The Countess nodded and smiled gaily. She was master of herself once more. Beatrice stepped out of the room and followed Adeline at a safe distance to the end of the stairs. So far as she knew to the contrary a confederate might be lingering about waiting for a signal. Surely enough, General Gastang was loitering in the hall smoking a cigarette.
But he seemed to be powerless now, for he made no sign, and with a sigh of relief Beatrice saw Adeline emerge presently from the office minus the cases which she had previously carried.
"Now, I fancy I have finished my business for the evening," Beatrice said. "I have been thinking over the very kind offer you made to me a little time ago. You can hardly understand how anybody as lonely as myself appreciates such kindness as yours."
The Countess raised her hands as if to ward off the grat.i.tude. They were slim hands with many rings upon them, as Beatrice did not fail to notice.
And on the finger of the left hand something was hanging that looked like a wisp of silk thread.
"Excuse me," Beatrice said, "you have something attached to one of your rings. Let me remove it for you. That is all right. It seems very strange, but----"
Beatrice checked herself suddenly and walked rapidly across the room.
She had made what in the light of recent events was a startling discovery. At first she had imagined that the long silken fluff was attached to one of the rings, but this her quick eyes had proved to be a mistake. On one of the slim fingers of the Countess was a thick smear of wax.
Beatrice could see a little of it sticking to the palm of the hand now.
She understood what this meant. That neat little woman was by no means the sort of person to dabble habitually in tricks of that kind, and Beatrice suddenly recollected that wax was used for taking impressions of locks and keys and the like. But surely there could be nothing worth all that trouble in this room, she thought. Nor would anything of that kind have been necessary to get possession of the jewels. Besides, if any waxen impression of anything had been taken, Stephen Richford would have done it. Just for a moment it occurred to Beatrice that it would be a good idea to change her room, but she dismissed the impulse as cowardly, and besides, the manager had advised her that he had not another room at his disposal in the hotel.
Still, she was on her guard now, and she made up her mind to slumber lightly to-night. After all the exciting events of the day, it was not likely that she would sleep at all. And yet she felt very dull and heavy; she could think of nothing to say, so that the Countess rose presently and proclaimed the fact that she was quite ready for bed herself.
"I am selfish," she said. "I am keeping you up, for which I should be ashamed of myself. Good-night, my dear, and pleasant dreams to you."
The speaker flitted away with a smile and a kiss of her jewelled fingers. Beatrice drew a long sigh of relief to find herself alone once more.
She locked the door carefully and commenced a thorough examination of the room. It was some time before her quick eyes gave her any clue to the meaning of the wax on the Countess"s hands. Then she found it at last. There was another of the silken threads hanging on the lock of the door leading to the room where Sir Charles lay. On the official seal placed there by the police officers was a tiny thread of silk. It was not attached to the seal in any way. It came away in Beatrice"s hands when she pulled it, as if it had been fixed there by gum. Beatrice knew better than that. On the silk was wax, as she discovered when her hand touched it. A piece of soft white wax had been pressed on the seal, and had left strong traces behind.
Now, what did this strange mystery mean? Beatrice asked herself. Why did anybody require an impression of that seal? What object could anyone have in getting into the room where the dead man lay? The more Beatrice asked herself this question the more puzzled did she become. She thought it over till her head ached and her eyes grew heavy. So engrossed was she that she quite failed to notice several little impatient knocks at the door. Then the girl came to herself with a start, and opened the door to admit her maid, as she expected.
But it was not Adeline come back, but the Countess with a dazzling white silk wrap over her shoulders. She was profoundly apologetic, but what was she to do? Her maid had been taken ill and she had been commanded to bed by a doctor. The Countess was very sorry for Marie, but she had a little sympathy left for herself. It was impossible for her to unhook the back of her dress. Would Beatrice be so kind as to do it for her?
"Of course I will," Beatrice said. "It is awkward being without a maid.
Let me shut the door."
It was no great task that Beatrice had set herself, but it was not rendered any more easy because the Countess pranced about the room as if unable to keep still. She held in her hand a smelling bottle with a powerful perfume that Beatrice had never smelt before. It was sweet yet pungent, and carried just a suggestion of a tonic perfume with it. But the task was accomplished at length.
"I fancy that is all you require," Beatrice said. "What scent is that you are using?"
"It is some new stuff from Paris," the Countess said carelessly. "It is supposed to be the most marvellous thing for headaches in the wide world. Personally, I find it a little too strong. Do you like perfumes?"
"I am afraid they are a weakness of mine," Beatrice confessed. "It is very silly, I know, but it is so."
The Countess removed the gla.s.s stopper from the bottle.
"Try it, if you like," she said. "Only you must not take too much of it at first."
Beatrice placed the bottle to her nostrils. A delicious thrill pa.s.sed through her veins. All sense of fatigue had gone; she felt conscious of only one thing, and that was the desire to lie down and sleep. In a dreamy way she watched the Countess depart and close the door behind her; then she crossed over to the bed and lay on it just as she was--her thoughts seemed to be steeped in sunshine.
