governesses. After her mother’s death, when she was little more than a baby, Sir George could not make up his mind to part with her, as she was his only child.”
“I suppose you and Sir George Monroe are old friends?”
“Yes; he and I were great chums before he went out to China—now about twenty years ago—and it was only natural, when he wished to get his daughter out of the way of young Danvers’s impertinent attentions, that he should ask me to take charge of her till he could claim his retiring pension and set up his tent in England.”
“What was the chief objection to Mr. Danvers’s attentions?”
“Well, he is only a boy of one-and-twenty, and has no money into the bargain. He has been sent out to Pekin by his father to study the language, in order to qualify for a billet in the customs, and it may be a dozen years before he is in a position to keep a wife. Now, Miss Monroe is an heiress—will come into her mother’s large fortune when she is of age—and Sir George, naturally, would like her to make a good match.”
“I suppose Miss Monroe came to England very reluctantly?”
“I imagine so. No doubt it was a great wrench for her to leave her home and friends in that sudden fashion and come to us, who are, one and all, utter strangers to her. She is very quiet, very shy and reserved. She goes nowhere, sees no one. When some old China friends of her father’s called to see her the other day, she immediately found she had a headache, and went to bed. I think, on the whole, she gets on better with my nephew than with anyone else.”
“Will you kindly tell me of how many persons your household consists at the present moment?”
“At the present moment we are one more than usual, for my nephew, Jack, is home with his regiment from India, and is staying with us. As a rule, my household consists of my wife and myself, butler, cook, housemaid and my wife’s maid, who just now is doing double duty as Miss Monroe’s maid also.”
Mr. Dyer looked at his watch.
“I have an important engagement in ten minutes’ time,” he said, “so I must leave you and Miss Brooke to arrange details as to how and when she is to begin her work inside your house, for, of course, in a case of this sort we must, in the first instance at any rate, concentrate attention within your four walls.”
“The less delay the better,” said Loveday. “I should like to attack the mystery at once—this afternoon.”
Mr. Hawke thought for a moment.
“According to present arrangements,” he said, with a little hesitation, “Mrs. Hawke will return next Friday, that is the day after to-morrow, so I can only ask you to remain in the house till the morning of that day. I’m sure you will understand that there might be some—some little awkwardness in—”
“Oh, quite so,” interrupted Loveday. “I don’t see at present that there will be any necessity for me to sleep in the house at all. How would it be for me to assume the part of a lady house decorator in the employment of a West-end firm, and sent by them to survey your house and advise upon its re-decoration? All I should have to do, would be to walk about your rooms with my head on one side, and a pencil and note-book in my hand. I should interfere with no one, your family life would go on as usual, and I could make my work as short or as long as necessity might dictate.”
Mr. Hawke had no objection to offer to this. He had, however, a request to make as he rose to depart, and he made it a little nervously.
“If,” he said, “by any chance there should come a telegram from Mrs. Hawke, saying she will return by an earlier train, I suppose—I hope, that is, you will make some excuse, and—and not get me into hot water, I mean.”
To this, Loveday answered a little evasively that she trusted no such telegram would be forthcoming, but that, in any case, he might rely upon her discretion.
Four o’clock was striking from a neighbouring church clock as Loveday lifted the old-fashioned brass knocker of Mr. Hawke’s house in Tavistock Square. An elderly butler admitted her and showed her into the drawing-room on the first floor. A single glance round showed Loveday that if her rôle had been real instead of assumed, she would have found plenty of scope for her talents. Although the house was in all respects comfortably furnished, it bore unmistakably the impress of those early Victorian days when aesthetic surroundings were not deemed a necessity of existence; an impress which people past middle age, and growing increasingly indifferent to the accessories of life, are frequently careless to remove.
“Young life here is evidently an excrescence, not part of the home; a troop of daughters turned into this room would speedily set going a different condition of things,” thought Loveday, taking stock of the faded white and gold wall paper, the chairs covered with lilies and roses in cross-stitch, and the knick-knacks of a past generation that were scattered about on tables and mantelpiece.
A yellow damask curtain, half-festooned, divided the back drawing-room from the front in which she was seated. From the other side of this curtain there came to her the sound of voices—those of a man and a girl.
“Cut the cards again, please,” said the man’s voice. “Thank you. There you are again—the queen of hearts, surrounded with diamonds, and turning her back on a knave. Miss Monroe, you can’t do better than make that fortune come true. Turn your back on the man who let you go without a word and—”
“Hush!” interrupted the girl with a little laugh: “I heard the next room door open—I’m sure someone came in.”
The girl’s laugh seemed to Loveday utterly destitute of that echo of heart-ache that in the circumstances might have been expected.
