Wiles of a Stranger (10 page)

But why should he do anything of the sort? I had no idea, except that it did seem to give him genuine pleasure. What manner of man was this, who made love to his host’s wife before breakfast and entertained his charge after, both with equal enthusiasm and enjoyment? I could not but wonder what he would tackle before nightfall. I was not long in learning.

Chapter Eight

Lucien and I got down to some real work in the schoolroom in the afternoon. High time too! Mr. Thorpe apparently arrived and examined the jewelry, although I did not see him. Beaudel came to the schoolroom and told Lucien about it.

“Major Morrison wants to buy your Italian necklace,” he said. “He has offered five thousand guineas for it. Mr. Thorpe, a great expert, feels it is a good price. Do you want me to sell it, Lucien?”

The absurdity of asking a child such a question was obvious, and some sign of it must have appeared on my face.

Beaudel undertook to explain it. “My plan, Miss Stacey, is to set up a school fund for my nephew. It costs a great deal to send a chap off to Eton or Harrow, you know. Something will have to he sold, and I feel I ought to do it now, while I have a good offer. My feeling is that as good, firm offers are received, I shall sell off the collection. You never can find a buyer with cash when you need money.”

“As long as you are sure the price is fair. Should you not have your own expert—a second opinion?”

“They were evaluated when Sir Giles sent them home. Perhaps I ought to have Love and Wirgmans do it again, bring the price up to date, as it were. Yes, that sounds a sensible course. I’ll do it.”

“You will have an evaluation before you sell to Morrison?” I queried.

“I doubt the major would he willing to wait so long. And he has the cash. That is a good point.”

There was little to say to so indecisive a man. “I like Major Morrison,” was Lucien’s childish comment.

“Liking is no reason for striking a bad bargain, Lucien,” I advised, hoping Beaudel would heed me.

“Oh it is not a bad bargain. It is more than Sir Giles paid for the thing. I expect I should sell, but I like to talk it over with Lucien. He is the owner after all. I am only the custodian.”

“It is not an easy job,” I sympathized, as he wore a heavy frown.

“A troublesome task. I wish my brother had left it in Sacheverel’s hands, but he is too old. And his sons are busy gentlemen—involved in politics and so on. I am the one with time to spare for it. I shall dump it in Algernon’s lap all the same, when he comes of age and returns to his estate. I fear he is a bit young yet.”

I was surprised to discover, when I took Lucien down that evening for his visit, that Morrison had left.

“Where is the major?” Lucien asked, scanning the room for his favorite.

“He is in town, putting up at the Shipwalk with Mr. Thorpe, awaiting our decision about selling,” Beaudel replied.

“Why didn’t you ask him to stay here?” Lucien demanded at once.

A quick little look of animosity passed between Beaudel and his wife. It was unknown whether the husband suspected what had been going on, or the two had come to cuffs over some other aspect of the major’s visit. A definite chill was in the air in any case.

“We are not running a hotel,” Beaudel answered sharply. “He has Thorpe with him now. We cannot put up every person who comes to town.”

“Is he coming back?” Lucien asked.

“Certainly he will be back. The matter of the sale is not finalized.”

“Let us have a hand of cards,” Mrs. Beaudel suggested. She directed her remark to Lucien, but I was included. We played for half an hour, during which time it was plain the lady was in a pucker. She was in such ill-humor she robbed the game of any fun for Lucien. I took him upstairs early that evening, as the company below was so inhospitable.

“I don’t have to go to bed yet,” he pointed out, as we escaped.

“I’ll read you a story first, or we can talk, if you prefer.”

“Miss Little used to talk to me all the time. More than you do,” he charged.

“What did she talk about?”

“Everything. Whether I was happy, and all sorts of things. I was very happy after she came.”

“Were you not happy before?”

“At first I was happy with Uncle Charles. After he got married to Aunt Stella, the servants became angry. But Aunt Stella got rid of them and hired nicer ones. Then just when we got happy, Uncle Charles became sad, and sometimes mad. I think he is angry with Aunt Stella tonight, don’t you?”

“A little peeved, yes.”

“He doesn’t want her to have any fun. She told me so, and that’s why they fight. She fights with Wiggins too. I used to see them go into the writing room and close the door. Sometimes they’d fight, but Aunt Stella doesn’t mind fighting with him, because she likes him, you see.”

