INVISIBLE INK.
Nance left the room. The moment she closed the door behind her the master
of the Heights went straight to his desk. His brow was like thunder; his
face was white with an awful grey shadow over it.
“Long John has gone one step too far,” he muttered. “The robbery was
planned and carried out to perfection. It was done as a blind, and as a
blind it will succeed admirably; but this—this blow was aimed at me. I
have threatened to throw up the sponge. If I do, it will mean so much
that all will be up with the Silver School. Now, hear me, Heaven,”
continued the man, clenching his hand and looking up as he spoke, “I
swear, I swear that, as I live, if that boy is not back at the Heights
within twenty-four hours, I carry out my threat.”
Trembling violently, Rowton sat down before his desk and opened it. He
took out some paper of a peculiar make and quality, dipped his pen into
a small bottle which contained a preparation not in the least like
ordinary ink, and wrote a short sentence. At the end of this sentence
he appended a hieroglyphic. The paper was then folded up, put into an
envelope and directed. Having done so, Rowton put on his hat and went out.
As he was walking up the avenue, Jacob, the footman, who had been
unremitting in his active services and presence of mind during the
terrible scare of the morning, also put on his hat, and followed his
master at a respectful distance.
With quick strides, Rowton approached the little post office of the small
adjacent village. The post-mistress, who had evidently not yet heard
anything of the burglary, looked at him with some slight surprise when he
entered her shop.
“Am I in time to catch the post, Mrs. Higgins?” he asked.
“Yes, sir, just; Polly and me, we are packing the bags now.”
“Then here is a letter; hold out the bag and I’ll drop it in.”
The woman did so.
“Thank you, sir,” she said.
“Now I want to send off a telegram.”
“Here are the forms, sir, and a new pen.”
Rowton scribbled two words on a telegraph form, added a brief address,
and handed it in.
“I want this to go at once,” he said.
“I’ll send it off this moment, sir; it is early, and the wires are sure
to be clear.”
“Very well, I’ll wait and see it off; it is of the utmost importance.”
The woman turned to where the little telegraphic apparatus stood, and
immediately worked off the message while Rowton stood silently by.
“Thank you,” he answered. He left the post-office as he spoke.
Just outside he ran almost into Jacob’s arms.
“What are you doing here?” cried his master with a scowl.
“I beg your pardon, sir; I saw you go out, and I thought I’d run after
you, sir, to suggest that the police should be telegraphed for from
Pitstow.”
“Aye, a good thought,” answered Rowton; “go into the office and send a
wire off immediately.”
Jacob lingered outside the post-office until his master’s figure had
vanished from view. Rowton did not once look round. When Jacob could see
him no longer, he too, went into the post-office.
“I want to send a telegram,” he said to the post-mistress; “please give
me a form.”
“Dear, dear, you must be all gone mad on the subject of telegrams,” she
answered; “there’s Mr. Rowton sending off the queerest words, enough to
frighten a body. Oh, I am not going to tell, so don’t you think it, Jacob
Short.”
She showed him with a motion of her hand where the telegraph forms were
lying. As she did so, his eyes met hers with a fixed and peculiar glance.
She faintly nodded to him, and then her face turned pale.
“Run, Polly,” she said to a rosy-cheeked girl who was helping her, “and
tell Hudson to be quick; tell him it’s time the post was off, or he will
miss the train at Pitstow.”
The girl immediately left the room.
“That was well done,” said Jacob; “now we have not a minute to lose. He
brought a letter here, did he not?”
“He did that, Mr. Short; he brought it and dropped it into the mail-bag
himself. I can’t find it, so there’s no use in your trying to meddle. It
is as much as my place is worth, even talking to you on the subject, and
if I was to do more, it’s penal servitude might hang over my head.”
“It might, or it might not,” said Jacob; “we have talked over these
matters a few times, haven’t we, Mrs. Higgins? It is rather late in the
day for you to take up this tone. I thought the matter was all arranged.
You want thirty pounds, don’t you now? You shall have it if you give me
one look at the letter which Mr. Rowton has just dropped into the bag.”
The woman hesitated again; she had a weak and somewhat cowardly type of
face—her mouth expressed greed. When Jacob spoke of the thirty pounds
which might so easily become hers, her eyes glittered with an ugly light.
“Heaven knows I do want that money,” she said, “and I don’t suppose any
harm will come of it; be quick, then, or Polly will be back.”
The woman shivered as she spoke. She lifted the flap of the counter.
“I was just about to seal the bag,” she said; “I won’t look—you do.”
Jacob slipped inside the counter. The post-mistress held the bag,
half-full of letters, for him to peep in. His eyes which were keen as an
eagle’s, quickly discovered the despatch he wanted.
