"None, sir."
"Then he must have tidied up after we left?"
"Yes, sir."
Bullard gave a tiny cough and glanced at Lancaster, who immediately said in a somewhat recitative fashion:
"I stick to my theory, Bullard, that Mr. Craig, in placing some of his own papers in a green metal box, placed ours along with them."
Bullard turned to the servant with a frank look of appeal. "A green metal box. Can you help us, Caw?"
It was on Caw's tongue to reply "No, sir." But in that moment, as it does with most of us at times, vanity pushed aside discretion. "Yes, sir," he answered. "I was the last to see inside that box, closing it at Mr. Craig's request, and I can assure you there were no papers in it."
"Wrong again, Lancaster!" Bullard lightly remarked. Then gravely—"The matter is so serious, Caw, that I must ask you who has charge of the papers and so on upstairs?"
"I, sir."
"And to whom are you responsible?"
"My master and Mr. Alan Craig—till the clock stops, sir."
After a moment's pause Bullard said—"Yes, of course, we are aware that all here was gifted to Mr. Alan; also Mr. Craig mentioned the clock. But now, would you have any objections to taking us upstairs, on the chance that our document is lying about where we were sitting?"
Caw considered quickly. To his mind, their story had been damned by the mention of the Green Box; at the same time, he was quite aware that they had only to persist in their story to obtain legal authority to search the room upstairs, and his master had commanded "no police interference." He felt pretty confident, too, that they would hardly attempt to play the burglar game in his presence, but he was curious to see how far they would go, and he was not unarmed.
"Be so good as to follow me, gentlemen," he said in his stiff way, and led them in the desired direction.
The master's room, though fireless, was warm. In silence they entered, their footfalls soundless on the heavy carpet.
Bullard halted in front of the clock with its flashing pendulum. "Is this what he spoke of," he enquired softly, "and when does it stop?"
The servant cleared his throat. "A year to-night, sir."
"Ah! … And why this—and this?" He pointed first to the ebony slip, then to the green fluid.
"To prevent its being interfered with; also, no doubt to protect the jewels in the pendulum."
"Is it the liquid that is dangerous?"
"So I understand, sir."
"Poison?—explosive?"
"I could not say, sir."
Bullard turned to Lancaster, who had sunk into a chair, then back to the servant.
"I say, Caw," he said, "could you possibly get Mr. Lancaster something to drink? He's knocked up with the travelling, and it's a bitter night outside. I could do with something myself."
"Very good, sir," came the reply, without hesitation, and Caw went out, closing the door behind him.
"Now," whispered Bullard, and made straight for the writing table, taking from his pocket an instrument of shining steel.
But it was not needed. The deep drawer opened obediently, sweetly.
"Lancaster, we've got it first time!" He lifted out and placed the Green Box on the table. "The diamonds!" Lancaster got up with a jerk and shudder. "Quick! Look in the other drawers for the keys."
All the other drawers were locked.
"Then we must take the whole thing."
"Good Heavens! We can't do that! How can—"
Bullard darted to the door and listened. After a moment he turned the handle gingerly. Then he grinned.
"I'm hanged," said he, "but the artful Caw has locked us in!"
"He suspects us!"
"Can't help it." Bullard sped to the bay window and drew aside one of the heavy curtains.
"I've got it!" he exclaimed.
Christopher Craig had had a craze for things that worked silently and easily. Bullard lifted the heavy sash with scarce a sound.
"Switch off the lights and come here!" he ordered. "Don't fall over things and make a row."
When Lancaster joined him Bullard was leaning half out of the window, directing the ray from an electric torch on the ground below. An incessant murmuring came from the loch, filling their ears.
"Lancaster, could you drop that height?"
"Oh, God, no!"
"There's a great heap of gathered leaves there—see! Think! Six hundred thousand pounds!"
"No, no! If one of us got hurt—"
"Perhaps you're right. There's nothing for it but to drop the box and collect it when we get out. 'Sh! did you hear something just now?"
Lancaster started and caught his head a stunning blow on the sash. At the same time he inadvertently knocked the torch from the fingers of Bullard, who was going to flash it into the darkness behind them.
"Idiot!" muttered Bullard. "Don't move till I fetch the box." He stole across the floor, feeling his way.
Lancaster, nursing his head, waited—waited until a gasped expletive reached his ears—
"Damnation!" Then—"Quick! Close the window, draw the curtain!" The speaker blundered to the electric switch.
Fumblingly, Lancaster obeyed, then turned to face a blaze of light, Bullard, white with fury and dismay, and the writing table with nothing on it.
Next moment, his wits in action again, Bullard made for the table, closed the deep drawer, and threw himself on an easy chair, hissing at the gaping Lancaster, "Sit down, you fool!"
Lancaster collapsed on the couch as Caw, bearing a salver with decanters, a syphon, and glasses, entered the room.
"Your doors open quietly enough," remarked Bullard.
"Yes, sir. Mr. Craig disliked unnecessary noise." He presented the salver to Lancaster, who mixed himself a brandy and soda with considerable splutter.
While he was doing so, Bullard produced from his breast pocket a pale-green folded paper—a hotel bill, as a matter of fact—and gaily waved it, crying—"You see, we have found it, Caw, without much trouble!"
"In your pocket, sir?"
"On this chair, which I was sitting on yesterday."
"Indeed, sir! Then you are quite satisfied, sir?"
"Perfectly. By the way, Caw—no, I'll take whiskey—are you aware that the stones in that pendulum over there are worth a couple of thousand pounds?"
"If you say so, sir."
"Are you interested in diamonds, Caw?"
"Very much, sir—from an artistic point of view, sir."
"Their value does not interest you?"
"It does not excite me, sir."
"A capital answer! You have seen Mr. Craig's collection?"
"Frequently, sir."
Bullard took a bundle of notes from his pocket. "I offer you ten pounds to guess correctly the value of the collection."
"Six hundred thousand pounds, sir…. Thank you, sir." With supreme stolidity Caw presented the salver as a waiter might do for his tip.
Though taken aback, the loser laughed. He took a long drink, and laughed again.
"Excuse me, sir," said Caw, "but my master is still in the house."
Lancaster started, and took a hasty gulp, spilling a little.
"I beg your pardon—and his," said Bullard gravely. "But I am not often 'had.' Now, look here, Caw; I have still nine hundred and ninety pounds here. They are yours, if you can tell me where the collection is at the present moment."
