Miss Arnott's Marriage
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The more she thought, however, of the tale which Briggs the postman had retailed to Mrs Forrester, not to speak of Hugh Morice's strange narrative-the more she doubted-the more she had to doubt. They might have the evidence of their own eyes, but it seemed to her that she had evidence which was at least equally conclusive. It was incredible-impossible that she could have tramped through the rain and the mire, among the trees and the bushes, in the fashion described, and yet have found no traces of her eccentric journeyings either on her clothes or on her person. But in that matter measures could-and should-be taken. She would soon learn if there was any truth in the tales so far as they had reference to her. Evans should be installed in her room that night as watchman. Then, if she attempted to get out of bed while fast asleep, the question would be settled on the spot. The question of the knife-Hugh Morice's knife-was a graver one. But as regards that also steps should be promptly taken. Whether it should be returned to its owner as he suggested, or retained in her possession, or disposed of otherwise. These were problems which required consideration. In the meanwhile, she would have it out of its hiding-place at once. She went upstairs to force open that wardrobe drawer. So soon as she entered her bedroom she perceived that she had been forestalled, and that, in consequence, a lively argument was going on. The disputants were two-her own maid, Evans, and Wilson, the housemaid, who had been supposed to have been in part responsible for the disappearance of the key. Miss Arnott was made immediately conscious-even before she opened the door-that the pair were talking at the top of their voices. Evans's was particularly audible. She was pouring forth on to her fellow-servant a flood of language which was distinctly the reverse of complimentary. So occupied, indeed, were they by the subject under discussion that, until Miss Arnott announced her presence, they were not conscious that she had come into the room.
Their young mistress paused on the threshold, listening, with feelings which she would have found it difficult to analyse, to some of the heated observations which the disputants thought proper to fling at each other. She interrupted Evans in the middle of a very warmly coloured harangue.
"Evans, what is the meaning of this disturbance? and of the extraordinary language you are using?"
The maid, though evidently taken by surprise by the advent of her mistress, showed very few of the signs of shame and confusion which some might have considered would have become a person in her position. Apparently she was much too warm to concern herself, at anyrate for the moment, with matters of etiquette. She turned to Miss Arnott a flushed and angry face, looking very unlike the staid and decorous servant with whom that young lady was accustomed to deal. Hot words burst from her lips, -
"That there Wilson had the key all the time. I knew she had."
To which Wilson rejoined with equal disregard of ceremonial usages, -
"I tell you I hadn't! Don't I tell you I hadn't! At least, I didn't know that I had, not till five minutes ago."
Evans went on, wholly ignoring her colleague's somewhat singular disclaimer, -
"Then if she didn't use it to unlock your drawer with-your private drawer-and to take liberties with everything that was inside it. I daresay if I hadn't come and caught her she'd have walked off with the lot. And then to have the face to brazen it out!"
To which Wilson, in a flame of fury, -
"Don't you dare to say I'd have taken a single thing, because I won't have it. I'm no more a thief than you are, nor perhaps half so much, and so I'll have you know. You're a great deal too fond of calling names, you are; but if you call me a thief I'll pay you for it. You see!"
Evans turned again to her adversary, eager for a continuance of the fray.
"If you weren't going to take them what did you go to the drawer for?"
"I tell you I went to the drawer to see if it was the key.
"Why didn't you bring the key to me?"
"I would have brought it, if you'd given me a chance."
"You would have brought it! Didn't I catch you-"
Miss Arnott thought she had heard enough; she interposed.
"Will you be so good as to be still, both of you, and let me understand what is the cause of this disgraceful scene. Evans, has the key of the drawer been found?"
"Yes, miss, it has. It was never lost; she had it all the time, as I suspected."
"I didn't have it, miss-leastways, if I did, I didn't know it, not till just now."
"Explain yourself, Wilson. Has or has not the key been in your possession?"
"It's like this, miss; it must somehow have slipped inside my dress that morning when I was making your bed."
"She'll explain anything!"
This was the resentful Evans.
"I'll tell the truth anyhow, which is more than you do."
Again their mistress interposed.