He lifted it out of the bag and coolly deposited it in his pocket.
[Illustration: “He lifted the dispatch out of the bag and coolly
deposited it in his pocket.”—_Page 229._]
“No, no; that’s not fair,” she cried in terror.
“Perfectly fair,” he replied; “I’ll post it myself at Pitstow in time to
catch the same mail.”
“You cannot; it is impossible.”
“It is quite possible. Don’t keep me now, woman; here’s your thirty
pounds.” He laid an envelope on the counter, and vanished before she
could utter a word.
Going as quickly as ever his feet could carry him, Jacob approached the
nearest inn, ordered a trap and the fleetest horse in the livery stables.
He made a very plausible explanation for his hurry.
“You know all about the burglary up at the Heights,” he said—“well, I’m
off to see the police at Pitstow; my master told me to telegraph, but it
occurred to me it would be best to drive over and bring one or two of
them back with me. Now, do be quick. Half a crown to the man who brings
round the trap first.”
“It shall be at your service in three minutes at the farthest,” said the
burly host of the little village inn. He ran off to the stables, and
several men began to loaf round and eagerly question Jacob Short.
“I think I’ll go and lend a hand in putting the harness on the horse,”
said Jacob, who did not want to communicate any of his tidings to the
excited bystanders. He had reason for his hurry, for at that moment the
cart containing Her Majesty’s mail rattled up the street. Two minutes
afterwards Jacob himself was driving as fast as he could in the same
direction. He soon overtook the mail cart, nodded to the driver, whom he
happened to know slightly, and promising his own driver five shillings if
he got to Pitstow ten minutes before the mail, settled down comfortably
to consider the present position of affairs.
Pitstow was quite five miles away, and part of the road was very lonely.
When Jacob got to the lonely part, the mail-cart was so far behind that
it was not even visible. Short’s driver was smoking a cigar supplied to
him by that worthy, and happy in his own reflections, was looking the
other way. With a hasty movement, Short now took the letter which he had
abstracted from the mail-bag out of his pocket. It was addressed in an
upright and somewhat cramped hand.
“The sort of hand that ain’t natural to the writer,” muttered Short, a
gratified smile spreading over his countenance. “I’ve seen Mr. Rowton’s
own hand scores of times—big and flowing and easy, with a sort of dash
about it; now, this is as stiff and crabbed as if the writer had got the
rheumatics very bad. Let me see, to whom is it addressed?
“‘George Morton, Esq., ⸺, Redcliffe Square, London S.W.’ Well, there’s
certainly nothing remarkable in the address. George Morton—the name is
respectable, the locality good.”
Jacob held the letter close to his eyes; once again he perused the
upright, stiff hand with minute and careful attention. He presently
took a pocket-book out of his breast pocket and carefully compared the
handwriting on the envelope of the purloined letter with some handwriting
which he had in his pocket-book.
“Done, by Jove! Caught at last!” he muttered.
He slipped the pocket-book into its place, put the letter once again into
his breast pocket, and began to talk in a cheerful and lively manner to
the man who was driving him.
The subject of the burglary was, of course, the only one of the least
interest at the present moment.
“It’s the queerest thing going,” said Jacob Short’s driver; “why,
that’s the third big robbery that’s taken place in the last month or
six weeks—and the police ain’t nabbed one of the fellows yet. I can’t
understand it, can you, guv’nor?”
“Oh, the burglars will be nabbed all in good time,” said Jacob; “I should
not be a bit surprised if this robbery at the Heights last night did not
do for them. Then there’s the child, you know.”
“What child?” asked the man.
“Why, that game little chap, Master Murray Cameron, he was kidnapped,
too, last night, as well as the plate and jewels.”
The driver, a stolid-looking fellow, dropped his mouth wide open on
hearing this startling intelligence.
“Heaven preserve us!” he cried; “It is enough to terrify a body. There
seems a sort of judgment on the place. Don’t it strike you so, guv’nor?”
“It does and it doesn’t,” said Jacob; “you whip up your horse, my man.
Ah, here we are, at Pitstow, at last.”
“Shall I drive you straight to the police station?” asked the man.
“No; you put up here at the sign of the Boar; I shall want you to drive
me back before long.”
Jacob jumped off the cart and entered the inn.
“A private room, quick,” he said; “a room with a fire in it.”
Jacob was conducted into a small parlour at the back of the inn.
“You can have this room to yourself, sir,” said the landlady. “It so
happens that there’s no one using it just now, and the fire is lit all
handy.”
“That’s right,” answered Jacob; “now bring me pen, ink, and paper. I am
in a desperate hurry—I want to write an important letter to catch the
next post to London.”