The topmost thought in Caw's mind then was that the brutes might have had the decency to have waited until his master was laid in the grave. He felt helpless, powerless. He could not doubt that Bullard was playing with him. And in view of the promise to his master he could do nothing to prevent the crime, the desecration as he felt it to be. He could do nothing but look on in silence while they searched, until they found—But stay! he might as well despoil the spoilers when he had the chance.
"I will take your money, sir," he said, in an odd voice. "Look in the bottom right-hand drawer in the writing table."
Bullard's eyebrows rose. Then he got up and, with his eyes on the servant, opened the empty drawer.
Caw was within an ace of dropping the salver. After a moment he carried it to a side table and set it down with a small crash. Turning, he looked searchingly round the room. His gaze stopped at the curtain; he thought he understood. They had had an accomplice outside! … He seemed to glide across to Bullard, and Bullard found himself looking into the barrel of a stout revolver.
"Out o' the house, the pair o' ye," he ordered hoarsely, "or, by God,I'll forget the holy dead!"
"But look here—"
"Not a word! Take your hats and go! You've got what you came for—"
"Listen, you madman!" Bullard held up a hand, the one with the notes in it.
"Thanks!" With a flash-like movement Caw nipped away the notes. "You've got to pay something!"
Springing round behind Bullard, he shoved the cold steel into the nape of his neck. "March! and you, too, Mr. Lancaster. Take your friend's hat!"
Ignoring his colleague's gaze, which had moved suggestively from himself to the fire-irons, Lancaster obeyed and made for the door.
"You'll be devilish sorry," began Bullard, beside himself—
"Another word, and you'll lose one ear—to begin with. March!"
Sullenly Bullard moved forward. Not until he was in the garden did he attempt speech, and then his voice was thick, though fairly under control.
"Well, my man," he said, "you've got yourself into a nasty hole. Robbery, with a revolver in your hand, is rather seriously regarded by the law. But as you have acted on impulse and misapprehension, I am disposed to give you a chance. Restore those notes—"
"Looks like being a wet night," said Caw, and shut the outer door.
When he had made it fast he switched off the lights in the hall and went upstairs. In his master's room he wavered, and his eyes rested longingly on the decanters, for he was feeling the reaction. But he was a good servant still, and it would be "hardly the thing" to take a dram there and then. Yet he forgot the conventions of service when, a moment later, he sank upon a chair and bowed his head on his master's table, sick at heart, sore in pride. He had been so easily tricked! And yet what difference would it have made if they had walked out of the room with the Green Box in their possession? But he was very sure they would not have dared so greatly, unless, perhaps, with force of arms—in which case, despite all promises, he knew he would have resisted. It never occurred to Caw to doubt his master's sanity, but now he began to wonder what had possessed Mr. Craig in regard to the Green Box. Six hundred thousand pounds! He seemed to see his master seated at the table, calmly naming the stupendous sum—and in the same instant he realised that he himself was sitting in his master's place. He sprang up, and almost fell over the open drawer. He stooped to close it, straightened up with an exclamation, only to drop to his knees, staring, staring at—the Green Box! Suddenly he gave a short chuckle, rose, and made for the door in the back wall.
Ere he reached it, it opened. A girl came in.
He was taken aback, and she was first to speak.
"Would you mind shaking hands?" said she.
"Miss Handyside, was it you?" he cried, taking her hand with diffidence.
She nodded. "At least, I suppose so, for it all happened so quickly thatI'm still in a state of wonder."
"It was splendid, miss! I shall never be able to thank you."
"I couldn't help doing it, though I'm not used to adventures. It was all done on an impulse."
"Woman's wit, miss, if you'll excuse my saying so."
"Well, I was in the dark in more senses than one, but the proceedings of those two gentlemen were so peculiar, to say the least of it, that I felt justified in playing the spy."
"When did you arrive on the scene, miss?" Caw enquired, removing his admiring glance. For several years he had adored the doctor's daughter—from a strictly artistic point of view, as he would have explained it—and undoubtedly Marjorie had her attractions, though it would be difficult to analyse and tabulate them. A Scot with more perception than descriptive powers would have called her bonny. To go into brief detail, she had nut-brown hair, eyes of unqualified grey, a complexion suggesting sea-air, splendid teeth in a humorously inclined mouth, and a nicely rounded chin. Very few people have beautiful noses; on the other hand, not the most beautiful nose will redeem an otherwise unattractive countenance, whereas an ordinary nondescript nose in a charming face simply becomes part of it. Marjorie's was nondescript, but did not turn up or droop excessively. Without being guilty of stoutness, she lacked the poorly nourished look of so many young women of the day.
"I must explain why I arrived at all," she said, in answer to Caw's question. "I came with a message from the doctor—he twisted his ankle in the dark—not seriously, but quite badly enough to prevent his coming along himself. Well, when I reached the door I noticed from a thread of light that it was not absolutely shut—"
"My fault, miss. I was just about to come along for the night when the ring came."
"Then I heard voices—faintly—but clearly enough for me to judge they were those of strangers, and I was going to go back when I heard a voice say 'Lancaster, we've got it first time!' I'm ashamed to say my curiosity was too much for me—"
"Thank God for female curiosity, miss, if you'll excuse my saying so."
She checked a laugh. "You know how quietly the door works, I switched off the light behind me and opened it slightly—all trembles, I assure you—and looked in. The younger man was lifting a greenish box from a drawer to the writing-table, and the other man seemed half-paralysed with nervousness." She proceeded to relate what the reader already knows up to the episode of the window. "Then, with my heart in my mouth, I opened the door wide and stole in. The faint light from the water guided me to the table, but I almost lost my way going back with the box. I think they did hear something, but I was in safety by the time they could have turned their light into the room. But now I had closed the door tight, and could hear no more except indistinct voices, among which I fancied I heard yours. You were talking angrily, I think. And after a while there was a silence, and I waited and waited until I could wait no longer. Is it true," she asked abruptly, "that there are sixty thousand pounds' worth—"
"Six hundred thousand pounds, miss."
"Oh! … But why was it not in a safe place? And who were those men?And what—"
"It will be necessary," said Caw, as one coming to a decision, "to tell you all about it, Miss Handyside. My master said I might trust you. It's too much," he added, "for me to carry alone. And if you think the doctor—"
"Goodness!" she exclaimed; "he'll be wondering what has come over me—and I've forgotten to give you his message! It was just to tell that he thought it was time you were leaving here for your new quarters."
