by Anne Austin
“The police and some of the railway officials have made a ‘diligent search’ in the neighbourhood of the railway station, but no ‘poor lifeless body’ has been found. The police authorities are inclined to the belief that the letter is a hoax, though they are still investigating the matter.”
In the same deliberate fashion as he had opened and read the cutting, Mr. Mutchey folded and returned it to Kristen.
“May I ask,” he said sarcastically, “what you see in that silly hoax to waste your and my valuable time over?”
“I wanted to know,” said Kristen, in the same level tones as before, “if you saw anything in it that might in some way connect this discovery with the robbery at Craigen Court?”
Mr. Mutchey stared at her in utter, blank astonishment.
“When I was a boy,” he said sarcastically as before, “I used to play at a game called ‘what’s my thought like?’ Someone would think of something absurd—say the top of the monument—and someone else would hazard a guess that his thought might be—say the toe of his left boot, and that unfortunate individual would have to show the connection between the toe of his left boot and the top of the monument. Miss Carter, I have no wish to repeat the silly game this evening for your benefit and mine.”
“Oh, very well,” said Kristen, calmly; “I fancied you might like to talk it over, that was all. Give me my ‘sailing orders,’ as you call them, and I’ll endeavour to concentrate my attention on the little French maid and her various lovers.”
Mr. Mutchey grew amiable again.
“That’s the point on which I wish you to fix your thoughts,” he said; “you had better start for Craigen Court by the first train tomorrow—it’s about sixty miles down the Great Eastern line. Huxwell is the station you must land at. There one of the grooms from the Court will meet you, and drive you to the house. I have arranged with the housekeeper there—Mrs. Williams, a very worthy and discreet person—that you shall pass in the house for a niece of hers, on a visit to recruit, after severe study in order to pass board-school teachers’ exams. Naturally you have injured your eyes as well as your health with overwork; and so you can wear your blue spectacles. Your name, by the way, will be Jane Smith—better write it down. All your work will be among the servants of the establishment, and there will be no necessity for you to see either Sir George or Lady Cathrow—in fact, neither of them have been apprised of your intended visit—the fewer we take into our confidence the better. I’ve no doubt, however, that Bates will hear from Scotland Yard that you are in the house, and will make a point of seeing you.”
“Has Bates unearthed anything of importance?”
“Not as yet. He has discovered one of the girl’s lovers, a young farmer of the name of Holt; but as he seems to be an honest, respectable young fellow, and entirely above suspicion, the discovery does not count for much.”
“I think there’s nothing else to ask,” said Kristen, rising to take her departure. “Of course, I’ll telegraph, should need arise, in our usual cipher.”
The first train that left Bishopsgate for Huxwell on the following morning included, among its passengers, Kristen Carter, dressed in the neat black supposed to be appropriate to servants of the upper class. The only literature with which she had provided herself in order to beguile the tedium of her journey was a small volume bound in paper boards, and entitled, “The Reciter’s Treasury.” It was published at the low price of one shilling, and seemed specially designed to meet the requirements of third-rate amateur reciters at penny readings.
Miss Carter appeared to be all-absorbed in the contents of this book during the first half of her journey. During the second, she lay back in the carriage with closed eyes, and motionless as if asleep or lost in deep thought.
The stopping of the train at Huxwell aroused her, and set her collecting together her wraps.
It was easy to single out the trim groom from Craigen Court from among the country loafers on the platform. Someone else beside the trim groom at the same moment caught her eye—Bates, from Scotland Yard, got up in the style of a commercial traveller, and carrying the orthodox “commercial bag” in his hand. He was a small, wiry man, with red hair and whiskers, and an eager, hungry expression of countenance.
“I am half-frozen with cold,” said Kristen, addressing Sir George’s groom; “if you’ll kindly take charge of my portmanteau, I’d prefer walking to driving to the Court.”
The man gave her a few directions as to the road she was to follow, and then drove off with her box, leaving her free to indulge Mr. Bate’s evident wish for a walk and confidential talk along the country road.
Bates seemed to be in a happy frame of mind that morning.
“Quite a simple affair, this, Miss Carter,” he said: “a walk over the course, I take it, with you working inside the castle walls and I unearthing without. No complications as yet have arisen, and if that girl does not find herself in jail before another week is over her head, my name is not Jeremiah Bates.”
“You mean the French maid?”
“Why, yes, of course. I take it there’s little doubt but what she performed the double duty of unlocking the safe and the window too. You see I look at it this way, Miss Carter: all girls have lovers, I say to myself, but a pretty girl like that French maid, is bound to have double the number of lovers than the plain ones. Now, of course, the greater the number of lovers, the greater the chance there is of a criminal being found among them. That’s plain as a pikestaff, isn’t it?”
“Just as plain.”
Bates felt encouraged to proceed.
