The Black Cabinet (6 page)

“Broken butterflies, eh?” he said. “I've seen a good many in my time. The collection struck me as being appropriate—quite appropriate. Now, Chloe, look! This is new since your time.”

He opened two drawers, one on the right and the other on the left, pulling them right out. Then with either hand he reached into the space' left by each drawer, and Chloe heard a click. He stepped back, and said,

“It's quite simple—just a little spring catch on either side. Put in your hand and feel for yourself.”

“Why? What is it?” said Chloe. She felt along the side until her fingers touched the catch. It lay about a foot in. When she pressed it, it ran smoothly down and fastened with a click. Mitchell Dane nodded.

“The one on the other side is just the same. Now open it again.”

Chloe did so.

“But what does it do?” she asked a little breathlessly.

“This,” said Mitchell Dane. He took hold of the middle partition and pulled. Quite smoothly, and without making any sound at all, half of the upper part of the cabinet slid forward. It was like pulling out a drawer, only the drawer was three feet high, being in fact a whole section of the cabinet with its block of shallow drawers intact, He lifted the section out and laid it on the floor. The middle of the cabinet was now only a hollow shell. He took a small torch from his pocket and threw its beam into the dark interior. Chloe saw the black lacquer on the inner side of the back. He shifted the light to the left and then to the right, and she caught the gleam of metal.

“Two more catches there; then that section at the back opens towards you like folding doors.” Chloe came closer, looking hard into the darkness, not looking at Mitchell Dane.

“But why?” she said, speaking under her breath. “Why?”

“I'm going to tell you why. Behind the door; there's a safe built into the wall. The cabinet is clamped to the floor so that it can't be moved—I think I mentioned that. Now, please remember this. Wroughton knows that the safe is here; but he doesn't know how to open it. It's a combination lock; and he doesn't know the combination, and never will. No one else knows anything—at least I shouldn't think they did. Wroughton wouldn't talk for his own sake. And Stran—no Stran don't know anything.”

“Who is Stran?” said Chloe, still in that whispering voice.

Mitchell Dane gave a short laugh.

“A young devil—and don't you trust him a yard. I've got him in a cleft stick because I always made him give me receipts—they're in there by the bye.” He flashed the torchlight into the darkness like a pointing finger. “And if he ever gives you any trouble, there's your remedy.” Chloe drew back with a shiver.

“I don't understand. What do you mean? I don't understand a bit. Why do you tell me all is?”

Mitchell Dane dropped the torch into his pocket, and fitted the missing section back into the body of the cabinet.

“You're not wanted to understand. But I'm telling you what'll be useful to you some day. I want you to listen, and not bother about whether you understand or not. The lock behind there has a combination. We'll go into my study after this and I'll show you the sort of thing, and how it works. You can't open it unless you've got the right word. If I ever want you to open it, I'll send you the word. But you're not to pass it on to any living soul. Do you hear? Don't trust anyone!”

“Oh!” said Chloe. “That's horrible!” Mitchell Dane was Mr. Dark—the someone whom you didn't like and couldn't bear to touch. There was all the child's instinctive repulsion in Chloe's voice.

He replaced the drawers which hid the side catches, and closed the cabinet, locking it with a key which had a twisted handle and hung from a fine steel chain. When he had put the key in his pocket, he turned and looked at Chloe with a little glint in his cold eyes.

“Horrible, is it?” he said. “Yes, I suppose you would think that. Let me give you a very serious piece of advice—if everybody acted on it, there wouldn't be nearly so much trouble in the world. It's just this. Don't love anyone, because if you do, sooner or later you'll get hurt. Don't trust anyone—most people'll let you down, if they get the chance. And never put anything on paper that you don't want the whole world to know.”

Chloe's chin went up.

“I never take advice!” she said vehemently. “And I'd rather be hurt a hundred times, and let down a thousand times, than not be able to love people and trust them. If you can't love people you're dead—just dead!”

Mitchell Dane looked at her with a good deal of admiration and just a very faint stirring of something else—pride, affection, a sense of kinship. He found Chloe very much alive, very young and certain of herself.

“So I'm dead, am I?” he said, smiling a little.

