Dashing to the door, I looked over the bal.u.s.trades. The shrieks and calls came from Lettice Lane, who was stumbling up the stairs from the hall. Cattledon opened her door in her night-cap, saw me, and shut it again with a bang.
"Murder! robbers! thieves!" shrieked Lettice.
"But what is it, Lettice?" I cried, leaping down.
"Oh, Mr. Johnny, the house is robbed!--and we might just as well all have been murdered in our beds!"
Every one was appearing on the scene. Miss Deveen came fully dressed--she was often up before other people; Cattledon arrived in a white petticoat and shawl. The servants were running up from the kitchen.
Thieves had broken in during the night. The (so-called) breakfast-room at the back presented a scene of indescribable confusion. Everything in it was turned topsy-turvy, the secretary had been ransacked; the gla.s.s-doors stood open to the garden.
It seemed that Lettice, in pursuance of her morning"s duties, had gone to the room, and found it in this state. Lettice was of the excitable order, and went into shrieks. She stood now, sobbing and shaking, as she gave her explanation.
"When I opened the door and saw the room in this pickle, the window standing open, my very blood seemed to curdle within me. For all I knew the thieves might have done murder. Just look at the place, ma"am!--look at your secretary!"
It"s what we were all looking at. The sight was as good as moving house.
Chairs and footstools lay upside down, their chintz covers untied and flung off; the hearthrug was under the table; books were open, periodicals scattered about; two pictures had been taken from the wall and lay face downwards; every ornament was moved from the mantelpiece.
The secretary stood open; all its papers had been taken out, opened, and lay in a heap on the floor; and Janet Carey"s well-stocked work-box was turned bottom upwards, its contents having rolled anywhere.
"This must be your work, George," said Miss Cattledon, turning on the servant-man with a grim frown.
"Mine, ma"am!" he answered, amazed at the charge.
"Yes, yours," repeated Cattledon. "You could not have fastened the shutters last night; and that is how the thieves have got in."
"But I did, ma"am. I fastened them just as usual."
"Couldn"t be," said Cattledon decisively, who had been making her way over the _debris_ to examine the shutters. "They have not been forced in any way: they have simply been opened. The window also."
"And neither window nor shutters could be opened from the outside without force," remarked Miss Deveen. "I fear, George, you must have forgotten this room when you shut up last night."
"Indeed, ma"am, I did not forget it," was the respectful answer. "I a.s.sure you I bolted the window and barred the shutters as I always do."
Janet Carey, standing in mute wonder like the rest of us, testified to this. "When I came in here last night to get a needle and thread to mend Miss Whitney"s dress, I am sure the shutters were shut: I noticed that they were."
Cattledon would not listen. She had taken up her own opinion of George"s neglect, and sharply told Janet not to be so positive. Janet looked frightfully white and wan this morning, worse than a ghost.
"Oh, goodness!" cried Helen Whitney, appearing on the scene. "If ever I saw such a thing!"
"I never did--in all my life," cried Cattledon.
"Have you lost any valuables from the secretary, Miss Deveen?"
"My dear Helen, there were no valuables in the secretary to lose," was Miss Deveen"s answer. "Sometimes I keep money in it--a little: but last night there happened to be none. Of course the thieves could not know that, and must have been greatly disappointed. If they did not come in through the window--why, they must have got in elsewhere."
Miss Deveen spoke in a dubious tone, that too plainly showed her own doubts on the point. George felt himself and his word reflected upon.
"If I had indeed forgotten this window last night, ma"am--though for me to do such a thing seems next door to impossible--I would confess to it at once. I can be upon my oath, ma"am, if put to it, that I made all secure here at dusk."
"Then, George, you had better look to your other doors and windows," was the reply of his mistress.
The other doors and windows were looked to: but no trace could be found of how the thieves got in. After breakfast, we succeeded in putting the room tolerably straight. The letters and bills took most time, for every one was lying open. And after it was all done, Miss Deveen came to the conclusion that nothing had been taken.
