Chapter VI.
The House in Hopefield Avenue
The room was of medium size and plainly though comfortably furnished as a man’s study or smoking room. In one corner was a small roll-top desk, in another a table bearing books and papers and a tantalus. Two large leather-covered armchairs stood one at each side of the grate, in which burned a cheerful fire. In the corner opposite the window was a press or cupboard built into the wall, and in front of this all furniture had been cleared away, leaving a wide unoccupied space on the floor. Beside the wall near this space was a large camera, already set up, and on a table beside it lay a flashlight apparatus and two dark slides, apparently of full plate size.
In the room were four persons, and it was the identity of the last of these that had so amazed Cheyne. Standing beside the camera were Price and Lewisham, while no less a personage than Mr. Hubert Parkes of Edgecombe Hotel notoriety stood looking on with his back to the fire. But it was not on these that Cheyne’s eyes were glued. Reclining in one of the armchairs with her feet on the fender was Susan, the house and parlormaid at Warren Lodge!
Cheyne gasped. Here was the explanation of one mystery at all events. He saw now where the gang’s knowledge of himself and his surroundings had been obtained. He remembered that he had discussed his visit to Plymouth during dinner, a day or two before the event. Susan had been waiting at table, and Susan had been the channel through which the information had been passed on. And the burglary! He could see Susan’s hand in this also. In all probability she had taken full advantage of her opportunities to make a thorough search of the house for Price’s letter, and it was doubtless only when it became necessary to deal with the safe that her friends had been called in. Probably also she had been waiting for them, and had admitted them and shown them over the house before submitting to be tied up as a blind to mislead the detectives who would presumably be called in. Cheyne suspected also that Price’s visit was timed at a propitious moment, when he himself was available and with a free afternoon to be filled up. No doubt Susan’s part in the affair had been vital to its success.
But her participation also showed the extraordinary importance which the conspirators attached to the letter. Susan’s makeup for the part she was to play, the forging of her references, her installation in the Cheyne household and her undertaking nearly two months of domestic service in order to gain the document, showed a tenacity of purpose which could only have been evoked to attain some urgent end. Evidently the gang believed that Price’s claim on the barony was good, and evidently the others intended to share the spoils.
Cheyne watched breathlessly what was going on in the room, and to his delight he presently found that through the open upper sash he could also hear a good deal of what was said.
The camera had been set up to face the cupboard, and Cheyne now saw that a document of some kind was fastened with drawing pins to its door. Price put his head under the cloth and moved the camera back and forwards, evidently focusing it on the document. Lewisham lifted and examined the flashlight apparatus, then stood waiting. Parkes stooped and said something in a low tone to Susan, at which she laughed sarcastically.
“Do you think two will be enough or should we take four?” said Price when he had arranged the camera to his satisfaction.
“Two, I should say,” Parkes answered. “Even if we lost the tracing, two negatives should be an ample record.”
“I should take four,” Lewisham declared. “After all we’ve done what is the extra trouble of developing a couple of negatives? One or two might be failures.”