CHAPTER X.

THE STOLEN “ROMNEY”

In spite of the strength of her suspicions, it was strange that Rhoda’s interest in Lady Sarah grew stronger from that evening when she became fairly certain in her own mind that the lady had appropriated the snuff-boxes from her husband’s collection.

Torn by doubts as to what the meaning of the theft could be, since Lady Sarah seemed to be plentifully supplied with money, on the one hand, and since she seemed to have no intention of getting Rhoda into disgrace, upon the other, Rhoda scarcely wavered in her belief.

She could not, certainly, have offered any very sound reasons for it; but with the illogical springing to an opinion which so often serves with a woman as well as strong reasoning powers, she caught and held fast to the idea that Lady Sarah had stolen the snuff-boxes, and moreover, that Jack Rotherfield knew all about it.

In spite of this belief, however, Rhoda felt that she had more sympathy with Sir Robert’s erratic wife after that night than she had had before. The few moments’ talk they had had together had opened her eyes to the fact that, if Sir Robert was disappointed in the woman who had inspired such a passion within him, she, on her side, was by nature unfitted to find much happiness or even contentment in his society.

Her husband bored her.

There was something in the mellow tones of his voice that irritated and depressed her, something in his sedate manner that seemed to her ridiculous when it was not deadening.

For while he had married her under the influence of passion, she, on her side, had been under the influence of no such idealising feeling.

On the one hand, he was the more to be pitied, in that he had married her under the spell of an illusion. On the other, she had been practically forced by circumstances to give her hand to a man who, whatever her respect for him might be, could not, in the nature of things, be expected to realise her girlish ideal.

Rhoda was very unhappy. No further allusion was made by Sir Robert to his loss, and she helped him as before. But they could not help feeling conscious of that unfortunate incident, and worrying their heads about it, while Lady Sarah was always making new suggestions as to traps and plots for the discovery of the dishonest person, to none of which the good-natured baronet would agree.

On the third day after the loss they all got something fresh to occupy themselves with, in the return home of Minnie Mallory and her brother George, who had got an extension of his vacation on the plea of ill-health: he having had a slight attack of what he said was influenza, of which he had made the most.

They were much amused to hear who Rhoda was, having retained a dim remembrance of the tall pale girl with the lank hair who had told George that listening at keyholes was ungentlemanly.

They came up to her tumultuously, a couple of overgrown, sandy-haired, light-eyed, sharp-featured young people, with mischief in every line of their faces, and dry humour in every turn of their heads.

Rhoda was upstairs in Caryl’s sitting-room when they presented themselves to her, grinning with pleasure.

“You don’t remember me,” said Rhoda.

“No,” said George frankly. “I was only eight, and I don’t think I should have recognised you with your hair up.”

“Do you think we’ve altered very much?” demanded Minnie.

“Why, of course you have. You were only quite a little girl?”

“Do you think we’ve improved?” asked George.

“I hope so, I’m sure,” said Rhoda frankly.

“That’s not what I call civil,” objected George.

“Oh, yes, it is. Because of course I shouldn’t say it if I didn’t feel sure you had improved very much,” explained Rhoda.

“Why, what was wrong with us?” he asked brusquely.

“You used to listen at doors.”

“Oh, so we should do now, if we got the chance,” said Minnie calmly.

“I do like,” said George, “to know what’s going on all round me. Is Jack here still?”

Rhoda grew red.

“He has been here. He went away two days ago.”

“Ah!” said George. “That’s why Aunt Sarah is in such a bad temper.”

“Hush,” said Rhoda shocked.

“Why should I hush? Everybody knows that’s true, except of course Uncle Robert. Aunt is always ill-tempered when she’s left alone with him.”

Rhoda kept frowning and looking at Caryl, in the endeavour to stop the rash young man. At last she got up, and beckoned to George to follow her to the window, while Minnie remained with the boy.

“You really mustn’t talk like that about Lady Sarah, and especially before Caryl,” she said.

“Oh, well, there’s no harm in what I said. As for Aunt’s ill-temper, the poor little beggar must have noticed it himself. And as for my speaking about her flirtation with Jack Rotherfield, everybody knows all about that. It’s gone on for ever so long. That’s why nobody notices it, except, of course, Minnie and me.”

“I don’t think you ought to talk like that. Sir Robert would be very angry if he were to hear you.”

“No, he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t believe it, you know.”