"Very good, miss. I'll come now."
"But are you going to leave the box there?"
"Got to—master's orders."
"Extraordinary! It's locked, I suppose?"
"Yes, miss; and last night, or, rather, this morning, at 12:15 by the clock, I threw the key into the loch—master's orders."
"You are sure the diamonds are in it now?"
"I was the last to see them and shut them in—master's orders."
"Oh, I can't take in any more! Let us consult the doctor at once."
Presently they passed out by the way the girl had entered, closing the door behind them. They were at the top of a narrow and rather steep staircase of many steps covered with rubber. Descending they were in a tunnel seven feet high and four in width, so long that in the distance the sides seemed to come together. Roof and walls were white; light was supplied from bulbs overhead. The atmosphere was fresh, though the means of ventilation were not visible. Here again they trod on rubber. Christopher Craig had caused the tunnel to be constructed as soon as he realised the truth about his malady; but it was primarily the outcome of a joking remark by Handyside after a midnight summons in mid-winter. It should be said here that at first Handyside had demurred becoming his neighbour's physician, but growing friendship with the lonely man had gradually eliminated his scruples. The tunnel had been a costly undertaking, the more so owing to the hurrying of its construction, but Christopher would have told you that its existence had saved his life on more than one occasion. The secret of the doors, by the way, was known only to himself and Caw, Dr. Handyside and Marjorie.
A week later Doris Lancaster was sitting alone by the drawing-room fire, a book on her lap. It was not so often that she had an evening to spend in quietness; one of her mother's great aims in life was to have "something on" at least six nights out of the seven. At the present moment Mrs. Lancaster was in her boudoir, accepting and sending out invitations for comparatively distant dates.
Sweetly the clock on the mantel struck nine, and Doris told herself that now no one was likely to call. She lay back in the chair, a graceful figure in pale green, stretched her pretty ankles to the glow, and sought to escape certain gnawing thoughts in the pages of a novel which had won from the reviewers such adjectives as "entrancing," "compelling," "intensely interesting."
And just then a servant announced "Mr. France."
Well, after all, she was not sorry to see Mr. France—or Teddy, as she had called him for a good many years. He was a frequent visitor, despite the fact that Mrs. Lancaster suffered him only because everybody else seemed to like him. He was fair, tall, and lanky, and so pleasant of countenance that it would not be worth while enumerating his defective features.
Mrs. Lancaster disapproved of him for three reasons: first, he had only two hundred a year plus a pittance from the insurance company that put up, as he expressed it, with his services; second, he had been Alan Craig's close friend; third, she suspected that he saw through her affectations. That he had been openly in love with Doris since the days of pigtails and short frocks troubled her not at all: he was too hopelessly ineligible. And it had not troubled Doris for a long time—not since Alan Craig had gone away. Since then Teddy had seemed to become more of a friend and less of an admirer than ever.
"This is great luck," he remarked, seating himself in the opposite easy chair with an enforced extension of immaculate pumps and silken sox. (People often wondered how Teddy "did it" on the money.) "It's so seldom one can find you alone nowadays. Well, how's things generally?"
"Pretty much the same, Teddy," she answered, with the smile that hurt him. "Mother's busy as usual—"
"Out?"
"No; writing, I think."
"How's your father? I haven't seen him for an age."
"I wish he were fitter. He has had to stay in bed for a few days—he came down for dinner to-night for the first time. Last week he had three nights and a day in the train—with Mr. Bullard."
"Oh, I say! Bad enough without Bullard, but—"
"Oh, I'm so glad," she cried softly. "You don't like Mr. Bullard, Teddy.I'm beginning to abhor the man."
"Keep on abhorring!"
Swiftly she looked at him. "You know something?"
He shook his head. "Not a thing, Doris. Merely my instinctive dislike. I'm a sort of bow-wow, you know. Still, your mother approves of him, and he is your father's friend."
"I sometimes feel it has been an unlucky friendship for father," she said in a low voice, "and yet I have nothing to go on. I suppose I'm horribly unjust, but I'd give anything to learn something positive against the man."
"And yet," said the young man slowly and heavily, "sooner or later Mr.Francis Bullard will ask you to marry him."
Doris threw up her head. "I'd sooner marry—" She paused.
"Me, for instance?"
"Don't be absurd, Teddy." She flushed slightly.
"Absurd, but serious," he quietly returned. "Doris, I came to-night to ask you. It wouldn't keep any longer. One moment, please. Two things happened yesterday. My father won the big law suit that has been our nightmare for years; and I got a move-up in the office. Never was more shocked in all my life. Mighty little to offer you, Doris—"
"Oh, don't speak about it."
"Well, I'll cut that bit out; but please let me finish. You know I've been in love with you for ages, though I did my best to get it under when a better man appeared; and I think you'll admit I haven't worried you much since. And I'm perfectly aware that you can't give me what you gave him…. Still, Doris, I'm not a bad fellow, and you could make me a finer one, and—well, I'd hope not to bore you with my devotion and all that, but, of course, you'd have to take that risk as well as your parents' disapproval. Perhaps I ought to have waited longer, dear, but I didn't imagine my chances would be any greater a year hence, and it has seemed to me lately that—that you needed some one who would care for you before and above everything else…. Doris, remembering how long I've loved you, can't you trust me and take me for—for want of a better?"
His words had moved her, and moments passed before she could answer. "Dear Teddy, it is true that I want to be cared for—no need to deny it to you—but it wouldn't be right to take all you could give and give nothing."
"You would give much without knowing it," he pleaded. "And you were not made to be sorry all your life."
"I'm not going to make you sorry, Teddy."
"You're doing it as hard as you can!"
She smiled in spite of herself. "No," she said presently, "I've no intention of shunning all joys and abandoning all hopes, but I can't do what you ask, Teddy. I will tell you just one thing that you may not know. Almost at the last moment before Alan went away I promised him I would wait."
Teddy cleared his throat. "I didn't know, though I may have guessed…. But I do know, Doris—I felt it on my way here to-night—that Alan, if he could look into my heart now, would give me his blessing. I'm not asking to fill his place, you know."
