XVIII
That night I slept but little. I had much to grieve over; much to think about. I had lost my best friend. Of that I was sure. His place would never again be filled in my heart or in my imagination. Without him the house seemed a barren shell save for the dim unseen corner where my darling mourned in her own way the man we both loved.
Might we but have shared each other’s suffering!
But under the existing state of things, that could not be. Our relations, one to the other, were too unsettled. Which thought brought me at once face to face with the most hopeless of all my perplexities. How were Orpha and I to know—and when, if ever—what Uncle’s wishes were or what his final intentions? The will which would have made everything plain, as well as fixed the status of everybody in the house, had not been found; and among the disadvantages in which this placed me was the fact that he, as the present acknowledged head of the house, had rights which it would have been most unbecoming in me to infringe upon. If he wished a door to be closed against me, I could not, as a mere resident under his roof, ask to have it opened. For days—possibly for weeks,—at all events until he saw fit to pursue the search he had declared to be at present so hopeless, it was for me to remain quiescent—a man apart—anxious for my rights but unable as a gentleman and a guest to make a move towards obtaining them.
And unhappily for us, instantaneous action was what the conditions called for. An immediate and exhaustive inquiry, conducted by Edgar in the presence of every occupant of the house, offered the only hope of arriving speedily at the truth of what it was not to the interests of any of us to leave much longer in doubt.
For some one of the few persons admitted to Uncle’s presence after Edgar and I had left it, must have aided him in the disposal of this missing document. He was far too feeble to have taken it from the room himself, nor could he, without a helping hand, have made any extraordinary effort within it which would have necessitated the displacing of furniture or the opening of drawers or other receptacles not plainly in sight and within easy access.
If the will which his sudden death prevented him from definitely locating was not found within twenty-four hours, it would never be found. The one helping him will have suppressed it; and this is what I believed had already occurred. For every servant in the house from his man Clarke to a shy little sewing girl who from time to time scurried on timid feet through the halls, favored Edgar to the point of self-effacing devotion.
And Edgar knew it.
Recognizing this fact at its full value, but not as yet questioning his probity, I asked myself who was the first person to enter my uncle’s room immediately after my departure on the evening before.
I did not know.
Did Edgar? Had he taken any pains to find out?
Fruitless to conjecture. Impertinent to inquire.
I had left Uncle sitting by the fire. He had bidden me call Wealthy, and it was just possible that in the interim elapsing between my going out and the entrance of nurse or servant, he had found the nervous strength to hide the missing paper where no one as yet had thought to look for it.
It did not seem possible, and I gave but little credence to this theory; yet such is the activity of the mind when once thoroughly aroused, that all through the long night I was in fancy searching the dark corners of my uncle’s room and tabulating the secret spots and unsuspected crevices in which the document so important to myself might lie hidden.
Beginning with the bed, I asked myself if there could be anywhere in it an undiscovered hiding-place other than the drawer I have already mentioned as having been let into the head-board. I decided to the contrary since this piece of furniture upon which he had been found lying, would have received the closest attention of the searchers. If Edgar had called in the services of Wealthy, as it would be natural for him to do, she would never have left the mattresses and pillows unexamined; while he would have ransacked the little drawer and sounded the wood of the bedstead for hollow posts or convenient slits. I could safely trust that the bed could tell no tales beyond those associated with our uncle’s sufferings. Leaving it, then, in my imaginary circuit of the room, I followed the wall running parallel with the main hall, till I came to the door opening at the southern end of the room into a short passage-way communicating with that hall.
Here I paused a moment, for built into this passage-way was a cabinet which during his illness had been used for the safe-guarding of medicine bottles, etc. Could a folded paper of the size of the will find any place among the boxes and phials with which every one of its shelves were filled? I knew the place well enough to come to the quick decision that I should lose nothing by passing them quickly by.
Turning the corner which had nothing to show but another shelf—this time a hanging one—on which there was never anything kept but a jar or two and a small photograph of Edgar, I concentrated my attention on the south wall made beautiful by the full length portrait of Orpha concerning which I have said so much.
It had not always hung there. It had been brought from the den, as you will remember, when Uncle’s illness had become pronounced, taking the place of a painting which had been hung elsewhere. Flanked by windows on either side, it filled the wall-space up to where a table stood of size sufficient to answer for the serving of a meal. There were chairs here too and Orpha’s little basket standing on its three slender legs. The document might have been put under her work. But no, the woman would have found it there; or in the table drawer, or among the cushions of the couch filling the space between this corner and the fireplace. There were rugs all over the room but they must have been lifted; and as for the fireplace itself, not having had the sifting of the ashes, I must leave it unconsidered.