"Evans, will you allow Wilson to tell her story in her own way. Wilson, you forget yourself. On the face of it, your story is a lame one. What do you mean by saying that the key of my wardrobe drawer slipped into your dress? Where was it that it was capable of such a singular proceeding?"
"That's more than I can tell you, miss. I can only say that just now when I was taking down a skirt which I haven't worn since I don't know when, it felt heavy, and there in the hem on one side-it's a broad hem, miss, and only tacked-there was a key, though how it got there I haven't a notion."
"Of course not!"
This was Evans. Miss Arnott was in time to prevent a retort.
"Evans! Well, Wilson, what did you do then?"
"I came with it to Evans."
The lady's-maid was not to be denied.
"That's a falsehood, anyhow. You came with it to me! I do like that!"
The housemaid was equal to the requirements of the occasion.
"I did come with it to you. I came with it straight to this bedroom. They told me you were here; it wasn't my fault if you weren't."
"Oh dear no! And, I suppose, it wasn't your fault if, finding I wasn't here, you unlocked the drawer!"
"I only wanted to see if it was the lost key I had found; I meant no harm."
Again Miss Arnott.
"Now, Evans, will you be silent! Well, Wilson, I don't see that, so far, you have been guilty of anything very reprehensible. It's quite possible that, somehow, the key may have slipped into the hem of your skirt; such accidents have been known. When you had tried the key and found that it was the one which had been mislaid; when you had opened the drawer with it, what did you do then?"
Again the lady's-maid was not to be denied. Orders or no orders, she refused to be silent.
"Yes, what did she do? I'll tell you what she did; don't you listen to anything she says, miss. She took liberties with everything that was inside that drawer, just as if the things was her own. She turned all the things out that was in it; you can see for yourself that it's empty! and she's got some of them now. Though I've asked her for them she won't give them up; yet she has the face to say she didn't mean to steal 'em!"
This time the housemaid was silent. Miss Arnott became conscious that not only had she been all the time holding herself very upright, but, also, that she was keeping her hands behind her back-in short, that her attitude more than suggested defiance.
"Wilson, is this true?"
The answer was wholly unlooked for.
"My mother is Jim Baker's cousin, miss."
"Your mother-" Miss Arnott stopped short to stare. "And what has that to do with your having in your possession property which is not your own?"
Her next answer was equally unexpected.
"And Mr Granger, he's my uncle, miss."
"Mr Granger? What Mr Granger?"
"The policeman down in the village, miss."
"Apparently, Wilson, you are to be congratulated on your relations, but I don't see what they have to do with what Evans was saying."
"I can't help that, miss."
"You can't help what? Your manner is very strange. What do you mean?" The girl was silent. Miss Arnott turned to the lady's-maid. "Evans, what does she mean?"
"Don't ask me, miss; she don't know herself. The girl's wrong in her head, that's what's the matter with her. She'll get herself into hot water, if she don't look out; and that before very long. Now, then, you give me what you've got there!"
"Don't you lay your hands on me, Mrs Evans, or you'll be sorry."
"Evans! – Wilson!"
Kit had not been for Miss Arnott's presence it looked very much as if the two would have indulged in a scrimmage then and there. The lady's-maid showed a strong inclination to resort to physical force, which the other evinced an equal willingness to resent.
"Wilson, what is it which you are holding behind your back? I insist upon your showing me at once."
"This, miss-and this."
CHAPTER XXVII
A CONFIDANT
In her right hand Wilson held a knife-the knife. Miss Arnott needed no second glance to convince her of its identity. In her left a dainty feminine garment-a camisole, compact of lace and filmy lawn. The instant she disclosed them Evans moved forward, as if to snatch from her at least the knife. But Wilson was as quick as she was-quicker. Whipping her hands behind her back again she retreated out of reach.
"No, you don't! hands off! you try to snatch, you do!"
The baffled lady's-maid turned to her mistress.
"You see, miss, what she's like! and yet she wants to make out that she's no thief!"
Miss Arnott was endeavouring to see through the situation in her mind, finding herself suddenly confronted by the unforeseen. It was impossible that the girl could mean what she seemed to mean; a raw country wench in her teens!
"Wilson, you seem to be behaving in a very strange manner, and to be forgetting yourself altogether. It is not strange that Evans has her doubts of you. Give me those things which you have in your hands at once."
