Chapter Twenty.
Where the Moonbeams Played.
The lately risen moon, in its third quarter, shone across the well-kept lawn at the Denes between two great banks of trees, and through the wide French window in a way that left half the drawing-room in darkness, the conservatory full of lights and shadows of grotesque-looking giant plants in pots, and the other half of the handsome salon fairly illuminated. The shutters had not been closed, and the room door was wide open, seeming apparently untenanted, or as if the occupants of Sir Hilton Lisle’s residence were all retired to rest.
Everything was still as a rule; but every rule has exceptions, and it was the case here. For, as if coming faintly from a distance, there was a continuous, pleasant chirp, such as might have suggested the early bird about to go in search of the worm; but it was a cricket by the still warm hearth of the kitchen.
There was, too, the distant barking of a dog, varied by a remarkably dismal howl such as a dog will utter on moonlight nights if he has not been fed and furnished with a pleasant padding to dull the points of his ribs when he indulges in his customary curl and sleep.
But there was another sound which broke the silence at rare intervals—a strange, bewildering sound in that drawing-room, such as might have been made by water in a gas pipe. But that was impossible, for there was no illuminant of the nature nearer than Tilborough, the Denes being lit up by crystal oil.
To be brief, in spite of these exceptions, all was very still at the Denes. The horse patrol had gone by, with the horse making noise enough on the hard road to warn any burglarious person of his propinquity, and he had passed three shabby-looking individuals, very drunk, and walking right in the middle of the road as far as two were concerned, talking together about what they had made on Tilborough racecourse the previous day, while the third, being very tired and very tipsy, was—probably from a most virtuous intention of walking off the superabundant spirit he had imbibed—more than doubling the distance between Tilborough and the next town, where there was a fair next day, by carefully walking in zig-zags.
The patrol looked at him, and his horse avoided him, and all went on their way, leaving the tree-bordered country road to its moonlit solitude.
But there was another personage on his way from Tilborough races, having a rest in a mossy piece of woodland half a mile from the Denes. He had his coat very tightly buttoned up over his chest, and over two packets of unsold race-cards, a packet over each breast, where with the fire of a pipe of tobacco they helped to keep the traveller taking his al fresco rest nice and warm.
“Bit damp, though,” he said, after the horse patrol’s movements had died out, and he got up, shook himself, and went his way, to reappear in the form of a silhouette against one of the big panes of glass in the French window of the Denes drawing-room.
Faint moonlight is not good for observing colour. Pink looks black by this illumination, whether it is on a man’s nose or forms the tinting of his old hunting-coat. But even faint moonlight delineates well the shape of an old round-topped black velvet cap, and makes it look far blacker than it does by day.
Such a cap is admirable for riding purposes, and must be of a most convenient shape for anyone operating in a very tradesmanlike way upon the drawing-room window by which the figure stood, with a putty-knife, though an observer would probably have thought the hour unseasonable.
Still, when a window has been broken upon the ground floor, people in the country are only too glad to get the repairing done at any time that the glazier thinks proper to work, so that the weak spot in the domestic defences may as soon as possible be repaired.
But in this case the stout plate glass window was not broken, and the peculiarly handy knife being used was not called upon to spread putty, but was being inserted cleverly away from the glass and causing a clicking noise, thus showing, in connection with a wonderful degree of elasticity, that it was dealing with metal.
While its owner was at his busiest another noise arose, something between a whine and a squeak, the effect of which was to make the operator leave off his task, take two or three steps, and kneel down beneath a bush, to whisper words to something alive connected with its liver—words which produced silence—and return to the window.
The faint clicking began again, and the extremely thin putty-knife did its work in the skilled hands so well that in a very short time the doorlike window yielded and uttered a ghost of a groan as it turned upon its hinges.
“Poor thing, then! Did ’um disturb it in the middle of the night?” said the tradesman to himself, stepping softly in. “Just like ’em! Plenty to eat, plenty to drink, plenty o’ soft beds to sleep in, and too lazy to hyle a hinge. When I keep servants I’ll—Here, let’s just shut you.”
