A horror of Leonard Wroughton, a horror of being caught like a creature in a trap, came over her. She couldn’t bear it; she felt as if she couldn’t bear anything more at all. Then, just as she came to the very edge of endurance, she heard him swear softly to himself and turn away.
A moment later the door opened and shut again; the heavy step receded; she heard him mount the stairs. Each smallest sound seemed loud, and thrummed in her ears. She was really near to fainting as she pushed open the door of the cabinet and crept out into the dark, deserted room.
A minute passed—two, three, five. Chloe sitting in a heap on the floor, raised her head and began to think coherently again. The house was dead still. Leonard Wroughton, having made his tour of inspection, would not return; she felt sure of that. Thank goodness she had locked her door. If he tried the handle, or sent Emily to try it, they would only think that she was inside, asleep.
As these thoughts went through her mind, there emerged more and more clearly the conviction of a plan, of a mind moving according to plan, anticipating her own movements and bent on countering them. It was according to this plan that Leonard Wroughton had given out that he would be away for at least one night. He had not intended to be away; she felt sure of that. When he went off that morning with his suit-case and his talk of dining in town he had meant to return silently and unnoticed, as he had returned. Why?
Chloe answered the question easily enough. Those letters, Mr. Dane’s stock-in-trade, were as valuable now as in the days when Mr. Dane carried on his business and made the fortune which had bought Danesborough. There was another fortune in the safe for anyone who knew the ropes and had neither heart nor conscience.
Chloe went on thinking quite quickly and calmly. Wroughton had tried to trap her. He had made sure that she knew how to open the safe, and that she would use her knowledge on the first opportunity. He meant to have the letters. Chloe stiffened. Nobody should have them; she would see to it that nobody should have them. Danesborough was hers; and the cabinet was hers; and the safe was hers; and the letters were hers. A sort of shudder came over her. The money was hers—this horrible money, wrung from terror and shame and crime. It was hers!
She got on to her feet and leaned against the cabinet with a sense of having lost her way and blundered into some horrible place full of slime and fetid odours that rose from it and choked her. The money—Danesborough—they were hers. They were most foully tainted; and they were hers.
A dreadful pang of resentment shook Chloe. Anger against the dead shook her to the depth. He had brought this dishonour upon Danesborough; and he had brought it on her. Danesborough, where her people had lived for uncounted generations—he had dared to put this disgrace upon it. She felt as if she would never be clean again.
She set her teeth, and wondered how soon she could be gone. She was living on this money, using it. She must get away at once, back to Maxton, out of it all. Yes, that was it, she must get away. People couldn’t make you take money that you didn’t want and wouldn’t have. She would write at once to Mr. Hudson and tell him that she refused Mr. Dane’s legacy.
“I won’t take it, and they can’t make me. Oh, how did he dare to think that I would?”
Hot tears rushed to her eyes. She made a sudden movement, and struck her hand against the open door of the cabinet. What was she going to do about the cabinet? What was she going to do about the letters in the safe? The answer came as quick and hot as her tears:
“I must destroy them. I can’t go away until I have destroyed them.”
She turned, felt for her lamp, and put on the light. The beam slanted across those many, many packets of letters, written for the most part on the thick, expensive paper which does not lend itself readily to destruction. Chloe knew something about the time it takes to burn papers. Letters take longer than anything; they will not burn in their envelopes; they must be taken out and unfolded. The destruction of the letters in this safe would take many hours.
She climbed into the cabinet again, and took out the letters she had read and a few still unopened packets. Then she shut the safe. The rest would have to wait. She must have time to think. Just now she only wanted to fling herself down on her bed and cry her heart out in the kind dark that would not see how ashamed she was.
She piled the letters on the floor, and slowly, haltingly, she crossed the room and fetched the section which had to be fitted again into the cabinet to mask the safe. When the doors were locked upon it, she filled the lap of her dressing-gown with the letters and slipped her lamp into her pocket. At the door she switched on the light in the chandeliers for a moment, and looked down the room to make sure that she had left no trace. Everything was as cold, prim, and orderly as its wont. Her fingers jerked the switch; the brilliance died; a little red glow, and then blackness. She went slowly, very slowly, through the hall and up the stairs, feeling her way and making no sound.
When she came to her own door and unlocked it, the faint grating of the key seemed to her like an alarm that must rouse the house. She stood listening for a full minute before she dared lock the door on the inside.
The sounds of her own making died and were lost in the general stillness. The locked door, the feeling of being in her own room again, gave her confidence. She no longer wanted to throw herself down on the bed and cry her heart out; she wanted to deal with the letters and destroy them.
She made her way to the bed, tipped all the letters out of the skirt of her dressing-gown, and switched on the light in the small shaded reading-lamp which stood on the table near the head of the bed. The letters lay in a heap on the bright blue eiderdown. Chloe turned from them and looked towards the fireplace. There had been a fire there when she came to bed, but it had burnt itself out. She picked up a box of matches, and then put it down again. If anyone were to pass her door and see the light. She decided that there was no need for them to see it, and before she did anything else she pushed a piece of tissue paper into the keyhole and laid a coat across the bottom of the door. Then she carried the letters over to the hearth and, crouching there, realized that she was cold—she who was never cold. The embers in the grate were black, but a very faint warmth still came from them. Well, the letters would burn all the more easily for that.