"Oh, you make it very hard for me! You—you've been such a faithful friend."
"Give in, Doris, give in to me!" He rose and stood looking down on her bowed head. "Dear, I'd bring Alan back to you if I could. Don't you believe that?"
"Oh, yes!"
"With all your heart?"
"With all my heart, Teddy."
"Then—" He stopped and took her hand. "Doris!" …
He straightened up sharply. The door was opening. The servant announced—
"Mr. Bullard."
It was an awkward enough situation, but neither the girl nor the young man was heavy-witted. Doris rose slowly, languidly, it seemed, and though aware that her eyes must betray her, turned and greeted Bullard in cool, even tones. The two men exchanged perfunctory nods.
"Thanks, but I won't sit down," said Bullard. "I called to enquire for your father, and to see him, if at all possible. Is he feeling better to-night?"
"I think he is in the library at present," she replied, "but he has not yet got over his fatigue."
"Yes," he replied sympathetically, "he and I had too much trailing last week, but business must not be shirked, Miss Doris."
She was a little startled by hearing her name from his lips; until now he had addressed her with full formality. She was not to know that the sight of her eyes when she had turned to meet him had informed him of something unlooked for, and had put a period to his long-lived irresolution regarding her. Francis Bullard, in fact, had suddenly realised that if he wished to secure a wife in the only woman of whom he had ever thought twice in that respect, he would have to act promptly, not to say firmly. Accordingly, as though forgetting the stated purpose of his visit, he dropped into a chair and chatted entertainingly enough until Mrs. Lancaster made her appearance.
She offered to conduct him to her husband, and he allowed her to do so as far as the hall. There he halted and said—
"You will do me a great favour by getting rid of Mr. France and remaining with Miss Doris in the drawing-room until I return." In response to her look of enquiry he added—"Then you will do me a further favour by retiring."
"Really, Mr. Bullard, I must ask you to explain!"
"Your daughter is not going to marry a title—to begin with, at any rate." He smiled and passed on.
She overtook him. "Have you something unpleasant to say to my husband?" she demanded.
"I am going to return him some money he thought lost."
"How much?"
"Five hundred pounds."
"Is that all?"
"Patience!" he answered, and made his escape.
Lancaster, pencil in hand, was seated at his writing-table. On his retiral from his business in South Africa he had indulged dreams of a quiet room at home and the peaceful companionship of books, and he had got the length of providing the nucleus of a library. But his income, though large, had never been equal to the varied demands upon it, and the room had become simply a chamber wherein he escaped the irritations of society only to suffer the torments of secret anxieties, building up futile schemes for his salvation, striving to extract hope from vain calculations.
At the entrance of Bullard he lifted his head with a start, and into his eyes came the question—"What new terror are you going to spring upon me now?"
"Glad to see you are better," Bullard remarked, drawing a chair to the table and seating himself. "I didn't intend to trouble you to-night, but something arrived by the late afternoon delivery which I thought would interest you. No need to be nervy. It's nothing to upset you." He threw a bundle of notes and a registered envelope on the table. "Your five hundred comes back to you, after all."
Lancaster eyed the notes, then took up the envelope and drew out a sheet of paper of poor quality, bearing a few lines in a school-boyish hand.
"3/11/13.
"Sir,—Herewith the sum of £990 which I accepted from you the other night owing to a misunderstanding. Without apologies for doubting your honesty—Yours truly,
Lancaster drew a long breath. "So he was fooling us, Bullard."
"Not at all! Some one was fooling him!—only he has managed—I'm convinced of that—to regain possession of the green box. As I impressed on you just after the fiasco, there was some one in one of the presses, and now it is evident that Caw captured that person after we had left. Unfortunately, it means that a fourth person has knowledge of the diamonds. Still, my friend, we have another chance."
"What? You don't mean to say—"
"Certainly, we shall try again,—we must! And the sooner the better! That is, unless we find we can settle amicably with the invaluable Caw. His note suggests that possibility, doesn't it? His impertinence gives me encouragement."
"It is the letter," said Lancaster heavily, "of an honest man—"
"Up to the tune of a thousand pounds. A wise man, if you like, who foresaw the possibility of the notes being stopped."
"You would not have dared do that."
"I had already written off my share as a bad debt," said Bullard, with a smile, "but Caw was not to know that."
The older man rested his head upon his hand. "You cannot be certain," he said slowly, "that the green box is still in the house."
"True. Otherwise I'd be tempted to produce Alan Craig's will and finish the business. All the nonsense about the clock and the postponed division could not prevent our taking possession of the house and everything in it. Why, even that absurdly costly clock would be ours…. And yet there's always the risk of—"
"Bullard, let us produce the will and dare the risk of losing the diamonds. From the bottom of my heart I tell you, I will be content with £25,000."
"So you think at the moment. But apart from your own feelings—not to mention mine—what about Mrs. Lancaster's?"
"I—I have already told her we cannot go on living as we are doing."
"Yes? And her reply?"
Lancaster was mute.
"Have you, by any chance, mentioned to her the matter of the!—a—debt to the—"
"For God's sake, don't torture!"
"I have no wish to do that," said Bullard quietly. "Let us change the subject, which is not really urgent at present, for one which, I trust, may be less disagreeable to you."
The host wiped his forehead. "What is it about?" he asked wearily.
"Your daughter."
Teddy was not afraid of Mrs. Lancaster, but he soon gathered that she had come to stay, and as the situation seemed to him difficult for Doris, he took his leave with assumed cheerfulness. In bidding the girl good-night he dropped in a whispered "to-morrow," which was, perhaps, more of a comfort to Doris than she would have admitted to herself. Immediately after his departure she expressed her intention of going to bed.
"Just for a moment, Doris. Do sit down again. We must settle what you are going to wear at the Thurstans' on the seventeenth." And Mrs. Lancaster plunged into a long discussion on frocks with numerous side issues.
A few weeks ago she would certainly have hesitated over Bullard as a son-in-law. Now she was prepared to accept him as such, not, it should be said, with joy and thanksgiving, yet not, on the other hand, with hopeless resignation. After all, he was richer than any of the men she knew, and in view of her husband's deplorable confession it would be well, if not vital, to have him on her side. Far better to abandon the idea of a title than to risk all continuing its pursuit. She would see to it that she did not have to abandon her other ambitions.
When Bullard made his appearance, however, she betrayed no unusual interest in the man.
