The funeral was to take place on the following day. It was not
without a shudder that Freda made her way up to her bedroom that
night, although she had taken the precaution of insisting that Mrs.
Bean should accompany her to the very door. Even then she was
reluctant to let the housekeeper go.
“Mrs. Bean,” she said in a whisper, as she clung to the housekeeper’s
rough arms after bidding her good-night. “What room is there under
this one?”
The housekeeper looked rather uneasy, and laughed.
“Really, I don’t know what it was. It’s a long time since any of the
rooms in this wing have been used except this one.”
“But it was used the other night! I heard men talking there. Crispin
said they were the sailors of my father’s yacht.”
“Well, if he said that, what more do you want to know?”
“I want to know how they got in. I haven’t seen any door on the
outside of this part of the house.”
“I suppose they came through the other part then.”
“I suppose so.”
There was a pause, and Mrs. Bean shuffled a step nearer the door. Then
she turned, to whisper plaintively:
“Child, I wish you’d be persuaded to keep a still tongue in your
head.”
But not only was Freda unable to obey this precept, she was further
resolved to use both eyes and ears on her own account. Being assured
now that both Crispin and Nell were her friends, she felt bold enough
to try to satisfy herself on the one point of greatest interest to
her: Was her father still in the house? Perhaps that very night he was
going away, under cover of the darkness! Stung to action by this
suggestion, conquering even the horror of the day’s adventures, she
took her candle from the table and went out of the room into the stone
passage. Freda softly open the door into the gallery, and shielding
her candle with her hand, to minimise the risk of its light betraying
her, crept along that portion of it which ran along the west side of
the house. As she went she caught sight of something white on the
ground, close underneath the panelling. It was the handkerchief she
had slyly dropped that day, in the hope that it would afford some clue
to the way Crispin was bringing her.
A close inspection of the panelling disclosed a tiny keyhole in the
ornamental part of the carving, and although the panel in which it was
pierced fitted perfectly into its place, yet a tap revealed the fact
that there was a hollow or open space behind. She hailed this
discovery with much excitement. This then was a very good place to
watch, if her father really was in hiding about the house. The
question now was how to conceal herself. There was nothing in the
gallery but pictures, and a row of chairs. As she stood debating with
herself, she heard footsteps, as it seemed to her, behind the
panelling. In a frenzy of excitement she instantly blew out her
candle, and scurried across the gallery to the furthest corner, where
she crouched in a heap on the floor. She had not to wait long. A
little scraping sound, and a panelled door opened from the other side.
Then Freda heard a distant murmur of voices, and the next moment the
man who had opened the door stepped into the gallery.
Freda need not have been afraid of discovery. The man carried no
light, and she could only dimly see the outline of his figure as he
crossed the floor noiselessly towards one of the long windows. This he
pushed up with only the very faintest sound, and putting his head out,
said in a low voice:
“Ready?”
Freda who in her eagerness to discover whether this was her father on
the point of escaping, had crawled along the bare boards close under
the windows, was listening, watching with her heart beating so
violently that she was afraid it would betray her. She heard no answer
given, but the man drew in his head and retired again through the
panel-door. By his gait she knew that he was not a gentleman, and
therefore that he could not be her father. She heard him go down the
stone steps, which she guessed to be those up which Crispin had
carried her; and then making the most of her opportunity, she ran to
the open window, and looked out.
A man was waiting in the court-yard underneath. He must have heard her
footsteps, for he raised his head, and seeing that somebody was at the
window, he said, in a hoarse whisper:
“Eh, but thou’rt a long toime to-neght. Thou’rt not very spry for a
sailor! Art droonk again?”
Freda drew in her head before he had time to see that it was a woman
whom he was addressing; but not before she had seen enough of his
figure, and heard enough of his rough, thick voice, to ask herself
whether this was not Josiah Kemm, of the “Barley Mow.” The man,
whoever he was, had hardly finished speaking, when from behind the
panelling she heard again the distant murmur of voices, and footsteps
coming up the stone staircase. She hastily retreated from the window,
not to the corner she had left, but to the door by which she had
entered the gallery. She had scarcely done so when the man she had
previously seen reappeared. As she was now much nearer to him, she
could distinctly see that he had upon his back a package about three
feet square which was evidently heavy. This he carried across to the
window, and let down by means of a rope into the court-yard. Then she
heard faintly the voice of the man in the court-yard asking some
question. Although she could not distinguish his words, the answer of
the man above, “No. Nobody,” told her that the question had concerned
her own appearance at the window. Judging therefore that an
investigation might follow, she crept along the stone passage and
locked herself in her own room as quickly as she could.
Next morning, however, she would not have her breakfast until she had
found an opportunity of exchanging a few words with Crispin Bean.
“Crispin,” she began solemnly, “you remember telling me that the
sailors of my father’s yacht were in the house one night when I heard
a noise?”
He grunted an affirmative rather shortly.
“Well,” she went on, “they were here again last night.”
“What of that?” said Crispin.
“I believe they were stealing something. I saw one of them throw a
package out of the window to a man in the court-yard underneath.”
“I should like to know what you don’t see,” grumbled Crispin, not very
well pleased.
Freda drew herself up.
“I ought to know all that goes on in my own house,” said she, holding
her head back with a pretty little air. “And I mean to go over the
place, and see that there is no way for people to get in that have no
business here. And as for this yacht, it is of no use now, so what is
the use of paying a lot of sailors for doing nothing.”
Crispin looked down on the floor, with rather a whimsical expression
of face.
“They’re all old servants of your father’s, you know. If they’re
turned off, they’re very likely to starve. As for what you thought was
stealing, it was only an old salt, who has been one of the yacht’s
crew for seven years, throwing down his own traps to a friend from the
town who had promised to take care of them.”
“But why did he do it so mysteriously, and at night?” asked Freda,
still incredulous.
But Crispin was tired of answering her questions, or else he had no
reply to give, for without any more words he proceeded to light his
pipe and walk away.