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Silent House

<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2> <h3>FURTHER DISCOVERIES</h3> The silence which followed Diana's announcement regarding the ribbon and stiletto—for Lucian kept silence out of sheer astonishment—was broken by the hoarse voice of Mrs. Kebby: "If ye want the ribbon, miss, I'll not say no to a shilling. With what your good gentleman promised, that will be three as I'm ready to take," and Mrs. Kebby held out a dirty claw for the silver. "You'll sell it, will you!" cried out Diana indignantly, pouncing down on the harridan. "How dare you keep what isn't yours? If you had shown the detective this," shaking the ribbon in Mrs. Kebby's face, "he might have caught the criminal!" "Pardon me," interposed Lucian, finding his voice, "I hardly think so, Miss Vrain; for no one but yourself could have told that the ribbon adorned the stiletto. Where did you see the weapon last?" "In the library at Berwin Manor. I hung it up on the wall myself, by this ribbon." "Are you sure it is the same ribbon?" "I am certain," replied Diana emphatically. "I cannot be mistaken; the colour and pattern are both [Pg 94]peculiar. Where did you find it?" she added, turning to Mrs. Kebby. "In the kitchen, I tell ye," growled the old woman sullenly. "I only found it this blessed morning. 'Twas in a dark corner, near the door as leads down to the woodshed. How was I to know 'twas any good?" "Did you find anything else?" asked Lucian mildly. "No, I didn't, sir." "Not a stiletto?" demanded Diana, putting the ribbon in her pocket. "I don't know what's a stiletter, miss; but I didn't find nothing; and I ain't a thief, though some people as sets themselves above others by taking ribbons as doesn't belong to 'em mayn't be much good." "The ribbon is not yours," said Diana haughtily. "Yes it are! Findings is keepings with me!" answered Mrs. Kebby. "Don't anger her," whispered Denzil, touching Miss Vrain's arm. "We may find her useful." Diana looked from him to the old woman, and opened her purse, at the sight of which Mrs. Kebby's sour face relaxed. When Miss Vrain gave her half a sovereign she quite beamed with joy. "The blessing of heaven on you, my dear," she said, with a curtsey. "Gold! good gold! Ah! this is a brave day's work for me—thirteen blessed shillings!" "Ten, you mean, Mrs. Kebby!" "Oh, no, sir," cried Mrs. Kebby obsequiously, [Pg 95]"the lady gave me ten, bless her heart, but you've quite forgot your three." "I said two." "Ah! so you did, sir. I'm a poor schollard at 'rithmetic." "You're clever enough to get money out of people," said Diana, who was disgusted at the avarice of the hag. "However, for the present you must be content with what I have given you. If, in cleaning this house, you find any other article, whatever it may be, you shall have another ten shillings, on consideration that you take it at once to Mr. Denzil." Mrs. Kebby, who was tying up the piece of gold in the corner of her handkerchief, nodded her old head with much complacency. "I'll do it, miss; that is, if the gentleman will pay on delivery. I like cash." "You shall have cash," said Lucian, laughing; and then, as Diana intimated her intention of leaving the house, he descended the stairs in her company. Miss Vrain kept silence until they were outside in the sunshine, when she cast an upward glance at the warm blue sky, dappled with light clouds. "I am glad to be out of that house," she said, with a shudder. "There is something in its dark and freezing atmosphere which chills my spirits." "It is said to be haunted, you know," said Lucian carelessly; then, after a pause, he spoke on the subject which was uppermost in his mind. "Now that [Pg 96]you have this piece of evidence, Miss Vrain, what do you intend to do?" "Make sure that I have made no mistake, Mr. Denzil. I shall go down to Berwin Manor this afternoon. If the stiletto is still hanging on the library wall by its ribbon, I shall admit my mistake; if it is absent, why then I shall return to town and consult with you as to what is best to be done. You know I rely on you." "I shall do whatever you wish, Miss Vrain," said Lucian fervently. "It is very good of you," replied the lady gratefully, "For I have no right to take up your time in this manner." "You have every right—that is, I mean—I mean," stammered Denzil, thinking from the surprised look of Miss Vrain that he had gone too far at so early a stage of their acquaintance. "I mean that as a briefless barrister I have ample time at my command, and I shall only be too happy to place it and myself at your service. And moreover," he added in a lighter tone, "I have some selfish interest in the matter, also, for it is not every one who finds so difficult a riddle as this to solve. I shall never rest easy in my mind until I unravel the whole of this tangled skein." "How good you are!" cried Diana, impulsively extending her hand. "It is as impossible for me to thank you sufficiently now for your kindness as it will be to reward you hereafter, should we succeed." [Pg 97] "As to my reward," said Lucian, retaining her hand longer than was necessary, "we can decide what I merit when your father's death is avenged." Diana coloured and turned away her eyes, withdrawing her hand in the meantime from the too warm clasp of the young man. A sense of his meaning was suddenly borne in upon her by look and clasp, and she felt a