The Masque of Love/Chapter 9

HE two women stood together by the dying fire, waiting. The French clock on the mantelshelf ticked the minutes, and its persistent, usually unheeded voice sounded loudly significant in the deep quiet. Margaret Monkhouse stretched out her gloved hand and laid it on her companion's arm.

“I am so happy,” she said, scarcely above a whisper, “so very happy.”

Ray East smiled at her, at the vivid cheeks and the eyes brilliant with excitement and hope. She herself. looked wan, almost old.

“That makes everything worth while—just to hear you say it. You look like your mother to-night, Margaret, as she was in the days of her happiness. And from now onwards life is going to be for you what it should have been for her. It will be a kind of consolation for all of us who loved her, perhaps even for those who sinned against her.” Her voice dropped. “Perhaps even for herself. You must remember that and be happy and forget everything.”

The girl nodded.

“I have almost forgotten. Nothing matters now. If it were not for my mother I could almost forgive. I could almost be sorry—”

“For him?” Ray East's face turned to the firelight seemed to darken with the shadow of her own hidden thought. “Why should you feel sorry for him?” she asked, with a faint bitterness.

“Oh, I don't know—this will be a great blow to him—bigger than we know perhaps. Gilbert Haig hinted at something—I didn't understand—it was like a threat against him—but, after all, I can't feel much. I have only to think of my mother and I know that whatever happened it would only be just—”

“And sometimes justice is executed in this world,” Ray East interrupted. Then as the clock struck the hour she drew closer and put her hands on Margaret's shoulders and kissed her.

“Now go,” she said. “Go—and be happy.”

They went out of the room together, down the dimly lit stairs and corridor to the hall. The heavy door swung back soundlessly on its hinges. Outside, the prosaic street flowed past like a river of silver moonlight, and across the flood, standing well within the sharply marked shadows, a man stood and waited.

“'On such a night did Jessica—'” Ray East quoted with a little smile. “Good-bye. And God bless you both!”

“And you, too!” The girl turned and flung her arms about the other's neck. “You have been so good to us—you have saved our happiness. One day he will pay you back—when he is famous—”

“I am paid back now—go, dear.”

Still Margaret lingered.

“I am frightened—I don't like to leave you. When my father finds out—he might be very terrible.”

“I am not afraid of him,” was the grave answer, “nor of my reckoning with him. Good-bye.”

She stood watching the slight figure as it fled across the moonlight. She saw the two dim figures linger together for a minute, and it seemed to her that they looked back at her. She waved to them with a flush of triumph and thankfulness creeping into her white cheeks. Then she closed the door softly.

A profound hush reigned in the great, melancholy house, and as she passed lightly over the thick carpets it seemed as though the very pile under her feet gave out a distinct warning sound. Yet no one heard her. She lingered for a moment outside the library, listening for a hurrying, answering footfall, but the stillness was unbroken and she entered noiselessly. Save for the pale, ghostly reflection of a street lamp there was no light, and her hand groped instinctively toward the electric switch, then conquering the impulse, she closed the door and stole forward. Her movements were now swift, cautious, yet fearless. It was as though a long-pent-up energy had at last found its outlet, and the sudden light from the table-lamp lit up a face whose beauty and passionate and stern resolution might have belonged to some classic figure of tragedy. She waited a moment. There were sounds on the street now—the harsh note of a motor-horn, the grind and jar of a machine brought to an abrupt standstill. In the succeeding silence she heard voices and steps on the pavement. From that moment her rigidity gave place to a reckless action. One drawer after another was torn open—their contents swiftly but methodically scrutinized. The one drawer that resisted her she forced open with an almost superhuman strength, and for the first time she uttered a smothered sound. She carried the bundle of papers to the light, and as one by one they slipped from her hand, her lips moved in breathless affirmative of recognition. But her consciousness of her surroundings was awake, intensely alive. She knew that the hall door had opened and closed—that footsteps—many footsteps—were coming nearer. Swiftly, without a tremor, she gathered the documents together and thrust them into the bosom of her dress, and as she did so something fell with a sharp, metallic clang on the polished surface of the table. She picked it up. Though her danger was now imminent—almost on the threshold—she paused—the object lying in the palm of her hand, her eyes fixed on it in wide-open, incredulous horror. Then the door opened, and in the same instant her hand had flown to the lamp, throwing the room into darkness. She stood there and waited. Her action had been without premeditation, an instinctive effort to gain time, but her flight was cut off. She heard Andrews' voice, courteous by habit, but vibrant with indignation.