“You’ll have to be quick, then,” said the landlady, glancing at the clock
over the mantelpiece as she spoke, “for the post will be cleared in ten
minutes.” She hurried out of the room to procure writing materials,
returning with them almost immediately.
“Thank you, ma’am,” answered Jacob; “and now I’ll be all the quicker if I
am left alone.”
The landlady took the hint and closed the parlour door behind her.
The moment she did so, Jacob took Rowton’s letter again out of his
pocket. He breathed on the flap, which was securely fastened down,
holding it to his mouth with one hand, while he wrote a communication
of his own, as if for life or death, with the other. At last he took
the moist letter from his mouth. With very little difficulty and with
consummate skill he unfastened the flap of the envelope and took the
letter from beneath. He opened it, to survey nothing whatever except a
perfectly blank sheet of paper.
“Ha! invisible ink,” he muttered. “Now, will it make its appearance under
the influence of fire or of water? I hope to goodness heat will do it,
for I never thought of ordering water, and the mail will be off in a few
minutes.”
He rushed to the fire as he spoke, and held the blank sheet of paper at
a little distance from the bars. After doing so for a few seconds, a
satisfied exclamation fell from his lips. Some writing of a bright blue
colour was now perfectly visible on the hitherto blank sheet of paper.
Jacob read the words, which, to an unobservant eye, meant very little:
“Illness has increased; will call to-morrow for ultimatum.”
At the foot of this apparently unintelligible sentence was a certain
hieroglyphic of a peculiar shape and size.
After once again consulting some memoranda in his pocket-book, Jacob
re-enclosed the letter in its envelope. As he did so he observed with
satisfaction that the writing had completely disappeared. Slipping this
letter with another of his own into his pocket, he now rushed almost on
the wings of the wind to the nearest post-office. He opened the door and
went in—the mail was just being packed.
“Am I in time to post two letters?”
“Just in time, master, if you look sharp,” said the postmaster. “Here,
give ’em to me and I’ll drop ’em into the bag myself.”
Jacob did so; the letters were thrown on the top of a heap of others, and
the postmaster began to tie up the bag. Jacob went out of the post-office
with a perfectly radiant face.
“Well, Jacob Short, you’ve done a nice stroke of business to-day,” he
muttered to himself; “and now I fancy your residence at Rowton Heights
has very nearly come to an end.”
His mind was completely relieved with regard to the letter which he had
abstracted from Her Majesty’s mail in the little village near Rowton
Heights. After all, it would go by exactly the same post to town.
He now went to the police station, gave a circumstantial account of the
events of the last night, and, as he expected, was soon accompanied by
two or three of her Majesty’s constabulary back to Rowton Heights.
The rest of the day was passed, as might be imagined, in hopeless
confusion and excitement. Jacob saw very little of his master and
mistress. He was not required to wait at lunch, but was busily occupied
taking notes with the police, who required someone to help them.
Most of the guests had left or were leaving the Heights, the ladies
being, many of them, in a state of panic, and everyone earnestly wishing
to get away from a place over which a tragedy seemed now to hang. The
news of the mad lady being confined in the Queen Anne wing had got
abroad; that fact, the abstraction of the jewels, and the loss of the
child, seemed quite to change the aspect of the place. Rowton Heights
was no longer gay, cheerful, the home of brightness and frivolity.
Detectives and superintendents of police kept coming and going; the
entire house was searched from cellar to attic, the Queen Anne wing not
being excepted. Nothing of the least importance was, however discovered,
and not the faintest clue to the lost child was obtained.
Rowton, who had busied himself all day seeing to his guests and hastening
their departure, came into the room where his wife and Lady Georgina were
seated, about six o’clock in the evening.
“I cannot stand this inaction any longer,” he said. “I mean to go up to
town to-night myself.”
“Oh, take me with you,” said Nance, springing to her feet; “the fact is,
I am quite afraid to stay here alone.”
He fixed his eyes gloomily upon her—they were slightly bloodshot; his
face was more or less flushed. He looked so agitated and upset that Lady
Georgina seemed scarcely to know him.
“Will you have the goodness to stay with my wife?” he asked suddenly,
giving her a keen intelligent glance, which also seemed to her to convey
to her a certain warning.
“With pleasure,” she replied.
“But don’t leave me behind, Adrian,” cried Nance. “I know Lady Georgina
is kind, but I am terrified to be left without you. Please take me with
you to town.”
“I’ll send for you if necessary, Nancy,” he replied after a brief pause.
“You are surely not going to stay away long?” she asked with a gasp of
terror.
He did not answer her, neither did he kiss her; there was an expression
about his face which she could not fathom. Half an hour later he went
away.