THE PLUNDER OF THE MUNIMENT CHEST.
The sight of the girl he fondly loved lying senseless at his feet, with
a white face and closed eyelids, filled Lucius Davoren with unspeakable
agony and remorse. How little had he calculated the effect of his words
upon this too-sensitive nature! To him the danger involved in the plot
which he suspected was but a small thing—a difficulty to be met and
grappled with. That was all. But to this inexperienced girl the thought
of a midnight intruder, of a stranger’s secret entrance into the house,
with the connivance of its treacherous inmates, was doubtless appalling.
Could he despise his betrothed for her want of courage? No! His first
thought was professional. This sudden fainting fit was no doubt the
evidence of weakened health. Days of patient attendance upon the
invalid, nights rendered sleepless by anxiety, had done their work.
Lucille’s strength had given way—that change in her appearance and
manner which had so much disturbed him was but one of the indications
of broken health. And he, who loved her better than life itself, felt
himself guilty of cruel neglect in not having ere this discovered
the truth. That gentle self-sacrificing spirit was stronger than the
fragile frame which was its earthly temple.
He lifted her from the ground, placed her in Mr. Sivewright’s
easy-chair by the open window, and then rang the bell loudly.
Mrs. Wincher came, but entered the room with head flung back, and a
lofty air, which might have become Queen Eleanor in the presence of
Fair Rosamond. At sight of her unconscious mistress, however, Mrs.
Wincher gave a piteous scream, and flew to her side.
‘Whatever have you been and gone and said to this poor dear,’ she
exclaimed indignantly, flinging a scornful glance at Lucius, ‘to make
her faint dead off like that? I suppose you’ve been accusing _her_ of
robbing her grandfather. I’m sure it wouldn’t surprise me if you had.’
‘Don’t be angry, Mrs. Wincher,’ said Lucius; ‘but bring me some cold
water directly, and a little brandy.’
Mrs. Wincher, alarmed for the safety of her mistress, flew to fetch
these restoratives, but obeyed Mr. Davoren as it were, under protest,
in his professional capacity.
A little care restored Lucille to consciousness, but even after she had
recovered from her swoon, she seemed strangely shaken, and looked at
her lover with an expression full of vague fear.
He began to reproach her, with infinite tenderness, for her neglect of
her own health.
‘You have been doing too much, darling,’ he said, kissing the pale
forehead that rested on his shoulder, ‘and I have been guilty of
shameful neglect in allowing you to endanger your health. And now,
dear, you must obey orders. You must go straight up to your room and
let Wincher help you to bed, and lie there quietly all day long, and
be fed with beef-tea and good old port until the colour comes back to
those poor pale cheeks.’
Lucille persistently refused compliance with these injunctions.
‘Indeed, indeed, Lucius, there is nothing the matter with me,’ she said
earnestly.
‘Nothing the matter when you fainted just now—a sure sign of extreme
weakness—especially in one not accustomed to fainting?’
‘O, that was nothing. You frightened me so with your suggestions of
danger.’
‘Do not be afraid any longer, dearest; there is no danger that can
assail you, except the danger of your ruining your health by refusing
to be guided by my advice. You want rest, and ought to endeavour to get
several hours’ good sleep.’
‘It wouldn’t be the least use for me to try to go to sleep before
night,’ she said; ‘my mind is much too active for that. I’ll obey you
in anything else you like, Lucius, but don’t ask me to lie down in my
room to-day. I should worry myself into a fever.’
‘Very well,’ replied Lucius, with a sigh; ‘I won’t insist upon anything
you object to. You can rest in this room. If I find your grandfather no
better this morning I shall bring in a nurse.’
‘O, please don’t.’
‘Nonsense, Lucille. I am not going to allow your life to be sacrificed
to your mistaken notion of duty. Some one must nurse Mr. Sivewright,
and that some one must not be you.’
‘Let it be Mrs. Wincher, then.’
‘No; I have not too high an opinion of these faithful Winchers. I shall
bring in a woman upon whom I can rely.’
