Ричард Марш
Violet Forster's Lover

CHAPTER XVII
Sleepers Awakened

It was a fact: the dead man's body had disappeared, in so brief a space of time that Major Reith and Miss Forster did not find it easy to credit the evidence of their own senses. They had been out of the room-how long? At the most, three or four minutes. They had gone into the next room, been there not more than a minute when the woman was heard screaming. Although circumstances had made the time during which Miss Forster had been left alone seem infinite, actually it was probably only a minute or two. During those fleeting minutes what had-what could have happened? Had the dead man come back to life and taken himself away?

There was nothing to show that anything had happened. There was the club, the furniture, apparently in exactly the same confusion in which they had left it; only a dark red stain, that was still wet and shiny, marked the place on the floor where something had been lying. And that stain was eloquent; the man from whom so much blood had come must have been in a parlous condition, certainly in no state to pick himself up and walk unassisted from the room. For he would probably have been bleeding still; his progress would quite possibly have been marked upon the carpet. Which way could he have gone? There were two windows and three doors-all of them were shut. Reith looked to see if there were signs of him on the other side of the doors. There was nothing.

It was while he was standing at the door looking out into the passage that there was, for the first time, anything to show that the happenings downstairs had been heard above. A gentleman in a dressing-gown came along with a candle in his hand, followed by another, in the same attire, without a candle. The one in front was the Earl of Cantyre; the other was Sir Gerrard Ackroyd. The earl broke into exclamation at the sight of the major.

"Hullo, Reith! Have the beggars woke you, too?" When he saw the girl, on his good-humoured face there came a comical expression. "What! Violet Forster! What on earth's the matter?" He was looking round the room. "Who has been knocking the furniture about like this?" He turned to Ackroyd: "That must have been the noise you heard."

"I told you it sounded as if somebody was throwing the furniture about. Somebody's been having a lark all over the house."

"Lark, you call it? If someone has been having a lark, I call it jolly bad form at this hour of the morning." His lordship's tone was one of grievance. "What's the meaning of all this? I suppose the beggars disturbed you, too-nice thing! Wasn't there a pistol-shot, and someone screaming, and I don't know what besides? Lark, indeed!"

"I wish," said the major, "that I could think that it was only what Ackroyd calls a lark. I'm afraid there's been something very like murder done."

"Murder! Reith-you're joking."

"Does this room look as if I were joking? You see this great patch upon the floor, still wet, and what's upon this club? When Miss Forster and I came into this room Noel Draycott was lying here-dead."

"Dead? Draycott-I say! How did that come about? What have you done with him?"

"What someone has done with him is what Miss Forster and I were trying to ascertain when you came along. He was here perhaps not five minutes ago, and now-where is he?"

"Where's who?"

"Hullo! Now here is the whole jolly crowd! I knew how it would be. Why do all you people want to come downstairs? You were just as well off in your beds, and a lot more comfortable."

The earl's words were prompted by the fact that through the door by which he had entered were coming a stream of people, his own wife in the van. It was she who had put that question. Behind her were all sorts and conditions of people, some of them in surprising costumes. There were ladies, old and young; some of them were guests, some servants. They had one thing in common: that they were all in a state of considerable excitement. There was the same miscellaneous collection of men. The guests, for the most part, seemed disposed to treat the affair as a jest. The male servants were more serious; it might be that under no circumstances could they see a jest in anything which involved their being roused from well-earned slumber.

It was the countess who was the first to reply to the earl:

"My good Rupert, did you imagine that, after your rushing out of the room like that, I was going to stop in bed to be murdered? What has been going on? What a state this room is in! And, my dear Violet, what is the matter with you? You look as if you'd seen, not one ghost, but several!" When the lady saw that there really was something the matter with the girl, her flippant tones became suddenly earnest. "Violet, are you ill?"

"I twisted my foot coming down the stairs, and-it is pretty bad."

"You poor child! It's plain you can't stand; and you oughtn't to. We'll have you carried upstairs. There's a carrying chair in the hall. But" – her ladyship's glance was wandering round-"whatever has been going on in here? Is that- What's that on the floor?"

Major Reith spoke:

"If you'll forgive me, Countess, I don't think, at any rate, that you ladies ought to come in here."

"And, pray, why not, Major Reith; what has happened?"

The major signalled with his eyes to the earl; the countess caught him in the act.

"It's no good your trying to tell the earl that I'm to be got rid of. I insist, Major Reith, upon your telling me what that mark on the carpet means."

"I'm afraid, Lady Cantyre, that there's been foul play."

The major was plainly embarrassed.

"At Avonham? In my house? Foul play? What do you mean?"

The major's embarrassment did not grow less, which she seemed to resent.

"What is it you are trying to find words to hide? Violet, you at least are my friend. What is it that Major Reith does not wish me to know? Tell me, in two words, what has happened."

