The Jewel of Seven Stars, Bram Stoker [books to read for self improvement txt] 📗

Chapter VI Suspicions

The first to get full self-command was Miss Trelawny. There was a

haughty dignity in her bearing as she said:

 

“Very well, Mrs. Grant; let them go! Pay them up to today, and a

month’s wages. They have hitherto been very good servants; and the

occasion of their leaving is not an ordinary one. We must not expect

much faithfulness from any one who is beset with fears. Those who

remain are to have in future double wages; and please send these to me

presently when I send word.” Mrs. Grant bristled with smothered

indignation; all the housekeeper in her was outraged by such generous

treatment of servants who had combined to give notice:

 

“They don’t deserve it, miss; them to go on so, after the way they have

been treated here. Never in my life have I seen servants so well

treated or anyone so good to them and gracious to them as you have been.

They might be in the household of a King for treatment. And now, just

as there is trouble, to go and act like this. It’s abominable, that’s

what it is!”

 

Miss Trelawny was very gentle with her, and smothered her ruffled

dignity; so that presently she went away with, in her manner, a lesser

measure of hostility to the undeserving. In quite a different frame of

mind she returned presently to ask if her mistress would like her to

engage a full staff of other servants, or at any rate try to do so.

“For you know, ma’am,” she went on, “when once a scare has been

established in the servants” hall, it’s wellnigh impossible to get rid

of it. Servants may come; but they go away just as quick. There’s no

holding them. They simply won’t stay; or even if they work out their

month’s notice, they lead you that life that you wish every hour of the

day that you hadn’t kept them. The women are bad enough, the huzzies;

but the men are worse!” There was neither anxiety nor indignation in

Miss Trelawny’s voice or manner as she said:

 

“I think, Mrs. Grant, we had better try to do with those we have.

Whilst my dear Father is ill we shall not be having any company, so that

there will be only three now in the house to attend to. If those

servants who are willing to stay are not enough, I should only get

sufficient to help them to do the work. It will not, I should think, be

difficult to get a few maids; perhaps some that you know already. And

please bear in mind, that those whom you get, and who are suitable and

will stay, are henceforth to have the same wages as those who are

remaining. Of course, Mrs. Grant, you well enough understand that

though I do not group you in any way with the servants, the rule of

double salary applies to you too.” As she spoke she extended her long,

fine-shaped hand, which the other took and then, raising it to her lips,

kissed it impressively with the freedom of an elder woman to a younger.

I could not but admire the generosity of her treatment of her servants.

In my mind I endorsed Mrs. Grant’s sotto voce remark as she left the

room:

 

“No wonder the house is like a King’s house, when the mistress is a

Princess!”

 

“A Princess!” That was it. The idea seemed to satisfy my mind, and to

bring back in a wave of light the first moment when she swept across my

vision at the ball in Belgrave Square. A queenly figure! tall and slim,

bending, swaying, undulating as the lily or the lotos. Clad in a

flowing gown of some filmy black material shot with gold. For ornament

in her hair she wore an old Egyptian jewel, a tiny crystal disk, set

between rising plumes carved in lapis lazuli. On her wrist was a broad

bangle or bracelet of antique work, in the shape of a pair of spreading

wings wrought in gold, with the feathers made of coloured gems. For all

her gracious bearing toward me, when our hostess introduced me, I was

then afraid of her. It was only when later, at the picnic on the river,

I had come to realise her sweet and gentle, that my awe changed to

something else.

 

For a while she sat, making some notes or memoranda. Then putting them

away, she sent for the faithful servants. I thought that she had better

have this interview alone, and so left her. When I came back there were

traces of tears in her eyes.

 

The next phase in which I had a part was even more disturbing, and

infinitely more painful. Late in the afternoon Sergeant Daw came into

the study where I was sitting. After closing the door carefully and

looking all round the room to make certain that we were alone, he came

close to me.

 

“What is it?” I asked him. “I see you wish to speak to me privately.”

 

“Quite so, sir! May I speak in absolute confidence?”

 

“Of course you may. In anything that is for the good of Miss Trelawny—

and of course Mr. Trelawny—you may be perfectly frank. I take it that

we both want to serve them to the best of our powers.” He hesitated

before replying:

 

“Of course you know that I have my duty to do; and I think you know me

well enough to know that I will do it. I am a policeman—a detective;

and it is my duty to find out the facts of any case I am put on, without

fear or favour to anyone. I would rather speak to you alone, in

confidence if I may, without reference to any duty of anyone to anyone,

except mine to Scotland Yard.”