“What does she fight about with Wiggins?” I pressed on, taking advantage of his talkative mood.

“It was something to do with her moving to Uncle Charles’s home, after Algernon comes back here. They will he leaving then, because of Algernon fighting with Aunt Stella. Maybe Wiggins doesn’t want to go away with her. I don’t know. I couldn’t hear very well.”

This was interesting, but not terribly informative. I already knew she did not treat him like a butler. Soon Lucien changed the topic to some gift Morrison was going to buy him. When at last it was time to tuck him into bed, he apologized for his morning’s burst of anger with me. It was just that he and the major had planned a man-to-man sort of a morning, and my coming along spoiled it. I apologized for being such a spoilsport, and was forgiven with the magnanimous rejoinder that I was not really a marplot, only a peagoose.

I was coming to feel rather like one. I had been here for three days, and had nothing for my troubles but suspicions, and suspicions besides that had no immediate bearing on my father’s position. Mrs. Beaudel’s various dalliances and fighting with everyone were despicable, but unless they led to stealing the diamonds, it was none of my concern.

Time was pushing at my back. I was on thorns to be doing something positive to free Papa. When I heard Beaudel ascend the stairs to bed, I listened closely for an accompanying, lighter tread. Hearing none, I assumed his wife had remained to bicker or flirt with Wiggins. Or possibly to plan with him further depradations on Lucien’s diamonds, of course.

I had to go down and spy. Putting it off was getting me nowhere. If caught, explaining my presence below a second time late at night would be difficult. I wondered then whether I might not slip around outdoors and peek through the windows. There was a walk-out platform with a guardrail at the end of the corridor. The servants shook out their dustmops and cloths there, though its true function was more likely a fire escape, as it had a staircase descending to the garden below.

I tiptoed silently to the door at the hall’s end, opened it, and slipped out into the chilly night air, where the black sky arced above, with the moon and an occasional star giving a minimum of light. The wind caught my hair and skirts, whipping them about. I was sufficiently familiar with the geography of the house to know I must make a half-circle from the staircase around to milady’s room. The grass was damp underfoot, wetting my slippers.

And after all the bother, there was nothing to be seen when I got there but the pencils of light that crept out from the edges of the drawn curtains. I knew someone was in the room, but could neither see nor hear a thing, unless I went inside and resumed my prowling there.

It was mere chance that dictated my continuing around the house, instead of returning to the fire stairs by the way I had come. The distance was equal either way. That random choice proved the most fruitful move I had made thus far. The curtains were drawn in some rooms. In Beaudel’s study they were not, and through the blackness, for the room was unlit, I perceived the surreptitious movement of a lantern. It was not the purposeful movement of a man going to a known, preordained spot. No, it was a hesitant, exploratory kind of jiggling about. The flame swung in half-circles, this way and that, as though looking for something. I stood watching, with a nervous churning in my stomach.

I knew I must creep closer to see who held the lamp. It certainly was not Beaudel, behaving so stealthily in his own study. In my mind, I had a fair idea who the intruder was. It was Wiggins, either with or without his mistress, snooping about the room for something. They had had time to nip around from her writing room. The “something” was soon pinpointed, in my mind, to be the safe.

You may imagine my amazement when the first face I saw reflected in the glow from the lamp was Lucien’s. A mere child, and one besides who was supposed to have been asleep long ago. I soon realized it was not he who held the lamp. The level of it was too high, and besides he was too far from the lights—more than an arm’s length away. He was pointing here and there, to cabinets and shelves, directing the holder of the light to various spots. The lamp swung suddenly to the left, and showed me a harsh-featured face, the bottom half of which was covered in a beard. The major’s efforts to ingratiate himself with the child were clearer now. It must surely be the first time a thief had sought the aid of his victim to locate the property to be stolen.

I took an involuntary step closer to the window, then realized the more sensible approach was from indoors. Of course I must call Mr. Beaudel. I was too upset to wonder how I would account for what I had seen. Some excuse would doubtless have occurred to me if necessary. I could have told Mrs. Beaudel instead; she was closer, but the proper behavior could not be counted on from her.

