LX
So I thought, but the first view I had of Orpha’s face reassured me. Haines had successfully carried out the rôle I had assigned him and she was still ignorant of what had occurred to change the aspect of all our lives. Her expression was not uncheerful, only a little wistful; and we were alone, which made the interview both easier and harder.
“How is Edgar?”
Those were her first words.
“Better. I left him in a much calmer mood. He has been worrying about Wealthy. Have you been worrying, too?”
“Not worrying. I think she has been a long time gone, but she was very tired and needed a change and the air.”
“Orpha, how much faith do you put in this woman who has been so useful here?”
“Why, all there is in the world. She has never failed us. What do you mean?”
“You have found her good as well as useful?”
“Always. She has seemed more like a friend than a housekeeper. Why do you ask? Why are we discussing her when there are so many other things we ought to talk about?”
“Because this nurse of Edgar concerns us more than any one else in the world to-day. Because through her we nearly came to grief and now through her we are to see the light again. Will you try to understand me? Without further words, understand me?”
I could see the knowledge coming, growing, flaming in her face.
“Wealthy!” she cried. “Wealthy! Not any one nearer and dearer! I could never bring myself to believe that it was. But not to know! I could not have borne it much longer.”
And I had to sit there, with her dear hand so near and not touch it. To explain, counsel and console, with that old adjuration from lips whose dictates still remained authoritative over me, not to pass the line from cousinship to lover till he had taken off the ban or was dead. He was dead, but the ban had not yet been removed, for there were some things I must be sure of before love could triumph; one of which I was resolved to settle before I left Orpha’s presence.
So when we had said all there was to say of the day’s tragedy and what was to be expected from it, I spoke to her of the odd little key which had opened the way to the hidden stairway and asked her if she had it about her as I greatly desired to see it again.
“I am wearing it for a little while,” she answered and drawing the chain from her neck she laid both that and the key in my hand.
I studied the latter closely before putting the inquiry:
“Is this the key you found in the earth of the flower-pot, Orpha?”
“Yes, Quenton.”
“Is it the one you gave to the police when they came the next day?”
“Of course. It was still on the chain. But I took it off when I gave it to them. They had only the key.”
“Did you know that while they were working with that key here, another one—the one which finally found lodgment in the slit in the molding upstairs was traveling up from New York in Edgar’s pocket?”
Oh, the joy of seeing her eyes open wide in innocent amazement! She had had nothing to do with that trick! I was convinced of it before; but now I was certain.
“But how can that be? This key opens the way to the secret staircase. I know because I have tried it. How could there be another?”
“If Wealthy were still living I think she could tell you. At some time when you were not looking, she slipped the one key off and slipped on the other. She was used to making exchanges and her idea was to give him a chance to try the key, and, if possible, find the will unknown to you or the police. She had a friend in New York to whom she sent the key and a letter enclosing one for Edgar; and had not Providence intervened and given them both into my hands—”
Orpha had shaken her head in protest more than once while I was speaking but now she looked so piteously eager that I stopped.
“Am I not right?” I asked.
“No, no. Wealthy never knew anything about the key till the police came to try it. I told nobody but—”
The change in her countenance was so sudden and so marked that I turned quickly about, thinking that some one had entered the room. But it was not that; it was something quite different—something which called up more than one emotion—something which both lifted her head and caused it to droop again as if pride were battling with humiliation in her dismayed heart.
“Won’t you finish, Orpha?” I begged. “You said that you had told only one person about it and that this person was not Wealthy. Who, then, was it?”
“Lucy,” she breathed, bringing her hands, which had been lying supine in her lap, sharply together in a passionate clutch.
“Lucy! Ah!”
“She was with me the night I dropped the flower pot and picked up the chain and key from the scattered dirt. I had brought the pot from Father’s room the morning he died, for the flower in it was just opening and it seemed to speak of him. But I did not like the place where I had put it and was carrying it to another shelf, when it slipped from my hands. If I had left it in Father’s room the key might have been found long before; for I noticed on first watering it that the soil on top gave evidences of having been lately stirred up—something which made no impression on me, but which might have made a decisive one on the Inspector. Who do you think hid the key there? Father?”
“I wish I knew, Orpha; there are several things we do not know and never may now Wealthy is gone. But Miss Colfax? Tell me what passed between you when you talked about the key?”
It was a subject Orpha would have liked to avoid; which she would have avoided if I had not been insistent. Why? Had she begun to suspect the truth which made it hard for her to discuss her friend? Had some echo from the cry which for days had filled the spaces of the overhead rooms drifted down to her through the agency of some gossiping servant? It was likely; it was more than likely; it was true. I saw it in the proud detached air with which she waited for me to urge her into speech.
And I did urge her. It would not do at a moment when the shadows surrounding the past were so visibly clearing to allow one cloud to remain which might be dissipated by mutual confidence. So, gently, but persistently, I begged her to tell me the whole story that I might know just what pitfalls remained in our path.