 

“Of course! of course!” I answered mechanically, my heart sinking, I did

not know why. “Be quite frank with me. I assure you of my confidence.”

 

“Thank you, sir. I take it that what I say is not to pass beyond you—

not to anyone. Not to Miss Trelawny herself, or even to Mr. Trelawny

when he becomes well again.”

 

“Certainly, if you make it a condition!” I said a little more stiffly.

The man recognised the change in my voice or manner, and said

apologetically:

 

“Excuse me, sir, but I am going outside my duty in speaking to you at

all on the subject. I know you, however, of old; and I feel that I can

trust you. Not your word, sir, that is all right; but your discretion!”

 

I bowed. “Go on!” I said. He began at once:

 

“I have gone over this case, sir, till my brain begins to reel; but I

can’t find any ordinary solution of it. At the time of each attempt no

one has seemingly come into the house; and certainly no one has got out.

What does it strike you is the inference?”

 

“That the somebody—or the something—was in the house already,” I

answered, smiling in spite of myself.

 

“That’s just what I think,” he said, with a manifest sigh of relief.

“Very well! Who can be that someone?”

 

“‘Someone, or something,’ was what I said,” I answered.

 

“Let us make it ‘someone,’ Mr. Ross! That cat, though he might have

scratched or bit, never pulled the old gentleman out of bed, and tried

to get the bangle with the key off his arm. Such things are all very

well in books where your amateur detectives, who know everything before

it’s done, can fit them into theories; but in Scotland Yard, where the

men aren’t all idiots either, we generally find that when crime is done,

or attempted, it’s people, not things, that are at the bottom of it.”

 

“Then make it ‘people’ by all means, Sergeant.”

 

“We were speaking of ‘someone,’ sir.”

 

“Quite right. Someone, be it!”

 

“Did it ever strike you, sir, that on each of the three separate

occasions where outrage was effected, or attempted, there was one person

who was the first to be present and to give the alarm?”

 

“Let me see! Miss Trelawny, I believe, gave the alarm on the first

occasion. I was present myself, if fast asleep, on the second; and so

was Nurse Kennedy. When I woke there were several people in the room;

you were one of them. I understand that on that occasion also Miss

Trelawny was before you. At the last attempt I was Miss Trelawny

fainted. I carried her out and went back. In returning, I was first;

and I think you were close behind me.”

 

Sergeant Daw thought for a moment before replying:

 

“She was present, or first, in the room on all the occasions; there was

only damage done in the first and second!”

 

The inference was one which I, as a lawyer, could not mistake. I

thought the best thing to do was to meet it half-way. I have always

found that the best way to encounter an inference is to cause it to be

turned into a statement.

 

“You mean,” I said, “that as on the only occasions when actual harm was

done, Miss Trelawny’s being the first to discover it is a proof that she

did it; or was in some way connected with the attempt, as well as the

discovery?”

 

“I didn’t venture to put it as clear as that; but that is where the

doubt which I had leads.” Sergeant Daw was a man of courage; he

evidently did not shrink from any conclusion of his reasoning on facts.

 

We were both silent for a while. Fears began crowding in on my own

mind. Not doubts of Miss Trelawny, or of any act of hers; but fears

lest such acts should be misunderstood. There was evidently a mystery

somewhere; and if no solution to it could be found, the doubt would be

cast on someone. In such cases the guesses of the majority are bound to

follow the line of least resistance; and if it could be proved that any

personal gain to anyone could follow Mr. Trelawny’s death, should such

ensue, it might prove a difficult task for anyone to prove innocence in

the face of suspicious facts. I found myself instinctively taking that

deferential course which, until the plan of battle of the prosecution is

unfolded, is so safe an attitude for the defence. It would never do for

me, at this stage, to combar any theories which a detective might form.

I could best help Miss Trelawny by listening and understanding. When

the time should come for the dissipation and obliteration of the

theories, I should be quite willing to use all my militant ardour, and

all the weapons at my command.

 

“You will of course do your duty, I know,” I said, “and without fear.

What course do you intend to take?”

 

“I don’t know as yet, sir. You see, up to now it isn’t with me even a

suspicion. If any one else told me that that sweet young lady had a

hand in such a matter, I would think him a fool;