“I’m quite sure it would annoy him very much if he were to hear the way you talk.”

“But he won’t hear it. Bless your heart, do you think I don’t know that it’s only a safety-valve for Aunt?” said George with the air of an astute critic. “If it were not for Jack Rotherfield’s visits, she’d sling her hook altogether.”

“Oh, hush!”

“She would, I tell you. Even my grandmother knows it. That’s why I call him a safety-valve.”

Rhoda could scarcely believe her ears when she heard this young lad of twenty presuming thus to criticise his elders. The fact that there was at least a grain of truth in what he said made him, however, difficult to contradict, as he was impossible to silence.

“I should think,” she said severely, “that your society and that of your sister was lively enough to keep Lady Sarah amused.”

“Oh, no, she can’t flirt with me, and it’s flirtation she wants. It’s like oil to the engine with her. I suppose it is with everybody.”

“Not to Sir Robert,” said Rhoda with dignity.

“Oh, yes, to him too. Doesn’t he flirt with you?”

Rhoda was aghast at this impertinence.

George hastened to explain.

“In the nicest possible way, of course. But I should have thought he would have been delighted to get you to help him with his collection and things like that. You’re so quiet and gentle, you would be just the sedative he requires after a dose of Aunt Sarah.”

Rhoda was beyond measure shocked at this audacious speech, uttered as it was as if it had been the most natural and innocent in the world.

“I certainly never ‘flirt,’ as you call it, with Sir Robert, or with anybody,” she said with dignity.

“Well, don’t be angry. I didn’t mean to say anything to annoy you. As I say, it’s only natural to flirt with somebody, and I suppose my uncle makes confidantes of his Gainsborough ladies. Even a picture would be more sympathetic than my aunt when Jack’s away.”

Rhoda was greatly scandalised by this short conversation with The Terrors, whom she found still worthy of their name, as Mrs. Hawkes had predicted. She was, besides, rendered uneasy by the lad’s perspicacity with regard not only to his aunt, but his uncle. The expression he had used, ‘to flirt,’ was odious and horrid. But there could be no doubt that in the main his contention, better expressed, would have been sound. Not only were the ill-mated pair happier apart than together, but each certainly found happiness in the society of others. Sir Robert looked the picture of content when he was hunting among his notes with Rhoda on one side of him and Caryl on the other; while Lady Sarah’s low spirits disappeared as if by magic when Jack Rotherfield came into the room.

She wondered how this over-frank young man got on with his uncle and aunt, and had the satisfaction of seeing, at dinner-time, that The Terrors had tact enough to affect a guileless air of innocence in the presence of their guardians.

Only when it was perfectly safe to do so did George, after some allusion to Jack Rotherfield, glance over at his sister and bestow upon her a slight wink, which she promptly responded to in the same graceful fashion.

It was a childlike question put by Minnie to her aunt which elicited the reply that Jack Rotherfield would be again at Dourville in a week.

“I’m so sorry. I shall miss him,” said George sweetly.

“Perhaps he won’t miss you, dear,” said his sister solemnly.

Luckily only Rhoda guessed at the veiled sarcasm in the ingenuous speech.

It was terrible to have to hear these two precocious young people sitting in judgment on their elders; they made her feel shy of entering the study to help Sir Robert, and she was aware that there was a grave interchange of glances between the two dreadful young people when the baronet made any remark about her work for him.

She was quite glad when George had to go back to Sandhurst, as, although she was aware that Minnie watched and noted as well in her brother’s absence as if he had been there, still there was now no one with whom she could exchange her stealthy little looks, and that, Rhoda felt, was a relief.

When Jack came back in the following week, Lady Sarah seemed to wake up into life again, as The Terrors had said. Sir Robert, too, took as much pleasure as before in his society, and enjoyed it as guilelessly as ever.

It was on the second night after Jack Rotherfield’s arrival at the Mill-house that Rhoda, who always slept with her window open and the curtains drawn back, woke up about one o’clock and fancied that she saw a moving light in the garden. At first not more than half awake, she watched the glimmer vaguely, without even wondering what it was. Then, her drowsiness suddenly yielding to complete wakefulness, she sat up in bed and looked out.

Yes. There certainly was an unusual light in the garden, and crossing the floor quickly, she saw that it was the reflection of some unseen light that she saw flickering on the grass by the side of the water.

