The White Room

"As you please," said Mrs. Fane quietly, "so long as you don't trouble me. And don't make love to any other woman," she added.

"Julia," said Fane, pausing at the door, "do you really care for me as much as that?"

"My dear, every one has a weakness; pride is mine. I like you. I have an affection for you, else I should not have married you. So long as you look handsome and are well dressed, and show me the deference of a chivalrous man to his lawful wife, I have no complaint to make. But if you go after other women, and make me a laughing-stock amongst my friends," added Mrs. Fane, drawing a deep breath, "I should not spare you."

Fane laughed, though rather uneasily. "One would think you would do me an injury," he said, with another shrug.

Mrs. Fane raised her eyes and looked at him steadily. "I might even do that," she replied. "Don't hurt my pride, whatever you do. And if you desert me in favour of-"

"There's no chance of my doing that," said Walter irritably. "I declare to heaven that I'm fond of you, Julia."

"That is as it should be," retorted Mrs. Fane.

Before her husband could reply there came a knock at the door, and immediately afterwards a stolid young man in livery entered. Walter slipped past him and got out of the room, while the man waited for his mistress to address him. "Yes?" said Mrs. Fane interrogatively.

"If you please, ma'am, the cook have gone mad," said the stolid man.

"Really?" rejoined Mrs. Fane, letting her knitting fall on her lap, but otherwise undisturbed. "And what form does her madness take?"

"She says she's going to retire on a fortune, and insists, ma'am, on coming upstairs to tell you. I think, ma'am-" The man hesitated.

"Yes," said Mrs. Fane calmly; "I quite understand. This is the third time she has indulged, and after assuring me that she had taken the pledge. Send her up."

"You will excuse me, ma'am, but cook really have found jewels."

"What do you mean?" This time Mrs. Fane really was amazed.

"She have found jewels in the dust-hole," stammered the man, and would have gone on to explain, but that he was roughly brushed aside by a large female clothed in purple silk of a cheap sort, with a black velvet cloak trimmed with beads, and a bonnet profusely trimmed with flowers. Her face was red, and her air was that of an excited person. This was due partly to drink and partly to excitement, and partly to a sense of fear at thus braving her mistress, of whom she had a great dread. The moment she entered the room the footman departed hastily, thinking there would be a row. He went down to the kitchen, and found the rest of the servants much excited. It seemed that the cook really had some cause for her behaviour. At the present moment she was explaining herself to Mrs. Fane.

"If you please, mum, I wish to leave this day-this hour-this minute," panted the cook all in a breath; "my boxes being packed and my best clothes being on."

"Indeed!" Mrs. Fane eyed the splendour with a look which made the cook wince. "I am afraid you can't leave. You get no wages if you do. Go downstairs."

"But I don't care for my wages. Far be it from me to rob you, mum. I am as rich as you, having found a forting in the dust-hole."

"Really! May I ask what it is?"

"You'll take it from me, mum," said the cook mistrustfully.

If you don't show it to me at once, Gander-this was the cook's unusual name-"I shall send for the police."

"O mum, think of the scandal. I won't-" then Gander caught the steady eyes fixed on her. The drink and the excitement were dying out under the chilling influence of Mrs. Fane's calmness, and the cook collapsed.

"It's this, mum," and from under the cloak she brought forth a dagger with a slim steel blade and a hilt of gold richly encrusted with jewels. These flashed red and blue and green and yellow in the stream of sunlight that shone through the window. Minnie caught a sight of the glitter and clapped her hands. "Yes, my pretty," said the cook proudly, "it's lovely, ain't it. And all my own, having been found by me in the dust-hole."

"May I look at it, Gander?" asked Mrs. Fane.

The cook, still under the influence of those cold eyes, handed it over at once, talking while she did so. But she kept her treasure-trove in sight, and despite her awe would have fought Mrs. Fane, had that lady shown any signs of annexing the property. "It's jewels rich and rare with gold, mum," said Gander poetically; "emerald and sappers and dimings and them things you read of in the book of Revelations. I shall sell it to a jeweller as I knows, and with the money I shall become a lady. I don't know as I'll marry," pursued the cook meditatively; "but I'll have a little house of my own, and sit all day in the parlour in white muslin reading novels and-"

"You really must not take so much to drink, Gander," said Mrs. Fane.

The cook bristled up. "Ho, indeed!" she snorted. "I'm accused of drink, am I, when my emotions is natural, having come in for a forting. I read it in the candle last night, and in the tea-leaves two weeks previous, and then I-"

"Cook, don't be a fool! This is by no means so costly as you think."