"Mr. Noel Draycott has been murdered."

There burst a chorus of exclamation from all the assembled people. One or two of the more sensitive feminine spirits shrieked. One elderly lady pressed boldly to the front, heedless of the fact that the state of deshabille that she was in disclosed an amazing absence of hair on her head:

"I don't know about anybody having been murdered, but I know that I've been robbed."

The hostess turned to her.

"Duchess!"

"Every bit of jewellery I brought with me has been stolen."

A feminine voice exclaimed:

"What! the Ditchling diamonds?"

"You saw that I was wearing them to-night at the ball? Well, they're gone-stolen-every one!"

"But-are you sure?" The hostess was regarding the hairless lady with a look of very genuine concern.

"I was fast asleep when something woke me. I couldn't think what it was. I always sleep with the lights out. I could see nothing, but I had a feeling that there was somebody in the room. There's an electric light over my bed; I tried to turn it on, but it wouldn't come. I suppose the noise I had made had been noticed. I heard someone moving quickly across the floor. I sat up in bed. 'Who's there?' I asked. The only answer was that the door was opened. I got out of bed-I'm not so young as I was, and I'm not built for rapid movement; getting out of bed takes me some time. By the time I was well planted on my feet I knew quite well that whoever had been in my room was gone. I turned on the light at the door. As I expected, the room was empty, the door was shut; and, also what I expected, my jewel-case was lying empty on the floor. I thought I had heard something fall, and that was it. Everything was taken out of it; from what I saw, not so much as a ring had been left. I was just going to ring the bell, though whether any good would come of it I doubted-I have rung an electric bell in the middle of the night for an hour at a time, and no one has paid the slightest attention-but just as I was going to do it someone went rushing past my door, and, of course, I opened it to see if it was the thief, and a gun went off somewhere downstairs, and all the other bedroom doors seemed to open at once, everyone came out of them, and there was a pretty to-do, and then they went downstairs, and I came with them. I don't know what it's all about; all I do know is that every bit of jewellery I had has been stolen."

The duchess's somewhat incoherent narrative was greeted by a chorus of feminine voices:

"I've been robbed, too!"

"So have I!"

"Everything I had has been taken!"

"I've been stripped of every single thing!"

It would seem as if all the guests at Avonham had suffered from a series of mishaps. The host thrust in his word:

"By George! Do you know, Margaret, I shouldn't wonder if you had been robbed."

"Rupert!"

"That's what woke me-the feeling that someone was in the room, or, rather, had just gone out of it. I had an idea the door had just been shut. I had it so strongly that I got up and went out into the passage to see if there was anyone about. Then I heard a fine how-d'ye-do going on downstairs, and I went back into the room and switched on the light, and you woke up."

"Of course. Do you think I'm one of the Seven Sleepers? You'd have woke the dead. I asked what was the matter, and, instead of answering, you kept cramming yourself into your dressing-gown, and I could hardly credit my senses when, without a word, you rushed out of the room, and left me all alone."

"I'll bet a penny that somebody had been in the room, and that it wasn't fancy my thinking that someone had just shut the door. Where were your jewels?"

"They were in the case on the table."

"I'll lay a trifle that they're not there now. It looks very much as if the place had been plundered on a wholesale scale. What's that you said about Noel Draycott?"

This inquiry was addressed to the major, who explained to the best of his ability. The earl continued:

"I heard what seemed a jolly row going on downstairs-that's what brought me. But-could it have been Draycott? What could he have been having a row about, and with whom?"

A suggestion came from Sir Gerrard Ackroyd.

"He might have heard the thief, chased him, and have brought him to bay, and in the row which followed he might have got the worst of it. That sort of chap doesn't stick at trifles."

"But this is the most extraordinary thing of which I have ever heard: that anyone should have had the audacity to go into the bedrooms, one after the other. In each case it looks as if he knew just where the jewels were kept; and look at the risks he ran! Then he comes downstairs, and meets Draycott. Could Draycott have fired that shot?"

Again the question was addressed to the major.

"It could not have been. It was after we had found him lying dead that the shot was fired, and it was while we had gone to see who fired the shot that the body vanished."

"His body? You talk as if you were sure that he was dead, but was he?"

"I've had some experience of dead men. I ought to know one when I see him. I had an opportunity of examining him before Miss Forster came in. I should have been prepared to assert positively that he was dead, and I'm prepared to do so still. I do not believe that in such a matter I could have been so mistaken."

"But, my dear man, if he was lying dead upon the floor, he could not have picked himself up and walked away, could he?"

"Presumably not."

"Presumably! Did you ever hear of a dead man that did? Very well, then. And you say there wasn't time for anyone to come in and carry him off; and, mind you, it would have taken a good many minutes. Someone would have seen them, wouldn't they? The whole house was up and about by then. Two people can't walk about carrying a corpse without being noticed; and, even granting it, they must have planked him down somewhere. The only question is, where?"