Lucille looked at him with that strange scared expression he had seen
so often of late, and then said with some bitterness:
‘It seems to me that you are master in this house, Lucius, so I suppose
you must do as you please.’
‘I only constitute myself master here when I see peril,’ he replied
calmly; ‘and now, Lucille, try to obey me in some small measure at
least. Let Mrs. Wincher bring a sofa of some kind to this room, and lie
down and try to sleep. I will send you a tonic as soon as I get home.
Good-bye.’
He bent down to kiss her as she sat in the armchair, where he had
placed her, too weak to rise.
‘Shall you come here again this evening?’ she asked.
‘Yes; your grandfather wants to talk to me about something, and I
daresay I shall be an hour or so with him in the evening. After that I
shall have something to tell you, Lucille, if you are well enough to
hear it. Something pleasant.’
‘You are not going to frighten me any more, I hope,’ she said.
‘No, darling, I will never again frighten you.’
‘I daresay you despise me for my cowardice.’
‘Despise you, Lucille? No, I only regard this nervous terror as a sign
of weakened health. I am very sure it is not natural to you to be
wanting in courage.’
‘No,’ she answered, with a faint sigh, ‘it is not natural to me.’
She turned her face away from him, and tears fell slowly from the
sad eyes, as she faltered a faint good-bye in response to his tender
leave-taking.
‘O, merciful God,’ she ejaculated, when the door had closed behind her
lover, ‘Thou who knowest the weight of my burden, help me to bear it
patiently.’
* * * * *
Lucius found no improvement in his patient—retrogression rather. But
this might be fairly accounted for by Mr. Sivewright’s excitement of
the night before.
‘I did very wrong to let you talk so much,’ said Lucius; ‘you are more
feverish than usual this morning.’
‘I am altogether worse,’ answered the old man fretfully.
Then came a detailed account of his aches and pains. There were
symptoms that puzzled the surgeon, despite his wide experience, and
much wider study.
‘Let me bring a physician to see you this afternoon,’ said Lucius;
‘there is something in this case which I hardly feel myself strong
enough to cope with.’
‘No,’ answered the patient doggedly; ‘I told you I would have no
stranger come to stare at me. Cure me if you can, and if you can’t,
leave it alone. I have little faith in medicine. I contrived to live
sixty-five years without it, and the experience I have had of it in the
sixty-sixth year has not been calculated to strengthen my belief in its
efficacy.’
‘Did you finish that last bottle of medicine?’
‘No, there is a dose left.’
‘Then I’ll take the bottle home with me,’ said Lucius, selecting the
bottle from among two or three empty phials on the mantelshelf, ‘and
make another change in your medicine.’
‘It seems to me that you chop and change a good deal,’ said the patient
testily. ‘But why take that bottle? You must know what you gave me.’
‘I am not quite clear about it,’ answered Lucius, after a moment’s
hesitation; ‘I may as well put the bottle in my pocket.’
‘Do as you like. But don’t forget that I want an hour’s talk with you
this evening.’
‘You had better defer that till you are stronger.
‘That time may never come. No, I will defer nothing. What I have to say
to you is of no small importance. It concerns your own interests, and I
recommend you to hear it to-night.’
‘I cannot consent to discuss any subject which may agitate you as you
were agitated last night,’ said Lucius firmly.
‘This other subject will not agitate me. I can promise that.’
‘On that condition I will hear whatever you may have to say.’
‘Good. You will find it to your own advantage to obey me. Be with me at
the same hour as you were last night.’
‘I will. But as you are a trifle weaker to-day than you were yesterday,
I should recommend you not to get up, except for an hour in the middle
of the day, while your bed is being made.’
‘Very well.’
Lucius left him, and in the corridor found himself face to face with
Mrs. Wincher.
‘She has been listening, I daresay,’ he thought, having made up his
mind that these Winchers were of the scorpion breed, and their long
years of fidelity only a sham. ‘After all, dishonesty is only a matter
of opportunity, and the domestic traitor must bide his time to betray.’
