The housekeeper made no attempt to disguise the painful position in which she and every one of the servants of the house felt themselves to be at the present moment.
“We are none of us at our ease with each other now,” she said, as she poured out hot tea for Loveday, and piled up a blazing fire. “Everyone fancies that everyone else is suspecting him or her, and trying to rake up past words or deeds to bring in as evidence. The whole house seems under a cloud. And at this time of year, too; just when everything as a rule is at its merriest!” and here she gave a doleful glance to the big bunch of holly and mistletoe hanging from the ceiling.
“I suppose you are generally very merry downstairs at Christmas time?” said Loveday. “Servants’ balls, theatricals, and all that sort of thing?”
“I should think we were! When I think of this time last year and the fun we all had, I can scarcely believe it is the same house. Our ball always follows my lady’s ball, and we have permission to ask our friends to it, and we keep it up as late as ever we please. We begin our evening with a concert and recitations in character, then we have a supper and then we dance right on till morning; but this year!”—she broke off, giving a long, melancholy shake of her head that spoke volumes.
“I suppose,” said Loveday, “some of your friends are very clever as musicians or reciters?”
“Very clever indeed. Sir George and my lady are always present during the early part of the evening, and I should like you to have seen Sir George last year laughing fit to kill himself at Harry Emmett dressed in prison dress with a bit of oakum in his hand, reciting the ‘Noble Convict!’ Sir George said if the young man had gone on the stage, he would have been bound to make his fortune.”
“Half a cup, please,” said Loveday, presenting her cup. “Who was this Harry Emmett then—a sweetheart of one of the maids?”
“Oh, he would flirt with them all, but he was sweetheart to none. He was footman to Colonel James, who is a great friend of Sir George’s, and Harry was constantly backwards and forwards bringing messages from his master. His father, I think, drove a cab in London, and Harry for a time did so also; then he took it into his head to be a gentleman’s servant, and great satisfaction he gave as such. He was always such a bright, handsome young fellow and so full of fun, that everyone liked him. But I shall tire you with all this; and you, of course, want to talk about something so different;” and the housekeeper sighed again, as the thought of the dreadful robbery entered her brain once more.
“Not at all. I am greatly interested in you and your festivities. Is Emmett still in the neighbourhood? I should amazingly like to hear him recite myself.”
“I’m sorry to say he left Colonel James about six months ago. We all missed him very much at first. He was a good, kindhearted young man, and I remember he told me he was going away to look after his dear old grandmother, who had a sweet-stuff shop somewhere or other, but where I can’t remember.”
Loveday was leaning back in her chair now, with eyelids drooped so low that she literally looked out through “slits” instead of eyes.
Suddenly and abruptly she changed the conversation.
“When will it be convenient for me to see Lady Cathrow’s dressing-room?” she asked.
The housekeeper looked at her watch. “Now, at once,” she answered: “it’s a quarter to five now and my lady sometimes goes up to her room to rest for half an hour before she dresses for dinner.”
“Is Stephanie still in attendance on Lady Cathrow?” Miss Brooke asked as she followed the housekeeper up the back stairs to the bedroom floor.
“Yes, Sir George and my lady have been goodness itself to us through this trying time, and they say we are all innocent till we are proved guilty, and will have it that none of our duties are to be in any way altered.”
“Stephanie is scarcely fit to perform hers, I should imagine?”
“Scarcely. She was in hysterics nearly from morning till night for the first two or three days after the detectives came down, but now she has grown sullen, eats nothing and never speaks a word to any of us except when she is obliged. This is my lady’s dressing-room, walk in please.”
Loveday entered a large, luxuriously furnished room, and naturally made her way straight to the chief point of attraction in it—the iron safe fitted into the wall that separated the dressing-room from the bedroom.
It was a safe of the ordinary description, fitted with a strong iron door and Chubb lock. And across this door was written with chalk in characters that seemed defiant in their size and boldness, the words: “To be let, unfurnished.”
Loveday spent about five minutes in front of this safe, all her attention concentrated upon the big, bold writing.
She took from her pocketbook a narrow strip of tracing-paper and compared the writing on it, letter by letter, with that on the safe door. This done she turned to Mrs. Williams and professed herself ready to follow her to the room below.
Mrs. Williams looked surprised. Her opinion of Miss Brooke’s professional capabilities suffered considerable diminution.
“The gentlemen detectives,” she said, “spent over an hour in this room; they paced the floor, they measured the candles, they—”
“Mrs. Williams,” interrupted Loveday, “I am quite ready to look at the room below.” Her manner had changed from gossiping friendliness to that of the business woman hard at work at her profession.
Without another word, Mrs. Williams led the way to the little room which had proved itself to be the “weak point” of the