“I told you, sir—Mr. Monkhouse is out. He allows no one in his study—”

“Never you mind what Mr. Monkhouse allows. Turn on the lights.”

The command, rough and authoritative, was obeyed. Ray East, standing erect and defiant between the table and the door, saw Andrews barring the advance of the three men whose figures blocked the doorway. They pushed him impatiently on one side, and the leader came forward, measuring the unexpected occupant with a cool, impersonal stare.

“Hullo, and whom have we here?” he asked curtly.

She returned his scrutiny without flinching. The three men conveyed no meaning to her, but she experienced an instantaneous flash of fear and distrust. They had not bothered to remove their hats, and there was something in their bearing, in their very dress—ostentatiously commonplace—that fired a curious, nameless resentment in her blood.

“I do not as yet know who you are,” she replied, coolly.

The man laughed.

“I am not obliged to introduce myself. I'm here on a search-warrant. What's your name?”

“Miss East—Ray East. I am companion to Miss Monkhouse.”

“What are you doing in here?”

“I came with a message for Mr. Monkhouse from his daughter.”

“Where is the message?”

“On the table.”

“H'm—very well.” He strode across and picked up the envelope against the lamp-stand. “Stay here, please, Miss East. We may want you.”

He beckoned to his two companions, and as though in obedience to previously given orders, they came forward and at once began a deliberate and systematic search of the tables and bookcases. The man-servant made one last effort to interfere. The detective glanced up at him with a sharp significance.

“We haven't come here to arrest anyone—not yet,” he observed. “We're here after incriminating documents, and when we've got that we'll go, but if you interfere with us in our duty, we'll take you with us. So mind what you're about.”

Andrews made no answer. He held his ground, and Ray. East saw that his eyes were alight with fury and his lips bloodless. The sight of this servant's impotent loyalty touched her. For an instant, at the mention of the incriminating documents, her hand had moved—instinctively seeking the papers she held hidden in her dress, but when she saw Andrews' face, her hand had fallen inert. He had looked at her, answering her glance, and she knew that he appealed to her against this violation—had taken his stand, with her, as he believed, by the side of his outraged master. For the moment she could not move, could scarcely think. Stupefied, yet terribly conscious of a pulse which seemed to beat aloud in every artery of her body, she stood and watched the intruders at their work. As the inspector pulled out the drawer which she had forced open only a few minutes before a flicker of a wild impulse passed over her set features, and as though he had felt some violent psychic change in her, he glanced up sharply.

“Come, Miss East,” he said quietly, with an artificial suavity, “can you help us? So far we seem to have been misinformed. Do you know where Mr. Monkhouse keeps his private papers—papers relating to Government contracts, ciphers and suchlike? We shan't be ungrateful if you can give us a hint?”

If his eyes had been less intent on her face, he might have seen and interpreted the jerk of the hand. But her face betrayed nothing—it was very pale, very still, the face of an innocent yet startled conscience. She answered promptly, but for herself eternities of suspense rolled past before her voice broke the stillness.

“I know nothing of Mr. Monkhouse's affairs. I am only his daughter's companion.”

It was done. And in the same moment that she realized the whole import of her denial, she saw Monkhouse standing in the open doorway. He looked at her, not with surprise, not with any emotion that she could name, but there was a high dignity in his bearing which illuminated his ugly strength, a certain unshakable resignation which refined it to an almost spiritual force. Neither spoke, but he looked away from her to the three men standing in professional watchfulness by the rifled table.

“Well?” he asked, quietly.

The inspector touched his hat.

“Sorry, sir—an unpleasant duty. I hold a search-warrant.”

“And another warrant, perhaps?”

The man shifted his position uncomfortably.

“To be used at my discretion, sir.”

“Well?”

He came another step forward, seeming to challenge fate. The inspector shrugged his shoulders.

“I have nothing more to say for the present, sir. I have not completed the search of the house.”

“You are at liberty to do so.”

“Thank you.”

He glanced round, puzzled and half-angry with the consciousness of failure. Then he beckoned to his two companions and the servant and withdrew, closing the door softly after him. Monkhouse waited. As the voices sounded more faintly along the corridor, he crossed the room and drew the portière noiselessly across the door. In a flash he was back at the table and had torn open the right-hand drawer. There was no sound. Ray East stood and watched him, and her hand was at her breast. He looked up at her, at her face and then at her hand. His own features lost their iron inflexibility—his eyes blazed at her with an incredulous questioning.

“You—?” he said, scarcely above his breath. “You—?”

She nodded.