CHAPTER XIV.
The funeral was to take place on the following day. It was not without a shudder that Freda made her way up to her bedroom that night, although she had taken the precaution of insisting that Mrs. Bean should accompany her to the very door. Even then she was reluctant to let the housekeeper go.
“Mrs. Bean,” she said in a whisper, as she clung to the housekeeper’s rough arms after bidding her good-night. “What room is there under this one?”
The housekeeper looked rather uneasy, and laughed.
“Really, I don’t know what it was. It’s a long time since any of the rooms in this wing have been used except this one.”
“But it was used the other night! I heard men talking there. Crispin said they were the sailors of my father’s yacht.”
“Well, if he said that, what more do you want to know?”
“I want to know how they got in. I haven’t seen any door on the outside of this part of the house.”
“I suppose they came through the other part then.”
“I suppose so.”
There was a pause, and Mrs. Bean shuffled a step nearer the door. Then she turned, to whisper plaintively:
“Child, I wish you’d be persuaded to keep a still tongue in your head.”
But not only was Freda unable to obey this precept, she was further resolved to use both eyes and ears on her own account. Being assured now that both Crispin and Nell were her friends, she felt bold enough to try to satisfy herself on the one point of greatest interest to her: Was her father still in the house? Perhaps that very night he was going away, under cover of the darkness! Stung to action by this suggestion, conquering even the horror of the day’s adventures, she took her candle from the table and went out of the room into the stone passage. Freda softly open the door into the gallery, and shielding her candle with her hand, to minimise the risk of its light betraying her, crept along that portion of it which ran along the west side of the house. As she went she caught sight of something white on the ground, close underneath the panelling. It was the handkerchief she had slyly dropped that day, in the hope that it would afford some clue to the way Crispin was bringing her.
A close inspection of the panelling disclosed a tiny keyhole in the ornamental part of the carving, and although the panel in which it was pierced fitted perfectly into its place, yet a tap revealed the fact that there was a hollow or open space behind. She hailed this discovery with much excitement. This then was a very good place to watch, if her father really was in hiding about the house. The question now was how to conceal herself. There was nothing in the gallery but pictures, and a row of chairs. As she stood debating with herself, she heard footsteps, as it seemed to her, behind the panelling. In a frenzy of excitement she instantly blew out her candle, and scurried across the gallery to the furthest corner, where she crouched in a heap on the floor. She had not to wait long. A little scraping sound, and a panelled door opened from the other side. Then Freda heard a distant murmur of voices, and the next moment the man who had opened the door stepped into the gallery.
Freda need not have been afraid of discovery. The man carried no light, and she could only dimly see the outline of his figure as he crossed the floor noiselessly towards one of the long windows. This he pushed up with only the very faintest sound, and putting his head out, said in a low voice:
“Ready?”
Freda who in her eagerness to discover whether this was her father on the point of escaping, had crawled along the bare boards close under the windows, was listening, watching with her heart beating so violently that she was afraid it would betray her. She heard no answer given, but the man drew in his head and retired again through the panel-door. By his gait she knew that he was not a gentleman, and therefore that he could not be her father. She heard him go down the stone steps, which she guessed to be those up which Crispin had carried her; and then making the most of her opportunity, she ran to the open window, and looked out.
A man was waiting in the court-yard underneath. He must have heard her footsteps, for he raised his head, and seeing that somebody was at the window, he said, in a hoarse whisper:
“Eh, but thou’rt a long toime to-neght. Thou’rt not very spry for a sailor! Art droonk again?”
Freda drew in her head before he had time to see that it was a woman whom he was addressing; but not before she had seen enough of his figure, and heard enough of his rough, thick voice, to ask herself whether this was not Josiah Kemm, of the “Barley Mow.” The man, whoever he was, had hardly finished speaking, when from behind the panelling she heard again the distant murmur of voices, and footsteps coming up the stone staircase. She hastily retreated from the window, not to the corner she had left, but to the door by which she had entered the gallery. She had scarcely done so when the man she had previously seen reappeared. As she was now much nearer to him, she could distinctly see that he had upon his back a package about three feet square which was evidently heavy. This he carried across to the window, and let down by means of a rope into the court-yard. Then she heard faintly the voice of the man in the court-yard asking some question. Although she could not distinguish his words, the answer of the man above, “No. Nobody,” told her that the question had concerned her own appearance at the window. Judging therefore that an investigation might follow, she crept along the stone passage and locked herself in her own room as quickly as she could.
Next morning, however, she would not have her breakfast until she had found an opportunity of exchanging a few words with Crispin Bean.
“Crispin,” she began solemnly, “you remember telling me that the sailors of my father’s yacht were in the house one night when I heard a noise?”
He grunted an affirmative rather shortly.
“Well,” she went on, “they were here again last night.”
“What of that?” said Crispin.
“I believe they were stealing something. I saw one of them throw a package out of the window to a man in the court-yard underneath.”
“I should like to know what you don’t see,” grumbled Crispin, not very well pleased.
Freda drew herself up.
“I ought to know all that goes on in my own house,” said she, holding her head back with a pretty little air. “And I mean to go over the place, and see that there is no way for people to get in that have no business here. And as for this yacht, it is of no use now, so what is the use of paying a lot of sailors for doing nothing.”
Crispin looked down on the floor, with rather a whimsical expression of face.
“They’re all old servants of your father’s, you know. If they’re turned off, they’re very likely to starve. As for what you thought was stealing, it was only an old salt, who has been one of the yacht’s crew for seven years, throwing down his own traps to a friend from the town who had promised to take care of them.”
“But why did he do it so mysteriously, and at night?” asked Freda, still incredulous.
But Crispin was tired of answering her questions, or else he had no reply to give, for without any more words he proceeded to light his pipe and walk away.