Mrs. Wincher’s manner and bearing were curiously changed since Lucius
had last seen her. She no longer flung her head aloft; she no longer
regarded him with looks of scorn. Her present air was that of extreme
meekness; he thought he beheld traces of shame and contrition in her
visage.
‘How do you find master this morning, sir?’ she asked.
‘Worse,’ Lucius answered shortly.
‘Dear, dear! that’s bad! And I’m sure it isn’t for want of care. I’m
sure the beef-tea that I gave him used to be a jelly—that firm as you
could cut it with a knife—though Miss Lucille did take the making of it
out of my hands.’
‘Miss Sivewright is naturally anxious about her grandfather,’ answered
Lucius coldly, ‘and I am very anxious too.’
He was about to pass Mrs. Wincher, without farther parley, when she
stopped him.
‘O, if you please, Dr. Davory,’ she said meekly, ‘would you be kind
enough to let my good gentleman have a few words with you? The fact is,
he’s got somethink on his mind, and he’d feel more comfortable if he
ast your advice. I didn’t know nothink about it till five minutes ago,
though I could see at breakfast-time as he was low-spirited and had no
happetite for his resher; but I thought that was along of master being
so bad. Howsumdever, five minutes ago he ups and tells me all about
it, and says he, “If I tell Dr. Davory, I shall feel more comfortable
like,” he says. So I says I’d ast you to have a few words with him.’
‘Where is he?’ asked Lucius, his suspicions increased by this singular
application.
‘In the room where the bricklebrack is kep’,’ answered Mrs. Wincher.
‘He’s been dustin’ as usual, and he said he’d take the liberty to wait
there for you.’
‘Very well; I’ll go and hear what he has to say.’
Lucius went down-stairs to the large room with its multifarious
contents—the room which held the chief part of Mr. Sivewright’s
collection.
Here he found Mr. Wincher, moving about feebly with a dusting brush in
his hand.
‘Well, Mr. Wincher, what’s the matter with you this morning?’ asked
Lucius. ‘Do you want to consult me professionally?’
‘No, sir. It isn’t anything that way,’ answered the old man, who was
somewhat his wife’s superior in education, but infinitely less able
to hold his own conversationally, such intellectual powers as he may
have originally possessed having run to seed during his long dull life,
and the only remaining brightness being that feeble glimmer which
still illumined the regions of art. He would swear to an old master’s
handling—could tell a Memling from a Van Eyck—or an Ostade from a
Jan Steen—knew every mark to be found on old china or delf, from the
earliest specimens of Rouen ware to the latest marvels of Sèvres, from
the clumsiest example of Battersea to the richest purple and gilding of
Worcester. But beyond the realms of art the flame of Jacob Wincher’s
intellect was dim as a farthing rushlight.
‘I’ve had a shock this morning, sir,’ he said.
‘Some kind of fit, do you mean?’ asked Lucius. ‘You said you didn’t
want to consult me professionally.’
‘No more I do, sir. The shock I’m talking about wasn’t bodily, but
mental. I’ve made a dreadful discovery, Mr. Davoren. This house has
been robbed.’
‘I’m not surprised to hear it,’ said Lucius sternly.
He thought he saw which way matters were drifting. This old man was
cunning enough to be the first to give the alarm. Lucius’s incautious
remarks to Mrs. Wincher had put her husband upon his guard, and he was
now going to play the comedy of innocence.
‘Not surprised to hear it, sir?’ he echoed, staring aghast at Lucius.
‘No, Mr. Wincher. And I am sure that no one knows more about it than
you do.’
‘Lord save us, sir! what do you mean?’
‘Let me hear your story, sir,’ answered Lucius, ‘and then I’ll tell you
what I mean.’
‘But for Heaven’s sake, Mr. Davoren, tell me you don’t suspect me of
any hand in the robbery!’ cried the old man piteously—‘I, that have
lived five-and-twenty years with Mr. Sivewright, and had the care of
everything that belonged to him all that time!’