maidenly confusion at the momentary boldness of this undeclared lover. However, with feminine tact she laughed off the hint, and shortly afterwards took her leave, promising to communicate as speedily as possible with Lucian regarding the circumstances of her visit to Bath. The barrister wished to escort her back to the Royal John Hotel in Kensington, but Miss Vrain, guessing his feelings, would not permit this; so Lucian, hat in hand, was left standing in Geneva Square, while his divinity drove off in a prosaic hansom. With her went the glory of the sunlight, the sweetness of the spring; and Denzil, more in love than ever, sighed hugely as he walked slowly back to his lodgings. For doleful moods, hard work and other interests are the sole cure; therefore, that same afternoon Lucian returned to explore the Silent House on his own account. It had struck him as suggestive that the parti-coloured ribbon to which Diana attached such importance should have been found in so out-of-the-way a corner as the threshold of the door which conducted to what Mrs. Kebby, with characteristic misrepresentation, called the woodshed. [Pg 98]In reality the place in question was a cellar, which extended under the soil of the back yard, and was lighted from the top by a skylight placed on a level with the ground. On being admitted again by Mrs. Kebby, and sending that ancient female to her Augean task of cleansing the house, Lucian descended to the basement in order to examine kitchen and cellar more particularly. If, as Diana stated, the ribbon had been knotted loosely about the hilt of the stiletto, it must have fallen off unnoticed by the assassin when, weapon in hand, he was retreating from the scene of crime. "He must have come down here from the sitting-room," mused Denzil, as he stood in the cool, damp kitchen. "And—as the ribbon was found by Mrs. Kebby near yonder door—it is most probable that he left the kitchen by that passage for the cellar. Now it remains for me to find out how he made his exit from the cellar; and also I must look for the stiletto, which he possibly dropped in his flight, as he did the ribbon." While thus soliloquising, Denzil lighted a candle which he had taken the precaution to bring with him for the purpose of making his underground explorations. Having thus provided himself with means to dispel the darkness, he stepped into the door and descended the stone stairs which led to the cellars. At the foot of the steps he found himself in a passage running from the front to the back of the [Pg 99]house, and forthwith turned to the right in order to reach the particular cellar, which was dug out in the manner of a cave under the back yard. This, as Lucian ascertained by walking round, was faced with stone and had bins on all four sides for the storage of wine. Overhead there was a glass skylight, of which the glass was so dusty and dirty that only a few rays of light could struggle into the murky depths below. But what particularly attracted the attention of Denzil was a short wooden ladder lying on the stone pavement, and which probably was used to reach the wine in the upper bins. "And I should not be surprised if it had been used for another purpose," murmured Lucian, glancing upward at the square aperture of the skylight. It struck him as possible that a stranger could enter thereby and descend by the ladder. To test the truth of this he reared the ladder in the middle of the cellar so that its top rung rested against the lower edge of the square overhead. Ascending carefully—for the ladder was by no means stout—he pushed the glass frame upward and found that it yielded easily to a moderate amount of strength. Climbing up, step after step, Lucian arose through the aperture like a genie out of the earth, and soon found that he could jump easily out of the cellar into the yard. "Good!" he exclaimed, much gratified by this discovery. "I now see how the assassin entered. [Pg 100]No wonder the kitchen door was bolted and barred, and that no one was seen to visit Vrain by the front door. Any one who knew the position of that skylight could obtain admission easily, at any hour, by descending the ladder and passing through cellar and kitchen to the upper part of the house. So much is clear, but I must next discover how those who entered got into this yard." And, indeed, there seemed no outlet, for the yard was enclosed on three sides by a fence of palings the height of a man, and rendered impervious to damp by a coating of tar; on the fourth side by the house itself. Only over the fence—which was no insuperable obstacle—could a stranger have gained access to the yard; and towards the fence opposite to the house Lucian walked. In it there was no gate, or opening of any kind, so it would appear that to come into the yard a stranger would need to climb over, a feat easily achieved by a moderately active man. As Denzil examined this frail barrier his eye was caught by a fluttering object on the left—that is, the side in a line with the skylight. This he found was the scrap of a woman's veil of thin black gauze spotted with velvet. At once his thoughts reverted to the shadow of the woman on the blind, and the suspicions of Diana Vrain. "Great heavens!" he thought, "can that doll of a Lydia be guilty, after all?" <hr style="width: 65%;" />[Pg 101] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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