"I should say that the thing to do is to go up to Mr. Noel Draycott's room, and see if he is in it-alive or dead."

This practical suggestion, which came from Sir Gerrard Ackroyd, was acted on then and there. Noel Draycott's room was empty. More, it seemed that it had never been occupied; at least, since he had dressed for the ball. There was a tweed suit, which he had exchanged for dress, lying just as it was extremely likely he had placed it. It was the same with all his other garments. There was nothing whatever unusual about the appearance of the room, nothing to show that anybody had entered it since its occupant had gone down to dance at the ball.

CHAPTER XVIII
In Bed

"Violet!" The Countess of Cantyre came dashing into Miss Forster's bedroom-the word "dashing" fairly describes her method of entry. "I have been robbed."

Miss Forster was in bed, though very far from asleep, or even inclined to slumber. She had been borne upstairs in the carrying chair, her foot had been bathed and bandaged by sympathetic hands, and she had been placed between the sheets. She was given stern injunctions that she was on no account to move; the doctor would be sent for at the earliest reasonable hour, and until his arrival she was not to move. But when her ladyship made that announcement, she sat up immediately.

"Margaret, you don't mean it?"

"Don't tell me that I don't mean it when I know that I do. I went straight to my room when I left you-"

"That's only ten minutes ago."

"The first thing I saw when I entered my room was my jewel-case lying on the floor. I had clean forgotten all about what Rupert had said till I saw it; really, I am not sure that I quite believe the stories that those other women have been telling; but when I saw it-there, of all places-of course, I dashed at it and-Violet, it was open, and it was empty; practically all the Avonham jewels have been walked off with."

Her ladyship, flouncing down on to a chair, presented quite a charming picture of feminine agitation.

"So Rupert is right?"

"Of course he is-that's the worst of it. He seldom is right, but when he is, it is nearly always when it would have been much better if he wasn't. While we were fast asleep in our beds, some dreadful creature must have had the incredible impudence to come into our room, and, under our very noses, walk off with everything. He has taken, from my room alone, nearly a quarter of a million's worth of jewels."

"Margaret!"

"Oh, it's all very well to say 'Margaret,' but I know he has. And the most maddening part of it is that to a certain extent it's my fault-as I shall be told before I'm very much older. I would have all the jewels out of the bank; between ourselves, I knew the duchess was going to wear her diamonds, and I had heard tales of what other people were going to wear. I've got diamonds as well as other people, and if I didn't wear them I meant to let them know it."

"You hadn't them on to-night."

"My dear, was it likely? I left that sort of thing to other people. But I meant to have my case down in the morning, and let those other people see what was in it. Talk about the Ditchling diamonds! You've never seen the Avonham diamonds, not the whole lot of them together, but they are-well, now they aren't, because they're stolen. And shan't I hear of it! Cantyre was quite unpleasant when I told him about having them all down here; in fact, he doesn't know that I did have them, and that's another thing. Oh, won't there be things said! I know I shall have to take to my bed for a month; it's only when I take to my bed that Cantyre thinks he's gone too far."

The excitable lady bounced up out of her chair and was trotting about the room-she was so very short that her longest steps could hardly be described as strides. Suddenly she stood still, and she turned to her friend.

"Violet-honour bright! What do you know about all this?"

Possibly it was because the assault was so unexpected that such a very singular look came on the young lady's face.

"Margaret! Whatever do you mean?"

"Oh, don't let's humbug each other any more, my dear! I was watching you downstairs, and I've been watching you all the while since, and I'm absolutely certain that before the duchess said a word about her having been robbed you knew she had been. Now, what do you know? I don't want to be horrid, and I'm not going to be, but you and I have been friends ever since we were tiny mites. You see what an awful hole I'm in. Not only have I been robbed myself, but practically all my guests-I do think if you can do anything to help me, you ought to. Now, don't trouble yourself to go in for denying; I know you through and through, just as you know me, but I'm perfectly convinced that you have some inkling into the meaning of what has taken place to-night-haven't you? On your honour. I know that your honour is as dear to you as to a man, and that what you say upon your honour that's the truth. You are silent."

And, indeed, the young lady was. Her excited hostess's sudden appeal seemed to have taken her singularly aback. The countess was quick to draw her own conclusions.

"My dear-you've answered me; I can see it on your face, in your eyes, as I've seen it all along-you do know something. Now, what do you know? I've helped you in more than one tight place, now you help me-a clean breast, my dear."

Thus assailed, the young lady made an obvious effort to evade the direct issue which the other was presenting, as if she were aiming a pistol at her head.

