CHAPTER XLII.
IN THE PRESENCE OF THE DEAD.
The rooms that had been occupied by Maurice de Crespigny were at the back of the house, and Eleanor, returning by the way that she had come, had occasion to pass once more through the garden and shrubbery upon which the windows of these rooms looked.
Mrs. Monckton paused amongst the evergreens that grew near the house, sheltering and darkening the windows with their thick luxuriance. The Venetian shutters outside the windows of the room in which the dead man lay were closed, and the light within shone brightly between the slanting laths.
“Poor old man,” Eleanor murmured, as she looked mournfully towards this death-chamber, “he was very good to me; I ought to be sorry for his death.”
The evergreens which grew in groups on either side of the windows made a thick screen, behind which half-a-dozen people might have safely hidden themselves upon this moonless and starless February night. Eleanor lingered for a few moments amongst these clustering laurels before she emerged upon the patch of smooth turf, which was scarcely large enough to be dignified with the title of a lawn.
As she lingered, partly because of a regretful tenderness towards the dead man, partly because of that irresolution and uncertainty that had taken possession of her mind from the moment in which she had heard of his death, she was startled once more by the rustling of the branches near her. This time she was not left long in doubt: the rustling of the branches was followed by a hissing whisper, very cautious and subdued, but at the same time very distinct in the stillness; and Eleanor Monckton was not slow to recognize the accent of the French commercial traveller, Monsieur Victor Bourdon.
“The shutters are not fastened,” this man whispered; “there is a chance yet, _mon ami_.”
The speaker was within two paces of Eleanor, but she was hidden from him by the shrubs. The companion to whom he had spoken was of course Launcelot Darrell; there could be no doubt of that. But why were these men here? Had the artist come in ignorance of his kinsman’s death, and in the hope of introducing himself secretly into the old man’s apartments, and thus outmanœuvring the maiden nieces?
As the two men moved nearer one of the windows of the bedchamber, moving very cautiously, but still disturbing the branches as they went, Eleanor drew back, and stood, motionless, almost breathless, close against the blank wall between the long French windows.
In another moment Launcelot Darrell and his companion were standing so close to her that she could hear their hurried breathing as distinctly as she heard her own. The Frenchman softly drew back one of the Venetian shutters a few inches, and peeped very cautiously through the narrow aperture into the room.
“There is only an old woman there,” he whispered, “an old woman, very grey, very respectable; she is asleep, I think; look and see who she is.”
Monsieur Bourdon drew back as he spoke, making way for Launcelot Darrell. The young man obeyed his companion, but in a half-sulky, half-unwilling fashion, which was very much like his manner on the Parisian Boulevard.
“Who is it?” whispered the Frenchman, as Launcelot leant forward and peered into the lighted room.
“Mrs. Jepcott, my uncle’s housekeeper.”
“Is she a friend of yours, or an enemy?”
“A friend, I think. I know that she hates my aunts. She would rather serve me than serve them.”
“Good. We are not going to trust Mrs. Jepcott; but it’s as well to know that she is friendly towards us. Now listen to me, my friend; we must have the key.”
“I suppose we must,” muttered Launcelot Darrell, very sulkily.
“You suppose we must! Bah!” whispered the Frenchman with intense scornfulness of manner. “It is likely we should draw back, after having gone so far as we have gone, and made such promises as we have made. It is like you Englishmen to turn cowards at the very last, in any difficult business like this. You are very brave and very great so long as you can make a great noise about your honour, and your courage, and your loyalty; so long as the drums are beating and the flags flying, and all the world looking on to admire you. But the moment there is anything of difficult—anything of a little hazardous, or anything of criminal, perhaps—you draw back, you have fear. Bah! I have no patience with you. You are a great nation, but you have never produced a great impostor. Your Perkin Warbecks, your Stuart Pretenders, they are all the same. They ride up hills with forty thousand men, and,”—here Monsieur Bourdon hissed out a very big French oath, to give strength to his assertion,—“when they get to the top they can do nothing better than ride down again.”