But not so the mantel or the winged chair dedicated solely to my Uncle’s use and always kept near the hearth. This was where I had last seen him, sitting in this chair close to the fire-dogs. The two wills were in his hands. Could one have fallen from its envelope and so into the flames,—the one he had meant to preserve,—the one which was not marked with a hastily scrawled cross? Mad questions to which there was no answer. Would that I might have been the man to sift those ashes! Or that I might yet be given the opportunity of looking behind the ancient painting which filled the large square above the mantel. I did not see how anything like a folded paper could have been lodged there; but not an inch from floor to ceiling would have escaped my inspection had I been fortunate enough or my claims been considered important enough to have entitled me to assist in the search.
Should I end this folly of a disturbed imagination? Forget the room for to-night and the whole gruesome tragedy? Could I, in reality, do this before I had only half circled the room? There was the desk,—the place of all others where he would naturally lock up a paper of value. But this was so obvious that probably not another article in the room had been more thoroughly overhauled or its contents more rigidly examined. If any of its drawers or compartments contained false backs or double bottoms, Edgar would be likely to know it. Up to the night of the ball, when in some way he forfeited a portion of our uncle’s regard, he had been, according to his own story, in his benefactor’s full confidence, even in matters connected with business and his most private transactions. The desk was negligible, if, as I sincerely believed, he had sought to conceal the will from Edgar, as temporarily from every one else.
But back of the desk there was a book-case, and books offer an excellent hiding-place. But that book-case was always locked, and the key to it, linked with that of the desk, kept safely to hand in the drawer inserted in his bed-head. The desk-key, of course, had come into use at the first moment of the search, but had that of the book-case? Possibly not.
I made a note of this doubt; and in my fancy moved on to the two rooms which completed my uncle’s suite towards the north. The study and a dressing closet! I say study and I say closet but both were large enough to merit the name of rooms. The dressing-closet was under the combined care of Wealthy and Clarke. They must be acquainted with every nook and corner of it. Wealthy had undoubtedly been consulted as to its contents, but had Clarke?
The study, since the time when Uncle’s condition became serious enough to have a nurse within call, had been occupied by Wealthy. Certainly he would have hidden nothing in her room which he wished kept from Edgar.
The fourth corner was negligible; so was the wall between it and a second passage-way which, like the one already described, led to a door opening into the main hall. Only, this one, necessitated like the other by the curious break between the old house and the new, held no cabinet or any place of concealment. It was the way of entrance most used by uncle when in health and by all the rest of us both then and later. Had he made use of it that night, for reaching the hall and some place beyond?
Hardly; but if he had, where would he have found a cubby-hole for the will, short of Edgar’s room or mine?
The closet indicated in the diagram of this room as offering another break in this eastern wall, was the next thing to engage my attention.
I had often seen it open and it held, according to my recollection, nothing but clothes. He had always been very methodical in his ways and each coat had its hook and every hat, not in constant use, its own box. The hooks ran along the back and along one of the sides; the other side was given up to shelves only wide enough to hold the boxes just alluded to and the long row of shoes, the number and similarity of which I found it hard to account for till I heard some one in speaking of petty economies and of how we all have them, mentioned this peculiar one of my uncle’s, which was to wear a different pair of shoes every day in the week.
Had Edgar, or whoever conducted the search, gone through all the pockets of the many suits lining these simple walls? Had they lifted the shoes?
The only object to be seen between the door of this closet and the alcove sunk in the wall for the accommodation of the bed-head, was the small stand holding his night-lamp and the various articles for use and ornament which one usually sees at an invalid’s bedside. I remembered the whole collection. There was not a box there nor a book, not even a tablet nor a dish large enough to hold the will folded as I had seen it. Had the stand a drawer? Yes, but this drawer had no lock. Its contents were open to all. Edgar must have handled them. I had come back to my starting-point. And what had I gained in knowledge or in hope by my foolish imaginary quest? Nothing. I had but proved to myself that I was no more exempt than the next man from an insatiable, if hitherto unrecognized desire for this world’s goods and this world’s honors. Nothing less could have kept my thoughts so long in this especial groove at a time of such loss and so much personal sorrow.
My shame was great and to its salutary effect upon my mind I attribute a certain lessening of interest in things material which I date from this day.
My hour of humiliation over, my thoughts reverted to Orpha. I had not seen her all day nor had I any hope of seeing her on the morrow. She had not shown herself at meals, nor were we to expect her to leave her room—or so I was told—until the day of the funeral.
Whether this isolation of hers was to be complete, shutting out Edgar as well as myself, I had no means of determining. Probably not, if what uncle had told me was true and they were secretly engaged.
When I fell asleep at dawn it was with the resolution fixed in my mind, that with the first opportunity which offered I would make a desperate endeavor to explain myself to her. As my pride was such that I could only do this in Edgar’s presence, the risk was great. So would be the test made of her feelings by the story I had to relate. If she listened, hope, shadowy but existent, might still be mine. If not, then I must bear her displeasure as best I could. Possibly I should suffer less under it than from the uncertainty which kept every nerve quivering.