The Black Cabinet (9 page)

They walked in silence to the corner. Then Chloe spoke stiffly:

“Well, Dr. Jennings?”

Again that odd, grave look.

“Well, Miss Dane, the fact is the whole household at Danesborough is in quarantine, and I oughtn't to have let you come into the village at all. I didn't think there would be anybody about on such a wet day, and I chanced it. But I really couldn't let you go across and post your letter, with Lady Adderley sitting there in her car, and Miss Adderley and her cousin standing talking to the Goddards just where you'd have to pass right through them to get to the letter-box—now, could I?”

“Quarantine?” said Chloe.

“Yes. We didn't want to frighten you, so you weren't told.”

Chloe's head lifted and her eyes flashed.

“I'm not easily frightened. And I ought to have been told. What is it?”

“One of the housemaids—she was removed in an ambulance the day before yesterday whilst you were out in the car.”

“What is it?” said Chloe again.

Dr. Jennings looked still more gravely concerned. She would hardly have known the rather facetious young man who had compared her to a sun-burst.

“I'd rather not say. I may have my own opinion; but I'd rather not say what it is until I get confirmation. Meanwhile, I'm afraid—I'm afraid I must be very strict about the quarantine. It's really necessary and serious. Nobody at Danesborough ought to leave the grounds until we know a little more. I don't want to frighten you, but, as I said before, I've got my own opinion.”

“Thank you,” said Chloe, “I'm not in the least frightened. I think it would have been much better if you had explained all this before. I'm not a child, and I ought to have been told. Goodbye, Dr. Jennings.”

Dr. Jennings reverted to the manner of gallantry.

“Not so easily rid of me, I'm afraid!” he said, with the rather conscious laugh which Chloe disliked so much. “It's my lucky morning, you know, because I've got to go up and see Wroughton about this business, and was expecting a dull tramp, instead of which I get the chance of a walk with you.”

Chapter XVI

Dr. Jennings was easily satisfied if he derived any pleasure from his walk with Chloe. He had, to be sure, the opportunity of learning her profile by heart; but the profile of a coldly monosyllabic damsel is an unsatisfactory thing to contemplate for any length of time. By the time they arrived at the house Dr. Jennings' gallantry had worn thin, and his temper rasped. He shut the study door behind him with something of a bang.

Wroughton pushed back his chair and started up, flushed and anxious.

“Well—well—did you get it?”

Jennings gave a half shrug of the shoulders, took a letter out of his pocket, and tossed it to Wroughton.

“Of course I got it. There it is.”

“How did you manage? She didn't suspect?”

“No, of course she didn't. I'm not that sort of mug. If I can't do a thing without bungling, I don't do it at all. As it happened, it was child's play. I had my own letters in my hand, and I took hers to post them with. The Adderley crows were blocking the road in front of the post office, and I came the heavy professional manner over her and worked off that quarantine stunt which we agreed upon. It came in very handy, and she lapped it all up.”

Wroughton turned the letter over, breathed heavily on the flap, and with care and patience got it open. It was quite short, almost as short as the fragments which Wroughton had read that morning:

“Dear Mr. Hudson,

“I want to tell you that I can't take Mr. Dane's legacy. I know I can't do anything legally until I'm of age; but I wanted to let you know that as soon as I possibly can I shall refuse it.

“Yours sincerely,

“Chloe Dane.”

As Wroughton exclaimed, Dr. Jennings came Hid looked over his shoulder. He emitted a long thistle, and then said:

“What rot!”

Wroughton was swearing. Chloe, Mr. Dane, and the maker of the safe behind the black cabinet seemed to share his invective pretty equally between them.

“If there were any way of getting into the damn thing without blowing up the house with dynamite, I'd chance it and snap my fingers at her,” he said furiously.

“Steady on. You're making rather a noise, you know, Len. Dynamite's a bit drastic. But I seem to have heard of safes having holes drilled in 'em.”

“Not this one. It's the new Baker–Bernstein patent. I was with the old man when he saw it through all the tests. Can't do a thing to it without blowing the house up too.”

