Doctor Maitland, an old gentleman who, Mr. Rayner privately told me, was now resting from his labors with the proud consciousness that he had seldom failed in “killing his man,” came in while we were playing.
He was our nearest neighbor, and he often came in the evening to play chess with Mr. Rayner, who always beat him. He listened to the music with great astonishment and some pleasure for a long time, until he learnt that I was reading at sight, and that I had accompanied Mr. Rayner only once before. Then he almost gasped.
“Good gracious! I should never have believed it. You seem to have the same soul!” he cried, awe-struck.
And after that his astonishment evidently outweighed the pleasure he took in our performance. Mr. Rayner gave me a strange smile as the Doctor uttered his quaint speech, and I laughed back, much amused at the effect of our efforts on a musically ignorant listener. When we had finished, and Mr. Rayner was putting his violin into its case, he suddenly discovered that a corner of the latter was damp.
“This will never do,” he exclaimed, with as much affectionate concern as if a friend’s well-being had been threatened. “I might as well keep it in the garden as in this den,” he went on, quite irritably for him—music always wrought him to a high pitch of excitement. “Here, Sarah,” he added, turning towards the table where she had just placed the candles. “Take this to my room—mind, very carefully.”
So his room could not be damp, I thought, or he would not allow his precious violin to be taken there. I had said good-night, and was in the hall, just in time to see Sarah, carrying the violin, disappear down the passage, on the right-hand side of the staircase, which led to the study. Now the wing where Mrs. Rayner’s room was was on the left-hand side of the staircase. Did Mr. Rayner sleep in the study? I could not let my curiosity lead me to follow her, much as I should have liked to solve this little mystery. I knew all the rooms on the upper story, and, except the nursery where Mona and Jane slept, the cook’s room, Sarah’s, and the one I had left, they all bore distinctly the impress of having been long unused. So I was obliged reluctantly to go upstairs. When I got to the foot of my turret staircase, however, which was only a few steps from the head of the back-staircase that the servants used, I heard Sarah’s quick tread in the passage below, and, putting down my candle on the ground, I went softly to the top of the stairs—there was a door here also, but it was generally open and fastened back—and looked down. I saw Sarah, much to my amusement, give a vicious shake to the violin-case, as if it were a thing she hated; and then I saw her take a key from her pocket and unlock a door near the foot of the stairs. That, then, was Mr. Rayner’s room. But, as the door went back on its hinges and Sarah took out the key, went through, and locked it behind her, I saw that it led, not into a room at all, but into the garden.
So far, then, Mr. Reade’s guess was right. But there still remained the question—Where did Mr. Rayner sleep?
CHAPTER X.
It was the elfish baby-girl Mona who first put me on the track of the solution of the mystery about Mr. Rayner’s room. This ill-cared-for little creature, instead of resenting the neglect she suffered, prized the liberties she enjoyed of roaming about withersoever she pleased, and sitting in the flower-beds, and in the mud at the edge of the pond, and making herself altogether the very dirtiest little girl I had ever seen, and objected vehemently to the least attempt at judicious restraint. The little notice she got was neither consistent nor kind. Sarah or Jane would snatch her up, regardless of her shrieks, to shut her up in an empty bedroom, if she showed her grimy little face and tattered pinafore anywhere near the house in the afternoon, when callers might come. But, if they did not see her, they forgot her, and left her to talk and croon to herself, and to collect piles of snails, and to such other simple occupations in her favorite haunts until tea-time, when she generally grew hungry of her own accord, and, returning to the house, made an entrance where she could.
The day after the violin-playing was very wet, and, looking out of the window during lessons with Haidee, I caught sight of her small sister trotting along composedly without a hat in the fast-falling rain. I jumped up and called to her; but she took no notice; so I ran to fetch my umbrella and set off in pursuit. After a little search, I saw her steadily toddling up a side-path among the trees which led to the stables; and I followed softly without calling her again, as, if irritated by pursuit, she might, I knew, plunge among the trees and surrender only when we were both wet through.