I ran back to the fire stairs, up them two at a time, giving my shin a nasty bark along the way, and on a metal stair edge too, so painful. I went directly to Mr. Beaudel’s room and banged on the door. To my astonishment, there was no reply. I rapped long and hard enough to waken the dead, and still there was no answer. Very well then, I’d stop the major myself. A gun, I needed a gun, or a weapon of some kind.

I possessed none, nor had I the least notion where in the house a firearm might be available. As I darted down the hallway, I remembered Lucien had a toy pistol, fashioned to look very real. I would take it. With this harmless weapon to frighten the major into submission, I ran down the stairway to the office, expecting every moment I would encounter Beaudel, hopefully brave enough to help me. He could rouse up a couple of footmen at least. I encountered no one. Not another soul was to be seen. I walked to the proper doorway, taking deep breaths to calm myself, I flung open the door, leveled the toy gun at the major’s chest and said—nothing.

“Good evening, Miss Stacey. Do come in,” Morrison said, with a smiling look at the weapon. “Lucien, perhaps you will take your toy gun and run along to bed now. I want to talk to your governess.”

“All right, Major,” he answered calmly. As he walked to me with his hand out for the gun, he said, “I was wrong, Miss Stacey. You are a spoilsport after all.”

“Lucien, what’s going on here?” I demanded. There was no feeling of fright left in my escapade.

“Me and the major were conducting an operation. You have spoiled everything.        As usual.”

“Call your Uncle Charles at once. Find a footman to fetch him,” I ordered.       

“Uncle Charles ain’t here. He went into town,” Lucien replied.

“I didn’t hear him leave his room!”

“Sometimes he sneaks down the back stairs, so Aunt Stella won’t know he is going to the tavern.”

“Call your Aunt Stella then.”

“All right,” he said, but with such a cunning little smile over my shoulder to his cohort that I knew he was not going to do it.

“And close the door behind you, Lucien. Quietly,” Morrison added. This was done, with the utmost care, not making a sound.

“I hope you have a good explanation for this, sir,” I charged, regarding my foe with what traces of dignity I could rally, after being disarmed by a child.

“I might say the same to you,” Miss van-Stacey,” he answered, with an arch smile, enjoying the affair.

My breath caught in my throat. How had he discovered my secret? And if he told, I would have to leave, before I was clamped into jail.

“Are you not curious to know how I learned the truth?” he asked, in a conversational spirit.

“The truth? Why, the truth is that I haven’t the least idea what you’re talking about. My name is Stacey.”

“Ah well, what’s in a name?” he asked, with a laughing shrug. “This note I have from Diamond Dutch addressed to his daughter will be of no interest to you then,” he went on, drawing a white rectangle from his inner pocket.

I reached out for it, advancing towards him in my eagerness. He lifted it just above his head, with a mocking laugh. “Now, now, it would be improper for you to open Miss van Deusen’s letter, Miss Stacey.”

I reached higher; he held it higher, until I was nearly in his arms, with both of us in some danger of toppling over backwards.

“All right. You know who I am. I admit it,” I said, backing off. “Give me my letter.”

“Couldn’t we play post office some more? The game was just becoming interesting.”

“Please!” I said, my voice rising loud enough to frighten him into complying.

He handed it over, and waited with his arms while I tore it open to read the miserable few lines my father had scrawled, obviously in haste, but in his own distinctive hand.

“Mickey: Major Morrison is helping me. Do what he asks. Help him if you can, then go home. Say nothing to Beaudel.” It was signed with his initials.

I looked up to see the major regarding me with a question on his face.

“Well?” he asked.

“You know what is in this note?”

“I know what Dutch said he was going to put in it.”

“You saw my father? What did he say? When did you see him?”

“To answer your questions: yes, I saw him. When? Late this afternoon. He said he did not steal the diamonds. He also requested me to ask you to return home at once to London.”

“Of course he didn’t steal them! How is he? Is he well?”

“As well as can be expected, under the circumstances. He is not being starved or beaten, if that is your fear. Till he has stood trial, he will not be treated quite like a criminal. Oh, he said you are under no circumstances to go to the jail. A wise decision on his part. You may imagine the conclusion the law would jump to at once, if they learned you were with him all the while. He seems to have convinced them you went back to London before he went to Glanbury Park, or before he returned to the hotel at least. They wouldn’t be too happy to learn your real identity here either.”