"It's worth a thousand, if I'm a judge of stones."

"Ah! but you see you are not," said Mrs. Fane cruelly. "This dagger belongs to me. It is only imitation gold and bits of glass."

Gander dropped into a chair. "Lor!" Then with an enraged screech, "Don't tell me deceptions, whatever you do, mum. My nerves won't stand deceptions nohow." Here Gander put a large fat hand on her ample bosom, and observed pathetically, "I feel all of a wabble, as you might say."

"I wore this," said Mrs. Fane, fingering the dagger, "at a fancy ball, and threw it away along with some other rubbish. I suppose that is how it got into the dust-hole."

Had the cook been quite herself, and observant, she might have doubted this explanation, which was certainly weak. Mrs. Fane's maid would never have carried such a dazzling object to the dust-hole, had she seen it amidst any rubbish her mistress might have cast aside. But Gander, deceived by fortune, broke down sobbing at the disappointment of her hopes. "To think my 'eart should be cast up to be likewise cast down," she gurgled. "When I went with the ashbucket I sawr that objict aglittering like anything, being stuck in the side of the dust-hole, as it were." Mrs. Fane listened attentively. "The 'andle showed beautiful under some cabbige stalks, and I thought as I was made for life. O mum" – she clasped her hands, which were encased in green gloves-"let me take it to my jeweller, and see if he don't think them stones of price."

Mrs. Fane, shaking her head, quietly slipped the dagger into her pocket. "It's only rubbish," she insisted, "so I'll keep it here, as it seems to upset you. Go downstairs, Gander, and see after the dinner. I shall overlook your conduct this time, but don't let this sort of thing occur again. And you might look at your pledge while you're about it."

The cook rose quite crushed, but made one last effort to regain possession of the dagger. "Findings is keepings," she observed.

"Not in this house. And even had the jewels been real you would not have been able to keep them, seeing they were found on Mr. Fane's premises. You can tell the other servants that the dagger belongs to me, and is merely a theatrical article. Leave the room, Gander."

"I'ave been hurt in my tender part," sobbed the cook, "and now I have to go back and be a slave. All flesh is grass, mum, and-" Here she saw from the glitter in Mrs. Fane's eyes that the patience of her mistress was giving out, so she hastily retreated, and made things disagreeable in the kitchen. Mrs. Fane's explanation about the weapon was readily accepted in the kitchen, as none of the servants were intelligent, and Gander was well laughed at for her disappointment. That night the dinner was unusually good at Ajax Villa, as Gander, fearful of losing her place, wished to make amends.

When the cook departed Mrs. Fane reproduced the dagger, and looked at it musingly. While she was daintily feeling the point, Minnie came up and asked for the pretty thing to play with. "No, dear," said Mrs. Fane, putting the child aside, with a shade passing over her face, "it's mother's; and say nothing to Aunt Laura about it." This she repeated rapidly as she heard Laura's step in the winter-garden. Then kissing the child, she replaced the weapon in her pocket.

Laura, looking quiet and subdued, entered, dressed for the reception.

"No one here yet, Julia?" she asked, looking round.

"No. Did you expect Mr. Calvert?"

Laura looked annoyed. "I did not. He is not likely to come here."

"So you said the other day. Yet I found him with Walter in this room when I came to tell him about the name of the woman being discovered." Mrs. Fane cast a long look at Laura, who took no notice.

"I think we may as well drop the subject, Julia," said the younger sister. "You will never do Arnold justice."

"I would with pleasure were he rich," said Julia blandly. "But as he is poor I wish to discourage your infatuation by all the means in my power. Then again, Laura, you know very little about him."

"What I do know is good," retorted Laura, sitting down.

"Ah, but there may be some bad in him for all that. Has he told you all his life?"

"Yes. His father and mother died when he was a child, and he was brought up by a guardian. He has a small property, and went on the stage to make a name."

"You have seen him act in this new piece?" asked Mrs. Fane, keeping her eyes on the knitting, but listening with all her ears for the answer. "I think you said something about going to the Frivolity with that Baldwin girl."

"I went with Gerty, and liked the play," said Laura coldly.

"Is it a modern play?" asked Mrs. Fane.

"Yes," answered Miss Mason, rather surprised at this interest being taken in the drama, for which Julia had no great love. "It is a three-act modern comedy, The Third Man."