At this moment Mr. Hawke entered the room, and almost simultaneously the two young people came from the other side of the yellow curtain and crossed towards the door.
Loveday took a survey of them as they passed.
The young man—evidently “my nephew, Jack”—was a good-looking young fellow, with dark eyes and hair. The girl was small, slight and fair. She was perceptibly less at home with Jack’s uncle than she was with Jack, for her manner changed and grew formal and reserved as she came face to face with him.
“We’re going downstairs to have a game of billiards,” said Jack, addressing Mr. Hawke, and throwing a look of curiosity at Loveday.
“Jack,” said the old gentleman, “what would you say if I told you I was going to have the house re-decorated from top to bottom, and that this lady had come to advise on the matter.”
This was the nearest (and most Anglicé) approach to a fabrication that Mr. Hawke would allow to pass his lips.
“Well,” answered Jack promptly, “I should say, ‘not before its time.’ That would cover a good deal.”
Then the two young people departed in company.
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p; Loveday went straight to her work.
“I’ll begin my surveying at the top of the house, and at once, if you please,” she said. “Will you kindly tell one of your maids to show me through the bed-rooms? If it is possible, let that maid be the one who waits on Miss Monroe and Mrs. Hawke.”
The maid who responded to Mr. Hawke’s summons was in perfect harmony with the general appearance of the house. In addition, however, to being elderly and faded, she was also remarkably sour-visaged, and carried herself as if she thought that Mr. Hawke had taken a great liberty in thus commanding her attendance.
In dignified silence she showed Loveday over the topmost story, where the servants’ bed-rooms were situated, and with a somewhat supercilious expression of countenance, watched her making various entries in her note-book.
In dignified silence, also, she led the way down to the second floor, where were the principal bed-rooms of the house.
“This is Miss Monroe’s room,” she said, as she threw back a door of one of these rooms, and then shut her lips with a snap, as if they were never going to open again.
The room that Loveday entered was, like the rest of the house, furnished in the style that prevailed in the early Victorian period. The bedstead was elaborately curtained with pink lined upholstery; the toilet-table was befrilled with muslin and tarlatan out of all likeness to a table. The one point, however, that chiefly attracted Loveday’s attention was the extreme neatness that prevailed throughout the apartment—a neatness, however, that was carried out with so strict an eye to comfort and convenience that it seemed to proclaim the hand of a first-class maid. Everything in the room was, so to speak, squared to the quarter of an inch, and yet everything that a lady could require in dressing lay ready to hand. The dressing-gown lying on the back of a chair had footstool and slippers beside it. A chair stood in front of the toilet table, and on a small Japanese table to the right of the chair were placed hair-pin box, comb and brush, and hand mirror.
“This room will want money spent upon it,” said Loveday, letting her eyes roam critically in all directions. “Nothing but Moorish wood-work will take off the squareness of those corners. But what a maid Miss Monroe must have. I never before saw a room so orderly and, at the same time, so comfortable.”
This was so direct an appeal to conversation that the sour-visaged maid felt compelled to open her lips.
“I wait on Miss Monroe, for the present,” she said snappishly; “but, to speak the truth, she scarcely requires a maid. I never before in my life had dealings with such a young lady.”
“She does so much for herself, you mean—declines much assistance.”
“She’s like no one else I ever had to do with.” (This was said even more snappishly than before.) “She not only won’t be helped in dressing, but she arranges her room every day before leaving it, even to placing the chair in front of the looking glass.”
“And to opening the lid of the hair-pin box, so that she may have the pins ready to her hand,” added Loveday, for a moment bending over the Japanese table, with its toilet accessories.
Another five minutes were all that Loveday accorded to the inspection of this room. Then, a little to the surprise of the dignified maid, she announced her intention of completing her survey of the bed-rooms some other time, and dismissed her at the drawing-room door, to tell Mr. Hawke that she wished to see him before leaving.
Mr. Hawke, looking much disturbed and with a telegram in his hand, quickly made his appearance.
“From my wife, to say she’ll be back to-night. She’ll be at Waterloo in about half an hour from now,” he said, holding up the brown envelope. “Now, Miss Brooke, what are we to do? I told you how much Mrs. Hawke objected to the investigation of this matter, and she is very—well—firm when she once says a thing, and—and—”
“Set your mind at rest,” interrupted Loveday; “I have done all I wished to do within your walls, and the remainder of my investigation can be carried on just as well at Lynch Court or at my own private rooms.”
“Done all you wished to do!” echoed Mr. Hawke in amazement; “why, you’ve not been an hour in the house, and do you mean to tell me you’ve found out anything about the necklace or the daggers?”