He carefully closed the window, before standing listening for a few moments and looking about till his eyes rested upon a softly-quilted couch, half-covered with a satin-lined Polar bearskin, bathed, as a poet would say, in the lambent rays of the moon, which in this instance came through the conservatory.
Towards this the man stepped in the dark, and, to his intense disgust, kicked heavily against a hassock.
The words he uttered were unprintable, save the latter portion, which were something about the tradesman’s “wussest corn.” The next minute it appeared as if he was about to examine the damage done, for his figure blotted out a portion of the sofa’s shape, and it, too, was bathed in the lambent light, as he busily unlaced and drew off, not only one, but two extremely big, ugly hunting boots, with star-like cuts in them, evidently to ease the “wussest” and other corns.
But, oddly enough, the night bird did not examine his injury, but placed the boots as if ready for cleaning—of which they were very much in need—in the very lightest spot he could find; that is to say, full in the aforesaid lambent light.
Then he began to muse.
“Soft as a hair cushin in a horsepittle,” he muttered. “Now, I could jest lie down, kiver myself with this here soft counterpin, and do my doss like a prince. Nobody at home but the servants and them gals. The two ladies gone off with the doctor in one kerridge, t’other one waiting at the Talbot, and the boss and the young squire sleepin’ it off at Sam Simpkins’s. The on’y one I’m in doubt about is Marky Willers, and that there black-looking crockydile in the white choker.
“Ha!” he sighed, taking out a steel tobacco-box and knife, and cutting off a bit of pigtail. “Mustn’t smoke,” he mused, “and I mustn’t sleep, for it’s ten to one I shouldn’t wake till someun found me, and there’d be a squawk and a ‘Dear me! I on’y come in by mistake, thinking it was my own room.’ Well, that’s the beauty o’ a bit o’ pigtail. Now then, I s’pose I’d better get to work. That’s the beauty o’ my profession. Down to a race here and a race there, and a call or two on the way to do a bit o’ trade with a dawg, and a look round for any bit or two o’ rubbish that wants clearing away. Don’t want anything heavier than a silver inkstand, say. Clocks is so gallus cornery, and a racing cup or anything o’ that sort won’t lie flat without you hammer one side in, and that’s a pity, and it’s half-round even then. Presentation inkstand’s my fav’rite, for one can button it up in front or behind, while you can leave the bottles in case the people wants to write.
“Nice bit o’ plate here, I’ll bet,” said the man, with a yawn, his jaws grinding slowly away at the quid, “but I’m not on plate, thank ye. Now then, where’s that there flat, old-fashioned inkstand? Let’s see; but if that there blessed dawg howls there won’t be no dawg when I gets out.”
The man rose in the moonlight, fumbled for and drew out a matchbox, opened it, and was in the act of striking a match when a clock in the hall performed a musical chime loudly four times, with every bell sounding silvery and clear, and then paused.
“What a ghastly row!” muttered the man; and then he raised the match again, when—
Boom! boom! boom! three heavy strokes deliberately given upon a deep-toned spring, produced a wonderful effect.
There was a sharp ejaculation, a loud rustling sound, and a bump as of someone springing to his feet, while in the moonlight something like a hugely thick short serpent crawled over the couch and turned on reaching the floor into a quadruped, which crept silently into the conservatory and disappeared.
“Well!” exclaimed a voice. “Think o’ me sleeping like that! Three o’clock—lamp gone out—nobody come home even now. What a shame! This is going to the races, this is, and leaving us poor, unprotected women all alone in this big place, and not a man near but the gardeners, and them so far off that you might squeal the house down before they’d hear. Well, I shall go to bed. Ugh! I feel quite shivery, and the place looks horrid in the dark. I don’t like to go into the pantry for a light. I know; her ladyship’s writing-table.”
Jane Gee stepped quickly into the moonlight, caught sight of something on the carpet, and uttered a fearful shriek, just as a figure passed the French window, turned back, stopped short, and began to tap.