"Was Robert not thinking of going to bed?" she casually enquired.
"He ought to be there now, Mrs. Lancaster. If I were you—"
"I shan't be a minute," she said, rising, "but I really must look after him."
Bullard closed the door, and came back to the hearth.
"I am glad of this opportunity, Miss Doris," he said, "to tell you something that has been in my mind to say for a very long time. Don't be alarmed."
She rose, but made no attempt to go from him. Perhaps instinct told her that there could be no ultimate escape.
"I don't wear my heart on my sleeve," he went on evenly, "but I dare say you have at least suspected my feelings for you. I have never flattered myself that you have regarded me as more than a friend of the house—a good friend, I hope—and you have known me so long that you may have come to consider me an old friend in more senses than one. Yet here I am, Doris, asking you to marry me—"
"Please, Mr. Bullard—" The whisper came from pale lips.
He proceeded gently, steadily—"At present you would say that you cannot give me the affection I desire, yet I would ask to be allowed to try to earn it. I can give you many things besides a whole-hearted admiration, Doris. You are the only woman I have ever thought of as wife. With me you would be secure from worldly hardships, and I venture to believe that you would never regret marrying me. One word more. You have been sad of late. No business of mine, perhaps, but if there is anything I can do, you may command me. Doris, will you marry me?"
Perhaps she liked him better at that moment than ever she had done; certainly better than ever she would like him again. For he broke the long silence with these words—
"I have your father's permission, your mother's approval."
"My father's permission!" she said faintly. For support she laid her arm on the mantel. Her mind was in a turmoil. At last—"I cannot marry you, Mr. Bullard."
"With all respect," he quietly answered, "I cannot take your words as final."
She was not indignant, only afraid. "You speak of my father's 'permission,'" she managed to say. "Does that include his 'approval'? You will forgive me, but—"
"I will forgive you anything but a refusal."
"Then please excuse my leaving you. I will come back."
She went quickly to the library. From the table Mr. Lancaster raised a face whose haggard aspect almost made her cry out—so aged it was, so stricken with trouble. She closed the door, went over to the table, and halted opposite him.
"Father, do you really wish me to marry Mr. Bullard?"
"My child, life—everything—is uncertain, and so—and so I would see you provided for."
"I am not afraid of poverty—compared with some things." She nerved herself. "Father, you and I used to be frank with each other. Will it—help you if I marry Mr. Bullard?"
The man writhed. "Yes, Doris," he whispered at last.
"In what way?" Again she had to wait for his reply.
"It—it would save me…"
"Save you?"
"…from a grave difficulty…"
"Difficulty?"
"…disgrace." His head drooped. And suddenly all that mattered to heart was swamped by a wave of loving pity. She ran round to him and clasped him, and kissed him. "Oh, my dear," she sighed, "it was never, never your fault."
Then she went back to the drawing-room. She looked straight at Bullard as he stood by the fire, well-dressed, well-groomed, and just rather well-fed. And there and then she made up her mind.
"Mr. Bullard," she said calmly, "I promise to marry you, if you still wish it, a year hence; but I will not be engaged to you formally or openly. That is all I can say—all I can offer you."
He frowned slightly at her tone rather than her words. The least trustworthy people are not the least trusting, and he did not doubt, knowing her as he did, that she would redeem any promise she made, nor was he particularly anxious for marriage within a year. But he had his vanity.
"Do you mean," he asked with increased suavity, "that you would wish to ignore my existence until the year is up?"
"Not your existence, Mr. Bullard—we should meet as before, I suppose—but—well, I think you must see what I mean."
He bowed. "It shall be as you will, Doris. Enough that I have your word for a year hence. Or"—he smiled—"let us say, when the clock stops, which your father will tell you is practically the same thing. Don't look so puzzled! Will you give me your hand on it?" The man was not without dignity; he made no attempt to detain her hand.
"Thank you and good-night," he said. "I will pay my respects to Mrs.Lancaster to-morrow afternoon."
He went out with the step of success. He had not only secured a wife to be proud of, but had, he believed, disarmed a possible enemy. For some time he had had vaguely uneasy moments with regard to Teddy France.
When the door had closed Doris dropped her face in her hands, but her eyes remained dry. Five minutes later, Mrs. Lancaster, coming in, received the calm and brief announcement that her daughter had promised to marry Mr. Bullard a year hence; that until then he was to be regarded as an ordinary acquaintance, and that he would call upon Mrs. Lancaster on the following afternoon.
The mother was not heartless. "You are doing this to help your father,Doris. I know all about it. It is—it is noble of you!"
The girl looked at her, and the question rushed to her lips—"Oh, why haveyou, his wife, never done anything to help him?" But it remained unuttered. "Good-night, mother," she said, and hastened to the refuge of her room.
She wrote a few lines to Teddy, stating simply what she had done. After that she gave way.
* * * * *
About the same hour, in Dr. Handyside's study, four hundred miles away, a conference of three people was drawing to a close. Earlier in the day Caw had received a belated visit from Mr. Harvie, the Glasgow lawyer, who, owing to illness, had been unable to attend to business since his client's death. Beyond the information that Caw had been left the sum of £5,000 free of duty, the old housekeeper an annuity, and the doctor £1,000, Mr. Harvie had little to say. The rest of his late client's fortune, the house and its contents, were already Alan's—if the young man were still alive, and Mr. Harvie, whatever his own ideas might be, was under an obligation to assume as much until—a slight grimace of disapproval—"the clock stopped." "I have other instructions," he added, "but they are not to be acted on at present." He had returned to town by the last steamer.
"So we have come back to where we started," Dr. Handyside was saying. "The sum total of our discoveries is that we can do next to nothing. If I hadn't become so intimate with your master's character—not his affairs, you understand, Caw—I should have had very little respect for his methods. As for his motives, they are no business of ours."
"If I may say so," returned Caw, who would have been happier standing at attention than sitting in Miss Handyside's company, "you take a lofty view of the matter, sir, and you put it in a nutshell when you say that his motives are none of our business. I am sorry to have brought you and Miss Handyside into the trouble—"
"I rather think I came in," observed Miss Handyside with a smile.
"Which is a fact, miss. And very welcome, too, if I may say so. Also, Mr.Craig trusted you both."
"Wherefore it is up to us to trust his wisdom and respect his wishes," said Handyside. "The green box must remain where it is and take its chance."