She took the first letter out of its envelope, unfolded it, and held a lighted match to its lower edge. The flame caught in a thin blue line, and then ran upwards with a rush. She threw the envelope with its cynical endorsement into the flames and watched the whole die to a black film that could no longer yield its secret to anyone.
She lit the second letter; and so burned them one by one. It took a long time. Sometimes an edge curled over and showed a word or two before the flame and the blackness took them for ever. Once a name stood out, writhing in the fire; Chloe as glad when it was gone.
When all was done, and the grate full of the thin black ash that slowly turned to grey, she got up stiffly and stood looking down at her handiwork. The ash would fly about all over the room. She pushed it down with the shovel and put one or two lumps of coal upon it. Then she washed her hands, took the paper out of the keyhole, unlocked the door, and picked up her coat.
She wondered if she would sleep. She thought that she would like to sleep, to let a curtain fall upon all that she had done and felt that night. She did not feel ready to think of it, or to decide what she must do next. She wanted to let that curtain fall, and to sink behind it into a dreamless rest.
She slept until the maid drew up the blinds in the morning and let in the cold November light.
Chapter XV
Emily Wroughton seemed more than usually flustered and breathless at breakfast. At the moment of saying good-morning to Chloe she managed to upset the milk, and sat uttering little deprecatory exclamations and dabbing at the spilt milk with her table-napkin.
“I should leave it alone if I were you,” said Chloe.
“Oh, no! Such a mess—and
the servants—and you know Leonard likes things just so. I can’t think how I came to do it.” She sniffed, dropped her table-napkin, and began to rub the tip of her nose with a wispy handkerchief. She made it very pink, and some of the colour spread suddenly and unbecomingly to her cheeks as she said, “I told you I could never depend on him. Just fancy, after all, he came back late last night. But, there, I never know; I can’t depend on him a bit.” Chloe’s tongue ran away with her under the sharp spur of indignation.
“I should hate to have a husband that I couldn’t depend on,” she said.
Emily Wroughton laughed nervously.
“Oh, Miss Dane, how that sounds! But you know what I mean. He—he didn’t disturb you last night, did he?—coming in, I mean. Did you hear him?”
“I heard some one,” said Chloe shortly.
Mr. Wroughton had not hurried down to breakfast. He came out of his room at about the same time that Emily spilled the milk. Instead of going downstairs he strolled along the corridor, turned to the left, and passed the door of Chloe’s room. The door stood open, and a hard-featured, middle-aged housemaid was coming out with a dust-pan in her hand.
Mr. Wroughton stopped, and looked curiously at the dust-pan. It was full of a thin grey-black ash, so light that, as the woman moved, a particle or two floated off into the air.
“Hullo!” said Wroughton in a jocular tone. “Miss Dane been trying to burn the house down, Jessie?”
“It’s a wonder if she hasn’t,” said Jessie crossly, “seeing there’s nothing like paper for setting a chimney on fire. Why, the grate’s just fair stuffed with it. What in the world a young lady like her wants to sit up half the night writing letters land burning ’em, when she’s got the whole blessed day to do it in, beats me.”
The woman’s tone and manner were familiar; but Wroughton did not appear to resent them.
“Writing letters, eh? What makes you think that?”
“I suppose I can use my eyes,” said Jessie. “Half a wastepaper-basket full of tore up bits besides this mess in the grate.”
“Well, well,” said Wroughton. “Cheer up, Jessie.”
He passed on, and Jessie flounced off in the opposite direction. As soon as she had passed the corner and was out of sight, Wroughton turned and came back astonishingly lightly and quickly for so large a man. He entered Chloe’s room, spread his handkerchief on the floor and tipped the contents of the wastepaper-basket on to it.
Jessie had made the most of her grievance. The basket held a few torn sheets and no more. Leonard Wroughton gathered them up in his handkerchief, and went back to his own room whistling. Arrived there, he locked the door and spread the pieces of paper on the writing-table. He was glad to see that they were not torn very small. Most of them were blank, with no writing at all on either side. It did not take him long to determine that Chloe had begun and torn up three letters, and that they were all to Mr. Hudson. When the sheets were pieced together, one of them read:
“Dear Mr. Hudson,
“I can’t” and there broke off. The rest of the sheet was empty.
The next was in four pieces. It read:
“Dear Mr. Hudson,
“I want to see you at once. Can you come down here, or shall I come to town? I”
There was a blot after the “I,” but no more writing.
The third sheet ran:
“Dear Mr. Hudson,
“I have found out something that makes it quite impossible”
Chloe had stopped there and torn the sheet into half a dozen pieces.
Leonard Wroughton sat and looked at the three sheets for about five minutes. Then he tore them into much smaller bits, and pushed them down to the bottom of his own wastepaper-basket, which was tolerably full of circulars and bills, most of the latter being unopened.
