AUNT AND “NEPHEW”!
There was not very much to discuss when Lane did get to Deanery Street.
Certain inexplicable things had happened for which, at present, there
seemed no accounting. Somebody seemed to be doing what he liked with
this wonderful safe, abstracting and replacing property when he chose,
without hindrance, in a house full of people. One novel feature on
this occasion was the total absence of finger-prints. They had been
carefully rubbed out.
Morrice seemed greatly perturbed, as was quite natural under the
circumstances; but Lane noticed that there was a considerable
difference in his demeanour on this occasion from the last, when he had
insisted, with some display of temper, upon the certainty of Croxton’s
guilt.
Lane had been a little nettled at the time—at the cocksure attitude
of this hard-headed man of business who, however great his success in
his own particular line, did not seem to possess a very great logical
faculty, and could not forbear putting a rather pertinent question.
“Are you quite as sure as you were, Mr. Morrice, that your late
secretary is the thief?”
Morrice shrugged his shoulders. It was easy to see that he was in
a subdued mood; there was no fear of further explosions to-day.
“I admit there are complications in this infernal business that
perplex one extremely. But I don’t think that, so far, I can see any
particular reasons for altering my previous opinion. You can’t get
over the insurmountable fact that Croxton and myself were the only
two persons who knew the secret of the mechanism. He may not be the
actual purloiner, I admit; he may have passed on his knowledge to a
confederate with whom he shares the spoil.”
Lane let fall only a few words in answer to these observations, but
they were very significant ones.
“Don’t forget, Mr. Morrice, that you lost the original key or
memorandum, as you call it, of the workings.”
But the financier was an obstinate person, as many strong-minded men
are. When he had once formed a theory, he did not give it up in a hurry.
“Only mislaid, I expect,” he answered, but it was easy to see his tone
was not quite so confident as usual. “I shouldn’t be surprised if it
turned up at any moment.”
But Lane hastened to put on a damper at once. “And if it did, I don’t
see that it would help you so very much. You couldn’t possibly know in
what other hands it might have been during the interval.”
The financier had no wish to engage in further argument with this calm,
self-possessed man, whose merciless logic made such short work of
anything in the nature of a positive opinion.
“It doesn’t seem to matter much what I think,” he cried with a slight
return of his old petulance. “And perhaps it would be wiser to admit at
once that I don’t possess your capacity for weighing facts and drawing
deductions from them. I should like to know one thing, Mr. Lane—does
what has just happened convey any new suggestions to you, throw any
fresh light upon the situation?”
He did not gauge the detective as accurately as one might have expected
from a man with his wide knowledge of human nature, or he would never
have put this question in the hope of getting a satisfactory answer.
Whatever theory or theories might be forming in his mind, and there
could be no doubt that it was working at full-speed all the time, and
readjusting itself to every fresh turn of events, Lane would make no
disclosures till he judged the time was ripe.
He shook his head with great gravity: “We work very slowly, Mr.
Morrice; we come to conclusions with equal slowness, in our profession.
I dare say to a keen business man like yourself who plan your _coups_
with lightning rapidity, make and clinch a deal of many thousands in a
few minutes, we must seem dull, plodding fellows. But you must remember
that most of our time we are working underground where very little
light penetrates. What has happened to-day may suggest a new line of
thought to me, but I have not yet had time to digest its significance.
It will want a great deal of patient thinking over before it bears any
fruit.”
With this the rather impatient financier had to be content. He was
beginning to have a certain respect for the firm, self-reliant attitude
of the detective, who did not appear to be in the least overawed by
Morrice’s wealth and position. And he had a shrewd idea that, in his
own particular and less remunerative line, Lane had a brain not greatly
inferior to his own. They worked in different directions with a vast
disproportion between the rewards attending their efforts. Morrice had
the instinct of moneymaking, Lane the instinct of unravelling criminal
mysteries. Perhaps in the bare fact of intellectual equipment there was
not much to choose between them.
As the detective passed through the hall on his way out, he found
Rosabelle waiting for him. She was of course cognizant of what had
happened, and on Lane’s arrival her first idea had been to be present
at the interview between him and her uncle. But on second thoughts she
had decided to speak to the detective alone.
She still loved her uncle very dearly; she must always do that for
all the kindness and affection he had lavished on her. But it was
impossible there should not be a little secret antagonism between the
two in the circumstances. He appeared to be firmly convinced of Richard
Croxton’s guilt, she as firmly convinced of his innocence. She was a
fair-minded girl, and she was prepared to make every allowance for
Morrice’s attitude, but as there did not seem any common ground on
which they could meet when the matter was under discussion, she judged
it best to speak of it to him as little as possible.
She put to him practically the same question that her uncle had done:
“Well, Mr. Lane, what do you think of the new development? Does it
reveal anything to you?”
