Chapter FIFTEEN: The Bed Drawer

It was no exaggeration to say that since his uncle’s death Arthur Wilmot had lived under a strain that he thought at times would drive him mad. Neither his character nor his training fitted him for the ordeal through which he was passing. He had inherited from his mother, a highly-strung, nervous woman, that weakness of resistance which had made a surrender to the emotions of the moment seem natural and proper. Restraint, other than the restraint imposed by fear, he no more applied to the inclinations of maturity than he had to the tantrums of childhood. That Stella for one had not known him in his true character was entirely due to his confidence that the friendship between them would, in his own time, develop as he might direct. She did not know that their relationship had progressed on his side with the greatest caution. If in its earlier and longer period he had not given her the slightest hint that he was in love with her, it was because he had consciously avoided the compromising of his life. He thought he was acting “fairly.” He told himself as much. He honestly believed that in the course of their friendship she had offered him certain opportunities for guiding their relationship into a closer one, and when he had at last decided that she was made for him, and he had, in carefully chosen words, explained his intentions, her prompt refusal came in the nature of a thunderbolt from a clear sky.

His vanity did not allow him to believe that her answer was final. He treated her rejection lightly, knowing (and saying) that women are a little perverse and illogical on such occasions. After a further rejection it pleased him to assume an attitude of gentle resignation, a rôle which enabled him to return to the subject without any violent interruption of their intercourse.

Then came the tremendous moment when he had attempted to carry by assault all that he had failed to win by patience and blandishment. And the lash of her tongue, her studied contempt, her sheer indifference to his fine feelings, had produced the effect which high and unscalable peaks have upon mountaineers. Whether he loved her or hated her was not important; he loved himself very dearly, and, seeing himself robbed of something he desired, he gave to its object so great a value that life without its attainment seemed not worth while.

The coming of Andy Macleod, the frequent visits he paid to the Nelsons, the gossip that ran from servant to servant, these pushed him to the border-line of dementia. And to this was added the burden of his uncle’s death and the knowledge that suspicion might attach to himself. Third of the causes of his agony of mind was the uncertainty of his own material future. His uncle had financed him. What provision had he made for him in his will? Was there a will at all? He had been called into consultation both with Mr. Merrivan’s lawyer and with Inspector Dane, and no mention had been made of the discovery of such a document. Arthur was asked by both whether he knew of any safe deposit or other hiding-place where papers might be hidden. He had said “No,” yet once his uncle, in an expansive moment, had taken him into his bedroom and showed him such a place as the police were seeking.

When he asked Dane or Andy whether “anything had been found,” he had this in his mind. It was strange that Darius Merrivan should have shown it to him at all. They were not intimates, and Arthur often wondered why his uncle should have made such generous advances to him for investment in a business, the nature of which he never asked. That was the curious thing—Darius never asked, and once, when Arthur Wilmot, a little shamefaced, was on the point of advancing information, the elder man had cut him short.

He had never asked for interest or mentioned the money, and this circumstance had been the basis of his belief that Merrivan intended leaving his considerable fortune to him on his death.

His uncle had once asked him to keep secret the fact that he was married. But he would hardly have paid so heavily for a silence which the request of a relation would impose, particularly as the manner in which the marriage had ended had been so scandalous.

Arthur Wilmot waited until he saw Andy vanish into the hedges towards Nelsons, then crossed over to his uncle’s house.

“Mr. Macleod said that you might be coming over, Mr. Wilmot,” said the sergeant. “I suppose he told you that he doesn’t want you to go into the long room?”

Wilmot nodded and passed up the stairs.

Three of Mr. Merrivan’s servants had been sent home. They were all natives of Beverley and were available for the inquest. Two others Arthur had taken into his own establishment. They refused to sleep in the murder house, though they worked there during the day.

He went straight to Merrivan’s bedroom. At any moment Andy could learn that he had taken immediate advantage of the permission and might return to supervise his search. He stood at the open door listening to make sure that the sergeant had not followed him up, then, crossing the room, he knelt at the foot of the bed. He gripped the carved rose that marked the juncture of the sides with the stout footpost and screwed it quickly to the left. There was a click, he tugged, and a shield-shaped drawer came out. There were a number of papers, a small roll of banknotes fastened about with a rubber band, and a flat case containing a paper of some kind. He pushed them into his inside pocket, closed the drawer, and turned the carved rose. Was there another drawer behind the shield on the second footpost? He walked to the door and listened. Down below he heard the sergeant sneeze and went back to the bed. But here rose and shield were immovable. They were part of the solid embellishments of the furniture. He was trembling violently, anxious to get back to his own room, and yet fearful that his agitation would be visible to the observant police officer.

Looking in a mirror, he saw that his face was chalk-like in its pallor, and rubbed his cheeks vigorously. To give himself time to recover his composure he went from room to room, and at last descended the stairs, his knees shivering.

“Find anything, sir?” The sergeant, sitting in the hall in a comfortable arm-chair, looked up from his newspaper.

“Nothing at all. I am afraid I am a little overcome by the——”

The quaver in his voice was not assumed.

“I quite understand, sir,” said the sympathetic policeman. “This is my first murder case in twenty years’ service. Mr. Macleod is used to ’em, being a doctor, too. Lord! The cold-blooded way he talks of things gives me the creeps!”

