“I feel a different fellow altogether,” he said. “I shall sleep like a top, and I have enjoyed myself. You ought to give up your consular work and start a cure for depressed young men. You’d make a fortune.”
They were out in the passage by this time, and it was clear that the night-cap had banished all thought of his keys from Mr. Cecil’s head. He saw Colin to his room, lingered a moment to see that he had all he wanted, and then went to his own.
“A charming young fellow,” he thought; performed a somnambulistic feat of undressing, and fell into his bed.
Colin heard his door shut, and then in a moment turned off his light, and, stealthily opening his own door, stood in the entry listening for any sound. For a minute or two there were faint, muffled noises from his host’s room, but soon all was still, except for the creaking of his own shirt-front as he breathed. Then, re-entering his room, he stripped and put on his pyjamas and soft felt slippers which would be noiseless on the boards outside. Once more he stood there and waited, and now from inside Mr. Cecil’s room came sounds rhythmical and reassuring. Enough light dribbled in through the uncurtained windows to guide his steps without fear of collision, and he glided into the room they had just left and felt his way to the table where the keys still dangled. He unloosed them, grasping them in the flap of his jacket, so that they should not jingle as he moved, and went down the passage to the door of the consular offices. The big key for the door was in the lock, and turned noiselessly.
The archive-room lay to the right, and with the door into the house shut behind him, he permitted himself the illumination of a match, and passed through. The shutters were closed, and he lit a candle that stood on the table for official sealing. There, in the wall, was the locked press that he so well remembered, and the trial of half-a-dozen of the keys on the bunch he carried gave him the one he looked for. The date labels were on the back of the volumes, and he drew out that which comprised the year he wanted. Quietly he turned over the leaves and found the page which contained the contract between Rosina Viagi and Philip Lord Stanier. Even in this one-candle-power light the erasure was visible to the eye that looked for it. A paper-knife lay among the tools of writing on the table, and folding the leaf back to its innermost margin he severed it from the book and thrust it inside the cord of his trousers.
Bright-eyed and breathing quickly with excitement and success, he replaced the volume and locked the press. He grasped the keys as before, blew out the candle, quenching the smouldering wick in his fingers, and went back, locking the door of the office behind him, into the room from which he had fetched the keys. He replaced them in the drawer of unblushing photographs and, pausing for a moment at his own door, listened for the noise that had reassured him before. There it was, resonant and rhythmical. He closed his door, turned up his light, and drew the severed page from his trousers. He had been gone, so his watch told him, not more than five minutes.
“Rosina Viagi to Philip Lord Stanier....” March 1, or March 31, mattered no more. “I have but cancelled a forgery,” he thought to himself as he pored over it. It was a pity to be obliged to destroy so ingenious a work, which at one time gave him the mastership of Stanier, but Raymond’s death had given it him more completely, and it no longer served his end, but was only a danger. Yet should he destroy it, or....
His mind went back to the night that he and Violet had passed together here. How supreme had been his wisdom over that! For supposing, on his father’s death, that Violet threatened to contest his succession on the information he had given her to induce her for certain to marry him, what now would the register show but an excised leaf? In whose interest had it been to remove that, except Violet’s, for with its disappearance there vanished, as far as she knew, all record of the marriage. Had she had an opportunity of doing so? Certainly, for had she not spent a night here on the return from their honeymoon? Should she be so unwise as to send her lawyer here to examine the register on the ground that it had been tampered with, she would be faced with a tampering of an unexpected kind. The leaf had gone; but how lucky that before its suspicious disappearance, Colin had copied out the entry of the marriage and had it certified as correct by the Consul himself. He had it safe, with its date, March 1. That would be a surprise to poor Violet when she knew it, and the finger of suspicion, wavering hitherto, would surely point in one very definite direction.... As for the letter from Rosina to Salvatore Viagi, of which she would profess knowledge on Colin’s authority, what did she mean and where was the letter? Uncle Salvatore, whom Colin would see to-morrow, would be found to know nothing about it.
About the destruction of this page.... Colin fingered his own smooth throat as he considered that. Supposing Violet seriously and obstinately threatened to contest the succession? And what if, when the page was found to be missing, it was discovered in some locked and secret receptacle of her own? That would be devilish funny.... Colin hoped, he thought, that it would not come to that. He liked Violet, but she must be good, she must be wise.
The click of an electric switch and the noise of a step outside sent his heart thumping in his throat, and next moment he had thrust the page into his despatch-box and turned the key on it. The step passed his room, and was no longer audible, and with infinite precaution he turned the handle, and holding the door just ajar, he listened. It had not gone the whole length of the passage down to the entry to the consular offices, and even while he stood there he heard the chink of keys. Then the step was audible again, and the chink accompanied it. At that comprehension came to him, confirmed next moment by the repeated click of the electric switch and the soft closing of his host’s door.