“I think you are,” said Chloe with the scarlet in her cheeks and the ring of defiance in her voice. She felt as if she was up against something that she hated but was not in the least afraid of. She was exultant and angry.

“And that's why you won't come and live with me?”

“Yes, I think it is.”

Mitchell Dane nodded.

“Perhaps you're right,” he began. “Perhaps——”

The door opened and Mr. Wroughton came into the room.

Chapter X

Chloe went back to Maxton next day. A fortnight later she wrote to Rose:

“It's dull without you, but of course I knew it would be. I shan't stay here. I should like to try London, only everyone says it's so desperately hard to get a job.

“Ducky, I'm a blighted being. You'll never guess what's happened. How can I break it to you? Get the sympathetic tear ready, and I'll do it as gently as I can. Yesterday being Saturday, I went for a walk, and in Halfpenny Lane I met Bernard Austin and a damsel—a strange damsel. She wore tortoiseshell spectacles and a blush. Bernard blushed too. I, of course, I turned pale and clutched my heart. Then Bernard introduced us. Her name is Penelope Jackson, and she looks nice. They are engaged. And I gather she has money. She adores Bernard, and he just lets her and looks silly. I wanted to slap him all the time, but thought I'd better not, in case he should misunderstand and think I wanted him back. He always did seem to feel encouraged by the things which would have snubbed other people. It's a blessed relief to have him off my hands.”

Here the letter broke off, to be found and finished by Chloe three days later.

“Rose darling, I feel exactly as if I'd got into a dream and just anything might happen. Oh, I do, do,
do
so wish that you were here. I'm bursting to talk to someone, and have been within an ace of flinging my arms round Ally's neck and saying ‘Let me confide in you.' This will show you what I've come to. So far, I've stopped myself doing it. I'm going to confide in you instead. But you're such thousands of miles away.

“I wrote all the first bit of this letter on Sunday, and I can't remember why I didn't go on with it on Monday, but I think it was because we had a busy day. It all seems like the year before last.

“On Tuesday I was sewing black sequins on to a dress for the thin Miss Fellowes, when Ally came in frightfully flustered, and said that a gentleman wanted to see me, and would I go down to the parlour, and if I liked, she would come to. I said ‘No,' quite firmly, and went down. And there was a little oddment of a grey man who said that he was Mr. Dane's solicitor, and
that
Mr. Dane had died suddenly and left me everything.

“I sat down on the nearest chair and said, ‘Nonsense!' And he said, ‘Not nonsense: a solid legal fact. May I enquire if you are of age?' And I said, ‘Not till February.'

“Rose, why did he leave it to me? I told him I wouldn't have it. And I told him he was dead, and that that was why I wouldn't go and live with him. I never would have believed that I could have said such dreadful things anyone—and I didn't mind a bit
;
I just said them. And he only smiled. The dreadful part is that I can't feel sorry about his being dead now, because I think that what I said to him was quite true, and that he has really been dead for years and years and years. You can't be sorry about a person you only met after they were dead, can you? That sounds mad, doesn't it? I think it's all rather mad. Why should he leave me Danesborough and a most frightful lot of money, when he'd only known me for a week? And I was probably ruder to him than anyone ever had been before.”

There Chloe was wrong. Many people had spoken their minds to Mitchell Dane in the past, and more than one woman had said harder things than Chloe had said. Tears, threats, prayers, and curses had all alike failed of their purpose. Chloe's little outburst had been very mild indeed compared with some others. Chloe, however, was not to know that.

She finished her letter to Rose at Danesborough on the day of the funeral.

“It's all over, and everybody has gone. That sounds as if there were crowds, which isn't true. The little, grey solicitor man came—his name is Hudson,—and two or three other people from London—men. But there were no relations, and no one who cared at all. Mrs. Wroughton cried all the time, but that's because she's the sort of woman who cries when things happen. I should think three pocket handkerchiefs was her allowance for weddings, christenings, and funerals. She isn't really sorry, nor is Mr. Wroughton, though he has been with Mr. Dane for fifteen years. No one minds—and it makes me feel as I must howl.”

There was a blotted signature and a rather smudgy postscript:

“Rose, I would mind if I could; but I did only know him for a week.”