“Don’t ask me any questions just yet; I want you to answer one or two instead. Now, can you tell me anything about any letters Miss Monroe may have written or received since she has been in your house?”
“Yes, certainly, Sir George wrote to me very strongly about her correspondence, and begged me to keep a sharp eye on it, so as to nip in the bud any attempt to communicate with Danvers. So far, however, she does not appear to have made any such attempt. She is frankness itself over her correspondence. Every letter that has come addressed to her, she has shown either to me or to my wife, and they have one and all been letters from old friends of her father’s, wishing to make her acquaintance now that she is in England. With regard to letter-writing, I am sorry to say she has a marked and most peculiar objection to it. Every one of the letters she has received, my wife tells, me, remain unanswered still. She has never once been seen, since she came to the house, with a pen in her hand. And if she wrote on the sly, I don’t know how she would get her letters posted—she never goes outside the door by herself, and she would have no opportunity of giving them to any of the servants to post except Mrs. Hawke’s maid, and she is beyond suspicion in such a matter. She has been well cautioned, and, in addition, is not the sort of person who would assist a young lady in carrying on a clandestine correspondence.”
“I should imagine not! I suppose Miss Monroe has been present at the breakfast table each time that you have received your daggers through the post—you told me, I think, that they had come by the first post in the morning?”
“Yes; Miss Monroe is very punctual at meals, and has been present each time. Naturally, when I received such unpleasant missives, I made some sort of exclamation and then handed the thing round the table for inspection, and Miss Monroe was very much concerned to know who my secret enemy could be.”
“No doubt. Now, Mr. Hawke, I have a very special request to make to you, and I hope you will be most exact in carrying it out.”
“You may rely upon my doing so to the very letter.”
“Thank you. If, then, you should receive by post to-morrow morning one of those big envelopes you already know the look of, and find that it contains a sketch of three, not two, drawn daggers—”
“Good gracious! what makes you think such a thing likely?” exclaimed Mr. Hawke, greatly disturbed. “Why am I to be persecuted in this way? Am I to take it for granted that I am a doomed man?”
He began to pace the room in a state of great excitement.
“I don’t think I would if I were you,” answered Loveday calmly. “Pray let me finish. I want you to open the big envelope that may come to you by post to-morrow morning just as you have opened the others—in full view of your family at the breakfast-table—and to hand round the sketch it may contain for inspection to your wife, your nephew and to Miss Monroe. Now, will you promise me to do this?”
“Oh, certainly; I should most likely have done so without any promising. But—but—I’m sure you’ll understand that I feel myself to be in a peculiarly uncomfortable position, and I shall feel so very much obliged to you if you’ll tell me—that is if you’ll enter a little more fully into an explanation.”
Loveday looked at her watch. “I should think Mrs. Hawke would be just at this moment arriving at Waterloo; I’m sure you’ll be glad to see the last of me. Please come to me at my rooms in Gower Street to-morrow at twelve—here is my card. I shall then be able to enter into fuller explanations I hope. Good-bye.”
The old gentleman showed her politely downstairs, and, as he shook hands with her at the front door, again asked, in a most emphatic manner, if she did not consider him to be placed in a “peculiarly unpleasant position.”
Those last words at parting were to be the first with which he greeted her on the following m
orning when he presented himself at her rooms in Gower Street. They were, however, repeated in considerably more agitated a manner.
“Was there ever a man in a more miserable position!” he exclaimed, as he took the chair that Loveday indicated. “I not only received the three daggers for which you prepared me, but I got an additional worry, for which I was totally unprepared. This morning, immediately after breakfast, Miss Monroe walked out of the house all by herself, and no one knows where she has gone. And the girl has never before been outside the door alone. It seems the servants saw her go out, but did not think it necessary to tell either me or Mrs. Hawke, feeling sure we must have been aware of the fact.”
“So Mrs. Hawke has returned,” said Loveday. “Well, I suppose you will be greatly surprised if I inform you that the young lady, who has so unceremoniously left your house, is at the present moment to be found at the Charing Cross Hotel, where she has engaged a private room in her real name of Miss Mary O’Grady.”
“Eh! What! Private room! Real name O’Grady! I’m all bewildered!”
“It is a little bewildering; let me explain. The young lady whom you received into your house as the daughter of your old friend, was in reality the person engaged by Miss Monroe to fulfill the duties of her maid on board ship, after her native attendant had been landed at Malta. Her real name, as I have told you, is Mary O’Grady, and she has proved herself a valuable coadjutor to Miss Monroe in assisting her to carry out a programme, which she must have arranged with her lover, Mr. Danvers, before she left Pekin.”