“Well, then, arguing on the same lines, I say to myself, this girl is only a pretty, silly thing, not an accomplished criminal, or she wouldn’t have admitted leaving open the safe door; give her rope enough and she’ll hang herself. In a day or two, if we let her alone, she’ll be bolting off to join the fellow whose nest she has helped to feather, and we shall catch the pair of them ‘twixt here and Dover Straits, and also possibly get a clue that will bring us on the traces of their accomplices. Eh, Miss Carter, that’ll be a thing worth doing?”
“Undoubtedly. Who is this coming along in this buggy at such a good pace?”
The question was added as the sound of wheels behind them made her look round.
Bates turned also. “Oh, this is young Holt; his father farms land about a couple of miles from here. He is one of Stephanie’s lovers, and I should imagine about the best of the lot. But he does not appear to be first favourite; from what I hear someone else must have made the running on the sly. Ever since the robbery I’m told the young woman has given him the cold shoulder.”
As the young man came nearer in his buggy he slackened pace, and Kristen could not but admire his frank, honest expression of countenance,
“Room for one—can I give you a lift?” he said, as he came alongside of them.
And to the ineffable disgust of Bates, who had counted upon at least an hour’s confidential talk with her, Miss Carter accepted the young farmer’s offer, and mounted beside him in his buggy.
As they went swiftly along the country road, Kristen explained to the young man that her destination was Craigen Court, and that as she was a stranger to the place, she must trust to him to put her down at the nearest point to it that he would pass.
At the mention of Craigen Court his face clouded.
“They’re in trouble there, and their trouble has brought trouble on others,” he said a little bitterly.
“I know,” said Kristen sympathetically; “it is often so. In such circumstances as these suspicions frequently fastens on an entirely innocent person.”
“That’s it! that’s it!” he cried excitedly; “if you go into that house you’ll hear all sorts of wicked things said of her, and see everything setting in dead against her. But she’s innocent. I swear to you she is as innocent as you or I are.”
His voice rang out above the clatter of his horse’s hoots. He seemed to forget that he had mentioned no name, and that Kristen,
as a stranger, might be at a loss to know to whom he referred.
“Who is guilty Heaven only knows,” he went on after a moment’s pause; “it isn’t for me to give an ill name to anyone in that house; but I only say she is innocent, and that I’ll stake my life on.”
“She is a lucky girl to have found one to believe in her, and trust her as you do,” said Kristen, even more sympathetically than before.
“Is she? I wish she’d take advantage of her luck, then,” he answered bitterly. “Most girls in her position would be glad to have a man to stand by them through thick and thin. But not she! Ever since the night of that accursed robbery she has refused to see me—won’t answer my letters—won’t even send me a message. And, great Heavens! I’d marry her tomorrow, if I had the chance, and dare the world to say a word against her.”
He whipped up his pony. The hedges seemed to fly on either side of them, and before Kristen realized that half her drive was over, he had drawn rein, and was helping her to alight at the servants’ entrance to Craigen Court.
“You’ll tell her what I’ve said to you, if you get the opportunity, and beg her to see me, if only for five minutes?” he petitioned before he re-mounted his buggy. And Kristen, as she thanked the young man for his kind attention, promised to make an opportunity to give his message to the girl.
Mrs. Williams, the housekeeper, welcomed Kristen in the servants’ hall, and then took her to her own room to pull off her wraps. Mrs. Williams was the widow of a London tradesman, and a little beyond the average housekeeper in speech and manner.
She was a genial, pleasant woman, and readily entered into conversation with Kristen. Tea was brought in, and each seemed to feel at home with the other. Kristen in the course of this easy, pleasant talk, elicited from her the whole history of the events of the day of the robbery, the number and names of the guests who sat down to dinner that night, together with some other apparently trivial details.
The housekeeper made no attempt to disguise the painful position in which she and every one of the servants of the house felt themselves to be at the present moment.
“We are none of us at our ease with each other now,” she said, as she poured out hot tea for Kristen, and piled up a blazing fire. “Everyone fancies that everyone else is suspecting him or her, and trying to rake up past words or deeds to bring in as evidence. The whole house seems under a cloud. And at this time of year, too; just when everything as a rule is at its merriest!” and here she gave a doleful glance to the big bunch of holly and mistletoe hanging from the ceiling.
“I suppose you are generally very merry downstairs at Christmas time?” said Kristen. “Servants’ balls, theatricals, and all that sort of thing?”
“I should think we were! When I think of this time last year and the fun we all had, I can scarcely believe it is the same house. Our ball always follows my lady’s ball, and we have permission to ask our friends to it, and we keep it up as late as ever we please. We begin our evening with a concert and recitations in character, then we have a supper and then we dance right on till morning; but this year!”—she broke off, giving a long, melancholy shake of her head that spoke volumes.
“I suppose,” said Kristen, “some of your friends are very clever as musicians or reciters?”
“Very clever indeed. Sir George and my lady are always present during the early part of the evening, and I should like you to have seen Sir George last year laughing fit to kill himself at Harry Emmett dressed in prison dress with a bit of oakum in his hand, reciting the “Noble Convict!” Sir George said if the young man had gone on the stage, he would have been bound to make his fortune.”