"I read the notice of it, Laura dear. I fancy I remember that in the second act there is a fancy dress ball. I suppose Mr. Calvert wears a fancy dress in that act."

"He is dressed as a Venetian. Why do you ask that?"

Mrs. Fane evaded the question. "My dear," she said gravely, "when I found Mr. Calvert with Walter, I came to read about the two rooms, at Hampstead and this house-being similar, you know. The paper said that the other house-in Coleridge Lane, I believe-was owned by a Mrs. Brand. Mr. Calvert admitted that he had a cousin called Flora Brand, and I have a suspicion-no facts though-that this Flora Brand is the woman who was murdered here."

"You have no right to say that, Julia," said Laura quickly.

"I have no ground to go on, certainly," admitted Mrs. Fane in a most provokingly calm manner, "but I am certain that the woman was murdered here, and that she is Flora Brand, Mr. Calvert's cousin."

Laura, who was changing from red to white and from white to red, looked straightly at Julia. "What do you mean?"

"Mr. Calvert," said Mrs. Fane, "is dressed as a Venetian in the second act of this play. Probably he would wear a dagger-as a Venetian he would certainly wear a dagger-a stage dagger."

"He does. What of that?"

"Merely this." Mrs. Fane produced the dagger from her pocket. "This is a stage weapon. The handle is tinsel and glass. It was found by Gander in the dust-hole."

Laura took the weapon and examined it with a pale face. "Go on."

"Really, my dear, there is no more to say. I leave you to draw your own inferences."

"I understand," said Laura rapidly and in a low voice. "You think that Arnold killed the woman?"

"She was his cousin-the dagger is a stage weapon-Mr. Calvert often came to this house. Put two and two together, my dear, and-"

"Stop!" cried Laura furiously. "I don't believe it. Why should Arnold come here and kill his cousin-if she is his cousin?"

"He admitted she was."

"He admitted, according to your own showing, that Flora Brand was. We cannot yet be certain that the dead woman is Flora Brand."

"Going by the similarity of the rooms-"

"That may be a coincidence."

"A very strange one, taken in conjunction with that dagger and the relationship, of which I am fully convinced. Did you give Mr. Calvert the latch-key?" asked Julia suddenly.

"How dare you say that! Do you accuse me of aiding Arnold to kill the woman?"

"Ah! you admit that he killed her then?" said Mrs. Fane quickly.

"No! no! you confuse me. The idea is ridiculous. I am losing my head over your talk." Laura walked to and fro in an agitated manner. "He did not-he did not. What motive could he have for killing-"

"Laura" – Mrs. Fane rose with a determined air-"you know something, I am sure. Walter noticed that you are not such good friends with this man as you used to be. What do you know?"

"Nothing!" panted Laura, as Mrs. Fane seized both her elbows and looked into her eyes. "Let me go, Julia!"

"Not until you tell me-"

"Mrs. Baldwin," said the voice of the footman, and he threw open the door. In a moment Mrs. Fane was her conventional self, and was holding out her hand to the visitor. "How good of you to come," she said in her sweetest tones. "Laura and I were acting a scene in a play she is going to appear in. Amateur theatricals, you know," said Mrs. Fane, giving the old lady no time to speak. "She takes the part of a girl who is rather tragic. Do sit down, Mrs. Baldwin. The tea will be up soon. How well you are looking."

Bewildered under this torrent of words Mrs. Baldwin, whose brain never moved very fast, sat down on the sofa and tried to recover herself.

Laura, thankful to Julia for once in her life, concealed the dagger in her pocket and retired to the window to recover her calmness. The accusation of Julia had taken her by surprise, and she had been thrown off her guard. As a matter of fact she did know something, but Julia with her unsympathetic manner was the last person in whom she felt inclined to confide. The two sisters in dispositions and tastes were as far asunder as the poles.

Mrs. Baldwin looked like a bird of paradise that had been out all night in the rain. She was dressed in an ill-assorted assemblage of colours. Some of her clothes were bran-new; others quite ancient. Her gloves were different in size and colour, so evidently she had snatched up one of Gerty's in a hurry. In fact, she seemed to have dressed hastily, so uneasy was the set of her clothes. And from the very candid confession that followed it appeared that she had, as she put it, "taken the first things that came to hand."

"If I had waited, I never should have made up my mind to come," said Mrs. Baldwin in her complacent voice. "But after the professor told me, I felt it was my duty to be the first to congratulate Miss Mason. Such a change in the young man's prospects, ain't it?"