"If you hadn't told us," said Marjorie to Caw, "that you were the last to see inside the box, I should be imagining all sorts of things. And those two men were his friends!"
Caw's expression resumed its usual stolidity. To have replied that they had ceased to be his master's friends would have involved explanations which he did not feel at liberty to impart even to those trustworthy people.
"Do you think they will try again, Caw?" the girl pursued. "I wish you had not sent back the money—"
"Don't be absurd, Marjorie!" said her father. "Caw had no choice."
"Well, sir, I was sorely tempted to stick to it as a bit of revenge, but I asked myself what my master would have done—and then, as you say, sir, there was no choice. As to your question, miss, I answer 'Yes.' A man like Mr. Bullard—I'm not so sure of the other—would not give up trying for such a prize. You see, I learned his ways out there in the old days. All his successes were made by bold methods. He feared nothing, cared for nobody. Oh, yes, he is bound to have another try, though I don't fancy it will be to-morrow or the next day."
"One would almost imagine," remarked the doctor, easing his injured foot on the supporting chair, "that the beggars guessed you were powerless in the matter."
Caw shook his head. "Hardly that, sir. They had a sight of my revolver—though, of course, that was after I had made sure they had got the box, and was only a miserable attempt to give them a shake-up. But they were not to know that. Their strong point is this, sir. They have the knowledge that the existence of the diamonds is practically a secret. Even Mr. Alan, even the lawyer has never heard of them. Only Bullard, Lancaster, and Caw knew of them; and Caw is in the minority. And they say to themselves—'Once we get the box, we have only to swear that it contained papers belonging to us, that Mr. Craig had the loan of it, and so forth.' Then how is Caw going to disprove their words? they ask themselves. 'Can't be done! If Caw begins to talk of half-a-million in diamonds left in a writing-table drawer, he'll only get laughed at, and if we've nothing better to do, we can get up an action for slander.' There you are, sir! That's what I fancy I see at the back of their heads, and I'm sure I'm right."
"I believe you are, Caw!" cried Marjorie. "What do you say, father?"
"I am inclined to accept the diagnosis," replied the doctor, smiling at her eagerness. "Well, Caw, just one question more. What is your position, supposing those two gentlemen made an attempt by deputy?"
At that Caw smiled for the first time. "If I may say so, sir, I think your services would be required for the deputy!" Becoming grave, he added—"I have taken the liberty of running a new wire along the passage, sir. The opening of the door of my master's room will cause a bell to ring—not too loudly—in the quarters you have kindly provided for me in this house."
"Capital!" said the doctor.
"And if you, sir, would be good enough to give your housekeeper some explanation that would satisfy her without giving away things—"
"That will be all right, Caw," Miss Handyside assured him. "When you get to know Mrs. Butters, you will realise that she is not as others are, being a woman absolutely without curiosity."
"Thank you, miss." Caw smiled faintly and got up. "Unless there is anything more, sir—" he began.
"Nothing at all," said the doctor kindly.
"Thank you, sir. Good-night, sir. Good-night, miss."
"Trustworthy chap," Handyside remarked when the door had closed. "The legacy seems to have made no difference, though it upset him for the moment. And he knows all that's worth knowing about cars and electric lighting," he added rather irrelevantly. "I believe we'll be able to give him enough to do, after all."
"Between ourselves, father," said Marjorie suddenly, "have you the slightest hope of Alan Craig's return?"
"Not the slightest, my dear. He was a fine lad. I wish you had met him, but you were always gadding somewhere when he visited his uncle."
"I shan't be doing much gadding in the near future," she remarked thoughtfully.
"Why this sudden change from years of neglecting your only father?"
"I'm going to be on the spot in case anything happens next door."
"Indeed!" said the doctor drily.
When Teddy France, bidding Doris a formal goodnight, whispered "to-morrow" he had in mind a certain reception at the house of a mutual acquaintance, and he went home looking forward to meeting her there with hopes irrepressible. He felt that the girl he had loved for years was—if not with her whole heart—on the verge of surrender; would have been his by now but for the untimely entrance of Bullard and the succeeding intervention of Mrs. Lancaster; and he lived most of the night and the following day in a state of exaltation.
Thus Doris's note, received in the evening, was a blow that seemed to crash to the centre of his soul. At first he imagined wicked, unreasonable things. Then, his wrath failing, he realised that only one thing could have made Doris act as she had done. She had been driven by a sudden overpowering pressure. Who had exerted it? Teddy did not doubt the mother's ability for coercion any more than her vaunting ambition, and he shrunk from blaming the father; yet he feared that Mr. Lancaster, beset by financial troubles of which he had long had an inkling, had sought a way out through the sacrifice of his daughter. Well, there was nothing to be done, he decided in his misery; interference on his part would be worse than vain, and would only cause Doris to suffer a little more.
At rather a late hour the craving for a glimpse of her drew him, after all, to the reception.
She was dancing when he entered the room, and, with a pang of angry pain, he discovered that she was lovelier than ever. Her face gave no hint of the heart-sickness she endured; she nodded to him in the old friendly way, and the easy recognition brought home to him the cool truth that, after all, the wild hopes of the previous night had been of his own making, not hers. Yet why had she written and so quickly, to inform him of her bargain with Bullard? Was her note just an uncontrollable cry for pity, sympathy?
It was after midnight when he led her to a corner in the deserted supper-room.
"Shall I congratulate you, Doris?" he asked gently.
"Why, yes, I think you had better," she answered with a bitter little smile, "on having done my duty. Don't look so shocked, Teddy," she went on, "I had to say it, and you are the only person besides father and mother who knows what I have done. And now I'm going to ask a great favour."
"Yes, Doris?"
"It is that you will prove your friendship to me—prove it once more, Teddy—by never, after to-night, referring to the matter. I'm going to try hard not to let it poison my life—for a year, at any rate."
"Very well…. But I must ask at least one question."
"Ask."
"CouldIhave done anything to prevent this?"
"No one," she answered sadly, "could have done anything, excepting one man, and he died last week—Christopher Craig."
"Christopher Craig—dead? No wonder your father has been upset. Of courseI know of their long friendship in South Africa, and once I was Mr.Craig's guest in Scotland along with Alan. The old man had a tremendousadmiration for you, Doris."
