Once well inside, however, he forgot this inconvenience in the curiosity which the appearance of the room aroused in him.
It was a long and narrow apartment, with the two shuttered windows at one end, and an enormous satinwood wardrobe, old and rather battered, at the other.
Between the windows was a dressing-table of the makeshift sort, apparently consisting of a pile of boxes covered with an old-fashioned arrangement of faded pink calico and muslin discoloured with dust and age.
On the top was a small mirror on a stand, of the kind that is usually found in servants’ bedrooms, and beside it was a candle burning in a flat candlestick.
Piled up on the available surface of the dressing-table was a heterogeneous mass of small articles, all of women’s use, such as hairpins, ornamental combs for the hair, bracelets, brooches, rings, a powder-puff, some reels of cotton and silk, and a packet of needles.
In front of the dressing-table was a common cane-bottomed chair, over the back of which hung a dressing-gown and the trained skirt of a lady’s silken dress. This garment attracted Bayre’s attention by the old-fashioned pattern of the brocade of which it was composed.
More traces of a woman’s occupation were visible on all sides: on one chair was a pile of laces and fans; on another, a magnificent cloak lined with fur; on a chest in one corner was a great heap of feathers, crumpled artificial flowers, and bits of lace and ribbon; while on the floor lay little heaps of old satin slippers, soiled gloves, and a miscellaneous assortment of odds and ends, all appertaining to the feminine toilet.
Young Bayre had not the least doubt that a woman had been in the room quite recently, probably within a few moments of his entrance with the old man. For, with his senses well on the alert, he noted one significant fact—there was dust on the surface of the chest, and there was dust on the stand of the mirror, but there was none on the various articles that lay about the room; they had evidently been taken quite recently from their cupboards and drawers.
Old Mr Bayre’s explanation of what he saw, therefore, was not satisfactory.
“This room,” said he, “is just as it was left by my wife when she took it into her head to run away from me eight months ago.”