‘A man may wait five-and-twenty years for a good opportunity,’ said
Lucius coolly. ‘Don’t trouble yourself to be tragical, Mr. Wincher, but
say what you have to say, and be quick about it. I tell you again that
I am in no manner surprised to hear this house has been robbed. It was
no doubt robbed last night, and perhaps many nights before. But I tell
you frankly, that I intend to take measures to prevent this house being
robbed again; even if those measures should include putting you and
your good lady upon the outside of it.’
‘Lord have mercy upon us!’ cried Jacob Wincher, wringing his hands.
‘You are a great deal too hard upon me, sir. You’ll be sorry for it
when you find out how unjust you’ve been.’
‘I promise to be sorry,’ answered Lucius, ‘when I _do_ make that
discovery. Now, Mr. Wincher, be explicit, if you please.’
But Jacob Wincher declared that he was all of a tremble, and had to sit
down upon an ancient choirstall, and wipe the perspiration from his
forehead before he was able to proceed.
Lucius waited patiently for the old man to recover his self-possession,
but in no manner relaxed the severity of his countenance. In all this
agitation, in this pretended desire to confide in him, he saw only a
clever piece of acting.
‘Well, Mr. Wincher,’ he said, as the old servant mopped his forehead
with a blue cotton handkerchief, ‘how about this robbery?’
‘I’m coming to it, sir. But you’ve given me such a turn with what you
said just now. God knows how cruel and how uncalled for those words of
yours were.’
‘Pray proceed, Mr. Wincher.’
‘Well, sir, you must know there’s a deal of property about this place,
perhaps a good deal more than you’ve ever seen, though our old master
seemed to take to you from the first, and has been more confidential
with you than he ever was with any one else. Now there’s a good deal of
the property that isn’t portable, and there’s some that is—china, for
instance; little bits of tea-cups and saucers that are worth more than
you’d be willing to believe; and silver—’
‘Silver!’ exclaimed Lucius, astonished.
‘Yes, sir. You didn’t know of that, perhaps. Among the things master
collected after he retired from business—and he was always collecting
something, as long as he could get about among the brokers, and in all
the courts and alleys in London—there was a good bit of old silver.
Five Queen Anne teapots; three Oliver Cromwell tankards, not very much
to look at unless you were up to that sort of thing, but worth their
weight in gold, Mr. Sivewright used to say to me. “I wish I was rich
enough to do more in old silver,” he has said many a time. “There’s
nothing like it. Collectors are waking up to the value of it, and
before many years are over old silver will be almost as precious as
diamonds.” He picked up a good many nice little bits first and last,
through rummaging about among old chaps that dealt in second-hand
stuff of that sort, and didn’t trouble to ask any awkward questions
of the people that brought ’em the goods; picked up things that would
have gone into the melting-pot very likely, if his eye hadn’t been
quick enough to see their value. One day he’d bring home a set of
spindle-legged saltcellars; another time a battered old rosewater dish.
Once he bought a “monstrance” which had been used upon some cathedral
altar, once upon a time—solid gold set with rubies and emeralds. “The
fool that I bought it from took it for ormolu,” he said.’
‘And these are the things that are gone, I suppose,’ said Lucius,
somewhat puzzled by the old man’s loquacity. Why should Wincher inform
him of the existence of these things if he were an accomplice of the
thief? Yet this seeming candour was doubtless a part of the traitor’s
scheme.
‘Every one of ’em, sir. There’s been a clean sweep made of ’em. But
how any thief could find out where they were kept is more than I can
fathom. It’s too much for my poor old brains.’
‘The thief was well informed, depend upon it, Mr. Wincher,’ answered
Lucius. ‘And pray, whereabouts did you keep this old silver?’
‘Would you like to see, sir?’
‘I should.’
‘I’ll show you the place, then.’
Jacob Wincher led the way to the extreme end of the repository, where
behind a tall screen of old oak panelling there was a massive muniment
chest furnished with a lock which seemed calculated to defy the whole
race of burglars and pick-locks.
