The Silent House by Fergus Hume (ebook reader android .TXT) 📕

"Hold your tongue, woman!" said Lucian roughly, seeing that Diana looked as though about to faint. "Get on with your work!"

"I'm going; it's upstairs I'm sweeping," growled the crone, retreating. "You'll bring me to you if ye give a holler. I'll show ye round for a shilling."

"You shall have double if you leave us alone," said Lucian, pointing to the door.

Mrs. Kebby's blear eyes lighted up, and she leered amiably at the couple.

"I dessay it's worth two shillings," she said, chuckling hoarsely. "Oh, I'm not so old but what I don't know two turtle doves. He! he! To kiss over yer father's blood! Lawks! what a match 'twill be! He! he!"

Still laughing hoarsely, Mrs. Kebby, in the midst of her unholy joy, was pushed out of the door by Lucian, who immediately afterwards turned to see if Diana had overheard her ill-chosen and ominous words. But Miss Vrain, with a hard, white face, was leaning against the wall, and gave no sign of such knowledge. Her eyes were fixed on a dull-looking red stain of a dark hue, irregular in shape, and her hands the while were pressed closely against her bosom, as though she felt a cruel pain in her heart. With bloodless cheek and trembling lip the daughter looked upon the evidence of her father's death. Lucian was alarmed by her unnatural pallor.

"Miss Vrain!" he exclaimed, starting forward, "you are ill! Let me lead you out of this house."

"No!" said Diana, waving him back. "Not till we examine every inch of it; don't speak to me, please. I wish to use my eyes rather than my tongue."

Denzil, both as a lover and a friend, respected this emotion of the poor young lady, so natural under the circumstances; and in silence conducted her from room to room. All were empty and still dusty, for Mrs. Kebby's broom swept sufficiently light, and the footfalls of the pair echoed hollowly in the vast spaces.

Diana looked into every corner, examined every fireplace, attempted every window, but in no place could she find any extraneous object likely to afford a clue to the crime. They went down into the basement and explored the kitchen, the servant's parlour, the scullery, and the pantry, but with the same unsatisfactory result. The kitchen door, which led out into the back yard, showed signs of having been lately opened; but when Diana drew Lucian's attention to this fact, as the murderer having possibly entered thereby, he assured her that it had only lately been opened by the detective, Link, when he was searching for clues.

"I saw this door," added Lucian, striking it with his cane, "a week before your father was killed. He showed it to me himself, to prove that no one could have entered the house during his absence; and I was satisfied then, from the rusty condition of the bolts, and the absence of the key in the lock, that the door had not been opened—at all events, during his tenancy."

"Then how could those who killed him have entered?"

"That is what I wish to learn, Miss Vrain. But why do you speak in the plural?"

"Because I believe that Lydia and Ferruci killed my father."

"But I have proved to you that Mrs. Vrain remained at Bath."

"I know it," replied Diana quickly, "but she sent Ferruci up to kill my father, and I speak in the plural because I think—in a moral sense—she is as guilty as the Italian."

"That may be, Miss Vrain, but as yet we have not proved their guilt."

Diana made no answer, but, followed by Lucian, ascended to the upper part of the house, where they found Mrs. Kebby sweeping so vigorously that she had raised a kind of dust storm. As soon as she saw the couple she hobbled towards them to cajole them, if possible, into giving her money.

For a few moments Diana looked at her haughtily, not relishing the familiarity of the old dame, but unexpectedly she stepped forward with a look of excitement.

"Where did you get that ribbon?" she asked Mrs Kebby, pointing to a scrap of personal adornment on the neck of the rusty old creature.

"This?" croaked Mrs. Kebby. "I picked it up in the kitchen downstairs. It's a pretty red and yaller thing, but of no value, miss, so I don't s'pose you'll take it orf me."

Paying no attention to this whimpering, Diana twitched the ribbon out of the old woman's hands and examined it. It was a broad yellow ribbon of rich silk, spotted with red—very noticeably and evidently of foreign manufacture.

"It is the same!" cried Diana, greatly excited. "Mr. Denzil, I bought this ribbon myself in Florence!"

"Well," said Lucian, wondering at her excitement, "and what does that prove?"

"This: that a stiletto which my father bought in Florence, at the same time, has been used to kill him! I tied this ribbon myself round the handle of the stiletto!"

The silence which followed Diana's announcement regarding the ribbon and stiletto—for Lucian kept silence out of sheer astonishment—was broken by the hoarse voice of Mrs. Kebby:

"If ye want the ribbon, miss, I'll not say no to a shilling. With what your good gentleman promised, that will be three as I'm ready to take," and Mrs. Kebby held out a dirty claw for the silver.

"You'll sell it, will you!" cried out Diana indignantly, pouncing down on the harridan. "How dare you keep what isn't yours? If you had shown the detective this," shaking the ribbon in Mrs. Kebby's face, "he might have caught the criminal!"

"Pardon me," interposed Lucian, finding his voice, "I hardly think so, Miss Vrain; for no one but yourself could have told that the ribbon adorned the stiletto. Where did you see the weapon last?"