“Half a cup, please,” said Kristen, presenting her cup. “Who was this Harry Emmett then—a sweetheart of one of the maids?”
“Oh, he would flirt with them all, but he was sweetheart to none. He was footman to Colonel James, who is a great friend of Sir George’s, and Harry was constantly backwards and forwards bringing messages from his master. His father, I think, drove a cab in London, and Harry for a time did so also; then he took it into his head to be a gentleman’s servant, and great satisfaction he gave as such. He was always such a bright, handsome young fellow and so full of fun, that everyone liked him. But I shall tire you with all this; and you, of course, want to talk about something so different;” and the housekeeper sighed again, as the thought of the dreadful robbery entered her brain once more.
“Not at all. I am greatly interested in you and your festivities. Is Emmett still in the neighbourhood? I should amazingly like to hear him recite myself.”
“I’m sorry to say he left Colonel James about six months ago. We all missed him very much at first. He was a good, kind-hearted young man, and I remember he told me he was going away to look after his dear old grandmother, who had a sweet-stuff shop somewhere or other, but where I can’t remember.”
Kristen was leaning back in her chair now, with eyelids drooped so low that she literally looked out through “slits” instead of eyes.
Suddenly and abruptly she changed the conversation.
“When will it be convenient for me to see Lady Cathrow’s dressing-room?” she asked.
The housekeeper looked at her watch. “Now, at once,” she answered: “it’s a quarter to five now and my lady sometimes goes up to her room to rest for half an hour before she dresses for dinner.”
“Is Stephanie still in attendance on Lady Cathrow?” Miss Carter asked as she followed the housekeeper up the back stairs to the bedroom floor.
“Yes, Sir George and my lady have been goodness itself to us through this trying time, and they say we are all innocent till we are proved guilty, and will have it that none of our duties are to be in any way altered.”
“Stephanie is scarcely fit to perform hers, I should imagine?”
“Scarcely. She was in hysterics nearly from morning till night for the first two or three days after the detectives came down, but now she has grown sullen, eats nothing and never speaks a word to any of us except when she is obliged. This is my lady’s dressing-room, walk in please.”
Kristen entered a large, luxuriously furnished room, and naturally made her way straight to the chief point of attraction in it—the iron safe fitted into the wall that separated the dressing-room from the bedroom.
It was a safe of the ordinary description, fitted with a strong iron door and Chubb lock. And across this door was written with chalk in characters that seemed defiant in their size and boldness, the words: “To be let, unfurnished.”
Kristen spent about five minutes in front of this safe, all her attention concentrated upon the big, bold writing.
She took from her pocket-book a narrow strip of tracing-paper and compared the writing on it, letter by letter, with that on the safe door. This done she turned to Mrs. Williams and professed herself ready to follow her to the room below.
Mrs. Williams looked surprised. Her opinion of Miss Carter’s professional capabilities suffered considerable diminution.
“The gentlemen detectives,” she said, “spent over an hour in this room; they paced the floor, they measured the candles, they—”
“Mrs. Williams,” interrupted Kristen, “I am quite ready to look at the room below.” Her manner had changed from gossiping friendliness to that of the business woman hard at work at her profession.
Without another word, Mrs. Williams led the way to the little room which had proved itself to be the “weak point” of the house.
They entered it by the door which opened into a passage leading to the back-stairs of the house. Kristen found the room exactly what it had been described to her by Mr. Mutchey. It needed no second glance at the window to see the ease with which anyone could open it from the outside, and swing themselves into the room, when once the brass catch had been unfastened.
Kristen wasted no time here. In fact, much to Mrs. Williams’s surprise and disappointment, she merely walked across the room, in at one door and out at the opposite one, which opened into the
large inner hall of the house.
Here, however, she paused to ask a question:
“Is that chair always placed exactly in that position?” she said, pointing to an oak chair that stood immediately outside the room they had just quitted.
The housekeeper answered in the affirmative. It was a warm corner. “My lady” was particular that everyone who came to the house on messages should have a comfortable place to wait in.
“I shall be glad if you will show me to my room now,” said Kristen, a little abruptly; “and will you kindly send up to me a county trade directory, if, that is, you have such a thing in the house?”
Mrs. Williams, with an air of offended dignity, led the way to the bedroom quarters once more. The worthy housekeeper felt as if her own dignity had, in some sort, been injured by the want of interest Miss Carter had evinced in the rooms which, at the present moment, she considered the “show” rooms of the house.
“Shall I send someone to help you unpack?” she asked, a little stiffly, at the door of Kristen’s room.
“No, thank you; there will not be much unpacking to do. I must leave here by the first up-train tomorrow morning.”
“Tomorrow morning! Why, I have told everyone you will be here at least a fortnight!”
“Ah, then you must explain that I have been suddenly summoned home by telegram. I’m sure I can trust you to make excuses for me. Do not, however, make them before supper-time. I shall like to sit down to that meal with you. I suppose I shall see Stephanie then?”