The old servant took a key from his pocket—a small key, for the lock
was of modern make—unlocked and opened the chest. There was nothing in
it except an old damask curtain.
‘The silver was rolled up in that curtain,’ said Jacob Wincher, taking
up the curtain and shaking it vigorously, as if with some faint hope
that the Queen Anne teapots would fall out of its folds, like the
rabbits or live pigeons in a conjurer’s trick. ‘The iron safe was a
landlord’s fixture in Bond-street, and we were obliged to leave it
behind us, so this chest was the safest place I could find to put the
silver in; in fact, master told me to put it there.’
‘I see,’ thought Lucius; ‘the old scoundrel is telling me this story in
advance of the time when his master will inevitably ask for the silver.
This seeming candour is the depth of hypocrisy.’
Jacob Wincher stood staring at the empty chest in apathetic
hopelessness, feebly rubbing his chin, whereon some grizzled tufts
lingered.
‘Do you mean to tell me,’ said Lucius, ‘that this chest was locked, and
that you had the key of it in your pocket, at the time of the robbery?’
‘Yes, sir. The chest has never been left unlocked for five minutes
since that silver has been in my care; and I have never slept without
this key being under my pillow.’
‘And you would have me believe that a stranger could hit upon the
precise spot where the silver was kept, amidst this inextricable tangle
of property, open the box without doing any damage to the lock, and
walk off with his booty without your knowing anything of his entrance
or exit?’
‘It seems strange, doesn’t it, Mr. Davoren?’
‘It seems more than strange, Mr. Wincher. It seems—and it
is—incredible.’
‘And yet, sir, the thing has been done. The question is, was it done by
a stranger?’
‘Yes, Mr. Wincher, that is the question; and it is a question which, to
my mind, suggests only one answer.’
‘You mean that I am telling you lies, sir? that it was my hand which
stole those things?’ cried the old man.
‘To be plain with you, that is precisely my idea.’
‘You are doing me a great wrong, sir. I have served my master
faithfully for so many years that I ought to be above suspicion. I have
not much longer to remain in this world, and I would rather die of want
to-morrow than lengthen my days by a dishonest action. However, if you
choose to suspect me, there is an end of the matter, and it is useless
for me to say any more.’
There was a quiet dignity about the old man’s air as he said this that
impressed Lucius. Was it not just possible that he had done wrong in
jumping at conclusions about these Winchers? The police, who are apt to
jump at conclusions, are just as apt to be wrong. But if these people
were not guilty, who else could have opened the door to that midnight
intruder? There was no one else.
‘Come, Mr. Wincher,’ he said, ‘I have good reason for my suspicion. I
saw a man admitted into this house, by one of the back doors, between
one and two o’clock this morning. You, or your wife, must have opened
the door to that man.’
‘As there is a heaven above us, sir, I never stirred from my bed after
half-past eleven o’clock last night.’
‘Your wife must have admitted him, then.’
‘Impossible, sir!’
‘I tell you I saw the man creep from the barges to the garden; I saw
the door opened,’ said Lucius; and then went on to describe that
midnight watch of his minutely.
The old man stared at him in sheer bewilderment.
‘A stranger admitted!’ he repeated. ‘But by whom? by whom?’
‘Had I not seen the light as the door opened, I might have thought
that the man opened the door for himself,’ said Lucius.
‘That would have been equally impossible. I looked to all the
fastenings myself the last thing. The doors were locked and barred, and
those old-fashioned iron bars are no trifling defence.’
Lucius, too, was bewildered. Could Mr. Sivewright himself have disposed
of this property? In so eccentric a man nothing need be surprising.
Could he have crept down-stairs in the dead of the night to admit
some dealer, disposed of his property, dismissed the man, and crept
stealthily back to his bed? No, that was too wild a fancy. Despite of
his eccentricities, Mr. Sivewright had plenty of common sense, and such
a proceeding as that would have been the act of a madman.
