audrey and miss ingate were in the late mathew moze’s study, fascinated—as much unconsciously as consciously—by the thing which since its owner’s death had grown every hour more mysterious and more formidable—the safe. it was a fine afternoon. the secondary but still grandiose enigma of the affair, mr. cowl, could be heard walking methodically on the gravel in the garden. mr. cowl was the secretary of the national reformation society.
suddenly the irregular sound of crunching receded.
“he’s gone somewhere else,” said audrey.
“i’m so relieved,” said miss ingate. “i hope he’s gone a long way off.”
“are you?” murmured audrey, with an air of surprised superiority.
but in secret audrey felt just as relieved as miss ingate, despite the fact that, her mother being prostrate, she was the mistress of the situation, and could have ordered mr. cowl to leave, with the certainty of being obeyed. she was astonished at her illogical sensations, and she had been frequently so astonished in the previous four days.
for example, she was free; she knew that she could impose herself on her mother; never again would she be the slave of an unreasoning tyrant; yet she was gloomy and without hope. she had hated the unreasoning tyrant; yet she felt very sorry for him because he was dead. and though she felt very sorry for him, she detested hearing the panegyrics upon him of the village, and particularly of those persons with whom he had quarrelled; she actually stopped miss ingate in the midst of an enumeration of his good qualities—his charm, his smile, his courtesy, his integrity, et cetera; she could not bear it. she thought that no child had ever had such a strange attitude to a deceased parent as hers to mr. moze. she had anticipated the inquest with an awful dread; it proved to be a trifle, and a ridiculous trifle. in the long weekly letter which she wrote to her adored school-friend ethel at manningtree she had actually likened the coroner to a pecking fowl! was it possible that a daughter could write in such a strain about the inquest on her father’s body?
the funeral had seemed a function by itself, with some guidance from the undertaker and still more from mr. cowl. villagers and district acquaintances had been many at the ceremony, but relatives rare. mr. moze’s four younger brothers were all in the colonies; mrs. moze had apparently no connections. madame piriac, daughter of mr. moze’s first wife by that lady’s first husband, had telegraphed sympathies from paris. a cousin or so had come in person from woodbridge for the day.
it was from the demeanour of these cousins, grave men twice her age or more, that audrey had first divined her new importance in the world. their deference indicated that in their opinion the future mistress of flank hall was not mrs. moze, but audrey. audrey admitted that they were right. yet she took no pleasure in issuing commands. she spoke firmly, but she said to herself: “there is no backbone to this firmness, and i am a fraud.” she had always yearned for responsibility, yet now that it was in her hand she trembled, and she would have dropped it and run away from it as from a bomb, had she not been too cowardly to show her cowardice.
the instance of aguilar, the head-gardener and mechanic, well illustrated her pusillanimity. she loathed aguilar; her mother loathed him; the servants loathed him. he had said at the inquest that the car was in perfect order, but that mr. moze was too excitable to be a good driver. his evidence was true, but the jury did not care for his manner. nor did the village. he had only two good qualities—honesty and efficiency; and these by their rarity excited jealousy rather than admiration. audrey strongly desired to throw the gardener-mechanic upon the world; it nauseated her to see his disobliging face about the garden. but he remained scathless, to refuse demanded vegetables, to annoy the kitchen, to pronounce the motor-car utterly valueless, and to complain of his own liver. audrey had legs; she had a tongue; she could articulate. neither wish nor power was lacking in her to give aguilar the supreme experience of his career. and yet she did not walk up to him and say: “aguilar, please take a week’s notice.” why? the question puzzled her and lowered her opinion of herself.
she was similarly absurd in the paramount matter of the safe. the safe could not be opened. the village, having been thrilled by four stirring days of the most precious and rare fever, had suffered much after the funeral from a severe reaction of dullness. it would have suffered much more had the fact not escaped that the safe could not be opened. in the deep depression of the day following the funeral the village could still say to itself: “romance and excitement are not yet over, for the key of the moze safe is lost, and the will is in the safe!”
the village did not know that there were two keys to the safe and that they were both lost. nobody knew that except audrey and miss ingate and mr. cowl. the official key was lost because mr. moze’s key-ring was lost. the theory was that it had been jerked out of his pocket in the accident. persistent search for it had been unsuccessful. as for the unofficial or duplicate key, audrey could not remember where she had put it after her burglary, the conclusion of which had been disturbed by miss ingate. at one moment she was quite sure that she had left the key in the safe, but at another moment she was equally sure that she was holding the key in her right hand (the bank-notes being in her left) when miss ingate entered the room; at still another moment she was almost convinced that before miss ingate’s arrival she had run to the desk and slipped the key back into its drawer. in any case the second key was irretrievable. she discussed the dilemma very fully with miss ingate, who had obligingly come to stay in the house. they examined every aspect of the affair, except audrey’s guiltiness of theft, which both of them tacitly ignored. in the end they decided that it might be wiser not to conceal audrey’s knowledge of the existence of a second key; and they told mr. cowl, because he happened to be at hand. in so doing they were ill-advised, because mr. cowl at once acted in a characteristic and inconvenient fashion which they ought to have foreseen.