It is not to be supposed that, in so critical a situation as that in which the two men had placed themselves, the Frenchman would have said all this without a purpose. He knew Launcelot Darrell, and he knew that ridicule was the best spur with which to urge him on when he was inclined to come to a standstill. The young man’s pride took fire at his companion’s scornful banter.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked.
“I want you to go into that room and look for your uncle’s keys. I would do it, and perhaps do it better than you, but if that woman woke and found me there, she would rouse the house; if she wakes up and sees you, any sentimental story of your desire to look for the last time upon your kinsman and benefactor will satisfy her and stop her mouth. _You_ must search for the keys, Monsieur Robert Lance, pardon!—Monsieur Launcelot Darrell.”
The young man made no immediate answer to this speech. He stood close to the window, with the half-open shutter in his hand, and Eleanor could see, by the motion of this shutter, that he was trembling.
“I can’t do it, Bourdon,” he gasped, after a long pause; “I can’t do it. To go up to that dead man’s bedside and _steal_ his keys. It seems like an act of sacrilege—I—I—_can’t_ do it.”
The commercial traveller shrugged his shoulders so high that it almost seemed he never meant to bring them down again.
“Good!” he said, “_C’est fini!_ Live and die a pauper, Monsieur Darrell, but never again ask me to help you in a great scheme. Good night.”
The Frenchman made a show of walking off, but went slowly, and gave Launcelot plenty of time to stop him.
“Stay, Bourdon,” the young man muttered; “don’t be a fool. If you mean to stand by me in this business, you must have a little patience. I’ll do what must be done, of course, however unpleasant it may be. I’ve no reason to feel any great compunction about the old man. He hasn’t shown so much love for me that I need have any very sentimental affection for him. I’ll go in and look for the keys.”
He had opened the shutter to its widest extent, and he put his hand upon the window as he spoke, but the Frenchman checked him.
“What are you going to do?” asked Monsieur Bourdon.
“I’m going to look for the keys.”
“Not that way. If you open that window the cold air will blow into the room and awaken the old woman—what you call her—Madame Jepcott. No, you must take off your boots, and go in through one of the windows of the other rooms. We saw just now that those rooms are empty. Come with me.”
The two men moved away towards the windows of the sitting-room. Eleanor crept to the Venetian shutters which Launcelot had closed, and, drawing one of them a little way open, looked into the room in which the dead man lay. The housekeeper, Mrs. Jepcott, sat in a roomy easy-chair, close to the fire, which burned brightly, and had evidently been very lately replenished. The old woman’s head had fallen back upon the cushion of her chair, and the monotonous regularity of her snores gave sufficient evidence of the soundness of her slumbers. Voluminous curtains of dark green damask were drawn closely round the massive four-post bed; a thick wax candle, in an old-fashioned silver candlestick, burned upon the table by the bedside, and a pair of commoner candles, in brass candlesticks, brought, no doubt, from the housekeeper’s room, stood upon a larger table near the fireplace.
Nothing had been disturbed since the old man’s death. The maiden ladies had made a merit of this.
“We shall disturb nothing,” Miss Lavinia, who was the more loquacious of the two, had said; “we shall not pry about or tamper with any of our beloved relative’s effects. You will take care of everything in your master’s room, Jepcott; we place everything under your charge, and you will see that nothing is touched; you will take care that not so much as a pocket-handkerchief shall be disturbed until Mr. Lawford’s clerk comes from Windsor.”
In accordance with these directions, everything had remained exactly as it had been left at the moment of Maurice de Crespigny’s death. The practised sick-nurse had retired, after doing her dismal duty; the stiffening limbs had been composed in the last calm sleep; the old man’s eyelids had been closed upon the sightless eyeballs; the curtains had been drawn; and that was all.
The medicine bottles, the open Bible, the crumpled handkerchiefs, the purse, and paper-knife, and spectacles, and keys, lying in disorder upon the table by the bed, had not been touched. Eager as the dead man’s nieces were to know the contents of his will, the thought of obtaining that knowledge by any surreptitious means had never for one moment entered into the head of either. They were conscientious ladies, who attended church three times upon a Sunday, and who would have recoiled aghast from before the mere thought of any infraction of the law.