"Begging your pardon, miss, I can't."
"They're not yours."
"No, miss, I know they're not."
"Then, if you're an honest girl, as you pretend, what possible reason can you have for refusing to give me my own property, which you have taken out of my drawer in a manner which is at least suspicious?"
"Because Jim Baker, he's my mother's cousin; and Mr Granger he's my uncle."
"What possible justification can that be for your trying to steal what belongs to me?"
Then it came out.
"My uncle he says to me, 'I don't believe Jim Baker done it-I don't believe he did anything to the chap beyond peppering him. Jim's no liar. 'Twill be a shame if they hang him. No, my girl,' Mr Granger says, 'it's my belief that they know more over at Exham Park than they pretend, or, at least, someone does. You keep your eyes wide open. We don't want to have no one hung in our family, specially for just peppering a chap. If you come across anything suspicious, you let me know and you let me have a look at it, if so be you can. Your mother don't want to have Jim Baker hung, nor more don't I.' Miss Arnott, you put them things in the drawer the time that you came home, the time that chap was murdered, the time that you was out in the woods till all hours. They haven't found the knife what did it yet, and this knife's all covered with blood; so's the things. I'm going to let Mr Granger see what I've got here, and tell him where I found them. If there's nothing wrong about them I'll have to suffer, but show them to him I will."
Miss Arnott, perceiving that here was an emergency in which prompt action was the one thing needful, glanced at Evans, who was quick to take the hint. She advanced towards Wilson with designs which that young woman considered sufficiently obvious. To evade her, still holding her booty behind her to secure it from Evans, she turned her back to Miss Arnott who was not slow to avail herself of the opportunity to grip her wrists and tear the knife and camisole away from her. The wench, finding herself outwitted, sprang at her mistress, screaming, -
"Give them to me! give them to me! You give them back to me!"
But Miss Arnott had already dropped them into the open wardrobe drawer, shut the drawer and turned the key. While she kept the girl at arms' length, to prevent her wresting from her the key, Miss Arnott issued her instructions to the lady's-maid.
"Evans, ring the bell, keep on ringing."
There was a lively minute or so. Then Bevan, Mr Day's understudy, appeared in the doorway, to stare at the proceedings open-eyed. Miss Arnott had succeeded in retaining possession of the key, though she had not found the excited girl easy to manage. Bevan, striding forward, spun the housemaid round on her feet as if she were a teetotum.
"Now, then," he demanded, "what do you think you're doing? Are you mad?"
"Bevan," exclaimed Miss Arnott, "Wilson has been misbehaving herself. See that she is paid her wages and sent about her business at once."
Wilson, who by now was more than half hysterical, shrieked defiance.
"Mr Bevan, you make her give me that knife! you make her. I believe she killed that chap in Cooper's Spinney. She's got the knife she killed him with shut up in that drawer there! You make her give it me! I'm going to show it to my uncle!"
Bevan was unsympathetic.
"Now, then, out you go!" was the only answer he made to her appeal.
But Mr Granger's niece was not disposed to go in compliance with his mere request. When he essayed persuasion of a more active kind she began to fight him tooth and nail. Reinforcements had to be brought upon the scene. When, finally, she was borne from the room, she was kicking and struggling like some wild cat. A pretty tumult she managed to create as they conveyed her down the stairs.
Miss Arnott and her maid, left alone together, surveyed each other with startled looks. The plumage of both had been something more than ruffled; a tress of hair which was hanging down Miss Arnott's back was proof of the housemaid's earnestness. Evans was the first to speak.
"I wish you'd let me do as I said, miss-break that drawer open, and let me wash those things."
"But who would have thought she was such a creature! Is she mad?"
"Oh, she's sane enough after her own fashion; though, if she's one of that Baker and Granger set, she's mad enough for anything. I can't abide that village lot, and they know it. I wish you'd let me do as I said!"
"I wish I had. As for my clothes, you can wash them now-if you don't mind, that is."
"I'll wash them fast enough. I've done some washing in my time. Though, after those stains have been in them all this time, they'll want some soaking. What are you going to do about that knife, miss? If I had known it was there I'd have broken open that drawer first and asked your permission afterwards."