"Are you talking of Mr. Calvert?" asked Mrs. Fane quickly, and with a side-glance at Laura.

"Of whom else?" responded Mrs. Baldwin genially. "My girl-Gerty's her name-told me of the affection between Miss Mason and Mr. – "

"Don't speak of it," interposed Laura, annoyed that this gossiping woman should interfere in so delicate an affair.

"Oh yes, do, Mrs. Baldwin," said Julia sweetly. "We were just talking about Mr. Calvert when you came in."

"I thought you were acting a play."

"Quite so," rejoined Mrs. Fane, still sweetly. "And Mr. Calvert is to act the lover. I was supposed to be the lover at rehearsal," she added playfully.

Laura did not contradict these enormous lies, as she would only have had an unpleasant quarter of an hour with Julia when the visitor left. "Who is the professor?" she asked, to change the conversation.

"Why, my dear, you know him. The dark gentleman who occupies the damp little house at the end of the meadow."

"Yes, I believe he did speak to me once. But we had little conversation. What did he tell you about Arnold-Mr. Calvert?"

"Never be ashamed of speaking his Christian name, my dear," advised Mrs. Baldwin. "Lovers will be lovers; eh, Mrs. Fane?"

"It would seem so," said Julia serenely. "I dislike demonstrative affection myself. But what did this professor say?"

"Professor Bocaros is his name," said Mrs. Baldwin, who would tell her story in her own slow way. "He told me that Mr. Calvert had come into a fortune."

"Into a fortune?" gasped Laura, turning even paler than she was.

"Of course, my dear, you know all about it," said Mrs. Baldwin playfully. "He told you that this poor woman who was killed here was his cousin."

Laura uttered an ejaculation and stared, but Julia interposed. "We did hear something about it," she said. "Has this woman left Mr. Calvert a fortune?"

"So Professor Bocaros says," replied the other woman. "Ten thousand a year. I suppose he'll spend some in finding how the poor soul came by her death in this very room," said Mrs. Baldwin, with a shudder.

"I suppose he will. Let us hope so," said Julia. "Laura, you are not looking well. Had you not better lie down?"

"Thank you," said Laura mechanically, and without a word left the room. But Julia, with a hasty apology to the astonished Mrs. Baldwin, followed, and outside the door caught her sister by the arm. "You wanted to find a motive for Arnold Calvert committing this crime," she said. "It was for the money."

CHAPTER XI

THE INQUIRY-AGENT

Arnold Calvert occupied rooms in Bloomsbury; pleasant old rooms in a house which had been fashioned in Georgian times. It stood in a quiet street undisturbed by the noise of traffic or the shrieking of children at play. Even organ-grinders rarely came that way, as the neighbourhood was not remunerative. Consequently the house was mostly occupied by people of delicate health who disliked noise. Mrs. Varney, the landlady, was a motherly old person with rather a hard eye. At one time she had been on the stage, and traces of that period appeared in her deliberate movements and slow voice. She always seemed as though she were reciting Shakespeare with appropriate gestures, although she had played but minor parts in the dramas of the bard.

Arnold was Mrs. Varney's pet lodger. As he was on the stage she frequently gave him the benefit of her advice, and Calvert always received her stale instruction with good humour and attention. This obedience made her love him, and he benefited by having his rooms better looked after and his food better cooked than any of the other lodgers. Calvert had two rooms on the second floor, a bedroom and a pleasant sitting-room, the window of which afforded a view round the corner of the square out of which the street led. It was an oak-panelled room with a painted ceiling, and furnished in very good taste. Arnold detested the frippery with which many young men of the present day cram their rooms, and his apartment was essentially masculine. The carpet and hangings were of dull red, the chairs and sofa were upholstered in leather, and on two sides of the room were dwarf book-cases containing a well-selected library. Calvert was fond of reading-a taste he had contracted at college, and kept well abreast of the literature of the day. In one corner of the room stood a small piano. Over the mantel-piece was a collection of boxing-gloves, foils, masks, and suchlike things. Portraits of Magdalen College-which had been Calvert's Alma Mater-and of those men who had been his contemporaries, adorned the walls. Then there were many portraits of Calvert in cricketing costume, in boating dress, in cap and gown, and in some of his stage characters. Altogether a manly, pleasant room, quite the place for a studious man to dream and work in. And as Arnold lived a quiet life, he indulged in literary pursuits, as the loose papers on his desk and the presence of a typewriter demonstrated.

