‘Indeed, Bertha,’ said Phœbe, with a smile on her tremulous lip, ‘it is very odd, but I don’t think I was afraid; there was a feeling of shadowing Wings that left no room for terror.’
‘That enabled you to think and act?’ asked Miss Fennimore.
‘I didn’t think; it came to me,’ said Phœbe. ‘Pray, let me go; Bertha dear, you had better go to bed. Pray lie down, Miss Fennimore.’
She moved slowly away, her steps still unsteady and her cheeks colourless, but the sweet light of thankfulness on her face; while Bertha said, in her moralizing tone, ‘It is a curious study to see Phœbe taking her own steady nerves and power of resource for something external to herself, and being pious about it.’
Miss Fennimore was not gratified by her apt pupil’s remark. ‘If Phœbe’s conduct do not fill you with reverence, both for her and that which actuates her, I can only stand astonished,’ she said.
Bertha turned away, and erected her eyebrows.
No one could go to bed, and before five o’clock Phœbe came down, dressed for the day, and set to work with the butler and the inventory of the plate to draw up an account of the losses. Not merely the plate in common use was gone, but the costly services and ornaments that had been the glory of old Mr. Fulmort’s heart; and the locks had not been broken but opened with a key; the drawing-rooms had been rifled of their expensive bijouterie, and the foray would have been completely successful had it included the jewels. There were no marks of a violent entrance; windows and doors were all fastened as usual, with the single exception of the back door, which was found ajar, but with no traces of having been opened in an unusual manner, though the heavy bolts and bars would have precluded an entrance from the outside even with a false key.
Early in the day, Mervyn returned with the superintendent of police. He was still too much excited to rest, and his heavy tread re-echoed from floor to floor, as he showed the superintendent round the house, calling his sister or the servants to corroborate his statements, or help out his account of what he had hardly seen or comprehended. Thus he came to Phœbe for her version of the affair in the gallery, of which he only knew his own share—the noise that had roused him, the sight of the burglar, the sudden darkness, the report of the pistol; and the witness of his danger—the bullet—was in the wall nearly where his head had been. When Phœbe had answered his questions, he gazed at her, and exclaimed—‘Hallo! why, Phœbe, it seems that but for you, Parson Robert would be in possession here!’ and burst into a strange nervous laugh, ending by coming to her and giving a hearty kiss to her forehead, ere hurrying away to report her evidence to the policeman.
When all measures had been taken, intelligence sent back to the station, and a search instituted in every direction, Mervyn consented to sit down to breakfast, but talked instead of eating, telling Phœbe that even without her recognition of James Smithson, the former footman, the superintendent would have attributed the burglary to a person familiar with the house,
provided with facsimiles of all the keys, except those of the jewels, as well as sufficiently aware of the habits of the family to make the attempt just before the jewels were to be removed, and when the master was likely to be absent. The appearance of the back door had led to the conclusion that the thieves had been admitted from within; a London detective had therefore been sent for, who was to come in the guise of a clerk from the distillery, bringing down the books to Mr. Fulmort, and Phœbe was forbidden to reveal his true character to any one but Miss Fennimore. So virulently did Mervyn talk of Smithson, that Phœbe was sorry she had recognized him, and became first compassionate, then disconcerted and shocked. She rose to leave the room as the only means of silencing him; he got up to come after her, abusing the law because house-breaking was not a hanging matter, his face growing more purple with passion every moment; but his steps suddenly failed, his exclamation transferred his fury to his own giddiness, and Phœbe, flying to his side, was only just in time to support him to a couch. It was the worst attack he had yet had, and his doctors coming in the midst of it, used prompt measures to relieve him, and impressed on both him and his sister that everything would depend on perfect quiet and absence from all disturbance; and he was so much exhausted by the reaction of his excitement, loss of blood, and confusion of head, that he attempted little but long fretful sighs when at length he was left to her. After much weariness and discomfort he fell asleep, and Phœbe ventured to creep quietly out of the library to see Miss Charlecote, who was hearing the night’s adventures in the schoolroom. Scarcely, however, had Honor had time to embrace the little heroine, whose conduct had lost nothing in Miss Fennimore’s narration, when a message came from Elverslope. It was the day of the petty sessions, and a notable bad character having been taken up with some suspicious articles upon him, the magistrates were waiting for Mr. Fulmort to make out the committal on his evidence.