"I'll see to that."
"You'll see to it! But, miss, you'll never get these stains out, never! not now! They're eaten into the steel! Nothing will get them out except re-burnishing. If that Wilson gets down to that fool of a Granger it's quite likely that we'll have him here with a search warrant, and then Heaven help us! No, miss, you'll give me that knife, if you please. I'll make it safe enough."
Miss Arnott was struck by the singularity of the woman's manner; she yielded to a sudden impulse.
"Evans, I fancy you are under a misapprehension. If so, let me remove it from your mind, if it can be removed. I believe you think that I am responsible for what happened to that man in Cooper's Spinney. I'm not. I had no hand in it whatever."
"You didn't kill him?"
"Emphatically, no. I had nothing to do with killing him; nothing."
"Miss, are you sure?"
"I am quite sure; quite."
"I believe you, miss, I believe you. But-I don't understand-the stains upon your things; the knife? If you didn't kill him yourself you know who did."
"I thought I did; that is why the knife is in my possession. Bringing it home-inside my bodice-caused the stains."
"Whose knife is it? Did it belong to the-man who was killed?"
"No; it did not. I would rather not tell you to whom it did belong-at least, not now."
"You know?"
"Oh, yes, I know. Evans, I believe you're disposed to be my friend, and I'm in need of a friend."
"You are, miss, in more need than you have perhaps a notion of. I don't want to use any big words, but there's nothing I wouldn't do for you, and be glad to do it, as, maybe, before all's done, I'll prove. But I wish you'd trust me, miss-trust me all the way. I wish you'd tell me whose knife that is and how you came to have it."
"I'd rather not, and for this reason. I was convinced that the owner of that knife was the murderer. That is why, when I found it, I brought it home with me.
"To screen him?"
"You must not ask me that. Quite lately I have begun to think that I was wrong, that the owner of that knife is as innocent as I am. It's a tangle. I was quite close when it happened; I heard it all happening; yet now I am conscious that I have no more real knowledge of who did it than you have. You mustn't ask me any questions; I may tell you more some other time-I may have to-not now! not now! I want to think! But, Evans, there is one thing I wish to say to you-do you believe that I'm a somnambulist?"
"A somnambulist? A sleep-walker do you mean? Whatever has put that idea into your head?"
"Have you heard the tales they're telling-about my having been seen in the woods at night in my nightdress?"
"I've heard some stuff; it's all a pack of nonsense! What next?"
"Do you know Briggs the postman? What sort of man is he?"
"He's got his head screwed on right enough for a countryman."
"Well, Mrs Forrester called this afternoon for the express purpose of informing me that Briggs the postman saw me in the woods at two o'clock this morning in my nightdress."
"But, miss, it's impossible! Did you ever walk in your sleep?"
"Never to my knowledge. Have you ever had occasion to suspect me of anything of the kind?"
"That I certainly have not."
"This time it seems peculiarly incredible, because it was pouring cats and dogs. If I had done anything of the sort there must have been traces on my nightdress, or on something. This is a question I mean to have settled one way or the other. I'm going to have a bed put up in this room, and I'm going to ask you to sleep in it, if you conveniently can, with one eye open. You'll soon find out what my habits are when fast asleep. Between ourselves I believe that this is going to be an opportunity for me to play that favourite character in fiction-the detective-on lines of my own."
"I'll sleep here, miss, and be pleased to do it. But as for your walking in your sleep, I should have found it out long ago if you'd been given that way. I don't believe a word of it; that's all nonsense."
Miss Arnott seemed to reflect before she spoke again.
"I'm not so sure of that-that it's all nonsense, Evans. I'm going to tell you something; at present it's a secret, but I think I can trust you to keep it. You're not the only person who has suspected me of having killed that man."
"Lor' bless you, miss, as if I didn't know that! That's no secret! I don't believe you've any idea yourself of what a dangerous place it is in which you're standing."
"I'll be ready for the danger-when it comes. I'll not be afraid. What I meant was that I have been actually supposed to have been seen killing that man. Someone was seen to kill him, and that someone was a woman."
