The Dead Secret, Wilkie Collins [best historical biographies .TXT] 📗

he said. “If you think for a moment, my dear, you will surely see that it is out of the question to traffic with a servant for information that has been surreptitiously obtained from his master’s library.”

“Oh, dear! dear! don’t say that!” pleaded Rosamond, looking quite aghast at the view her husband took of the matter. “What harm are we doing, if we give the man his five pounds? He has only made a copy of the plan: he has not stolen anything.”

“He has stolen information, according to my idea of it,” said Leonard.

“Well, but if he has,” persisted Rosamond, “what harm does it do to his master? In my opinion his master deserves to have the information stolen, for not having had the common politeness to send it to the vicar. We must have the plan⁠—oh, Lenny, don’t shake your head, please!⁠—we must have it, you know we must! What is the use of being scrupulous with an old wretch (I must call him so, though he is my uncle) who won’t conform to the commonest usages of society? You can’t deal with him⁠—and I am sure the vicar would say so, if he was here⁠—as you would with civilized people, or people in their senses, which everybody says he is not. What use is the plan of the north rooms to him? And, besides, if it is of any use, he has got the original; so his information is not stolen, after all, because he has got it the whole time⁠—has he not, dear?”

“Rosamond! Rosamond!” said Leonard, smiling at his wife’s transparent sophistries, “you are trying to reason like a Jesuit.”

“I don’t care who I reason like, love, as long as I get the plan.”

Mr. Frankland still shook his head. Finding her arguments of no avail, Rosamond wisely resorted to the immemorial weapon of her sex⁠—Persuasion; using it at such close quarters and to such good purposes that she finally won her husband’s reluctant consent to a species of compromise, which granted her leave to give directions for purchasing the copied plan on one condition.

This condition was that they should send back the plan to Mr. Treverton as soon as it had served their purpose; making a full acknowledgment to him of the manner in which it had been obtained, and pleading in justification of the proceeding his own want of courtesy in withholding information, of no consequence in itself, which anyone else in his place would have communicated as a matter of course. Rosamond tried hard to obtain the withdrawal or modification of this condition; but her husband’s sensitive pride was not to be touched, on that point, with impunity, even by her light hand. “I have done too much violence already to my own convictions,” he said, “and I will now do no more. If we are to degrade ourselves by dealing with this servant, let us at least prevent him from claiming us as his accomplices. Write in my name, Rosamond, to Doctor Chennery’s man of business, and say that we are willing to purchase the transcribed plan on the condition that I have stated⁠—which condition he will of course place before the servant in the plainest possible terms.”

“And suppose the servant refuses to risk losing his place, which he must do if he accepts your condition?” said Rosamond, going rather reluctantly to the writing-table.

“Let us not worry ourselves, my dear, by supposing anything. Let us wait and hear what happens, and act accordingly. When you are ready to write, tell me, and I will dictate your letter on this occasion. I wish to make the vicar’s man of business understand that we act as we do, knowing, in the first place, that Mr. Andrew Treverton can not be dealt with according to the established usages of society; and knowing, in the second place, that the information which his servant offers to us is contained in an extract from a printed book, and is in no way, directly or indirectly, connected with Mr. Treverton’s private affairs. Now that you have made me consent to this compromise, Rosamond, I must justify it as completely as possible to others as well as to myself.”

Seeing that his resolution was firmly settled, Rosamond had tact enough to abstain from saying anything more. The letter was written exactly as Leonard dictated it. When it had been placed in the postbag, and when the other letters of the morning had been read and answered, Mr. Frankland reminded his wife of the intention she had expressed at breakfast-time of visiting the north garden, and requested that she would take him there with her. He candidly acknowledged that, since he had been made acquainted with Doctor Chennery’s letter, he would give five times the sum demanded by Shrowl for the copy of the plan if the Myrtle Room could be discovered, without assistance from anyone, before the letter to the vicar’s man of business was put into the post. Nothing would give him so much pleasure, he said, as to be able to throw it into the fire, and to send a plain refusal to treat for the plan in its place.

They went into the north garden, and there Rosamond’s own eyes convinced her that she had not the slightest chance of discovering any vestige of a myrtle-bed near any one of the windows. From the garden they returned to the house, and had the door opened that led into the north hall.

They were shown the place on the pavement where the keys had been found, and the place at the top of the first flight of stairs where Mrs. Jazeph had been discovered when the alarm was given. At Mr. Frankland’s suggestion, the door of the room which immediately fronted this spot was opened. It presented a dreary spectacle of dust and dirt and dimness. Some old pictures were piled against one of the walls, some tattered chairs were heaped together in the middle of the floor, some broken china lay on the mantelpiece, and a rotten cabinet, cracked