"I loved him, though I did not see him for several years before the end.Well, I have answered your question. Have I your promise?"
He put his hand tenderly over hers. "I will give you two promises, Doris," he said deliberately; "the one you ask for and another. I promise you that Bullard shall never call you his wife!"
"Oh!" she cried, pale. "Why do you say that?"
"Because I mean it—and it is all I have to say." He laughed shortly. "But I am going to lay myself out to confound Mr. Bullard within the year, and I will do it. Now tell me this, Doris; are you and I to continue being friends—openly, I mean?"
"Why not? I must have one friend."
He bent and kissed her hand, and rose abruptly. "Let us go back to the dancing before I lose my head," he said, with a twisted smile. "And I must not do that when at last I've got something to do that's worth doing!"
Teddy was a creature of impulses and instincts not by any means infallible. They had led him into blunders and scrapes before now. On the other hand, they had protected him from mistakes no less serious. Had he been a matter-of-fact person he would have said to himself: "What can I do? I know of nothing positive against Bullard. Being a poor man, I cannot, by a stroke of the pen, make Lancaster independent of him, and I need not waste my wits in plotting to confound him by some great financial operation such as I've read of in novels," But what Teddy said to himself was something to this effect: "I suspect that Bullard is not quite straight, and if one watches such a man for twelve months as though one's life depended on the watching, one is likely to learn something. The only question at present is where to begin."
It is not to be assumed that Teddy went home from the reception in a light-hearted, hopeful condition. On the contrary he was extremely harassed, and wished he had kept to himself the brave prophecy made to Doris. Nevertheless, dawn found him unshaken in his determination to make good that prophecy. If, instead of spending the whole morning in doing his duty to the insurance company, he had been able to spend an early part of it in a state of invisibility within Bullard's private office, he would have justified himself beyond his highest expectations.
Bullard on entering the outer office, about nine-thirty, received from the chief clerk a curious signal which was equivalent to the words "Undesirable waiting to see you. Bolt for private room." But either Bullard was slower than usual this morning, or the "Undesirable" too alert. Ere the former's hand left the open door the latter stepped round it, saying—
"How are you, Mr. Bullard? Been waiting—"
"Get out of this," said Bullard crisply, and stood away from the door.
"Really," said the visitor with an absurdly pained look, "this is a very unkind reception." He was a small individual of dark complexion, leering eyes and vulgar mouth. His clothing was respectable, if not fashionable; he displayed a considerable amount of starched linen of indifferent lustre.
"Get out!"
"Give me five minutes." The tone was servile, yet not wholly so. "Worth your while, Mr. Bullard."
Bullard looked him up and down. "Very well," he said abruptly. "Close that door and follow me." He said no more until they were in his room, himself seated at his desk, the other standing a little way off and turning his bowler hat between his hands.
"Now, Marvel, what the devil do you want?"
The visitor smiled deprecatingly into his revolving hat. "What do most of us want, Mr. Bullard?"
"I'll tell you what most of us do not want—the attentions of the police."
"Tut, tut, Mr. Bullard. Of coursewedon't want that, nor doweneed it—dowe?" The impudence of the fellow's manner was exquisite.
Bullard, toying with the nugget on his chain, affected not to notice it.Harshly he said: "Eighteen months ago—"
"In this very room, Mr. Bullard—"
"—I handed you five hundred pounds on the express condition that you used the ticket for Montreal, which I supplied, and never approached me again."
"I am sorry to say," the other said after a moment, "that Canada did not agree with my health, and I assure you that I made the five hundred go as far as possible."
"All that may be very interesting to yourself and friends—if you have any."
"You, Mr. Bullard, are my sole friend."
Bullard grinned. "If you imagine I'm going to be a friend in need, you are mightily mistaken!"
"Please don't be nasty, Mr. Bullard—"
"Leave my name alone, and clear out. Time's up." Bullard turned to a pile of letters.
"This is a blow," murmured Marvel, "a sad blow. But I would remind you that the five hundred was not a gift, but a payment for certain documents."
"Quite so. And it closed our acquaintance. Go!"
"I wonder if it did. One moment. I desire to return once more to SouthAfrica. Things are looking up there again. With five hundred pounds—"
"That's enough. I'm busy."
"Just another moment. Touching those documents relating to the affair ofChristopher Craig's brother—"
"Shut up!"
"—it is one of the strangest inadvertencies you ever heard of, Mr. Bullard, but the fact remains that, eighteen months ago, I delivered to you—not the originals but copies—"
Bullard wheeled round. "Don't try that game, Marvel. You are quite capable of forgery, but I made certain that they were originals before I burned them."
"Ah, you burned them! What a pity! So you can't compare them with the documents I hold—in a very safe place, Mr. Bullard."
"I should not take the trouble in any case. Now will you clear out or be thrown?"
"You make it very hard for me. Do you wish me to take the originals toMr. Christopher Craig?"
"Pray do. He's dead."
"Dead!" Mr. Marvel took a step backward. "Dear, dear!" He raised his hat to his face as though to screen his emotion and smiled into it. "When did it happen?"
"A few days ago. Now, once and for all—"
"Then nothing remains to me but to offer the papers to his brother's son, an undoubtedly interested party, Mr. Alan—"
"Alan Craig is also dead."
Mr. Marvel's hat fell to the floor, and lay neglected. Mr. Marvel began to laugh softly while Bullard wondered whether the man's sanity, always suspect, had given way.
"Come, come, Mr. Bullard," Marvel coughed at last; "come, come!"
"Young Craig," said Bullard, restraining himself, "was lost on an Arctic expedition, a year ago."
"Then he must have been found again."
"… What do you say?"
"Why, I saw him—let me see—just fourteen days ago."
"Rot!"
"I'd know Frank Craig's son anywhere, Mr. Bullard; and there he was on the quay at Montreal, the day I left. What's the matter?"
With a supreme effort Bullard controlled himself.
"Marvel," he said, "what do you expect to gain by bringing me a lie like that?"
"It is no lie," the other returned with a fairly straight glance. "I was as near to him as I am to you at this moment. He was in a labourer's clothes—"
"Nonsense!"
"—working with a gang on the quay."
"You were mistaken. The search party gave up in despair."
