The room was not large, and was furnished quite in bachelor fashion, with a shabby but luxuriously easy leather chair, a multitude of pipes and cigar-boxes; one small table beside the easy-chair, which was strewn with newspapers and smoking apparatus, and a large writing-table full of drawers which stood in the window. The walls were adorned by guns and fishing-tackle, and by some engravings which showed greater taste for art, and less for sport, than do most bachelors’ pictures. It was a snug, cosy room; and the presence of a second and much daintier armchair, in the opposite corner, seemed to indicate that Maud liked at times to be her brother’s ‘den companion.’
Mrs. Belassis’ keen eye took all this in at a glance. She saw in a moment where lay her work, and she seated herself in a quiet business-like way at the writing-table.
‘It will be rather odd,’ she muttered to herself, ‘if amongst all his papers I do not find something to give me a clue, if there is anything wrong, and I’m not generally deceived when I take an idea into my head.’
Mrs. Belassis set to work in a methodical way. She began with the small drawers at the top of the table, and turned the contents rapidly over, spreading out the papers and glancing quickly over them. She did not seem to find anything of any interest amongst these, and in ten minutes that part of her search was completed.
It was with greater deliberation that she commenced to open the larger drawers on either side of her; and her face was more set, her eyes more curious than ever, as this task proceeded.
First came papers and memoranda connected with the Ladywell property, bills, receipts, correspondence as to cattle, hay, poultry, and the thousand and one transactions necessitated by a farm and estate. Tor was not a specially orderly man, but he had a method of classification with his papers, which enabled him to lay his hand readily upon anything he wanted.
A few minutes’ study convinced Mrs. Belassis that there was nothing to be gained by a minute inspection of these papers, so they were replaced in their drawer, and the next one opened.
This contained private bills and correspondence, and Mrs. Belassis looked as if she anticipated considerable information from the heap of papers she drew out.
‘Extravagant!’ she muttered more than once; a dark look crossing her face as she came across receipted bills for dresses, jewellery, and finery of all kinds for Maud, and handsome silks and laces, in which she knew her sister Olive had appeared.
Still, amongst all these bills and papers she did not seem to find what she wanted, although more than enough to annoy and anger her. The letters were all addressed to ‘Philip Debenham, Esq.,’ and were for the most part petitions from charitable institutions, notices from picture-dealers, or offers of everything for nothing from companies and tradespeople.