on the day before the funeral mr. cowl had telegraphed from some place in devonshire that he should represent the national reformation society at the funeral, and asked for a bed, on the pretext that he could not get from devonshire to moze in time for the funeral if he postponed his departure until the next morning. the telegram was quite costly. he arrived for dinner, a fat man about thirty-eight, with chestnut hair, a low, alluring voice, and a small handbag for luggage. miss ingate thought him very interesting, and he was. he said little about the national reformation society, but a great deal about the late mr. moze, of whom he appeared to be an intimate friend; presumably the friendship had developed at meetings of the society. after dinner he strolled nonchalantly to the sideboard and opened a box of the deceased’s cigars, and suggested that, as he was well acquainted with the brand, having often enjoyed the hospitality of mr. moze’s cigar-case, he should smoke a cigar now to the memory of the departed. miss ingate then began to feel alarmed. he smoked four cigars to the memory of the departed, and on retiring ventured to take four more for consumption during the night, as he seldom slept.
in the morning he went into the bathroom at eight o’clock and remained there till noon, reading and smoking in continually renewed hot water. he descended blandly, begged miss moze not to trouble about his breakfast, and gently assumed a certain control of the funeral. after the funeral he announced that he should leave on the morrow; but the mystery of the safe held him to the house. when he heard of the existence of the second key he organised and took command of a complete search of the study, and in the course of the search he inspected every document in the study. he said he knew that the deceased had left a legacy to the society, and he should not feel justified in quitting moze until the will was found.
now in these circumstances audrey ought certainly to have telegraphed to her father’s solicitor at chelmsford at once. in the alternative she ought to have hired a safe-opening expert or a burglar from colchester. she had accomplished neither of these downright things. with absolute power, she had done nothing but postpone. she wondered at herself, for up to her father’s death she had been a great critic of absolute power.
the heavy policemanish step of mr. cowl was heard on the landing.
“he’s coming down on us!” exclaimed miss ingate, partly afraid, and partly ironic at her own fear. “i’m sure he’s coming down on us. audrey, i liked that man at first, but now i tremble before him. and i’m sure his moustache is dyed. can’t you ask him to leave?”
“is his moustache dyed, winnie? oh, what fun!”
miss ingate’s apprehension was justified. there was a knock at the study door, discreet, insistent, menacing, and it was mr. cowl’s knock. he entered, smiling gravely and yet, as it were, teasingly. his easy bigness, florid and sinister, made a disturbing contrast with the artless and pure simplicity of audrey in her new black robe, and even with miss ingate’s pallid maturity, which, after all, was passably innocent and ingenuous. mr. cowl resembled a great beast good-humouredly lolloping into the cage in which two rabbits had been placed for his diversion and hunger.
pulling a key from the pocket of his vast waistcoat, he said in his quiet voice, so seductive and ominous:
“is this the key of the safe?”
he offered it delicately to audrey.
it was the key of the safe.
“did they find it in the ditch?” audrey demanded, blushing, for she knew that the key had not been found in the ditch; she knew by a certain indentation on it that it was the duplicate key which she herself had mislaid.
“no,” said mr. cowl. “i found it myself, and not in the ditch. i remembered you had said that you had changed at the dressmaker’s in the village and had left there an old frock.”
“did i?” murmured audrey, with a deeper blush.
mr. cowl nodded.
“i had the happy idea that you might have had the key and left it in the pocket of the frock. so i trotted down to the dressmaker’s and asked for the frock, in your name, and lo! the result!”
he pointed to the key lying in audrey’s long hand.
“but how should i have had the key, mr. cowl? why should i have had the key?” audrey burst out like a simpleton.
“that, miss moze,” said he, with a peculiar grin and in an equally peculiar tone, “is a matter about which obviously you are better informed than i am. shall we try the key?”
with a smooth undeniable gesture he took the key again from audrey, and bent his huge form to open the safe. as he did so miss ingate made a sarcastic and yet affrighted face at audrey, and audrey tried to send a signal in reply, but failed, owing to imperfect self-control. however, she managed to say to mr. cowl’s curved back:
“you couldn’t have found the key in the pocket of my old frock, mr. cowl.”
“and why?” he inquired benevolently, raising and turning his chestnut head. even in that exciting instant audrey could debate within herself whether or not his superb moustache was dyed.
“because it has no pocket.”
“so i discovered,” said mr. cowl, after a little pause. “i merely stated that i had the happy idea—for it proved to be a happy idea—that you might have left the key in the pocket. i discovered it, as a fact, in a slit of the lining of the belt.... conceivably you had slipped it in there—in a hurry.” he put strange implications into the last three words. “yes, it is the authentic key,” he concluded, as the door of the safe swung heavily and silently open.
audrey, for the first time, felt rather like a thief as she beheld the familiar interior of the safe which a few days earlier she had so successfully rifled. “is it possible,” she thought, “that i really took bank-notes out of that safe, and that they are at this very moment in my bedroom between the leaves of ‘pictures of palestine’?”
mr. cowl was cautiously fumbling among the serried row of documents which, their edges towards the front, filled the steel shelf above the drawers. audrey had never experienced any curiosity concerning the documents. lucre alone had interested the base creature. no documents would have helped her to freedom. but now she thought apprehensively: “my fate may be among those documents.” she was quite prepared to learn that her father had done something silly in his will.