“All right. Don't crumple that letter; it's got to go on to old Hudson by the next post.”

“Why?”

“You make me tired. I'm a law-abiding citizen and don't you forget it. Reading a letter's one thing, and suppressing it's quite another. Old Hudson's got to get this precious twaddle by the morning post.”

“I don't trust Hudson an inch. I know those cautious men; they'll go back on you every time they get rattled. That's why I had to have the letter.”

“Well, you've got the letter. What about it?” Wroughton came closer, dropped his voice to an angry whisper, and said:

“That's where Stran comes in. She opened the safe last night, took out some of the letters—, don't know how many—and burnt them”—his colour deepened almost to purple—“burnt them! And if she gets a chance, she'll burn the whole lot. With the letters burnt and the old man's fortune gone into the Treasury, where do you and I come in?”

“Well,” said Dr. Jennings, “I should still be a rising young professional man, but you, I expect would be in Queer Street.”

“It's up to Stran. If he can't come over a little milliner girl out of a raw provincial town, well, he's more of a fool than I ever took him for. He's got the field all to himself; and if he can't marry her and get her to change her mind about the money before February, well— The bother is, she can't stay here till February, or we lose the letters, thought I had her watched day and night, but she got away with them once, and she may again, must get her out of here.”

Dr. Jennings folded up Chloe's letter, replaced it in its envelope, and stuck it down.

“I've thought out quite a good dodge for that,” he said. Then he laughed. “Stran's going to earn his money hard. I swear I don't envy him is heiress. He's welcome to her for me.” Wroughton shot a glance of sudden suspicion at him.

“Have you been having a shot at her yourself? That's not in the bargain.”

“Oh, she's not my style,” said Dr. Jennings easily.

Chloe heard the telephone bell that afternoon, and got to the instrument before Wroughton did.

She heard him come into the room behind her and say, “It's almost certainly for me.” With the receiver at her ear, she threw a smilingly defiant look over her shoulder.

“Now why should it be? I
have
got some friends, you know, Mr. Wroughton.” Then, as a voice on the line reached her, she turned, nodded to him, and added, “This happens to be one of them; so if you wouldn't mind—”

As the door closed, she spoke into the telephone: “Yes, I heard you—and I recognized your voice too. I just had to get rid of some one who was in the room. When are you coming to see me?” Michael Foster at the other end of the line hesitated, and then said,

“I—well—I'm not sure.”

To Chloe's horror, she felt something like a lump in her throat. She wanted to see Michael—she wanted to see him very much indeed—not only because he came from right outside the horrid circle of suspicion and ill will. He stood for the old, light-hearted life in Maxton. Chloe thought of Maxton with yearning.

“You're not coming?” The dismay in her voice startled her as much as it pleased Michael.

“I—I—well, you must know that I'd come if could. I've been counting on it most awfully But I'm not on the job I expected to be on, and and—”

The tears rushed hot and stinging into Chloe' eyes. With a jerk she pushed the receiver back on to its hook, rang off with energy, and then stood there, biting her lip and feeling as if her last friend had forsaken her. She was furious with Michael for not coming, furious with herself for caring whether he came or not, and most furious of all with the little solacing whisper that said, “Perhaps—perhaps, after all, he'll come.”

On her way up to dress for dinner that evening, it occurred to Chloe that she would ring up Miss Allardyce and ask her whether she had filled her place. She didn't mean to stay in Maxton all her life, but she might do worse than go back there while she looked about her. At the moment Maxton stood for home and safety.

She opened the study door without any thought that Wroughton might be there—he usually went to dress early and came down late; but as the door opened she heard his voice within and drew back quickly. The door shut without any sound, but just before it shut she heard him say, “Stran rang up,”—just those three words and no more.

Chloe ran upstairs, glad to have avoided an awkward encounter. She had a passing wonder as to whom Wroughton had been telephoning to. So “Stran” had rung up that afternoon! Chloe began to be rather intrigued about Stran. It would have been curious if it had been his call that she had answered instead of Michael Foster's. “How wild Mr. Wroughton would have been!” she reflected with a spice of malice.

