The Green Jacket/Chapter 12
XII
Dinner over, Milly turned off the gas and opened the doors again and sat for a while in the half-dusk of the room knitting, wondering whether it would be well to make some pretense of work serve as an opportunity for a little talk with Mrs. Mason before going to bed.
The sounds of dinner were long since over; even the final stir of clearing away had subsided, and the butler's stout figure hovering through the lower rooms, turning off lights here and there, had withdrawn. The house had settled to quiet.
If she went up to Mrs. Mason's room now, she could speak with her before she went to bed. . . . She wanted to know about the woman who brought in her meals. The look in the woman's face teased and baffled her. A few casual words with Mrs. Mason might clear up the situation and leave her mind free for better uses. She rolled up her knit ting and was putting it away, when steps in the hall caught her ear; they passed on to the outer door at the end, and she heard the sound of the key turning in the lock, and then other steps hurrying down the hall and words of subdued protest, and the woman's wheezy voice:
"Miss Annie's in her room. She's tired and she's going to bed. She told me to lock it. You know she don't like this door open after she's in bed."
The butler's voice acquiesced and the steps retreated again, passing along the hall by her door. . . . She sat a minute longer, waiting, then she took up the pile of mending she had finished. She would leave it at Mrs. Mason's room on the way to bed. If things were favorable, she would talk with her for a few minutes.
The door of the room was open as she approached, the light shining out into the hall; and she had raised her hand to rap lightly on the side of the door before she saw that the room was empty. The door of the dressing-room beyond was slightly ajar, and from the room came a muffled sound that caused her to withdraw her hand and stand motionless. The sound grew to a woman's voice crying softly in little wheezy sobs:
"I tell you, Miss Annie, I don't like her! I don't like her looks!"
Then Mrs. Mason's voice in gentle expostulation, and the woman's voice again, a little higher:
"You know how I am, Miss Annie—how I feel things—about folks! I don't like that woman in the house!" The voice rose higher and shriller, and Mrs. Mason's broke across it sharply:
"Hush, Margaret!"
Then the voices dropped to a murmur.
Milly crossed the room quickly. The pile of work on her arm must serve as an excuse if they came out. . . . She must hear what was being said in the low, rapid tones that went on behind the half-closed door.
It was Mrs. Mason speaking, and the tense words drove a little shock of surprise to Milly's listening ear: "You must trust me, Margaret, to do what is best! It is all right. The woman is really a detective!"
"Oh—Miss Annie!" The voice wheezed and gasped and was silent a little.
"Can't you send her away?" she pleaded softly.
Her mistress's voice was firm: "I do not wish to send her away—I want her to find the necklace."
"But, Miss Annie, suppose she—" The voice dropped to a long, low murmur.
"Be quiet!" said her mistress sternly, and the voices dropped again to low, half-whispered words that not even Milly's trained ear could distinguish.
She reached her hand to the door and rapped sharply.
There was a sudden silence.
Then, after a minute, the door opened slowly. Mrs. Mason stood in it, her loose gown gathered up to her breast, a half-frightened look on her pale face.
When she saw who it was, the look vanished—it gave way to quick relief.
"Oh—it is you!" She whispered the words. "Come in!" She reached out a hand and half drew the detective into the room and closed the door upon them.
The other woman, across the room, stood gazing sullenly at her under lowered lids.
"Come here, Margaret!" said her mistress. She spoke peremptorily. But when the woman crossed to her she laid a hand on the clumsy shoulder almost affectionately, it seemed to the detective.
"Margaret Campbell," she said quietly, "cares for me more than for any one in the world, I think."
The woman's face softened subtly under Milly's eye.
"She was afraid for me," went on Mrs. Mason, smiling and patting the thick shoulder gently. "And I have just been telling her who you are. You need not mind her knowing. She is true as steel."
The woman lifted a quick glance to Milly's face. The hostility in it had given way and a look almost of exaltation replaced it. The dull eyes glowed a little.
"I knew you was something different!" she cried. "I feel things—here!" She put her ample hand on her wheezing chest and nodded slowly. "I knew you was different!" she said.
Milly looked at her quietly. "You knew it when you tried the door this afternoon?" She motioned to the adjoining room, and the woman's quick eyes regarded her incredulously.
"Did you hear that?" she demanded.
"I saw it," corrected Milly. "I thought then it might be you. . . . I hope you can keep a secret?" She was looking at her with direct glance.
"Margaret will not tell!" said her mistress quickly. "I have known Margaret a long time. I would trust her with—anything."
Something odd in the words caught Milly's ear—hardly a breath, nothing she could define. The chief thing she was conscious of, standing and looking at the two women so unlike in every way, was that some hidden bond existed between them, and that the servant could be trusted to be loyal to her mistress.
