‘No, I didn’t give her that,’ he said, ‘and it wasn’t among her wedding presents. That’s something from him.’
The table was covered with books. He took up one in cream-coloured calf, gilt edged, tooled, an exquisite specimen of Riviere’s binding—Alfred de Musset’s poems.
On the fly-leaf there was a name written, a name that was almost strange to Mr. Piper, though his second wife had signed it in the marriage register.
Isabel.
Isabel, written in a bold masculine hand, beneath it a date, and two words in a language that Mr. Piper knew not.
Zum Gedächtniss.
He tossed the book aside, as if it were some reptile that had stung him, and went on with his investigation. In front of the window there stood an old Dutch escritoire, inlaid with many-coloured woods, a thing of numerous drawers and recesses, and quaint hiding-places, in which to keep secret store of money or documents. It might have been the joy of some Dutch housewife in days gone by, or the private treasury of some rich burgher, in the fat and fertile Low Countries, where life slides gently by in an unostentatious prosperity.
Mr. Piper had seen his wife write her letters at this desk. The lid was closely shut, locked. This exasperated him, though it was hardly a circumstance to be wondered at that a lady should lock her desk. In Mr. Piper’s present temper it seemed an evidence of guilt. He tried to wrench open the lid by means of its delicate brass handles, and failing in this, he took out a strong knife which he used for lopping an occasional withered branch in his park or gardens, and prised the lock. Within all things were neatly arranged. Packets of dainty note-paper and envelopes, gold and ivory penholders, mother-o’-pearl blotting-book, pigeon-holes filled with letters.
Mr. Piper emptied the pigeon-holes, and ran his eye rapidly over their contents. The letters were all undeniably feminine. No, there was nothing here from Captain Standish. But then these old cabinets generally contain hidden receptacles for guilty secrets, sly nests, in which to hatch state, or domestic, treason.
Mr. Piper seized the sandalwood beading that framed the pigeon-holes, with both his hands, and drew them out bodily, in one piece, like a drawer. Behind them appeared a row of neat little recesses, each with its inlaid door.