"Their object must have been money," she observed. "It is a good thing I happened to carry my cash-box upstairs yesterday. Sometimes I leave it here in the secretary."
"And was much in it?" one of us asked.
"Not very much. More, though, than one cares to lose: a little gold and a bank-note."
"A bank-note!" echoed Janet, repeating the words quickly. "_Is_ it safe?--are you sure, ma"am, the note is safe?"
"Well, I conclude it is," answered Miss Deveen with composure. "I saw the cash-box before I came down this morning. I did not look inside it."
"Oh, but you had better look," urged Janet, betraying some excitement.
"Suppose it should be gone! Can _I_ look, ma"am?"
"What nonsense!" exclaimed Helen. "If the cash-box is safe, the money must be safe inside it. The thieves did not go into Miss Deveen"s room, Janet Carey."
The servants wanted the police called in; but their mistress saw no necessity for it. Nothing had been carried off, she said, and therefore she should take no further trouble. Her private opinion was that George, in spite of his a.s.sertions, must have forgotten the window.
It seemed a curious thing that the thieves had not visited other rooms.
Unless, indeed, the door of this one had been locked on the outside, and they were afraid to risk the noise of forcing it: and no one could tell whether the key had been turned, or not. George had the plate-basket in his bed-chamber; but on the sideboard in the dining-room stood a silver tea-caddy and a small silver waiter: how was it they had not walked off with these two articles? Or, as the cook said, why didn"t they rifle her larder? She had various tempting things in it, including a fresh-boiled ham.
"Janet Carey has been ill all the afternoon," observed Anna, when I and Helen got home before dinner, for we had been out with Miss Deveen. "I think she feels frightened about the thieves, for one thing."
"Ill for nothing!" returned Helen slightingly. "Why should she be frightened any more than we are? The thieves did not hurt her. I might just as well say I am ill."
"But she has been really ill, Helen. She has a shivering-fit one minute and is sick the next. Cattledon says she must have caught cold yesterday, and is cross with her for catching it."
"Listen," said Helen, lowering her voice. "I can"t get it out of my head that that old fortune-teller must have had to do with it. She must have seen the secretary and may have taken note of the window fastenings. I am in a state over it: as you both know, it was I who had her up."
Janet did not come down until after dinner. She was pale and quiet, but not less ready than ever to do what she could for every one. Helen had brought home some ferns to--transfer, I think she called it. Janet at once offered to help her. The process involved a large hand-basin full of water, and Miss Deveen sent the two girls into the breakfast-parlour, not to make a mess in the drawing-room.
"Well, my dears," said Miss Deveen, when she had read the chapter before bed-time, "I hope you will all sleep well to-night, and that we shall be undisturbed by thieves. Not that they disturbed us last night," she added, laughing. "Considering all things, I"m sure they were as polite and considerate thieves as we could wish to have to do with."
Whether the others slept well I cannot say: I know I did. So well that I never woke at all until the same cries from Lettice disturbed the house as on the previous morning. The thieves had been in again.
Downstairs we went, as quickly as some degree of dressing allowed, and found the breakfast-room all confusion, the servants all consternation: the window open as before; the furniture turned about, the ornaments and pictures moved from their places, the books scattered, the papers of the secretary lying unfolded in a heap on the carpet, and a pair of embroidered slippers of Helen Whitney"s lying in the basin of water.
"What an extraordinary thing!" exclaimed Miss Deveen, while the rest of us stood in silent amazement.
Lettice"s tale was the same as the previous one. Upon proceeding to the room to put it to rights, she found it thus, and its shutters and gla.s.s-doors wide open. There was no trace, except here, of the possible entrance or exit of thieves: all other fastenings were secure as they had been left over-night; other rooms had not been disturbed; and, more singular than all, nothing appeared to have been taken. What could the thieves be seeking?
"Shall you call in the police now, ma"am?" asked Cattledon, her tone implying that they ought to have been called in before.
"Yes, I shall," emphatically replied Miss Deveen.
"Oh!" shrieked Helen, darting in, after making a hasty and impromptu toilet, "look at my new slippers!"