"You're quite sure, miss, that it wasn't you? You're quite sure?"
"Quite, Evans; don't you be afraid."
"Then if that's so, miss, I don't mind. If you're innocent I don't care what they do; let them do their worst."
"That's what I feel-exactly. But I wish you'd let me make my meaning clear to you! If a woman did do it, then-though I confess I don't understand how-we must all of us be on the wrong scent, and the woman who has been seen wandering through the woods at dead of night-and that such an one has been seen I have good reasons for knowing-is the one we want. So what we have to do is to identify that somnambulist."
"But how are we going to do it?"
"That, as yet, I own is more than I can tell you. The first step is to make sure it isn't me."
"Don't you fret about that, miss; I'm sure it isn't. I'll take these things away and get 'em in soak at once." She gathered up the various garments which her mistress had worn on that fateful night. "I wish you'd let me take that knife; I'd feel safer if you would."
"Thank you, Evans; but at present I'd rather you left the knife with me."
As Evans left the room Mrs Plummer came in, in the state of fluster which, of late, was her chronic condition.
"My dear," she began, "what is this I hear about Wilson? What is this shocking story?"
"Wilson has misbehaved herself and is therefore no longer in my service. I imagine, Mrs Plummer, that that is what you hear. I am sorry you should find it so shocking. It is not such a very unusual thing for a servant to forget herself, is it?"
"I don't know, my dear, when it comes to fighting Bevan and positively assaulting you. But everything seems to be at sixes and sevens; nothing seems to go right, either indoors or out. It makes me most unhappy. And now there's an extraordinary person downstairs who insists on seeing you."
"An extraordinary person? What do you call an extraordinary person? Do you know, Mrs Plummer, that a good deal of your language lately has seemed to me to have had a flavour of exaggeration."
"Exaggeration? You call it exaggeration? I should have thought it would have been impossible to exaggerate some of the things which have happened in this neighbourhood in the last few weeks. But there's no accounting for people. I can only tell you that I should call the person who is below an extraordinary person. Here is her card; she herself thrust it into my hand."
"Mrs Darcy Sutherland? I don't know anyone of that name."
"She knows you, or she pretends she does. I met her on the steps as I was coming in. When I told her you were out-because I thought you had gone on your motor, you said you were going-she replied that she would wait till you came back, if she had to wait a week. That I call an extraordinary remark to make."
"It is rather an unusual one. I will go down and see Mrs Darcy Sutherland."
CHAPTER XXVIII
MRS DARCY SUTHERLAND
As Miss Arnott went to her visitor she had premonitions that more disagreeables were at hand. No one whom she was desirous of seeing would have uttered such a speech as that which Mrs Plummer had repeated. Her premonitions were realised to the full. As she entered the sitting-room, into which the caller had been shown, a big, blowsy, over-dressed woman rose from a chair, whom the girl instantly acknowledged that Mrs Plummer had been perfectly justified in calling an extraordinary person. She was painted, and powdered, and pencilled, and generally got up in a style which made it only too plain what kind of character she was. With a sinking heart Miss Arnott recognised Sarah Stevens, her quondam associate as a model in that costume department of that Regent Street draper's where, once upon a time-it seemed centuries ago-she had earned her daily bread, the woman who had introduced her to Robert Champion, who had urged her to marry him, to whom she owed all the trouble which had come upon her, and whose real character she had learned too late.
She had not expected, as she had asked herself what awaited her now, that it was anything so bad as this.
"You!" she stammered.
"Yes, my dear, me! A nice little surprise for you, isn't it?" The woman advanced towards her with the apparent intention of greeting her with a kiss. Miss Arnott showed by her manner, as much as by the way in which she drew back, that she did not intend to submit to anything of that sort. The visitor was not at all abashed. She continued to smile the hard, mechanical smile of the woman of her class. "You didn't expect to see me, I'll be bound. Perhaps you'd forgotten me, and you thought, perhaps, that I'd forgotten you, but you see I haven't. I've got a very good memory, I have. Well, my love, and how are you? You're not looking so well as I expected; quite peaked, you seem, nothing like so well filled out as you used to be."
"What do you mean by coming here? And by calling yourself Mrs Darcy Sutherland?"