So she had dodged him and opened the safe. The fragments which he had just disposed of meant that or nothing. Whilst he was congratulating himself on his precautions, she had slipped through them and done him down. She had certainly opened the safe. As certainly, she had taken out and destroyed letters whose value it was impossible to estimate. The question was, how many of them had she managed to destroy? He thought not so very many. He had had a look at the grate when he emptied the wastepaper-basket in Chloe’s room. It was clear; the contents of Jessie’s dust-pan represented the whole of the debris. The safe, with its piled up shelves, rose reassuringly before him. Chloe could have made very little impression, really, on Mr. Dane’s stock-in-trade. There was still a fortune left for anyone who could lay hands on it. One thing was certain, he must see the letter to Hudson, the letter which Chloe must have written; he was convinced that she must have completed a letter to Hudson. And he couldn’t be sure of Hudson. Hudson was too damned cautious; he wouldn’t put anything on paper. And he fussed like a hen if you used the telephone—as if the operator at the exchange hadn’t something better to do than to sit eaves-dropping all day. Even if you went to see him, he’d hedge, be non-committal, and behave as if Scotland Yard had its ear to the keyhole. He must see Chloe’s letter for himself before it went to Hudson at all.
He glanced at the hall table on his way to the dining-room. Emily had put a letter there for the post, but it had no companion.
In the dining-room he found Emily and Chloe just finishing breakfast. Chloe felt his eyes rest searchingly upon her face, and knew that, in spite of much cold water, she was pale and heavy-eyed enough. She bit her lip, and looked back at Wroughton with a spark of anger in her eyes.
For a moment there was that tension under which self-control is strained to very near breaking-point. Chloe’s look was an open, angry challenge; but Wroughton avoided it. With his usual “Good morning,” he passed to the side table and stood there helping himself.
Chloe pushed back her chair and got up. She was furious at her own self-betrayal, but for the life of her she could not keep her dislike of Wroughton out of her voice. She stood with her hand on the rail of the chair and spoke to his back.
“I should like the Napier in half an hour.” Wroughton finished cutting a slice of ham before he turned round.
“The Napier?” he said. “I’m afraid—didn’t you know?—didn’t Emily tell you?”
“I don’t know anything. What is it?” said Chloe.
“Well you know the Daimler has been away to be painted—Mr. Dane made the arrangement and I let it stand. The Napier was to go as soon as the Daimler came back; but there seems to have been some misunderstanding, and they fetched her yesterday whilst I was away.”
Chloe’s colour rose brightly.
“I should have been asked——” she began, and then stopped.
There was a little pause. Emily Wroughton said, “Oh, dear!” just under her breath, but her husband said nothing at all. He had seated himself, and was spreading a roll with butter.
“I’ll have the A.C. then.”
Wroughton looked up with a smile which Chloe thought insolent.
“Sorry, but the A.C. is out of action too. I had a slight mishap with her last night.”
“A slight mishap! What did you do?”
“I’m not quite sure. Bell is going to overhaul her this morning.”
Chloe turned away sharply. Her temper strained at the leash; she was afraid of letting it slip, afraid of what she might say if she did let it slip. She was mistress of Danesborough, but she could not order Wroughton out of the house. If she were of age—if she were only of age! If she let her temper go, this impossible situation would become more impossible still. She could not order Wroughton out of Danesborough, and she was only determined not to go herself until she had destroyed the rest of the letters.
She turned away and spoke to Emily:
“I shall walk down into the village, I think.” For once Emily earned her husband’s gratitude. “Oh, my dear! In this rain? You mustn’t think of it!”
“But Leonard or any of the servants would post your letter.”
“I’m sure they would,” said Chloe at the door. She flashed a look at Wroughton, and saw with pleasure that her tone had stung him. “I’m sure Mr. Wroughton would love to post my letter; but—I think I’ll post it myself.”
Leonard Wroughton finished his breakfast rather hastily. He was in the study when Chloe came downstairs. As soon as the front door had shut behind her he went to the telephone, waiting in frowning impatience for the click of the receiver at the other end. A voice said “Hullo,” and his features relaxed a little.
“That you, Jennings?” he said eagerly.
Chloe tramped along in the wet. The rain was coming straight down; there was no wind. The sky was one even grey. All the trees dripped, and the grass squelched under foot. She took a short cut across it to the gate, and came out upon a very muddy road. It was a relief to be out of Danesborough even for half an hour. She tramped on, and found herself presently wondering at the heat of her own temper a little while back.
“I’m becoming a perfectly hateful person—bad-tempered, and suspicious, and altogether horrid.”
Her suspicions of Wroughton—was there any foundation for them really? He might have had half a dozen good reasons for last night’s unexpected return. And if, by any chance, he had heard a sound in the house, it was no less than his duty to come down and make sure that all was in order.
“The fact is that I simply loathe him, and that makes me suspect everything he does. It shows what a beast I’m turning into. I never used to loathe people and suspect them. It’s this horrible place and those horrible letters—they’re like poison. Why—why—why on earth couldn’t I have been born in September or October instead of February?”
The Black Cabinet Page 9