Part 21 (1/2)

”Has my aunt gone?” she said.

Eleanor gave a short, mocking little laugh.

”I am afraid, for the time being at any rate,” she said, ”I must claim half of her. So I may tell you that our aunt is still in the drawing-room. But really I couldn't stand her any longer. So I fled and left her there.”

”But--but, I thought she was being so nice to you,” faltered Margaret, at a loss for a moment to know what Eleanor meant, ”and that you had taken a great fancy to one another.”

”Oh, she was all right,” said Eleanor. ”I should think she was what Americans would call just a lovely person. But somehow she made me feel such a sham and a fraud that I never want to see her again, and so I would have none of her kindness. Knowing that it was not meant for me, and that I was getting it under false pretences, I was--well--so rude that I don't expect she will ever want to see me again.”

”Oh!” said Margaret, and she could not help feeling just a little bit pleased to hear that Eleanor had not found favour in Lady Strangways'

eyes. Certainly she did not deserve to after the way in which she had repelled all her overtures. Then, of a sudden, a disquieting thought came to her. ”But oh, Eleanor,” she said aghast, ”can't you see that she will think that it is I, her real niece, who has been so rude to her? Oh, Eleanor, that is just as bad as, as----”

”As if she had fallen in love with me,” said Eleanor, bursting out laughing. ”Oh, Margaret, how transparent you are! I wonder you have been able to deceive all the Danvers family so long. But I must confess that I never thought how very unfavourably I was impressing your aunt with you.

Well, well, it can't be helped now. You will put matters straight some day.”

”She reminded me so much of some one,” said Margaret, pursuing her own train of thought; ”but I cannot think of whom. And that is curious because I have seen so few people in my life, that I ought to remember whom it is that she resembles without any difficulty. It was her eyes that puzzled me most. Such beautiful eyes they are. And I am sure I know some one else who has eyes like them.”

Eleanor glanced at Margaret and then began to laugh.

”Of course you do,” she said, ”and so do I. You see that person every time you look in the gla.s.s. It is you yourself who have Lady Strangways'

eyes, my dear Margaret.”

CHAPTER XIII

HILARY TURNS DETECTIVE

”Eleanor,” said Hilary, coming into the hall one afternoon with a couple of books in her hand, ”if you are going out I want you to go to Smith's, please, and change these two library books for me.”

It had been raining all day, and though the rain had now changed to a slight drizzle a thick mist creeping on from the sea had already blotted out the downs, and was hanging like a low cloud over the town. It was as cheerless an afternoon as could well be imagined, and Margaret who, suffering from a bad cold in her head, had not been out for a couple of days, hesitated a moment before replying. But the request was couched in such a peremptory tone that she did not quite like to refuse it. After all, since the children had gone away she was doing absolutely nothing in return for her board and lodging, and, since Hilary had forgotten that she was nursing a cold, it would have seemed ungracious to remind her of the fact.

But Hilary had not forgotten Margaret's cold. Had it been ten times as bad, however, she would still have despatched her on this errand. For the long-awaited, carefully planned-for moment when she could bring home Margaret's guilt to her had, in Hilary's confident estimation, at length arrived. A few minutes since, rummaging in the dressing-room next Margaret's room in search of some gloves that needed cleaning, she had chanced to espy under the bed the trunk in which the boys had hidden the Colonel's property. They had supposed it to belong to their mother, but Hilary knew that it was Eleanor's.

Rendered thoroughly uneasy by the continued stir that Colonel Baker was making about his loss, Jack and Noel had determined to smuggle his things out of their house and to deposit them somewhere in his garden, where he could easily find them, and to that end they had been trying, but without success so far, to open the trunk with various keys belonging to their mother. And it was the sight of these keys scattered about beside the trunk that had fired Hilary's detective ardour. What was Eleanor doing with her mother's keys? It could be for no good purpose that she had secreted them under the bed.

Without more ado, Hilary made up her mind to search that trunk. And the first thing to be done was to secure herself against interruption. So she invented an errand to take Eleanor out of the house for an hour or two.

The others were all down at the rink, and having seen Margaret start, Hilary sped up to the box-room, secured a few keys, and set to work.

Two or three keys were tried in vain, but the fourth turned easily in the lock, and with hands that fairly trembled with excitement, she threw back the lid. The tray was empty. She lifted it out, and as she did so gave vent to a little cry of triumph. For there, at the bottom, reposed a bundle tied up in a gold embroidered scarlet Indian tablecloth which any one in Seabourne who had read any recent numbers of the local papers would have recognised immediately as Colonel Baker's missing property.

Literally pouncing upon it, Hilary dragged it out of the trunk and untied the four knotted corners, when out fell the tumbled contents of the Colonel's plate-basket--the big morocco case which contained his family miniatures, his Etruscan bronze vase, and his collection of gold coins.

All things considered, Hilary took her astonis.h.i.+ng discovery very calmly.

After all, it was only what she had been expecting. Her chief sensation at that moment was one of surprise that the trunk did not also contain the proceeds of the two other robberies. Probably, however, they would be found in Miss Carson's bedroom. Had she not been so obsessed by the idea that Miss Carson was the burglar with whose exploits the town had been ringing of late, Hilary might have hesitated before taking the step of searching the room of a girl who was, to all intents and purposes, a guest in their house. But the idea that she was doing anything disgraceful never occurred to her. The zeal of the amateur detective was far too strong upon her to leave room for reflections of that sort. She opened the door of Margaret's bedroom and went in. The room was exquisitely neat, for not only had habits of tidiness been inculcated in Margaret since she was old enough to fold a garment, but the s.p.a.cious bedroom allotted to her at The Cedars, with its big mahogany hanging wardrobes and its deep chest of drawers, contained so much more room than she needed that there would have been no excuse for any one to have been untidy.

At first it seemed to Hilary that her search here was going to be unrewarded; the cupboards and drawers in which Margaret kept her dresses were soon searched through and revealed nothing at all of a suspicious nature. The two top drawers then underwent an examination, and the orderly little piles of veils and handkerchiefs were ruthlessly tumbled about by Hilary's eager hands. But all in vain. There was no vestige of a proof here that Miss Carson had had a hand in the two first burglaries as well as in the last. Feeling baffled and quite unreasonably indignant, Hilary turned her attention next to the dressing-table. The toilet articles on it were few and simple, and Hilary was about to turn away, when her eyes were caught by Margaret's gold watch and chain, which were hanging on a small velvet stand. The watch was an old-fas.h.i.+oned one, with an open gold face, and the long slender chain was also of gold.

Attached to it were a watch-key and a very small steel key.