III
I think it occurred to him then that I might be pointing something at him—not knowing that my deadliest weapon was a silver fork. For he slid inside the room with his back against the wall. And there we stood, backed against opposite corners, staring into the darkness, and I, for one, totally unable to speak. Finally, he said: "I think it will end right here."
"I—I don't know what you mean," I quavered, for I was plainly expected to say something. There was another total silence, which I learned afterward was inability on his part to speak. Then——
"By Jove!" he exclaimed; and then again, under his breath: "By Jove!"
(That assured me somewhat. "By Jove" is so largely a gentleman's exclamation. If he had said "Blow me," which is English lower class, or "Shiver my timbers," I know I should have shivered mine. But "By Jove" gave me courage.)
He fumbled for and lighted a match then, and took a step forward. We had a ghastly glimpse of each other before the match went out, and I saw he was in tweeds and knickers, and had one of Daphne's sandwiches in his left hand. He saw the candle then and, stepping forward, he lighted it where it stood on the chair. And when he had lighted it and put it on the table he actually smiled across it.
"I am not sure yet that I am awake," he said easily. "Please don't disappear. The sandwich seems real enough, but that's the way in dreams. You find something delectable and wake up before you taste it. You see, the sandwich is gone already."
"You dropped it," I said as calmly as I could.
"Oh," he said, lowering the candle and peering under the table. "Ah, here it is. So it isn't a dream! You have no idea how many times I have dreamed I was finding money—sovereigns, you know, and all that—and wakened at the psychological moment." He put his revolver on the table, took a bite of the sandwich and stared at me, at my gown, and then at my pearls. I fancied his eyes gleamed.
I did not speak; I was listening with all my might for the car, but I could hear nothing but the patter of the rain on the flagstones outside.
"I'm afraid I have startled you," he went on, still looking at me with uncomfortable intentness. "The fact is, I was asleep. I got in through a window an hour or so ago after a day and a night on the moor. I had no idea there was anybody here until you brushed past me in the dark."
The moor! Then of course I knew. It had been dawning on me slowly. For all I could tell, he might have had the Romney under his coat at that moment. I put my hands to my throat for air because, although he was smiling and pleasant enough, everybody knows that the bigger the game a burglar makes a specialty of the more likely he is to look and act like a gentleman. So, because he seemed to expect me to do something, I unclasped my collar with shaking fingers and threw it to him across the table.
"Oh, please take it and go away," I implored him. "It—it isn't imitation, anyhow, and Daphne says—the Romney was."
"Oh," he said slowly, staring at the pearls, "so Daphne says the Romney was, eh?"
He ran the collar through his fingers as if his conscience was troubling him a little. Then, "I wouldn't care to pit my judgment against that of a lady," he went on without even a word about the collar, "but—I think your friend Daphne is wrong." His eyes travelled comprehensively to the silver on the floor.
"If you don't mind," he said whimsically—(this seems the only word, although—can a burglar be whimsical?)—"I wish you would tell me how you opened that cupboard door. It was locked an hour ago."
"I dare say it was very unprofessional," I said boldly—for he didn't show any sign of trying to choke me, and my courage was returning, "but—I did it with a hairpin."
"Ah!" He was thoughtful. "And—I suppose that is the way you opened the front entry door, also?"
"No. Violet had a key——" I began. Then I stopped, furious at myself.
He dropped the sandwich again and took a step forward with his eyes narrowed.
"Violet!" he said.
It seems extraordinary, looking back, to think I could have mistaken him for a thief when he was something else altogether. But that wasn't the only mistake I made. I could scream when I remember. He was not at all like his picture, and because I hadn't recognised him as Basil Harcourt, who hated The Cause, I had lost quantities of valuable time.
One thinks quickly in emergencies, and women have one advantage over men. They can think very hard while they are talking about an entirely different subject. His next question gave me a cue. He came forward and leaned on the table, near the candle. I could see he was not very old after all—not nearly so old as I had expected.
"I know it isn't my affair at all," he began, half smiling, "but—I am under the impression that the Hall has been closed for some years. And yet—I find a young woman here alone, surrounded by—er—dust and decay. It's a sort of reversed Sleeping Beauty and the Prince. You should have been asleep. As you say, it isn't my affair, but—what in the world brought you here?"
(When I told this afterward Poppy said: "It sounds exactly like him, of course.")
"I came to steal the silver," I said brazenly.
That was my plan, you see. If he would only take me away and give me in charge he would be safely out of the way and beyond interfering. And the next morning, when everything was over, I would tell my real name and be released, and everything would be over. Something had to be done at once, for, as Daphne said, "to kidnap the Prime Minister would be a coup d'état, but to try to do it and fail would be low comedy."
When I said I was stealing the silver, which was certainly not worth five guineas, Mr. Harcourt took a step back and caught hold of a chair.
"Really!" he said. And then: "But what in the world did you intend doing with it?—if you don't mind the question."
This was unexpected, but I rose to the occasion.
"Melt it," I declared. I thought this was inspired. Don't they always melt down stolen silver?
"By Jove!" he exclaimed. "You are experienced!" Then he sat down suddenly in the chair and coughed very hard into his handkerchief. But he made no move to arrest me.
"Aren't you going to give me in charge?" I asked in alarm, for time was flying. He put away his handkerchief.
