Johnny Ludlow, Third Series. Henry Wood

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