"Have you locked up the silver? Bring me the key. Close the house for the night. Judge Kent will be out late. Tell Octavia to have good fires upstairs, and then she need not wait for Miss Eglah, as I shall sit up till she comes; and, Watson, you can go home. Should the front door bell ring, I shall be here."
More than once she had suspected that the senator was interested in financial speculations, and, though Eglah's fortune had been carefully tied up beyond his reach, she began to fear he might by some devious process jeopard it. "Hypothecating securities" was a bristling phrase she had never quite comprehended, but it symbolized an ogre she must outwit.
In one corner of the library stood a tall, brass-mounted chiffonier filled with papers, and above it hung an engraving. Behind, and entirely concealed, was a door opening into a small bathroom that formed an alcove in the senator's apartment. After an hour had passed, Mrs. Mitchell placed her shoulder against the chiffonier, that rolled easily on its castors, and she slipped behind it. There was no key in the lock, but a slender steel bolt slid horizontally under her hand, and the door opened a few inches only, barred by a table, which she succeeded in pushing aside. Lifting the portière inside, she entered the sleeping-room, and found the robe de chambre hanging over the back of a chair. The pockets were empty, the drawers of the bureau locked, but under the pillow on the bed she thrust one hand and drew out the object of her search. It contained neither date nor signature, and was type-written in purple ink on thin paper bearing no water-mark.
"A friend to you and to yours believes it a genuine kindness to inform you that the identity of 'Ely Twiggs' has been discovered, and hopes an early knowledge of this fact may be useful to you."
She replaced the note beneath the pillow, returned to the library, and rolled back the chiffonier. After all, she had ended her quest in a cul-de-sac. Turning the gas jets low, she sat watching the blue flicker that danced like witch-lights in the grate, and once she smiled at her own discomfiture, realizing that her attempt was futile as would be the trial of a Yale key to open a "combination" vault lock, the arrangement of which was unknown. Keenly alert, she heard the rattle of the night-latch, the closing of the front door, and, after a moment, Judge Kent came slowly into the room. At first he did not notice her presence, and in this brief unguarded interval she saw the countenance without its habitual mask—a face gloomy, perturbed, unnaturally flushed, with restless eyes gleaming like those of a jaded, hunted forest animal.
"Ah—Mrs. Mitchell! Sitting up for Eglah? Didn't she tell you she was going from the dinner to the cotillon? Herriott will see her home. It is a shame to have kept you up, but girls are so thoughtless."
"Eglah is never that, and I knew she would be late at the cotillon. I waited downstairs solely to see you."
"Very kind, I am sure; but I feel much better, thank you. Indeed, I may say I have fully recovered from that sudden, intolerable spell of nausea. You are very good to worry over that little attack, but pray think no more about it. I shall abjure Welsh rarebit and oysters in future. At my time of life, pneumogastric nerves get their innings."
Brightening the light in the gas globe over the mantel, she approached and confronted him.
"Judge Kent, I am not 'worrying' over the condition of your digestive organs, but I do feel deeply interested in the nature of the trouble that has come upon you so unexpectedly, and I cannot sleep until I tell you what I have done to-night. Whatever injures you wounds Eglah, and solely on her account I felt justified in taking a step that no weaker motive could have sanctioned. I sat up to tell you that when I found you would not trust me with the truth, I hunted it by reading the note that fell this evening like a bombshell. I have no hesitation in confessing the fact. I am here for that purpose."