Chapter XVII

Chloe beguiled the evening with some serious plan-making. She would ring up Ally in the morning, and find out whether she would take her back.

“As a matter of fact, I expect she'll simply jump at me.”

She would also ring up Miss Tankerville, and ask to be put up for a night or two while she looked for a room.

“No. Bother! I can't do that because of this wretched quarantine. How stupid! I wonder how long it lasts—I ought to have asked.”

Dismay took hold of Chloe. She did not feel as if she could bear to stay another forty-eight hours at Danesborough. She had planned it all so nicely. Somehow she must get the remaining letters out of the safe. But she couldn't burn them here. She realized that the servants would talk if her grate continued to overflow with masses of black ash. As a matter of fact, they were talking already, for she had heard Jessie say something to the under housemaid when she ran upstairs to put on her hat that morning. It wouldn't do, it wouldn't do at all. No, she would get out the letters, take them down to Maxton with her, and burn them there, where it would be nobody's business but her own. She would have to watch her opportunity of course.

She went upstairs early; but she did not undress. There was a comfortable fire in her room, and she took a book and sat down by the shaded reading-lamp.

An hour passed. And then, just as she was getting sleepy, there came a tapping on the door, and the handle was turned gently. “Thank goodness I locked it. Now who on earth—”

There was another tap, a little louder; and then Emily Wroughton's voice, raised in a timid whisper:

“Miss Dane—Miss Dane—”

Chloe yawned of design.

“What is it?” she said in startled tones. She hoped she sounded sleepy enough.

“I saw a light under your door; it looked—it looked like fire.”

Chloe permitted herself a sleepy giggle.

“Dear Mrs. Wroughton, do go to bed, I was reading a little.”

“You're sure you're all right?” “

Yes, of course.”

Emily stood another minute at the door. In sudden exasperation Chloe snicked the light out, yawned again, and said good-night in the drowsiest voice she could manage, after which she heard Emily move, and caught the sound of her slow and altering retreat. She waited in the dark for perhaps half an hour, and then went downstairs to the drawing-room, locking the bedroom door behind her.

She had no intention of being caught by Wroughton to-night. If he came down—and Emily's visit convinced her that he meant to come down—she was not going to be caught at a disadvantage, as she had so very nearly been caught last night.

She slipped through the drawing-room door, closed it behind her, and found her way to the middle one of the three long windows which faced the terrace. Here she sat down on the broad window-seat and waited. She was exactly opposite the cabinet. The curtains screened her admirably. If Leonard Wroughton had not looked behind them last night, he was not at all likely to do so to-night. Then, when he had been and gone, she could clear the safe at her leisure. She hoped that he would come quickly, for the room was cold, and she wished now that she had slipped on a coat before coming down. She was still in her black velvet dinner dress. In her own room she had been more than warm enough, but here the cold and silence crept in on her.

She moved presently, turning to the window and pressing her face close to the glass in an attempt to see out; but she could distinguish nothing. The night was dead dark, and a thick mist hung upon the pane. Chloe thought longingly of Maxton High Street, with its lamps and its lighted shops. An affectionate memory of the new cinema, with its double arch of little, brilliant, vulgar lights, and its three hideous arc lamps, very nearly brought tears to her eyes. She turned impatiently from the window, and heard what she had been waiting for—the sound of the opening door.

Instantly she was a-tingle with excitement. It was Wroughton of course; but she must see him to watch what he would do. She leaned forward, parting the curtains by just the smallest space imaginable, and saw Leonard Wroughton stand in the door-way, his hand on the switch of the electric light, the room brilliant before him under the sudden glare of all the chandeliers. He spoke over his shoulder to some one behind him.

“All right,” he said, and came into the room followed by Dr. Jennings.

They crossed to where the black cabinet stood in its alcove. And then Jennings said something in a low voice. Chloe strained, but could not catch a word. She saw Wroughton take a pair of fine steel pliers out of his pocket and fiddle with the lock of the cabinet. He had it open in a trice.

“And not for the first time,” thought Chloe to herself.