When Beatrice awoke at length, it was broad daylight, and Adeline was leaning over her. The girl"s face was white and her lips unsteady.
"I am glad you have come round, Miss," she said. "You wouldn"t believe the trouble I have had to arouse you, and you such a light sleeper as a rule. Don"t you feel well?"
"I never felt better in my life," Beatrice said. "I have slept for hours and hours. But it is for me to ask if you don"t feel well, Adeline. Your face is so curiously white and your lips tremble. What is it? Has something happened? But that is quite out of the question. All the dreadful things came together yesterday. Tell me, what time is it, Adeline?"
"It"s a little past ten, Miss," Adeline said in a low voice that shook a little. "On and off, I have been trying to wake you since eight o"clock.
And there is a gentleman to see you in the sitting-room as soon as you have time--two gentlemen, in fact."
Beatrice asked no further questions, though she could see from Adeline"s manner that something out of the common had taken place. But Beatrice felt curiously strong and steady to-day. It seemed impossible that fate could have anything worse in store than had already befallen her. With a firm step she went into the sitting-room where two men rose and bowed gravely. One she recognized as the inspector of police who had come after the tragedy yesterday, the other was Dr. Andrews.
"You sent for me, gentlemen?" she said quietly. "It is a matter of the inquest, of course? Will you have to call me? I am afraid I can give you no information--my father never had anything the matter with him as far as I know. If you could spare me the pain----"
Dr. Andrews nodded gravely; he seemed unable to speak for the moment.
"It is not that," he said quietly. "If we spare you one pain we give you another. Miss Darryll, I should say Mrs. Richford, a terrible thing has happened, a strange, weird thing. As you know, the inquest was to have been to-day. Events have rendered that utterly impossible. Please be brave."
"You will not have to complain of me on that score," Beatrice whispered.
"Then it is this. By some strange means, certain people entered Sir Charles"s room last night and carried him away. It is amazing, but the body of Sir Charles has disappeared!"
CHAPTER XI
Beatrice reached out a hand and steadied herself against a chair. Just for a moment the whole world seemed to be spinning around her. Brave and courageous as she was, these shocks, coming one after the other, had been too much for her. When she opened her eyes again she found that Mark Ventmore was standing by her side.
"Courage, darling," he whispered. "We seem to have come to the worst of everything. Whatever may be the result and meaning of this dastardly outrage, nothing can hurt your father."
The colour was slowly coming back into the girl"s pallid lips. With an effort she struggled for the possession of herself. She was alone in the world, she had a position that would cause most of her women friends to turn coldly from her, but Mark remained. And there was always the feeling that she had nothing further to fear from Stephen Richford.
"I can bear it all now," she said. "Tell me everything, please."
"Up to the present there is very little to say," Inspector Field observed. "I came here a little before ten this morning to open Sir Charles"s bedroom so as to be prepared for the visit of the jury and the coroner. After the decision arrived at by both doctors, of course the inquest to-day would have been quite formal. It would have been deferred for a few days pending the _post-mortem_ examination. I am putting it as delicately as possible."
"Oh, I know, I know," Beatrice said with a shudder. "Only it is a dreadful thing for a daughter to listen to. Will you go on, please?"
"In the course of my duty I have to see that the seals have not been tampered with. Of course in a large hotel like this, where guests are in the corridor all day and night, I never for a moment antic.i.p.ated anything wrong. Still, I examined the seals carefully and they appeared to me to be absolutely intact. With my sergeant we broke the seals and entered the room, the door of which was locked. Imagine our astonishment when we found that the body of the poor gentleman had vanished. In all the extraordinary cases that have ever come under my notice, I never recollect anything so amazing as this."
It was amazing, stupendous--so much so, that n.o.body spoke for a little time. Beatrice had taken a seat and sat waiting for somebody to ask questions. She was no longer dazed and frightened; her brain was working rapidly. It seemed to her that she would be able to throw a light on this mysterious disappearance presently.
"Are you quite sure that the seals are intact?" Mark asked.
"If you had asked me that question half an hour ago, I should have said most a.s.suredly so, sir," Field replied. "I looked carefully to see. We always do. How on earth a body could have been spirited away like this with people about till late, to say nothing of the night watchman going his rounds, and the night porter down below--but we need not go into that yet. My seals appeared to be in perfect order."
"But that really could not have been the fact," Mark persisted. "I fancy we can dispense with the idea that Sir Charles was removed by spiritual agency. Now, would it not have been possible for anyone to have taken an impression of the seals?"
"Just possible," Field admitted. "But what would have been the use of----"
"A great deal of use, it seems to me," Mark went on. "But I will come to that presently. Let us take one thing at a time. For some reason or other, those scoundrels have found it imperatively necessary to spirit away the body of Sir Charles. Perhaps they are afraid of the result of a _post-mortem_. That is another point we need not bother about for the present. Did you give any orders to the watchman here to keep an eye on that door?"
"Well, I did," Field admitted. "I particularly mentioned the seals, in case any very zealous housemaid, imagining that somebody had been disfiguring the doors, should remove them."