‘Supposing any stranger to have obtained admittance to the house,’ said
Lucius, after an interval of perplexed thought, ‘how could he have
opened that chest without your key?’
‘A stranger could not possibly have done it,’ said Wincher, with a
stress upon the word ‘stranger.’
‘Who else, then?’
‘There is one who could have opened that chest easy enough, or any
other lock in the place, supposing him to be alive; but I make no
doubt he’s dead and gone ever so long ago.’
‘Whom do you mean?’
‘Mr. Ferdinand, my master’s son.’
Lucius gave a slight start at the sound of that unwelcome name, of all
sounds the most hateful to his ear. ‘Then he—Ferdinand Sivewright—had a
duplicate key, I suppose?’
‘Yes, of most things about the place in Bond-street, except the iron
safe: he never could get at that till he drugged his father, and stole
the key out of his pocket while he was asleep. But other things, that
were pretty easy to get at, he did get at, and robbed his father up
hill and down dale, as the saying is. O, he was a thorough-paced
scoundrel, though I’m sorry to say it, as he was our young missy’s
father.’
‘He had a duplicate key to that chest, you say?’
‘Yes. He was that artful there was no being up to him. We used to
keep old china in that chest—Battersea and Chelsea and Worcester and
Derby—valuable little bits of the English school, which fetch higher
prices than anything foreign nowadays. All of a sudden, soon after he
came to be partner with his father—for the old man doated upon him,
and would have made any sacrifice to please him—I found out that the
specimens in the muniment chest were dwindling somehow. One day I
missed a cup and saucer, and another day a soup-basin and cover, and so
on. At first I thought I must be mistaken—my own catalogue was wrong,
perhaps—but by and by I saw the things visibly melting, as you may say,
and I told my master. He told Mr. Ferdinand about it; but bless your
heart, Mr. Ferdinand brings out the day-book with the sale of those
very goods entered as neatly as possible, some under one date, and some
under another. “I never remember taking the money for those things,
Ferdinand,” said my master; but Mr. Ferdinand stood him out that he’d
had the money all correct, and master believed him, or pretended to
believe him, I hardly know which. And so things went on. Sometimes it
was in small things, sometimes in large; but in every way that a son
could plunder his father, Ferdinand Sivewright plundered my master.
It was quite by accident I found out about his having the duplicate
key. He came to the desk where I was writing one day and asked me to
give him change for a sovereign, and in taking the money out of his
waistcoat-pocket in his quick impatient way he tumbles out a lot of
other things—a pencil-case, a penknife, and a key. I knew that key at
a glance; it’s a peculiar-looking one, as you see. “That’s a curious
little key, Mr. Ferdinand,” said I, picking it up and looking at it
before he could stop me. “Yes,” he said, taking it out of my hand
before I’d had time to examine it very closely, and putting it back in
his pocket, “it’s a key that belonged to my poor mother’s jewel-case.
No use to me; but I keep it for her sake.” Well, sir, I told Mr.
Sivewright about that key, but he only sighed in that downhearted
way which was common enough with him in those days. He didn’t seem
surprised, and indeed I think he’d come to know his son’s ways pretty
well by this time. “Say nothing about it, Wincher,” he said to me,
“you may be mistaken after all. In any case you needn’t keep anything
valuable in the chest in future. If my only son is a thief, we won’t
put temptation in his way.”’
‘Hard upon the father,’ said Lucius. ‘But this throws no light upon the
disappearance of those things. What do you consider their value?’
‘As old silver the plate may be worth about forty pounds, as specimens
of art at least three hundred. The monstrance is worth much more.’
‘Humph, and I suppose a thief would be likely to sell them immediately
as old silver.’
‘Yes; unless he were a very artful dodger, and knew where to find a
good market for them, he’d be likely to sell them without an hour’s
delay to be melted down.’
‘When did you last see the things safe in that chest?’ asked Lucius.