Chloe had just addressed the letter, when Blayne, the butler, came into the room.

“Dr. Golding would be glad if you would see him for a moment,” he said; and Dr. Golding himself, spruce, bluff and rosy, came in behind him as the words were spoken.

“I won't keep you, Miss Dane.” He shut the door on the butler and came over to her, fumbling in his pockets. “Trying day, and you must be glad it's over—bitterly cold too. Now, where did I put the thing? Too many pockets, that's about the size of it. But I've got it on me somewhere, and I promised to give it into your own hands.”

“What is it?” said Chloe.

“A letter. Ah, here it is. No, that's income tax. But I'm sure I've got it. Yes, now this really is it—a letter that I promised Mr. Dane I'd give you. He pushed it into my hand when the nurse was out of the room—about the last sensible thing he did—and made me promise to
give it to you when you were alone.” He laid a large, crumpled envelope on the table in front of Chloe. “And I was to ask you to read it in my presence, and to burn it as soon as you had read
it. Some sick man's fancy, I expect; but perhaps you won't mind carrying out your part of
the bargain.”

Chloe took up the envelope and turned it over. It was sealed in three places. She broke the seals, and took out a sheet of strong linen paper.

Dr. Golding had gone over to the fire, and stood there, rubbing his hands and talking cheerfully.

“Bitter cold day, I must say. But I'm of out of it to-morrow, thank goodness. Taking a two months' holiday, and very glad to get it, I can assure you. Algiers; Morocco; Egypt—doesn't that make your mouth water? My locum, Jennings, by the way, is a friend of Wroughton's, so you're sure to meet him—but not professionally, I hope.” He gave his short, bluff laugh.

Chloe had unfolded the sheet of paper, and was looking at the single line of writing upon it, a single line of four words in Mitchell Dane's hand—four words, and one of them her own name. She read them carefully:

“The word is Chloe.”

That was all. There was no signature. Nothing but the four words.

Chloe walked over to the fire with the paper in her hand, and pushed it down on to the red embers with a quick thrust. The edge of the paper caught and curled back upon itself; a little spurt of flame, a few sparks, and Mitchell Dane's message was gone.

Chapter XI

Chloe was still thinking about that message next day. She understood it very well. The word that would open Mitchell Dane's safe was “Chloe.” It was quite simple, she had only set the combination lock so that the letters spelt her own name, and the safe that lay behind the black cabinet would open to her. Every time her thought reached this point she felt the same thing—a quick recoil from the bare idea of opening that safe.

Danesborough, which had been the house of her childish dreams, a centre of pleasant memories, had become the setting of something which she could not define, but from which she shrank; as a child, Chloe had often played a game called “Hotter and Colder.” Something was hidden and had to be looked for. When you came near the hidden thing the person who had hidden it called out “Hot,” “Hotter,” “Burning,” “Scorching”; and when you wandered away you were recalled by the warning “Lukewarm,” “Colder,” “Freezing.” Chloe felt as if she were playing this game again. Danesborough held a hidden thing. It was that hidden thing which had changed the house.

The hidden thing was in the safe. Chloe pictured it as something burning, white-hot, not to be touched. Every time she passed the drawing-room door she felt the nearness of this hidden thing. It was just as if a voice out of the old game was calling to her and saying, “You're getting hotter; you're getting hotter all the time.” On the day after the funeral she opened the door and went in. The voice said, “Burning hot,” and Chloe shivered and stood still a yard from the door, looking across the pale, frigid room to where the black cabinet filled the whole of the recess on the right of the fireplace. She could see the golden river and the little men: Timmy Jimmy, and Henry Planty—and Mr. Dark who had always frightened her. He stood a little apart from the other two, and looked down at the shut basket in his hand. He had a secret too.

Chloe turned with a jerk to find herself face to face with Mr. Wroughton. He seemed more like a farmer than a secretary, with his breadth of shoulder, florid face, and deep, jovial voice.

“Hullo!” he said. “I was looking for you. You'll want to do this room up, I expect. Were you planning it all?”

“Not exactly,” said Chloe. And then she said what she had not meant to say. “Where are Mr. Dane's keys, Mr. Wroughton?”