“this resembles a testament,” said mr. cowl, smiling to himself, and pulling out a foolscap scrip, folded and endorsed. “yes. dated last year.”
he unfolded the document; a letter slipped from the interior of it; he placed the letter on the small occasional table next to the desk, and offered the will to audrey with precisely the same gesture as he had offered the key.
audrey tried to decipher the will, and completely failed.
“will you read it, miss ingate?” she muttered.
“i can’t! i can’t!” answered miss ingate in excitement. “i’m sure i can’t. i never could read wills. they’re so funny, somehow. and i haven’t got my spectacles.” she flushed slightly.
“may i venture to tell you what it contains?” mr. cowl suggested. “there can be no indiscretion on my part, as all wills after probate are public property and can be inspected by any tom, dick or harry for a fee of one shilling.”
he took the document and gazed at it intently, turning over a page and turning back, for an extraordinarily long time.
audrey said to herself again and again, with exasperated impatience: “he knows now, and i don’t know. he knows now, and i don’t know. he knows now, and i don’t know.”
at length mr. cowl spoke:
“it is a perfectly simple will. the testator leaves the whole of his property to mrs. moze for life, and afterwards to you, miss moze. there are only two legacies. ten pounds to james aguilar, gardener. and the testator’s shares in the zacatecas oil development corporation to the national reformation society. i may say that the testator had expressed to me his intention of leaving these shares to the society. we should have preferred money, free of legacy duty, but the late mr. moze had a reason for everything he did. i must now bid you good-bye, ladies,” he went on strangely, with no pause. “miss moze, will you convey my sympathetic respects to your mother and my thanks for her most kind hospitality? my grateful sympathies to yourself. good-bye, miss ingate.... er, miss ingate, why do you look at me in that peculiar way?”
“well, mr. cowl, you’re a very peculiar man. may i ask whether you were born in this part of the country?”
“at clacton, miss ingate,” answered mr. cowl imperturbably.
“i knew it,” said miss ingate, and the corners of her lips went sardonically down.
“please don’t trouble to come downstairs,” said mr. cowl. “my bag is packed. i have tipped the parlourmaid, and there is just time to catch the train,”
he departed, leaving the two women speechless.
after a moment, miss ingate said dryly:
“he was so very peculiar i knew he must belong to these parts.”
“how did he know i left my blue frock at miss pannell’s?” cried audrey. “i never told him.”
“he must have been eavesdropping!” cried miss ingate. “he never found the key in your frock. he must have found it here somewhere; i feel sure it must have dropped by the safe, and i lay anything he had opened the safe before and read the will before. i could tell from the way he looked.”
“and why should he suppose that i’d the key?” audrey put in.
“eavesdropping! i’m convinced that man knows too much.” audrey reddened once more. “i believe he thought you’d be capable of burning the will. that’s why he made you handle it in his presence and mine.”
“well, winnie,” said audrey, “i think you might have told him all that while he was here, instead of letting him go off so triumphant.”
“i did begin to,” said miss ingate with a snigger. “but you wouldn’t back me up, you little coward.”
“i shall never be a coward again!” audrey said violently.
they read the will together. they had no difficulty at all in comprehending it now that they were alone.
“i do think it’s a horrid shame aguilar should have that ten pounds,” said audrey. “but otherwise i don’t care. you can’t guess how relieved i am, winnie. i imagined the most dreadful things. i don’t know what i imagined. but now we shall have all the property and everything, just as much as ever there was, and only me and mother to spend it.” audrey danced an embryonic jig. “won’t i keep mother in order! winnie, i shall make her go with me to paris. i’ve always wanted to know that madame piriac—she does write such funny english in her letters.”
“what’s that you’re saying?” murmured miss ingate, who had picked up the letter which mr. cowl had laid on the small table.
“i say i shall make mother go to paris with me.”
“you won’t,” said miss ingate. “because she won’t go. i know your mother better than you do.... oh! audrey!”
audrey saw miss ingate’s face turn scarlet from the roots of her hair to her chin.
miss ingate had dropped the letter. audrey snatched it.
“my dear moze,” the letter ran. “i send you herewith a report of the meeting of the great mexican oil company at new york. you will see that they duly authorised the contract by which the zacatecas oil corporation transfers our property to them in exchange for shares at the rate of four great mexican shares for one zacatecas share. as each of the development syndicate shares represents ten of the corporation shares, and as on my recommendation you put £4,500 into the syndicate, you will therefore own 180,000 great mexican shares. they are at present above par. mark my words, they will be worth from seven to ten dollars apiece in a year’s time. i think you now owe me a good turn, eh?”
the letter was signed with a name unknown to either of them, and it was dated from coleman street, e.c.
