Connie made a good many more enquiries—elicited a good many more facts. Then suddenly she brought her pacing to a stop.
‘Look here—we must go to bed!—or Nora will be after us.’
Alice went obediently. As soon as the door had shut upon her, Connie went to a drawer in her writing-table, and took out her bank-book. It had been returned that morning and she had not troubled to look at it. There was always enough for what she wanted.
Heavens!—what a balance. She had quite forgotten a windfall which had befallen her lately—some complicated transaction relating to a great industrial company in which she had shares—which had lately been giving birth to other subsidiary companies, and somehow the original shareholders, of whom Lord Risborough had been one, or their heirs and representatives, had profited greatly by the business. It had all been managed for her by her father’s lawyer, and of course by Uncle Ewen. The money had been paid temporarily into her own account, till the lawyer had made some further enquiries about a fresh investment they recommended.
But it was her own money. She was entitled—under the terms of her father’s letter to Uncle Ewen—to do what she liked with it. And even without it, there was enough in the bank. Enough for this—and for another purpose also, which lay even closer to her heart.
‘I don’t want any more new gowns for six months,’ she decided peremptorily. ‘It’s disgusting to be so well off. Well, now,—I wonder—I wonder where Nora keeps those statements that Alice talks about?’
In the school-room of course. But not under lock and key. Nobody ever locked drawers in that house. It was part of the general happy-go-luckishness of the family.
Connie made up the fire, and sat over it, thinking hard. A new cheque-book, too, had arrived with the bank-book. That was useful.
She waited till she heard the study door open, and Nora come upstairs, followed soon by the slow and weary step of Uncle Ewen. Connie had already lowered her gas before Nora reached the top landing.
The house was very soon silent. Connie turned her light on again, and waited. By the time Big Ben had struck one o’clock, she thought it would be safe to venture.