Eleanor, with the Venetian shutter a very little way open, and with her face close against the window, stood looking into the lighted room, and waiting for Launcelot Darrell to appear.
The great four-post bedstead stood opposite the windows; the door was on Eleanor’s right hand. About five minutes elapsed before there was any sign of the intruder’s coming. Then the door was opened, very slowly, and Launcelot Darrell crept into the room.
His face was almost livid, and he trembled violently. At first he looked helplessly about him, as if paralyzed by fear. Then he took a handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped the cold perspiration from his forehead, still looking helplessly right and left.
But presently the Frenchman’s head appeared round the edge of the door, which Launcelot Darrell had left a little way open, a fat little hand pointed to the table by the bed, and Monsieur Bourdon’s hissing whisper vibrated in the room.
“V’là,—the table—the table—straight before you.”
Following this indication, the young man began with trembling hands to search amongst the disorder of the littered table. He had not occasion to seek very long for what he wanted. The dead man’s keys lay under one of the handkerchiefs. They jingled a little as Launcelot took them up, and Mrs. Jepcott stirred in her sleep, but she did not open her eyes.
“Come away, come!” whispered the Frenchman, as Launcelot stood with the keys in his hand, as if too much bewildered even to know that his purpose was accomplished. He obeyed Monsieur Bourdon, and hurried from the room. He had taken off his boots at his companion’s instigation, and his stockinged feet made no sound upon the thick carpet.
“What is he going to do with those keys?” Eleanor thought. “If he knows the contents of the will, as Richard believed, what good can the keys be to him?”
She still looked into the lighted bed-chamber, wondering what could happen next. Where had Launcelot Darrell gone, and what was he going to do with the keys? She crept along by the side of the house, past the window of the dressing-room, which was still dark, and stopped when she came to the window of the old man’s study. All the windows upon this floor were in the same style—long French windows, opening to the ground, and they were all sheltered by Venetian shutters. The shutters of the study were closed, but the window was open, and through the bars of the shutters Eleanor saw a faint glimmer of light.
She drew the shutter nearest her a little way open, and looked into the room. The light that she had seen came from a very small bull’s-eye lantern, which the Frenchman held in his hand. He was standing over Launcelot Darrell, who was on his knees before the lower half of an old-fashioned _secrétaire_, at which Mr. de Crespigny had been in the habit of writing, and in which he had kept papers.
The lower half of this _secrétaire_ contained a great many little drawers, which were closed in by a pair of inlaid ebony doors. The doors were open now, and Launcelot Darrell was busy examining the contents of the drawers one by one. His hands still trembled, and he went to work slowly and awkwardly. The Frenchman, whose nerves appeared in no way shaken, contrived to throw the light of the bull’s-eye always upon the papers in the young man’s hand.
“Have you found what you want?” he asked.
“No, there’s nothing yet; nothing but old leases, receipts, letters, bills.”
“Be quick! Remember we have to put the keys back, and to get away. Have you the other ready?”
“Yes.”
They spoke in whispers, but their whispers were perhaps more distinct than their ordinary tones would have been. Eleanor could hear every word they said.
There was a long pause, during which Launcelot Darrell opened and shut several drawers, taking a hurried survey at their contents. Presently he uttered a half-smothered cry.
“You’ve got it?” exclaimed the Frenchman.
“Yes.”
“Put in the substitute, then, and lock the cabinet.”
Launcelot Darrell threw the document which he had taken from the drawer upon a chair near him, and took another paper from his pocket. He put this second paper in the place from which he had taken the first, and then shut the drawer, and closed and locked the doors of the cabinet. He did all this in nervous haste, and neither he nor his companion perceived that a third paper, very much like the first in shape and size, had fallen out of one of the drawers and lay upon the carpet before the cabinet.
Now, for the first time, Eleanor Monckton began to comprehend the nature of the conspiracy which she had witnessed. Launcelot Darrell and his accomplice had substituted a fictitious paper for the real will signed by Maurice de Crespigny and witnessed by Gilbert Monckton and the lawyer’s clerk. The genuine document was that which Launcelot Darrell had flung upon the chair by the side of the _secrétaire_.