"Really, Margaret, to listen to you, one would think that I had stolen the jewels myself. Are you suggesting that I'm a thief? If so, pray don't beat about the bush; do be candid."

"No, Vi, you don't. I know how difficult it is to get from you a plain answer to a plain question, if you choose, but I'm going to get one now. It's not necessary for me to say that I don't think you stole the jewels yourself, but I do think that you've some sort of knowledge as to who did."

"Margaret!"

"It's no use your saying 'Margaret'-out with it."

"Out with what?"

"Vi, shall I have to shake you in spite of your bad foot? Have you any suspicion as to who stole my jewels? Answer me now-yes or no-on your honour."

"I shan't answer you."

"Thank you, you have answered me."

"I've not answered you, and I'm not going to. Margaret, will you please go away?"

The young lady laid herself down in bed, drew the clothes up over her shoulders, and turned her face from her friend. The countess observed her proceedings with something in her eyes, the meaning of which it was not easy to understand.

"Yes, my dear, I will go away, but that will make no difference to you-you'll feel as if I were at your bedside all the time; it will be worse for you than if I were. But I don't at all mind giving you an opportunity to think things over. You've told me something of what I want to know, and I rather fancy that when I see you again, you will tell me all the rest. Good-night, Vi; pleasant dreams; I hope that your foot won't keep you from sleeping. Shall I turn out these lights? You won't be able to sleep amidst all this illumination, and you've got that one over your bed."

The girl said nothing, but the lights went out; the one above her was not on, so that when the visitor had departed the room was in darkness.

Something kept Miss Forster from sleeping, and it was not her foot; it was her thoughts. The countess had prophesied truly: her going made no difference; she might as well have stayed, for all the peace she had left behind. What, the girl asked herself, as she lay there wrestling with the thoughts which banished sleep-what had she said; what had she admitted; what would she be made to admit when the countess could get at her again, before she was allowed to quit Avonham? What was more to the point-what had she to admit; what did she know?

That was where the iron entered into her soul, so that she hid her face on the pillow, and would have sobbed, only the tears refused to come. What did she not know? And, from what she knew, what did she not surmise? The leather bag in the old oak chest-what was in it? Did she not know as well as if the contents had been spread out in front of her? And it had been in Sydney's hand!

It was Sydney. She had tried to tell herself that it was not; that she had made a mistake; that there was a doubt about it; she could not be sure-how could she be sure when she had only seen him for an instant in a light which, after all, was no light at all? It was absurd to suppose that anyone could be certain, under such conditions, of another person's personality. Yet she was certain; she was sure.

It was Sydney; and it was he who was the thief. It was at this point that she dug her nails into the palms of her hands, and would have liked to tear her own heart out, and to have died.

It was Sydney who was the thief; it was his footstep she had heard hurrying past her room. By what odd chance had he not visited her? He had visited so many of the others. Could he have known which rooms it would be worth his while to visit, and which to leave alone?

Had he come to her-if he had! – with the leather bag in his hand, he would have found her still up. What a meeting that would have been!

It was not easy for her to reflect, but it was borne in upon her presently that this act of which he had been guilty was one of astounding daring. She had not gone to bed; others might have still been up; it was extraordinary that he had only gone to the rooms in which the people were asleep. How had he known-that they were asleep? The problem set her thinking.

She recalled the feeling she had had that she had not been the only person in the hall. If that was the case, who could that other person have been? It was not Sydney; she had distinctly heard him, as she believed, rushing from one of the rooms beyond. What had he been doing in there, and what was the explanation of the voice which, in its anguish, she had heard addressing him by name? Could it be he who had been quarrelling with Noel Draycott?

She did not dare to try to find an answer to that question; it had come upon her unawares-she did not dare to put it to herself again. She was a young woman of strong will-with all her might she put it from her. As it were, she passed her mind into another channel-she thought of the bag.

Two things occurred to her; the one was the almost uncanny feeling that she had had that she was being observed as she hid it in the chest; the other was a sudden hideous terror that if the bag was found, there might be something about it, in it, which would associate it with-its owner. This fear became all at once such a terrible, mastering obsession that it possessed her whole being; all else was banished from her tortured brain but that one thing-the bag. Suppose-suppose-something happened to the bag?

She would not risk it, she could not. The only chance she might have of getting it into her own keeping, where it would be safe, was-now. In the morning, in an hour or two, it would be too late. Servants would be about, then members of the household; she would never dare to go to that chest for the bag while a single soul was about. That would be impossible; that might be-to bring ruin to Sydney. She could not take the risk-she would not; the only thing to be done was that she should go and get it now.

She got out of bed to get it. She did not switch on the light. A grey gleam was coming through the sides of her blinds; the morning was come; there would be light enough for her to see. Her foot hurt, but it was not so painful as it had been; she could move on it, enough to serve her purpose. She got into her dressing-gown and she went to the door of her room.