Arthur locked the door of his room when he got in, pulled down the blinds, and switched on the lights. Then he emptied the contents of his pocket. It only needed a glance to see that a will was not one of his finds, unless—— He pulled out the folded paper which the leather case held. It was a certificate of marriage. His uncle’s? No, it certified the marriage of Hilda Masters, her occupation described as parlourmaid, with John Severn, student. The marriage was thirty years old. Arthur was puzzled. Why had his uncle taken the trouble to preserve the evidence of a serving maid’s marriage? He read the document carefully, thinking he might find some clue. It had been celebrated at St. Paul’s Church, Marylebone, London, and his uncle did not figure in the document, even as a witness. Yet this certificate must have possessed an exceptional value to the dead man. All thoughts of the will were driven from his mind by the discovery he made when he examined the next of his finds.

They were two bills of exchange, one for seven hundred and another for three hundred, drawn in favour of Abraham Selim, and were signed by Kenneth Nelson. He turned them over for the signature of the acceptor, and found, as he had expected, the name of his uncle.

The two bills were pinned together, and attached was a slip of paper, and in Merrivan’s handwriting: “These acceptances are forgeries. Due 24th. of June.”

Forgeries! Wilmot’s eyes narrowed. Did Stella know? Was that the reason she had gone to Darius Merrivan’s house on the night of the 23rd.? She knew! That was the hold Merrivan had over her. That was why he was so sure that she would marry him. In some mad, drunken moment Kenneth Nelson, hard-pressed for money, had given two bills with forged acceptances into Merrivan’s possession.

He whistled softly. He could not take it in yet. Idly he examined the money. It was for a very large sum, and he breathed more quickly as he put it into his own note-case. Here was something at any rate. A legacy, and not inconsiderable. The other papers were long lists of securities. His uncle had written a beautiful copperplate, and they were easy to follow. Against each line was a letter. These could wait. He locked them and the certificate in a wall safe, and devoted his evening to speculations.

At half-past ten he went out. The summer after-glow still lingered in the sky; the night was very still. He could hear voices from a garden on the far side of the green.

The lights were burning in Stella’s hall. He must risk meeting Andrew Macleod; more than this, must risk the enquiries which would start at the point where he produced the bills of exchange.

Stella was alone, however. She blocked the doorway when she recognised the caller.

“Can I see you, Stella? I won’t keep you very long.”

“You can see me now, Mr. Wilmot,” she said, “and I hope you will be very brief.”

“I cannot tell you here,” he said, checking his sudden anger, “unless you want everybody to hear what I am saying.”

But she was adamantine.

“I can’t ask you in. I’m being unusually kind in speaking to you at all.”

“Oh, you are, are you?” he said furiously. “Perhaps you’ll think I’m unusually kind, too, before I’m finished!”

She tried to close the door upon him, but he was too quick for her. His foot was an immovable wedge.

She was angry now.

“I shall call my father,” she said.

“Do,” he returned. “I’d like him to identify my uncle’s signature on two bills of exchange drawn in favour of Abraham Selim.”

He did not hear through his own speech the gasping intake of her breath, but the pressure on the door suddenly relaxed. She had fallen back against the wall, her hands at her side, her head drooped.

“Come in,” she said huskily.

Arthur Wilmot entered victoriously. He waited until she moved into the hall-room, then he followed and put his Homburg hat on the table with the air of one who was taking possession of her very soul.

She sat down and looked across at him. The table lamp was between them, and its shade hid her eyes, but he saw her quivering mouth and swelled with gratification.

“Your father forged the name of the acceptor,” he said, dispensing with the preamble he had planned.

“May I see the—the things?” she asked.

He unfolded them on the table.

“Yes, they were like those,” she said listlessly. “I don’t know very much about these things, but they looked like—I suppose the two I took were—dummies. He manufactured them just to fool me. I thought they were real.”

“You went to see him on Sunday night?” he accused. “I saw you go in, I saw you come flying out. You went to get those bills. He gave you fakes.”

He asked her a question which made her feel physically ill. He was so foul, so foul!

“Then you stole them, but the old man fooled you! Of course he fooled you. You don’t suppose that he’d allow you to get the better of him? What are you going to do about it?”

She did not answer.

“I’ll tell you what you’re going to do. You are going to be sensible and marry me. This damned detective doesn’t mean anything. He is only a policeman. You’ve got some self-respect left, haven’t you? You’re soiled by knowing a man like that. I’ll give you these as a wedding present. There will be trouble if you don’t! These are legally mine now. I inherit my uncle’s bad debts, and I’ll put Mr. Kenneth Nelson where he belongs. I can do it. Look! My uncle wrote on this paper, ‘These acceptances are forgeries.’ That is all the evidence that is required. Stella!”

He came round the table towards her with outstretched hands, but she had risen from her chair and was backing away from him.

“All right. Sleep on it. I’ll come to you to-morrow. You can’t tell Macleod without telling him that your father’s a thief. He couldn’t stomach that. He’s done his best to keep you out of mischief, but he’d have to move against your father. Be sensible, Stella.”

He stood at the door, peering towards the shadows where she stood. When he closed the door he was smiling. Smiling, he reached out to pull open the gate, and a big hand came suddenly over his mouth and he was pulled violently backwards. Before he could understand what had happened, somebody was gripping his throat with one hand and searching his pocket with the other.

Then he was jerked to his feet, and he saw the fierce gleam of spectacled eyes.

“You talk about this and you’re in trouble—hell-sure! Go and tell Macleod. He’ll search your house to-night. Where did you get those bills anyway? And what else did you get?”

“Give me back those—papers,” quavered Wilmot.

Scottie grinned unpleasantly.

“Go, tell the police,” he said, “and see if they can get ’em back.”

Arthur Wilmot went home. He was no fighter.