"Wouldn't that be a horrible thing for me to do?" he asked gravely. "Perhaps it's your first offence, you know, although I doubt that. You seem so capable. And if I let you go you may reform. Take my word for it, there's nothing to a life of crime. I suppose you—er—appropriated the string of pearls that are not imitation?"
This was unexpected.
"It is mine, honestly mine, Mr. Harcourt," I began. He glanced at me when I called him by name. Then he took the collar out and looked at it. "I shall advertise it," he said judicially and slid it back into his pocket. "If the owner offers a reward I will see that you get it—minus the newspaper costs, of course."
Then—we both heard it at the same moment—there came the throb of the machine down the drive. He raised his eyebrows and glanced at me. "More people after the silver, probably," he said, and picked up the candle. I slipped after him to the entrance hall.
Just inside the door, with a cordial smile of greeting fading into a blank, stood a middle-aged English gentleman, rather florid, with a drooping, sandy moustache and thinnish hair. When he saw me the ghost of the smile returned.
"I am sure I beg your pardon. A—a thousand apologies. That cursed—hem—the chauffeur has made a beastly mistake. I was led to believe—I—that is——"
He was staring at me. Then his eye struck the banner across the hall, with "Votes for Women" on it, and from there it travelled to Mr. Harcourt. He had grown visibly paler. He put a hand to his tweed travelling-cap, gave it a jerk and, turning without warning, he disappeared through the entry into the storm. I caught Mr. Harcourt by the arm as he was about to follow, muttering savagely.
"Oh, he's going to run away," I wailed. "And he will take pneumonia or something like that, and die! I told Daphne how it would be!" Mr. Harcourt ran down the steps. "Sir George! Sir George!" I called desperately into the darkness from the doorway. There was no answer, but Mr. Harcourt stopped and glanced back from the drive.
"Sir George!" he exclaimed. "What do you mean?"
"It's the Prime Minister," I called desperately, "and if you care anything at all about Violet—but, of course, you don't—oh, do find him and bring him back!"
(Nothing but the excitement of the occasion would have made me mention Violet to him. I was sorry on the instant, for Mother knew a man once who had a fainting spell every time he heard his divorced wife's name, and the only way they could revive him was by sprinkling him with lilac water, which had been her favourite perfume. Very romantic, I think. But there was nothing but rain to sprinkle on Mr. Harcourt, even if he had taken a fit, which he didn't.)
Instead, he turned on his heel and started down the drive. Sir George had disappeared, and the engine of the motor car had given a final throb and died in the distance. Sounds of feet splashing through mud and water came back to me.
For ten minutes I cowered on that miserable settee, with "Votes for Women" over my head. And I remembered America, and the way I was always sheltered there, and nobody even thinking of kidnapping the Cabinet. The President being the whole thing anyhow and always guarded by secret service men. And besides, imagine abducting nine men! Or is it seven?
After eternities I heard voices outside and Mr. Harcourt appeared, half leading, half coaxing Sir George. He had him by the arm. The Prime Minister was oozing mud and he was very pale.
"Terrible!" he was saying. "Unbelievable! Is there anything they won't do!" Then he caught a glimpse of the seven chairs and the gavel on the drawing-room table, and tried to bolt again. But the entry door was closed.
"Now, then," Mr. Harcourt said to me disagreeably. "Tell us what you know about this thing. It isn't an accident, I presume?"
I shook my head.
"You see, sir," he said to the P. M., "you are the centre—the storm centre—of a Suffragette plot of some sort. I was a fool not to have guessed it, but I actually thought——Well, no matter what I thought. I presume you were going to Gresham Place?"
Sir George nodded and groaned. A terrible flash of lightning was followed almost instantly by a splintering crash. The very house rocked. Mr. Harcourt closed the door.
"This is Harcourt Hall," he explained. "It's in bad shape, but we have at least a roof. I think you are alone?" to me very curtly.
I nodded mutely.
"I fancy the best thing under the circumstances is to wire to Gresham Place, and have them send a car over—providing the telephone is in order."
"The wire is cut," I broke in. And then, like the poor thing I am, I began to cry. I hate lightning. It always makes me nervous.
Both Sir George and Mr. Harcourt stared at me helplessly. And then, still sniffling, I told them the whole story, and how Daphne and the rest would soon be there, and that I wasn't really a Suffragette; that I was an American, and I thought women ought to vote, but be ladylike and proper about it, and that, at least, they ought to be school directors, because they understood little children so well and paid taxes, anyhow.
When I got through and looked up at them Sir George was staring at me in bewilderment and Mr. Harcourt was smiling broadly.
"My dear young lady," he said, "of course you ought to vote. And if voting went by general attractiveness you would have to be what Americans call a repeater—vote twice, you know."
(It was at this point, when I told the story, that Ernestine Sutcliffe looked contemptuous. "We are not all pretty puppets," she said. And I retorted: "No, I should say not!")
All this had taken longer than it sounds, for on the very tail of Mr. Harcourt's speech came a double honk from the drive. Mr. Harcourt jumped for the hall lamp and extinguished it in an instant. I hardly know what happened next. My eyes were still staring wide into the blackness when he reached over and clutched me by the shoulder.
"Not a word, please," he ordered. "This way, Sir George! The door is bolted, and we will have time to get upstairs and hide. There's a secret room, if I can remember how to get to it. Walk lightly."
I could hear Daphne at the door outside and I opened my mouth to scream. But Mr. Harcourt divined my intention and clapped a hand over it.
As I was half led, half dragged back through the dark hall I saw Violet enter by one of the windows.