Jennings stood aside whilst Wroughton lifted out the middle section and laid it on the floor. Then Jennings spoke:

“Aren't you going to lock this door? It'd be a bit awkward if she came in.”

“I've left Emily on guard,” said Wroughton, taking off his coat. “Now you'd better hold the light whilst I have a shot at the old man's notes.”

“Think they're any good?” Dr. Jennings' tone was tinged with sarcasm.

Wroughton turned on him with sudden anger:

“What a wet blanket you are! Why shouldn't they be good? Why shouldn't they be the real thing? Do you suppose a man like old Dane makes a list of words of five letters and locks it away in the back of his own private drawer just for the sake of amusing himself? When I found it this afternoon I could have shouted the house down.”

“All right, go ahead,” said Jennings. “After all, the proof of the pudding's in the eating. Give me the lamp and the list, and you go ahead and see whether any of the words'll move that damn lock.”

Anger and excitement together rose in Chloe to boiling point. So they had found a list which might, or might not, contain the word that opens the safe! Supposing it did. Supposing they opened the safe before her very eyes, and began to take out the letters. Chloe made up her mind that the very moment the safe door swung open she would make a dash for the hall and rouse the house. She could scream, and she could beat the great bronze gong. It would be a bold measure but she thought Leonard Wroughton would find himself in an awkward position. After all, people can't open safes that don't belong to them without impunity.

She watched Wroughton crawl painfully into the middle of the cabinet whilst Jennings directed the ray of an electric lamp so as to light up the door of the safe. Then Jennings began to read out words from a paper which he laid on the edge of the cabinet. They were all quite ordinary words “Dream,” “Table,” “Motor,” “Coals” … and so forth.

In the pause between each word Leonard Wroughton's fingers fumbled with the lock. At each failure Dr. Jennings' cool voice became a little cooler, and Wroughton's comments more heated. Half way through the list he backed out, and stood mopping a scarlet face and swearing.

Dr. Jennings relieved him. He handled the lock with nimbler fingers than Wroughton had done, with no better result. As word followed word, Wroughton's suppressed fury threatened his self-control more and more. His voice rose, and when the last word proved to be as complete a failure the first, he tore the paper across and stamped it under foot in an outburst of uncontrolled rage. “Well, that's that,” said Dr. Jennings, dusting his hands as he emerged. “My good Len, what waste of energy! I told you all along that it would be a wash-out. And what I want now is drink.”

He replaced the missing section as he spoke, and carefully picked up all the torn paper. Wroughton, ill raging, manipulated the lock of the cabinet, and they went out together, leaving the room to darkness and Chloe.

As soon as their footsteps had died away, Chloe sprang up and stretched herself. For nearly half a hour she had not dared to move, and hardly to' breathe. Excitement; burning indignation; a tense watching of the fingers that fumbled with the lock; and now and again a sharp, stabbing fear when they paused—these things had been her portion. At the outset her plan of rousing the house had seemed good enough; but as the half hour passed, she began to realize how plausible a front Wroughton would be able to put upon the business. The servants were practically his servants; they might even be his creatures, part of the horrible organization which Mr. Dane had controlled. As this thought rose up before her, Chloe's courage wavered, and she felt that she was only a girl of twenty, alone in a house full horrible things.

She had not liked Dr. Jennings, but it was shock to find him in Wroughton's company at this hour, endeavouring to open the safe. She wondered how much he knew of its contents. To think a man rather ill-bred and familiar is one thing but to judge him to be one of a blackmailing gang is quite another. If he were really in the conspiracy, the whole affair became much more menacing. This quarantine—was it all part of the game—part of a plan to seclude her until she did what they wanted her to do? Oh, if only kind Dr. Golding had never gone away! Chloe had only seen him twice, but she had felt instinctively that he was one of those people whom one can trust and lean upon. Well, it was no good wishing for him or for anyone else. When there's no one to help you, you must help yourself.

She parted the curtains, and went over to the cabinet.

“I hope to goodness he hasn't messed up the lock with his wretched pliers,” she thought as she pushed her key home. The catch went smoothly back, and the doors opened.