"I know nothing of that, Mr. Bullard, but I'm prepared to take oath—"
"There is no need for Alan Craig, if it were he, to be working as a quay labourer. I tell you—"
"I am so sure of what I say, Mr. Bullard, that failing to get my price from you, I will cross the Atlantic again, working my passage if need be, to place the documents in the hands of that quay labourer. Since his uncle old Christopher is dead, there must be something pretty solid awaiting him." Marvel, stooping leisurely, picked up his hat and carefully eliminated the dent.
"Look here," said Bullard, breaking a silence. "Did you or did you not swindle me with those papers?"
"An inadvertence on my part, if you please, Mr. Bullard."
"Oh, go to the devil! You can't blackmail me. Go and work your passage, if you like."
The other took a step forward. "Do you think I had better see Mr. Lancaster? I could explain to him that he is less guilty in the matter of Christopher's brother than he imagines himself to be. I could even prove—"
"Lancaster is unwell—"
"My disclosures might make him feel better—eh?"
Bullard felt himself being cornered. He reflected for a moment; then—"How are you going to satisfy me that the papers you say you hold are the originals?"
"I'm afraid you must take my word for it."
"Your word—ugh! Will you bring them here at nine o'clock to-night?"
"Will you bring £500 in five-pound notes?"
It seemed that they had reached a deadlock. Bullard was thinking furiously.
At last he spoke. "No; I will bring one hundred pounds, and I will tell you how you may earn—earn mind—the remaining four. If you accept the job—not a difficult one—you will give me the papers in exchange for the hundred."
"But—"
"Not another word. Take my offer or leave it." Bullard turned to his desk. "And don't dare to lie to me again. Also, ask yourself what chance your word would have against mine in a court of law?"
At the end of twenty seconds the other said quickly: "I will be here at nine," and turned towards the door.
"By the way," Bullard called over his shoulder, "you had better come prepared for a night journey. And, I say! as you go out now try to look as if you had been damned badly treated. Further, before you come back, do what you can to alter that face of yours."
The door closed; Bullard's expression relaxed. For the first time in his life he had been within an ace of admitting—to himself—defeat. But all was not lost, even if he accepted Marvel's story, which he was very far from doing, his intelligence revolting no less at the bare idea of Alan Craig's existence than at that of the young man's supporting it as a quay labourer. Furthermore, were it proved to him that Alan had actually come from the Arctic, he would still not despair. He would have to act at high speed, but he was used to crises. As to Mr. Marvel, well, that clever person was going to be made useful to begin with; afterwards….
Bullard broke away from the clutches of thought to attend to the more urgent letters. He had just finished when his colleague came in.
"Hullo, Lancaster," he cried cheerfully, "I fancied your doctor had commanded rest. Glad to see you all the same. As a matter of fact, I was coming to look you up shortly."
"Couldn't rest at home," returned Lancaster, seating himself at the fire. "I say, Bullard," he said abruptly, "you'll be good to my girl—won't you?"
Bullard's eyebrows went up, but his voice was kindly. "Do you doubt it,Lancaster?"
"N-no. But you can surely understand my feelings—my anxiety. She—she has been a good daughter."
Bullard nodded. "It won't be my fault," he said quietly, "if Doris regrets marrying me."
"Thank you, Bullard." As though ashamed of his emotion the older man immediately changed the subject. "Anything fresh this morning?"
The other smiled. "One moment." He got up, went to a cabinet and came back with a glass containing a little brandy. "The journey to the City has tired you. Drink up!"
"Thanks; you are thoughtful." Lancaster took a few sips, and went white."Bullard, have you something bad to tell me?"
"Finish your brandy. … Well, it might have been worse. Steady! Don't get excited, or I shan't tell you."
After a moment—"Go on," said Lancaster.
"Marvel has come back from Canada."
"Ah! … But I always feared he would. More money, I suppose?"
"Precisely. Only he brought a piece of news which I have so far refused to credit, though doubtless stranger things have happened. Pull yourself together. Marvel declares that, a fortnight ago, he saw Alan Craig in the flesh."
"Alan Craig!" Lancaster fell back in the big chair. "Thank God," he murmured, "thank God!" Tears rushed to his eyes.
"Better let me give you details, few as they are, before you give further thanks," Bullard said. "Bear in mind what manner of man Marvel is; also, that his story was part of a threat to extort money."
A minute later Lancaster was eagerly asking: "But don't you think it may be true, Bullard?"
"For the present," was the cool reply, "we are going to act as though it were true, as though the will were waste paper—not that I ever considered it as anything but a last resource, for its production would involve sundry unattractive formalities."
"And yet," said Lancaster uneasily, "you told me once of a man who had seen Alan die."
"Leave that out for the present. I shall deal with Flitch presently, and God help him if he has played a game of his own! Meantime, the one object in view must be the Green Box at Grey House."
"For Heaven's sake be cautious! You spoke of bribing the man Caw, but the more I have thought of it—"
"That's past. There is no time for delicate negotiations. If the box is still in the house, we must find and take it; if elsewhere, we must make other plans. But I'm pretty sure it has not gone to a bank or safe deposit. Christopher meant it to remain in the house, so that it should be part of his gift to Alan."
"Caw will be on the alert."
"He will not expect a second attempt all at once. Hang it, man, we must take risks! £600,000! I'm not going to let any chance slip." Bullard went over to his desk and picked up a cablegram. "The Iris mine is flooded again. That means at least a couple of thousand less for each of us this year."
Lancaster groaned helplessly. "Trouble upon trouble! But I cannot face another visit to Christopher's house—"
"Be easy. You shall be spared that. I think I had better tell you nothing for the present—except that I may take a run over to Paris within the next few days."
"Paris!"
"You can say I'm there if any one asks."
Lancaster drew his hand across his brow. "Sometimes," he said slowly, "I wish I were at peace—in jail."
"Don't be a fool! You'll feel differently when we open the Green Box."
The other shook his head. "There's another point that has worried me horribly. We have thought we were the only persons outside of Grey House who knew of the diamonds; but who was the person who took the box that night? Whoever he was he must have seen us and heard something of our talk."
"Yes," said Bullard, with a short laugh, "it seems very dreadful and mysterious, doesn't it?—especially as Caw recovered the diamonds so speedily. I've thought it out, Lancaster, and I've struck only one reasonable conclusion. There was no fourth person present that night. Caw was fooling us all the time. The cupboard is really a passage to another room, made for old Christopher's convenience, no doubt. How's that?"