He was fair and handsome, with a lean clean-shaven face of the classic type. His hair was curly, and well brushed back from a high white forehead, and his eyes were blue and deep. Most people have shallow eyes like those of a bird, but there was a depth in those of Calvert which betokened a man who thought. A handsome intellectual face on the whole, and usually bright with good health, good humour, and contentment. At present, however, it was rather clouded.

The cause of this dismal expression was to be found in the presence of two men who were seated near the window. Arnold himself, in riding-dress, stood on the hearth-rug with his hands in his pockets. He had come back from a ride that morning to find two gentlemen waiting for him. "Professor Bocaros," said Mrs. Varney in the hall, when she admitted him; "he's a gentleman though shabby. But the other, called Jasher, is as vulgar as his vulgar name."

"This was rather hard on Mr. Jasher, who was not so vulgar as the landlady made out. He was as stout as Bocaros was lean-a fair, complacent, well-fed, elderly man of the Falstaff tribe. Mr. Jasher looked as though he knew a good dinner when he sat down to one, and was quite able to appreciate delicate cookery and good wines. His round fat face was red and freckled, with rather full lips, twinkling grey eyes, humorous in expression, and his hair was plentiful if rather grey. With his fat hands folded sleepily on his rotund stomach, Mr. Jasher looked anything but an inquiry-agent. Yet that was his profession, as announced by Professor Bocaros. Arnold had received the intimation calmly, though with some astonishment.

"Why do you bring this man to me?" he asked curtly.

"Do you know who I am?" asked Bocaros in his turn.

Arnold nodded. "I do. There was a certain relative of ours who sometimes spoke of you."

"Flora Brand?"

Arnold nodded again. "Mrs. Brand," said he; "she was Flora Calvert, the daughter of my uncle. Your aunt, professor, was, I understand, her mother. But you doubtless know of the relationship, since she told me that you had seen her."

"Twice," interposed Bocaros quickly, and then wiped his mouth. "I saw her five or six years ago, and then shortly before her murder."

Jasher looked directly at Calvert as the professor made this statement, hoping to discern some emotion. But Arnold's face, doubtless owing to his stage training, betrayed nothing of his feelings. It looked as cold as the face of a Greek god, which he rather resembled in his looks. "I am aware that Mrs. Brand was murdered," he said; "my lawyers, Messrs. Laing and Merry, told me so the other day."

"Did they tell you about the money?" asked Bocaros, his big black eyes fastened eagerly on the face of his cousin.

This time Calvert coloured a trifle, and shifted his rather direct gaze. "Yes," he answered; "though I do not know by what right you ask me such a question."

"I am your cousin-"

"Even that does not entitle you to take such a liberty."

"Bocaros looked annoyed. I am the last man to take a liberty with any one," said he coldly, while Jasher's twinkling eyes watched his face and the face of Calvert alternately; "but Flora, when I saw her a week before she was murdered, told me that she had made a will in my favour. When I went to see Merry I was informed that she had changed her mind and had constituted you her heir."

"Quite so," assented the young man. "Mr. Merry told me all this, and of your visit. I rather expected a visit from you, professor. You want me to help you with money-"

"I want you to offer a reward in order to learn who killed your-our cousin," burst out Bocaros swiftly.

Calvert bit his lip, and the blood rushed to his fair face. "You may be sure that I will leave no stone unturned to learn the truth," he said, and walked in a rather agitated manner up and down the room. At length he came to a halt opposite Jasher. "You are a private inquiry-agent," said he. "Mr. Merry informed me that the professor, under the impression that he had inherited the money, employed you to hunt for the assassin of poor Mrs. Brand."

"Yes-yes," cried Bocaros, shifting his chair in great excitement. "And I bring him to you that you may employ him. I am poor-yes, I am very poor, but I do not want money. Spend what you would give me in paying Jasher to discover the assassin."

"Is this why you bring Mr. Jasher to me?" asked Arnold.

"What else?" said Bocaros. "I only saw Flora twice, but I liked her-she was good to me. I want to know who killed her."

"All the world wants to know that, professor."

"Pardon me," said Jasher, in his unctuous voice. "I do not think the world in general cares very much, Mr. Calvert. The world has grown tired of its nine days' wonder, and now is occupying itself in other matters. I pointed this out to the professor, and proposed that you should remunerate me for what I have done, seeing that he cannot pay me, and let sleeping dogs lie."