She thought he looked surprised. Just for a moment his manner seemed to accuse Chloe of a little undue haste. She felt rebuked; but he answered her at once and very pleasantly.

“I have them, of course. Was it some special key you wanted? Or shall I hand them all over to you? Perhaps you wouldn't mind coming into
the study.”

Chloe followed him like a school-girl. And then all at once her spirit asserted itself. After all, Danesborough was hers; the keys were hers; she had a perfect right to ask for them.

“I wanted the key to the black cabinet. It has my uncle's collection of butterflies in it, and I'd like to look at them again.”

Mr. Wroughton lifted a dispatch box, set it on the littered study table, and opened it.

“There are a great many keys here. Would you know the one you want?”

He was watching her as he spoke, and a little flare of resentment rose in Chloe. “Why does he look at me like that? Why does he ask if I should know the key?” She remembered that he had come into the room when she and Mitchell Dane were talking; but the cabinet had been closed and locked by then.

“Don't trust anyone.” That was what Mitchell Dane had said.

“Do you know the key?” he repeated.

His eyes were not in keeping with the rest of his face. As she met them, Chloe realized with a start that they had something of the same cold quality as Mitchell Dane's—yes, cold, light eyes that gave the lie to that ruddy face.

“I expect you know it,” she answered quickly, and put out her hand.

He picked up a large bunch of keys and let it hang jangling from his thumb. “Are you going to take all these over?” he asked. “I've really wanted to have a talk with you, you know,—about my position. Mr. Dane left most things in my hands; and I thought perhaps you would be glad of my services for the present at any rate.”

“Yes,” said Chloe—“yes.” She spoke in a gentle, considering fashion. If Mr. Wroughton had known her better, he would have thought it very unlike her usual manner. As it was, he experienced some relief.

“It's a pity you're not of age—it complicates things. But if you will accept my help, I think Hudson and I can save you a lot of trouble. You will, of course, make your own arrangements when you come of age; but meanwhile”—he laughed pleasantly—“I'm here to do the donkey work. Now is this the key you want?”

He picked up the thin steel chain which held the key of the black cabinet. Chloe looked at it, and gave no sign.

“We might take the keys into the drawing-room and see,” she suggested, and once again was aware of scrutiny.

It was when they were in the drawing-room again, and the key with the twisted handle had turned silently in the lock of the black cabinet that Mr. Wroughton asked with startling suddenness:

“Did Mr. Dane show you his safe?”

“He told me where it was,” said Chloe.

“And did he tell you how to open it?”

“He told me no one could open it,” she said, and saw him frown.

“Did he tell you that it was a combination lock—the sort that needs a word to open it?”

“Yes, that's what he said. He said no one could open it without the word.”

Mr. Wroughton looked at her very intently, very insistently.

“Did he tell you the word? Did he?”

“No, he didn't,” said Chloe. She was shaking, and not quite sure whether she had told a lie or not. Mitchell Dane had not told her the word—not then. But the message which she had burned rose up before her accusingly.

“I hate the whole thing!” she cried suddenly. “I hate it, and I don't want to talk about it!”

“I asked,” said Mr. Wroughton, “because I know the safe contains some very important papers, and think it really ought to be opened, if you don't mind my saying so.”

Chloe looked down, bit her lip, and tapped the floor with her foot.

“Very well—open it.” Her voice was low and oppressed.

“My dear Miss Dane, that's easier said than done. No one can open it without the word. I was hoping very much that Mr. Dane had told you what the word was. If he didn't, I'm afraid we're hung up.”

“Perhaps it's amongst his papers,” said Chloe. She took the key out of the cabinet door as she spoke, and pulled out one of the drawers at random. Mr. Wroughton stood by and watched her, his hands in his pockets. He did not talk, and he did not move, but just stood there—a big man in rough clothes, who looked a good deal out of place in the pale, faded room.

Chloe did not allow her Uncle Walter's collection to delay her for very long. It was, to tell the truth, a sufficiently depressing spectacle. There was moth in some of the drawers, and a general air of decay. The bright colours that had pleased her so much as a child were dull and lifeless in this November light. She felt no desire to linger under Mr. Wroughton's eye, gazing at these mouldering relics. After a very brief inspection she locked the cabinet and turned away.

