“Go to it,” she mutteringly encouraged the reluctant side of her brain. With this spur to action she sauntered away from the gate and up to the short drive which soon curved to the left and continued on to the garage behind the house. She left the drive for the wide stone walk leading up to the deep, central pillared veranda. Her cool, self-possessed manner, her walk, indifferent, swaggering, was at variance with the excited beating of her heart and her private distaste for the visit she was about to make. This distaste was not of moral persuasion. Leslie was merely afraid that her father might have changed his mind about going west at the last minute. It was “Peter the Great,” not the servant she dreaded encountering. If her father were afterward to learn from any of the servants whom she might encounter of her visit to the house, it would show him that she was a force not easy to control.
To gain access to the house itself would be a simple matter since the doors and windows had not been sealed. Leslie had several latch keys on a special ring which fitted various doors of her stately home. She was well prepared, but chose to use the main entrance for the sake of appearances, should she be observed.
She stepped presently into the great rosewood reception hall with its vast crystal sheet of mirror, occupying the whole lower end of the apartment; its two grim guardian Norman suits of armor. A richly cushioned bench extended the length of one side of it. Leslie paused beside the bench, listening for sounds of human presence other than the thump of her heart and the excited sigh of her own breath. Not a sound disturbed the church-like quiet which pervaded the hall.
She dropped down on the bench and carefully restored to a small leather handbag the latch key she had just used and which she still held in one hand. For as much as ten minutes she sat still, watching, waiting, listening, hoping no one might come. During that time her eyes roved ceaselessly about the hall and from the magnificent archway, lightly draped with velvet of a rosewood tint, to a lower smaller arch at the rear of the hall which stood open into a sun parlor.
She rose, at length slipped silently as an Indian to the grand archway and made a comprehensive survey of the French salon beyond the arch. Satisfied that no one was there to spy upon her she next inspected the sun parlor. There her father always established himself in the morning, when at home, with the morning papers. The long mahogany library table was stacked with an orderly array of newspapers and magazines. That in itself was significant proof to Leslie that “Peter the Great” was “missing from the show shop.”
Without pausing to explore further the main floor of the house she turned and darted noiselessly back into the hall and up the grand stairway. Straight as an arrow she directed her steps on reaching the second floor landing to a wide solid looking door of black walnut which stood part way down a short wide corridor hung on both sides with nothing but marine paintings. It was Peter Cairns’s famous marine collection; the pride of his heart. Leslie ran her fingers up and down one side of the knobless black walnut door. Silently it slid to the left, disappearing into a space cleverly designed to receive it. She was across the threshold in one long step and the door was moving back into place again.
This time she indulged in a burst of silent merriment as she collapsed into an immense leather arm chair. She “had got away with it.” She was now safe from any possible intrusion of servants. She was in Peter the Great’s own den. No one other than they two knew the secret mechanism of the walnut door. When she left the house it would be by a private stairway leading directly to a side veranda which no one but herself and her father ever used. She had not been able to enter by this means. There was only one key to the veranda entrance to the stairway and this was carried by the financier. The long room behind the walnut door, furnished comfortably rather than luxuriously, was Peter Cairns’s den. In it were his rarest books, a collection of priceless ancient coins, one of cameos, and numbers of unique treasures picked up in all parts of the world. Leslie could open the door from the inside by manipulation of a little steel knob, like that of a safe. The door would close after her, securing itself automatically.
When her flash of victorious amusement had subsided she let her gaze travel slowly about her. Quickly her features changed to a somber cast. She was once more in the good old “playroom” of happier days. It was in this very room that she had best learned to understand her father. Peter Cairns had then treated her more as though she were his son instead of his daughter. Her grotesquely plain little face and lawless domineering ways as a youngster had appeared to please and entertain him. He had called her his “ugly little beauty kid” and “the boss” and “Cairns II.” He had, as she had grown older, and come home from prep school, then college, spent long hours with her in the den. Sometimes they had played chess or backgammon of which they were both fond. Again he would talk freely to her of his financial operations. It was a school into which the maxims of Brooke Hamilton would not have fitted. Peter Cairns had made Leslie’s mind up to his own way of living as he was one day to learn.
Realizing the flight of time she gathered herself together for the final episode of her surreptitious errand. She rose, crossed the room to where a rare etching hung and lifted it from its hook. The space thus left vacant showed the indentation of a wall safe. Leslie manipulated the tiny knob with sure fingers. She next pulled open the safe’s door and moved a tiny switch inside the cavity. A bright light flooded it. She ran a finger down a stack of small, black, leather-bound notebooks, bindings out, lettered in gilt, A to Z. She drew the third book, I to M, from the little pile and sat down with it in the nearest chair.
“So that’s his name—Lavigne! It sounds French, but he looked more like a dago. He’s probably forgotten his real name,” Leslie mused satirically. “All right, Anton. I’ll proceed to tell your fortune. You are going to receive a visit from a dark woman who knows all about you.”