That wary and cautious person shook his head. He had taken a great
liking to Rosabelle. Her staunch devotion to her lover had appealed to
the finer chords of his nature; for although he never allowed sentiment
to sway him unduly, he was by no means destitute of that human quality.
But not even for Rosabelle’s sake would he depart greatly from that
cautious attitude which was habitual to him.
“It is a strange development, Miss Sheldon, but I have not yet had
time to think it over. I am going back to my office to do so, and the
thinking over will take some time.”
Her charming face fell. “You cannot see in it even the remotest thing
that tells in favour of Richard Croxton?”
The eyes were very sad, the voice was very pleading. Should he give
the unhappy girl one little crumb of comfort? For a little time he
hesitated, then compassion got the better of prudence and of his iron
reserve.
“I will just say this, Miss Sheldon, and no more. It is becoming a less
impossible task to clear him than I at first thought; but please don’t
be too jubilant—there are still very formidable difficulties in the
way.”
A radiant light came into the charming face, although her eyes filled
with tears and she clasped her hands nervously together. Her voice
trembled as she spoke.
“You have put new life into me with those words, Mr. Lane. I know you
quite well by now, and I am sure that, coming from you, they mean much.”
Poor Lane began to think he had made a bit of a mistake in departing
from his usual caution, in being moved by the pleading attitude of the
girl into giving her this small crumb of comfort. That was the worst of
women—they were so impressionable and optimistic, or pessimistic, as
the case might be. Their moods were never equable: they were either at
the height of elation or in the depth of despair.
“Please do not let me excite false hopes, Miss Sheldon,” he hastened
to say. “Remember, I have told you there are great difficulties in the
way. Until we are on much firmer ground I would beg that you do not
repeat my words to Mr. Croxton.”
But she did not give any answer to this request, and he knew that for
all practical purposes he might have held his peace. Of course, she
would post off to her lover as soon as she could get away, and infect
him with her own optimism. Well, he was loath to confide too much in
the most hard-headed and sceptical man; he had only himself to blame
for having been over-confidential with a member of the emotional sex.
Later on in the day Rosabelle carried out his prediction; she made
up her mind to pay a visit to Petersham, to hearten her lover with a
recital of those words which she was convinced meant so much, coming
from a man of Lane’s cautious temperament.
Morrice had left the house shortly after the detective’s departure.
The two women would have lunched alone together but for the unexpected
arrival of young Archie Brookes, who was pressed to stay for the meal.
Rosabelle was very sensitive to impressions, and, for so young a girl,
particularly observant. It struck her that during the progress of the
luncheon the young man seemed rather _distrait_ and preoccupied. Two
or three times he answered at random, and once Mrs. Morrice called out
to him sharply, “I don’t think you are listening to what I am saying,
Archie.” At that rebuke he seemed to pull himself together, but the
girl was sure his thoughts were far away from her aunt’s light chatter.
Presently aunt and nephew, to call him what Rosabelle, ignorant of
Lane’s discoveries, still believed him to be, went up to Mrs. Morrice’s
boudoir. There was nothing unusual in this; it was a frequent custom
when the young man called or lunched at the house.
Rosabelle thought she would start for Petersham at once, making her
journey there as usual in a taxi. She always had plenty of money for
her needs, as Morrice supplemented her own little modest income of a
hundred a year with a very generous allowance.
As she went upstairs to her own room to make ready for her expedition,
she passed her aunt’s boudoir, the door of which stood slightly ajar.
It was a rather unusual circumstance, for when the two were closeted
together Rosabelle had noticed that it was nearly always closed. This
time it had evidently been forgotten by both.
She was not a girl who in ordinary circumstances would have
condescended to listen at doors, but she could not help hearing words
that startled and puzzled her.
Archie was speaking in a voice of great excitement and emotion. “But
if I don’t have it I am ruined. It means that I cannot face the
disgrace—there is only one alternative——” His voice had by now sunk
almost to a whisper, and she could not catch what followed.
She stood rooted to the spot. The young man’s preoccupied manner at the
lunch-table was accounted for. He was in some deep trouble from which
he was begging Mrs. Morrice to rescue him.
She heard her aunt reply in tones that were half angry, half tearful.
“How many times have you threatened me with that, and I have yielded. I
have half ruined myself for you; it cannot go on much longer.”
Suddenly she felt that she was listening to a conversation not intended
for her ears, and resolutely turned away and went to her own room. For
the present she would say nothing, not even to Dick, of what she had
heard by the purest accident. But she thought over it all the way on
the long drive to Petersham. Was there yet another tragedy going on in
the Morrice household, and was her placid-looking, dignified aunt the
centre of it?
And what was that alternative which Archie Brookes had described in
a whisper she could not catch? Had he threatened to destroy himself
if his request were not acceded to? And what did Mrs. Morrice mean by
saying she had half ruined herself for him?