At first she was rather alarmed, thinking that there might be a policeman with his lantern in the grounds, and that some one might have got in for an unlawful purpose.

There had been, at various times, small thefts discovered of plants and fruit from the grounds, which were extensive and in some parts easy of access from outside.

But then a fresh thought struck her. The wing containing the long gallery, which housed Sir Robert’s collection, extended northwards to some distance from the main building, and was screened from her sight by shrubs and trees.

It now occurred to Rhoda that the light she saw might be reflected through the windows of the gallery, and the horrible fear flashed through her mind that the building might be on fire.

After watching for some moments, however, she decided that the light was too steady, and again it occurred to her to wonder whether any unauthorised person had got inside. Now that Sir Robert kept both sets of keys himself, she was free from responsibility, but her interest in the collection being as strong as ever, she could not rest until she had ascertained the meaning of the light.

Hastily dressing, with her eyes always keenly watching, she slipped out of her room and down the stairs.

Half way down she stopped, clammy and cold, with a sudden sickly recollection of the night, ten years before, when she had glided down the stairs in similar fashion.

For the moment memory rose up so strong within her, that she could almost have fancied she heard again the struggle going on in the drawing-room, and that she saw once more, in the moonlight, the blood-stained hand which she now knew to have been that of Jack Rotherfield.

The idea seized her that now she would find him involved in a fresh mystery, and recoiling from a possible discovery, she had turned, almost resolved to creep back to her room and give up her expedition, when the sound of a key turned in a lock struck her ear.

There was something going on, something wrong. For Sir Robert’s sake she must conquer her repugnance, and find out what it was. She almost prayed that she might find that a burglar had got into the house, but she knew that the solution of the mystery would be something more unpleasant than that.

Hurriedly reaching the bottom of the staircase, she turned in the direction of the gallery. She had to pass through Sir Robert’s study, and the door of this room she found suspiciously left open. So too was the door beyond, which led into the little passage at the end of which was the door leading into the gallery.

As she entered the study, and made her way across to the opposite door, she became aware of a tell-tale sound: it was a whisper. She could not hear any words: she could not distinguish the voice; but the fact was conclusive: since some one whispered, there must be some one to whisper to; there were at least two persons somewhere close by, and Rhoda had no difficulty in making a guess who those two persons were.

And, remembering the disappearance of the snuff-boxes, she could have little doubt as to the sort of errand which had taken them to Sir Robert’s gallery.

Lady Sarah had robbed her husband before, she had now apparently taken an accomplice to help her to rob him again.

This was the thought in Rhoda’s mind, as, full of indignation, and regardless of the consequences to herself, she crossed the floor of the study, and groped her way into the passage beyond.

There was no light there, and she presently hesitated, filled with the uncanny fear none of us can help in the dark, in the presence of some one whom we cannot see, but who, we have reason to think, may be able to see us.

For, compared with the pitchy blackness of the passage into which she was stepping, the study behind her was light.

She paused. Dead silence.

She took one step forward nervously.

There was a rush of air, and then she found herself seized, blindfolded, gagged, and lifted off her feet. She tried to cry out, but a hand was over her mouth. She felt herself flung down upon something which was not hard, and then stifled, suffocated, buried.

Again she tried to cry out, but the only result was that she felt herself thrust down, breathless, panting, gasping, fighting for air under a great and oppressive weight.

She struggled, but in vain, and then, half fainting, she lay quite still.

Then again she fancied that she heard a whisper, which seemed to come from a long way off. The weight was removed, there was a slight noise, and struggling once more, she suddenly found herself free, and safe, and alone.

Then she understood what had happened to her. She had been thrown on the springy morocco-covered couch in the study, covered over with all the available cushions, hassocks, and table-cloths, and then, when she ceased to struggle, she had been left to herself, with the result that her first movement had landed her on the floor, where she found herself surrounded by the tablecloths and cushions which had been used to stifle her cries.

She scrambled to her feet, groped her way to the door, and went through into the hall.

Whom should she rouse? Although she felt sure that the thieves would not be discovered, that the affair would end as the theft of the snuff-boxes had done, yet it was necessary for her own sake that she should make known at once the adventure she had passed through.

So she went upstairs to the housekeeper’s bedroom, told her what had happened, and asked her to inform the baronet of her suspicions that some one had broken into the gallery.

