‘I found the house empty,’ he went on presently, recovering himself, ‘windows bolted and doors locked. I called her, and looked for her upstairs and down; but neither she nor the maid was at home. I was disappointed, of course; but I would not let myself be angry. I had told her I should be away till the end of the week, so she had a perfect right to go out if she wanted to. Finally I went into the drawing-room, meaning to wait there till she came in. But, somehow, I received a new impression of the house. It struck me as grubby, fusty, low-class. I wondered why I had never observed this before, or whether it was merely the effect of my disappointment at her absence. There were scraps of a torn-up letter on the carpet, for one thing, which I greatly disliked. I began to pick them up, and casually—I did not attempt to read it of course—I remarked the writing was in French. Then I thought I would smoke, to pass the time until she came back. I wanted something with which to cut off the end of my cigar, but found I had brought no penknife, so I rummaged in her little worktable for a pair of scissors. I could not find any in the top workbox part, and tried to pull out the square silk-covered drawer arrangement underneath, as I remembered often seeing her put her scissors away in it with her work. But the beastly thing was locked or jammed. Like a fool, I lost my temper over it, and dragged and poked till the catch gave and the drawer flew open. And—and, Brownlow, inside I saw a couple of white leather jewel-cases—oh! the whole thing was so incredible, such a profanation—it made me sick—stamped with a monogram and coronet. I recognised them at once. They belonged to my mother—own mother I mean’—
His tone grew fierce.
‘Not her Magnificence. Her hands have never touched, and touching defiled them, I am thankful to think.—These jewels would come to me, in the ordinary course of events, with certain other possessions of my mother’s, at my majority. Meanwhile they have always been kept in the strong-room at Hover. And, Brownlow—this is the point of the whole hateful business—they were among the valuables that scoundrel, Marsigli—you remember him, my step-mother’s beloved Italian butler?—made off with last year, and which by some to my mind incomprehensible stupidity on the part of the police—I have often talked it over with Fédore—have never yet been traced.’
‘Were the contents of the cases intact?’ I asked.
He hesitated.
‘No—’ he said at last, unwillingly, almost I thought despairingly—‘and that makes it all the more intolerable. The cases were empty; and from the position in which I found them it seemed to me they had been thrown into the drawer just anyhow, by a person in a frantic hurry—too great a hurry to make sure the drawer was actually locked. For, if it had been properly locked, it would not have given way so easily when I tried to force it. These signs of haste increased my fears, Brownlow. For think,’ he cried with sudden passion, ‘only think what it all points to, what it may all mean! How could these precious things of my mother’s have found their way into the drawer of Fédore’s worktable—unless? The conjunction of ideas would be positively grotesque if—if it were not so damnable.—Does not it occur to you what horrible possibilities are opened out?’
It did. I gauged those possibilities far more clearly than he, indeed, remembering my conversation with Warcop in the stables at Hover but a few weeks back. For was not Warcop’s theory in process of being proven up to the hilt? But how could I speak of either theory or proof to Hartover, distracted and tortured as he was? To do so would be incomparably cruel. No, I must play a waiting game still. The truth—or, to be exact, that which I firmly and increasingly believed to be the truth—must reach him by degrees, lest he should be driven into recklessness or violence. I would temporise, try to find excuses even, so as to retard rather than hasten the shock of that most ugly disclosure.
‘All which you tell me is very strange and perplexing,’ I said. ‘But do not let us be hurried into rash and possibly unjust conclusions. There may be some explanation which will put a very different complexion upon affairs. Have you asked for any?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘It was too soon to think of that. I could not meet her, could not trust myself to see or speak to her then. My one impulse was to get away, to get out of the house in which, as it seemed to me, I had been so shamelessly betrayed and tricked. I was half mad with rage and grief. For—ah! don’t you understand, Brownlow?—I do love her. Not as I loved Nellie Braithwaite. That was unique—a love more of the soul than the senses. Pure and clean as a wind of morning, blowing straight out of paradise. The love of my youth, of—in a way—my virginity; such as can never come twice in my or any man’s life.’
He stopped, a sob in his throat. But not for long. The floodgates were open—all the proud, wayward, undisciplined, sensitive nature in revolt.