the side of our clients; I have sent them the proof of it.'
He handed back the key to Mrs. Wagner. She at once transferred it to Jack. Mr. Keller shook his head in obstinate disapproval. 'Would you run such a risk as that?' he said to Madame Fontaine, speaking in French. 'I should be afraid,' she replied in the same language. Jack secured the key in his bag, kissed his mistress's hand, and approached the door on his way to bed. 'Won't you wish me good-night?' said the amiable widow. 'I didn't know whether German or English would do for you,' Jack answered; 'and I can't speak your unknown tongue.'
He made one of his fantastic bows, and left the room. 'Does he understand French?' Madame Fontaine asked. 'No,' said Mrs. Wagner; 'he only understood that you and Mr. Keller had something to conceal from him.'
In due course of time the little party at the supper-table rose, and retired to their rooms. The first part of the night passed as tranquilly as usual. But, between one and two in the morning, Mrs. Wagner was alarmed by a violent beating against her door, and a shrill screaming in Jack's voice. 'Let me in! I want a light—I've lost the keys!'
She called out to him to be quiet, while she put on her dressing-gown, and struck a light. They were fortunately on the side of the house occupied by the offices, the other inhabited bedchambers being far enough off to be approached by a different staircase. Still, in the silence of the night, Jack's reiterated cries of terror and beatings at the door might possibly reach the ears of a light sleeper. She pulled him into the room and closed the door again, with an impetuosity that utterly confounded him. 'Sit down there, and compose yourself!' she said sternly. 'I won't give you the light until you are perfectly quiet. You disgrace
Between cold and terror, Jack shuddered from head to foot. 'May I whisper?' he asked, with a look of piteous submission.
Mrs. Wagner pointed to the last living embers in the fireplace. She knew by experience the tranquilizing influence of giving him something to do. 'Rake the fire together,' she said; 'and warm yourself first.'
He obeyed, and then laid himself down in his dog-like way on the rug. A quarter of an hour, at least, passed before his mistress considered him to be in a fit state to tell his story. There was little or nothing to relate. He had put his bag under his pillow as usual; and (after a long sleep) he had woke with a horrid fear that something had happened to the keys. He had felt in vain for them under the pillow, and all over the bed, and all over the floor. 'After that,' he said, 'the horrors got hold of me; and I am afraid I went actually mad, for a little while. I'm all right now, if you please. See! I'm as quiet as a bird with its head under its wing.'
Mrs. Wagner took the light, and led the way to his little room, close by her own bedchamber. She lifted the pillow—and there lay the leather bag, exactly where he had placed it when he went to bed.
Jack's face, when this discovery revealed itself, would have pleaded for mercy with a far less generous woman than Mrs. Wagner. She took his hand. 'Get into bed again,' she said kindly; 'and the next time you dream, try not to make a noise about it.'
No! Jack refused to get into bed again, until he had been heard in his own defense. He dropped on his knees, and held up his clasped hands, as if he was praying.
'When you first taught me to say my prayers,' he answered, 'you said God would hear me. As God hears me now Mistress, I was wide awake when I put my hand under the pillow—and the bag was not there. Do you believe me?'
Mrs. Wagner was strongly impressed by the simple fervor of this declaration. It was no mere pretense, when she answered that she did believe him. At her suggestion, the bag was unstrapped and examined. Not only the unimportant keys (with another one added to their number) but the smaller key which opened her desk were found safe inside. 'We will talk about it to-morrow,' she said. Having wished him good-night, she paused in the act of opening the door, and looked at the lock. There was no key in it, but there was another protection in the shape of a bolt underneath. 'Did you bolt your door when you went to bed?' she asked.
'No.'
The obvious suspicion, suggested by this negative answer, crossed her mind.
'What has become of the key of your door?' she inquired next.
Jack hung his head. 'I put it along with the other keys,' he confessed, 'to make the bag look bigger.'
Alone again in her own room, Mrs. Wagner stood by the reanimated fire, thinking.
While Jack was asleep, any person, with a soft step and a delicate hand, might have approached his bedside, when the house was quiet for the night, and have taken his bag. And, again, any person within hearing of the alarm that he had raised, some hours afterwards, might have put the bag back, while he was recovering himself in Mrs. Wagner's room. Who could have been near enough to hear the alarm? Somebody in the empty bedrooms above? Or somebody in the solitary offices below? If a theft had really been committed, the one likely object of it would be the key of the desk. This pointed to the probability that the alarm had reached the ears of the thief in the offices. Was there any person in the house, from the honest servants upwards, whom it would be reasonably possible to suspect of theft? Mrs. Wagner returned to her bed. She was not a woman to be daunted by trifles—but on this occasion her courage failed her when she was confronted by her own question.
CHAPTER X
The office hours, in the winter-time, began at nine o'clock. From the head-clerk to the messenger, not one of the persons employed slept in the house: it was Mr. Keller's wish that they should all be absolutely free to do what they liked with their leisure time in the evening: 'I know that I can trust them, from the oldest to the youngest man in my service,' he used to say; 'and I like to show it.'
Under these circumstances, Mrs. Wagner had only to rise earlier than usual, to be sure of having the whole range of the offices entirely to herself. At eight o'clock, with Jack in attendance, she was seated at her desk, carefully examining the different objects that it contained.
Nothing was missing; nothing had been moved out of its customary place. No money was kept in the desk. But her valuable watch, which had stopped on the previous day, had been put there, to remind her that it must be sent to be cleaned. The watch, like everything else, was found in its place. If some person had really opened her desk in the night, no common thief had been concerned, and no common object had been in view.
She took the key of the iron safe from its pigeon-hole, and opened the door. Her knowledge of the contents of this repository was far from being accurate. The partners each possessed a key, but Mr. Keller had many more occasions than Mrs. Wagner for visiting the safe. And to make a trustworthy examination more difficult still, the mist of the early morning was fast turning into a dense white fog.
Of one thing, however, Mrs. Wagner was well aware—a certain sum of money, in notes and securities, was