She turned to her. "You can help us," she said, "if you are trustworthy. I need to know about the others in the house—the other servants. You can tell me."
"The other servants are all right," said the woman sullenly.
"I do not doubt that. But I want to know about them—what connections they have outside the house. And I want to know everything that has happened in the house in the last three years." She spoke with slow emphasis. . . . Was it fancy, or did a swift, half-frightened look flit from the woman to her mistress?
"You can go now," said Mrs. Mason quietly.
"I was going to help you," protested the woman.
"No. I do not need you any more to night. Go now." Her eyes followed the clumsy figure to the door. They turned to Milly.
"She is the soul of devotion!" she murmured.
"I can see that," said Milly briefly. "But why did she suspect me?"
"She is Scotch. She has premonitions. I suppose she is what is called psychic."
They both smiled at the incongruous word and at the clumsy figure so ill-suited to it.
But Mrs. Mason stayed her smile with a half-gesture of reproach. "I am ashamed—to laugh at her! She is like some great faithful animal. She stands guard over me, and nothing will ever hurt me that Margaret can prevent. She has been with me ever since I was a child. When I married and came here they could not keep her from coming with me. . . . At first she was cook and general maid, and then, when we moved to this house and there was more to do and more servants, she became a kind of general housekeeper for me. She does what she chooses, practically. I depend on her entirely. . . . I think if any danger or illness were coming to me, she would know it long before I should."
"But she suspects good as well as ill, apparently. She thought I was going to do you harm." She was looking intently at the woman, who flushed a little.
"She had the feeling, I suppose, that you are not what you appear to be, and it troubled her. . . . Yes. She made a mistake this time." She spoke a little wearily and put up her hand to smooth back the hair that had fallen over her forehead.
"I am very tired," she said. "I have wanted so much all day to talk with you. I keep thinking of things I must tell you."
"To-morrow you shall tell me. You are tired now. You must go to bed."
"Very well." The woman spoke wearily. Then she leaned forward. Her manner changed subtly. "You have not found anything yet, have you?" She asked it almost eagerly. And in her loose robe of wine-red silk, the loosened hair drooping a little about her face, and the quick light in her eyes, there was something vivid and strange.
Milly had a sudden sense that a man would care to give jewels to a woman like this—fine-grained, polished, dull-red stones that would flash with quick gleams when you lifted them in the light.
"You did not find anything?" said the woman again.
And Milly shook her head. "It is not so easy as that—finding things! I wish it were. Sometimes I think it is as hard to catch a thief—as to paint a picture, or write a poem!" she said laughingly.
"A poem?" repeated the woman, with puzzled eyes. "A—poem?"
"Yes. For days you think and feel and look, and nothing happens, and then, all in a minute, you have it in your head— And your poem is done!" She laughed again.
A little sound like a sigh sped from the woman's lips. "I had not thought it was like that!" she said. "I thought you measured foot-tracks and used a microscope and took away pieces of dust to analyze. That is what the others did."
"Who were the others?" asked Milly.
"Mr. Corbin and his men. We had them in, you know."
"Yes. . . . Mr. Corbin is a skilful detective." She added it almost defensively.
"That is what Mr. Mason said. He was determined to have him. . . . But he did not find anything."
Milly could have fancied there was something almost exultant in the look she cast at her. But before she could question it, the look had faded and the face in its loosened hair was only very tired and a little wistful and tragic above the dull-red robe.
"I will leave these," said Milly. She deposited the pile of mended garments she still carried on her arm, and the woman looked at them almost helplessly.
"You work so fast!" she murmured. "I cannot find enough to keep you busy!"
"Don't worry!" said Milly. "I shall not work so hard to-morrow. I want to have a good talk with you—if we can be by ourselves without attracting attention."
A look of relief crossed the woman's face. "I want so much to talk! There are things I have not told you. It will be easy to-morrow. My husband will be away all day. We have only to go to his room."
"His room?"
"The library—on this floor." She moved a hand toward the front of the house. "I often sit there when he is away. It has sound-proof walls and double doors. You cannot hear a sound in it."
The memory of the muffled resonance from a closing door came back to Milly.
"Does your husband use the room when he is here?"
"Always! He goes to it and shuts himself in. . . . It has been like that for two years now!" She held out her hands in a helpless gesture. "Oh, you must help me!" she said.
"I shall help you," said Milly. "Already I begin to see things more clearly. Good night."
The woman's eyes searched and held her a little wistfully. "Good night," she said.
And as Milly passed up the stairs to her room, the dark, vivid face followed her and the eyes questioned her, half-doubtingly, and somewhere far in behind, it seemed to Milly, a look of fear hid itself.