‘About ten days ago. I haven’t much to do, you see, sir, except grub
about amongst the collection; and I’m in the habit of looking over the
things pretty often, and comparing them with my catalogue, to see that
all’s right.’
‘And you never missed anything before?’
‘Never so much as a cracked tea-cup among what I call the rubbishing
lots. Heaven only knows how that chest could have been emptied. Even if
Ferdinand Sivewright were in the land of the living, which is hardly
likely—for if he’d been alive he’d have come and tried to get money
out of his poor old father before this—he couldn’t get into this house
unless some one let him in.’
‘No, not unless some one let him in,’ repeated Lucius thoughtfully. He
had begun to think Jacob Wincher was perhaps, after all, an honest man.
But to believe this was to make the mystery darker than the darkest
night. His ideas were all at sea, drifting which way he knew not.
‘Ferdinand Sivewright is dead,’ he said presently. ‘He will never
trouble his father again.’
‘How do you know that, sir?’ asked Wincher eagerly.
‘Never mind how. I do know it, and that is enough. Now, Wincher,
there’s no use in talking of this business any more, except in a
practical manner. If you’re as innocent of any hand in the robbery as
you pretend to be, you won’t shrink from inquiry.’
‘I do not shrink from inquiry, sir. If I did I shouldn’t have told you
of the robbery.’
‘That might be a profound artifice, since the disappearance of these
things must have been found out sooner or later.’
‘If I had been the thief I should have tried to stave off the discovery
as long as I could,’ answered Jacob Wincher. ‘However, I don’t want to
argue; the truth is the truth, that is enough for me.’
‘Very well, Mr. Wincher. What we have to do is to try and recover these
missing articles. Unless the silver is melted down it ought to be
easily traced. And the monstrance would be still more easily traced, I
should think.’
‘That would depend upon circumstances, sir. Depend upon it, if the
things were taken by a thief who knows their value, and knows the best
market for them, he’ll send them abroad.’
‘They may be traced even abroad. What we have to do is to put the
case at once into the best hands. I shall go straight from here to a
detective officer, whom I’ve had some dealings with already, and get
his advice. Now, is there much more property amongst the collection
valuable enough to tempt a thief, and sufficiently portable for him to
carry away?’
‘There is a great deal of china, small pieces, quite as valuable as the
silver—not, perhaps, quite so easy to carry, but very nearly so.’
‘Then we must have the inside of this house guarded to-night.’
‘I can sit up here all night and keep watch.’
‘You would be no match for the thief, even if he came alone, which
we are not certain he would. No, my dear Mr. Wincher, I will engage
a properly qualified watchman; but remember, not one word of this to
Miss Sivewright—or to your wife, who might be tempted to tell her young
mistress.’
‘Very well, sir. I know how to hold my tongue. I’d be the last to go
and frighten missy. But how about my old master? Is he to know?’
‘Not on any account. In his present weak state any violent agitation
might be fatal, and we know that collecting these things has been the
ruling passion of his life. To tell him that he is being robbed of
these things might be to give him his death-blow.’
‘Very well, sir. I’ll obey orders.’
‘Good; and if I have wronged you, Mr. Wincher, by a groundless
suspicion, you must pardon me. You will allow that appearances are
somewhat against you.’
‘They are, sir, they are!’ answered the old man despondently.
‘However, time will show. I will send my watchman in at dusk. You could
let him in at the back door, couldn’t you, without Miss Sivewright
knowing anything about it?’
‘I could, sir. There’s a little door opening into the brewhouse, which
opens out of the boothouse, as you may know.’
‘No, indeed! I know there are a lot of outbuildings, room enough to
lodge a regiment; but I have never taken any particular notice of them.’
‘It’s a curious old place, Mr. Davoren, and goodness knows what it
could have been used for in days gone by, unless it was for hiding
folks away for no good. Perhaps you’d like to see the door I mean.’
‘I should,’ replied Lucius, ‘in order that I may explain its situation
to the policeman.’
‘Come along with me then, sir, and I’ll show it you.’