Ten minutes later the whole household was astir. Mrs. Hawkes had roused Sir Robert, who gave directions that the menservants were to be sent into the grounds to look for the supposed burglar, and in the meantime he himself came out of his room, and learned all that Rhoda had to tell him on his way downstairs.

On reaching the gallery, and turning up the electric light, the baronet was not long in discovering the nature of the fresh loss he had sustained. The Romney, a beautiful picture of Lady Hamilton, had been cut neatly out of its frame.

The sky-light in the roof of the gallery was broken, and all hands, including those of Lady Sarah and Jack Rotherfield, who were among those roused by the commotion, pointed up to this, by which they all supposed that the burglars had made their entrance.

Amid the general commotion, however, a shrill girlish voice piped out:

“They didn’t get in that way. Somebody broke the glass with that pole.”

It was The Terror, Minnie Mallory, who made this announcement, pointing drily as she did so to the long pole, with a hook at the end, which was used to draw backwards and forwards the blind which kept out, when necessary, the strong sunlight.

The words caused a singular sensation in the assembled group. They were received at first in dead silence, and then there were whispers and stealthy glances exchanged.

Lady Sarah went up to her husband, and slid her hand confidentially through his arm:

“Send them away,” she whispered. “I don’t believe it’s a burglar at all. Remember how the snuff-boxes went. Depend upon it, the picture’s gone the same way.”

“What way?” faltered Sir Robert, in a voice as low as her own.

“Better not ask,” she whispered back.

Gradually, as it were melting away, the little crowd broke up, dispersed. There was a horrible sense of mystery and guilt upon everybody. The members of the household almost felt as if they individually had been concerned in the robbery of Sir Robert.

Rhoda found herself left alone, and as she went back to her room, sick at heart, with the whispers of the household buzzing in her ears, she remembered that Sir Robert had not addressed one word to her since making the discovery of the loss of his picture.

Was it possible that he suspected her?

What had Lady Sarah whispered to him?

Rhoda, with her sickening, deadly, knowledge of the truth, knowledge almost as certain as if she had seen the faces and heard the voices of the thieves, felt that her brain reeled under the weight of the secret she had to bear.

Suddenly she was startled, as she went slowly up the stairs, by feeling a small, thin hand tucked into her arm.

“Nice business this, isn’t it?”

She started. It was Minnie Mallory who spoke, and in her light eyes Rhoda saw that she too made a shrewd guess at the truth.

“Hush!” said Rhoda.

“Oh, yes, it is ‘Hush’ this time--till George comes home,” retorted Minnie as she nodded and left her to go to her own room.

Rhoda went back to hers in a sort of dream. She scarcely slept that night, and the next day she was pale, haggard, and miserable.

Nobody talked of anything but the robbery. Jack professed his intention of going to Scotland Yard and giving information to the police about the theft.

“Such a thing as a valuable picture,” said he, “can easily be traced when the thieves offer it for sale.”

Sir Robert seemed to acquiesce in this proposal, and soon after breakfast Jack Rotherfield’s motor-car came round to take him up to town.

Rhoda was watching the packing of the luggage inside the car with curious eyes. Presently a gun-case was brought out of the house by a footman, who went indoors again when he had stowed it away.

With flushed cheeks and brilliant eyes Rhoda walked deliberately down the two broad stone steps, and took the gun-case out of the motor-car.

As she did so, she looked up, and her eyes met those of Jack Rotherfield, who was standing on the other side of the car.

“What are you doing?” said he. “That’s my gun-case.”

Rhoda, now as pale as a moment before she had been red, looked at him steadily.

“I’m going to take it into the study,” said she. “I’m going to open it, in the presence of Sir Robert.”

“The devil you are,” retorted the young man, and a look of diabolical rage shot out of his dark eyes. “Give it back to me, Miss Pembury. You are behaving like a mad woman.”

But Rhoda had turned, and, with the gun-case held fast, had run back into the house.

The next moment she, half-way to the study, found herself tapped sharply on the shoulder. Jack Rotherfield was behind her, stooping to whisper to her.

“What are your terms?” asked he in her ear.

“Take out what is inside this case, and leave it with me,” said she in a voice as low as his.

“All right,” said he sullenly.

The next moment, in the half-light of the passage, he had opened the gun-case, taken out something rolled up in brown paper, and thrust it angrily into her arms.

“There you are then. Confound you!” growled he, as he turned quickly away with the empty case.

Rhoda’s brain reeled again.

She knew that she had got the Romney safe in her arms.