"In the library at Berwin Manor. I hung it up on the wall myself, by this ribbon."

"Are you sure it is the same ribbon?"

"I am certain," replied Diana emphatically. "I cannot be mistaken; the colour and pattern are both peculiar. Where did you find it?" she added, turning to Mrs. Kebby.

"In the kitchen, I tell ye," growled the old woman sullenly. "I only found it this blessed morning. 'Twas in a dark corner, near the door as leads down to the woodshed. How was I to know 'twas any good?"

"Did you find anything else?" asked Lucian mildly.

"No, I didn't, sir."

"Not a stiletto?" demanded Diana, putting the ribbon in her pocket.

"I don't know what's a stiletter, miss; but I didn't find nothing; and I ain't a thief, though some people as sets themselves above others by taking ribbons as doesn't belong to 'em mayn't be much good."

"The ribbon is not yours," said Diana haughtily.

"Yes it are! Findings is keepings with me!" answered Mrs. Kebby.

"Don't anger her," whispered Denzil, touching Miss Vrain's arm. "We may find her useful."

Diana looked from him to the old woman, and opened her purse, at the sight of which Mrs. Kebby's sour face relaxed. When Miss Vrain gave her half a sovereign she quite beamed with joy. "The blessing of heaven on you, my dear," she said, with a curtsey. "Gold! good gold! Ah! this is a brave day's work for me—thirteen blessed shillings!"

"Ten, you mean, Mrs. Kebby!"

"Oh, no, sir," cried Mrs. Kebby obsequiously, "the lady gave me ten, bless her heart, but you've quite forgot your three."

"I said two."

"Ah! so you did, sir. I'm a poor schollard at 'rithmetic."

"You're clever enough to get money out of people," said Diana, who was disgusted at the avarice of the hag. "However, for the present you must be content with what I have given you. If, in cleaning this house, you find any other article, whatever it may be, you shall have another ten shillings, on consideration that you take it at once to Mr. Denzil."

Mrs. Kebby, who was tying up the piece of gold in the corner of her handkerchief, nodded her old head with much complacency. "I'll do it, miss; that is, if the gentleman will pay on delivery. I like cash."

"You shall have cash," said Lucian, laughing; and then, as Diana intimated her intention of leaving the house, he descended the stairs in her company.

Miss Vrain kept silence until they were outside in the sunshine, when she cast an upward glance at the warm blue sky, dappled with light clouds.

"I am glad to be out of that house," she said, with a shudder. "There is something in its dark and freezing atmosphere which chills my spirits."

"It is said to be haunted, you know," said Lucian carelessly; then, after a pause, he spoke on the subject which was uppermost in his mind. "Now that you have this piece of evidence, Miss Vrain, what do you intend to do?"

"Make sure that I have made no mistake, Mr. Denzil. I shall go down to Berwin Manor this afternoon. If the stiletto is still hanging on the library wall by its ribbon, I shall admit my mistake; if it is absent, why then I shall return to town and consult with you as to what is best to be done. You know I rely on you."

"I shall do whatever you wish, Miss Vrain," said Lucian fervently.

"It is very good of you," replied the lady gratefully, "For I have no right to take up your time in this manner."

"You have every right—that is, I mean—I mean," stammered Denzil, thinking from the surprised look of Miss Vrain that he had gone too far at so early a stage of their acquaintance. "I mean that as a briefless barrister I have ample time at my command, and I shall only be too happy to place it and myself at your service. And moreover," he added in a lighter tone, "I have some selfish interest in the matter, also, for it is not every one who finds so difficult a riddle as this to solve. I shall never rest easy in my mind until I unravel the whole of this tangled skein."

"How good you are!" cried Diana, impulsively extending her hand. "It is as impossible for me to thank you sufficiently now for your kindness as it will be to reward you hereafter, should we succeed."

"As to my reward," said Lucian, retaining her hand longer than was necessary, "we can decide what I merit when your father's death is avenged."

Diana coloured and turned away her eyes, withdrawing her hand in the meantime from the too warm clasp of the young man. A sense of his meaning was suddenly borne in upon her by look and clasp, and she felt a maidenly confusion at the momentary boldness of this undeclared lover. However, with feminine tact she laughed off the hint, and shortly afterwards took her leave, promising to communicate as speedily as possible with Lucian regarding the circumstances of her visit to Bath.

The barrister wished to escort her back to the Royal John Hotel in Kensington, but Miss Vrain, guessing his feelings, would not permit this; so Lucian, hat in hand, was left standing in Geneva Square, while his divinity drove off in a prosaic hansom. With her went the glory of the sunlight, the sweetness of the spring; and Denzil, more in love than ever, sighed hugely as he walked slowly back to his lodgings.

For doleful moods, hard work and other interests are the sole cure; therefore, that same afternoon Lucian returned to explore the Silent House on his own account. It had struck him as suggestive that the parti-coloured ribbon to which Diana attached such importance should have been found in so out-of-the-way a corner as the threshold of the door which conducted to what Mrs. Kebby, with characteristic