“I'm going out,” she announced; and five minutes later she banged the front door behind her and began to skirt the house.

It was a blowy, blustery day, but she was in shelter until she turned the north corner and met a great buffet of wind that beat the colour into her face and made her laugh and gasp for breath. She swung round and raced before it down the gravelled path that led past the stables to the walled garden. The wind ran with her like a noisy, shouting companion, past the walled garden—she had no fancy for enclosed spaces to-day—and on over rough grass to a little spinney of larches all bare and delicate against a lead-coloured sky.

Chloe flung her arms about one of the trees, and turned to face the wind, glowing and happy. The depression which clung about the house like a mist was all gone. She wondered at the Chloe who had stood so meekly before Mr. Wroughton with hardly enough spirit to ask for her own keys. She whistled this Chloe down the wind with a scornful toss of the head, and leaning there with her arms about the swaying larch, she began to make plans.

There were no horses at Danesborough. She must have a horse. Not this week, but surely next week she might buy a horse and have riding lessons without being considered hard-hearted. She must learn to drive a car too. There were at least three to choose from—the big Daimler limousine; the Napier touring car; and the little A.C. two-seater—that was the one she had set her heart upon. But there seemed to be a tendency to regard it as Mr. Wroughton's car. Not for the first time, Chloe had a sudden, vivid feeling that Mr. Wroughton was too much in evidence.

“When I am of age” she said to herself and leaned her cheek against the rough bark of the little larch tree. She began to make pleasant plans. When Mr. Wroughton had seen Chloe leave the house, he went into the study and asked for a trunk call. Whilst he waited for it to come through he stood looking down into the fire with
a
heavy frown on his face. He did not look jovial
any
more.

As he stood there the door opened, and Emily Wroughton hesitated on the threshold.

“What is it?” said Wroughton over his shoulder, his voice rasping on the words. “Come in or stay out—I don't care which, but for heaven's sake, make up your mind!”

“If you're busy—I—” said Emily, “I mean—I don't want to interrupt you.”

“Well, don't do it then! I'm expecting an important call.”

She backed out of the room, half closed the door, and then opened it again.

“It was about the servants, Leonard. I mean that is—perhaps another time—I didn't know
you
were busy.”

Wroughton swung round, the telephone bell rang, and Emily shut the door in a flurry. Wroughton was scowling as he picked up the receiver. Through his “Hullo!” he was aware of Emily slowly and cautiously releasing the handle of the door. He said “Hullo!” a second time, and then, “That you, Stran?”

The voice that answered him was familiar.

“Yes. What's up? You sound peeved.”

“No, it's nothing—Emily fussing round the door like a hen, that's all.”

He listened, and heard her withdraw on tiptoe. At the other end of the line Stran laughed.

“I was afraid the heiress had cut up rusty.”

“Not exactly.”

“Bordering on it?”

“No. But I can't quite make her out. One minute she's as frank and open as a child, and then shuts down like a clam.”

“As how?”

“She told me to-day that she knew where the safe was—said he'd told her, and asked me for the thingummyjig key. And then when I tried to find out whether she knew the word she shut down and talked about her Uncle Walter's butterflies.”

“Do you think she knows anything?”

“I don't know.”

“No idea?”

Wroughton hesitated.

“I believe she does know,” he said at last.

“Well, if she does know, she'll be using what she knows. The woman doesn't live who could keep her hands off a secret that she's got the key to. That's where you come in, old thing. You'll have to do a good deal of sitting up and taking notice. Speaking for myself, I really can't afford to let the lady get going. The old man kept what he was pleased to call ‘my receipts' and everything else apart, I'm bound to get 'em back. So look lively.”

“Suppose you come down and take a hand.”

“Next week.” Stran's voice was very cool and easy. “I'll give her time to get thoroughly bored, and then roll up casually and renew our acquaintance.”

“All right. She's pretty well fed up already, Emily's not exactly a gay companion.”

“Not exactly! Well, so long.”

Wroughton replaced the receiver, rang off, and went to the door.

“Emily!” he shouted at the top of his voice.