Thomas Hanshew - The Riddle of the Purple Emperor

"Marry, well, so you shall, my dear, if you want to, and your jewels will be a good wedding present." She gave a little chuckle which mystified the girl still further.

"Meanwhile," went on Miss Cheyne, as if to change the subject to other things, "you had better get upstairs and unpack your boxes. Don't expect Aggie to help you, she has enough to do downstairs."

"Oh, I don't want Aggie's help," responded Lady Margaret quickly with a wry little smile. "She wasn't exactly charming, and I must say I don't quite like the look of her. Can't you get rid of her, Aunt? I'm sure she is not honest, and that man, too. If we are going to have the Cheyne jewels here – "

"We are," snapped Miss Cheyne, "and don't you trouble your head about what doesn't concern you, my dear. You leave John and Aggie alone. I'll settle them ."

Lady Margaret said no more but ascended to her room, thinking in her innermost heart of many things. She could only dimly remember her aunt when she had been allowed to spend her holidays at Cheyne Court, but she knew she was eccentric, and because she herself had been jilted in her youth hated all men.

Still she did not mean to be made a prisoner of. She was determined to visit not only Miss Lorne, to whom she had been undeniably attracted, but also, and this she considered far more important, Lady Brenton, the mother of the man she had pledged herself to marry in those stolen interviews under the walls of Notre Dame.

Thanks to Miss Cheyne's many requests, Lady Margaret had little time to pay visits or write letters that day, and when night did fall, she was glad to crawl into bed and sleep the sleep of youth and healthy fatigue.

She slept soundly for hours, but all at once she was rudely awakened. From the depths below that supposedly sleeping household came a queer bumping noise, and it seemed to the terrified girl, as she sat up in bed, that the very house was being torn to pieces.

Conquering her natural fears she rose, and donning a dressing gown, unconsciously tried the handle of her door.

To her amazement it was locked on the outside, locked ! She was a prisoner in her own house!

Burglars were Lady Margaret's first thought, and she pulled vigorously at the door. At first it resisted, but to her delight the old lock, rotten with age, gave way under her vigorous onslaught. A second later she was descending the staircase, bent on rousing Miss Cheyne or obtaining assistance.

She had reached the bottom of the first flight, amid complete silence, and for a moment she thought she had heard the sounds only in her dream.

But at the head of the stairs she stood hesitating when from all around her came a sound as of a soul in agony, a horrible moaning cry that chilled her very heart. Startled and terrified she gave a shriek, and losing her balance, came hurtling down the shallow staircase. Her slim ankle was twisted under her, and she lay there for some time, a little, moaning, writhing heap.

When Lady Margaret awoke to consciousness, it was to find herself once more in her own room, with Aggie, the pert serving maid, bending anxiously over her.

"What was it?" she cried out, clutching feverishly at the grimy, toil-worn hand of the girl. "Oh, what was it? Didn't you hear it?" She struggled to get up, but sank back with a moan at the pain in her ankle.

"Hear what? Lawks o'mussy, but you gave us all a turn, Miss – yer ladyship," said the woman roughly.

"But the horrible noise!" shuddered the girl.

"That? Why, it was one of the dogs. There's a dog ill down in the cellar and that's what you heard," retorted Aggie. "A nice twist you've given this ankle of yours. It's a good job; Auntie – the mistress – I mean, knows something about sprains."

"Does she?" asked the girl wearily, her mind still bent on the horrible sound. Appallingly human it was; no dog could have screamed like that, she felt sure. It was the hurt cry of a human being in pain.

"Yes, you bet, and here she is." Aggie relinquished her place, apparently only too gladly, to Miss Cheyne, who appeared with lotions and bandages, and literally took possession of the patient. Her long, slender fingers manipulated the swollen ankle with the experience and precision of a trained hand.

"Now, my lady, you'll just have to be still and patient," she said grimly. To Lady Margaret it seemed as if this eccentric relative were by no means ill-pleased at the catastrophe which had overtaken her niece.

"I thought it was burglars, Aunt Marion," said the girl, as Miss Cheyne's eye fell on the splintered lock, "and that reminds me, I was locked in – Did you know that? You won't dare to keep that woman now – "

"You go off to sleep, and I'll inquire into it," was all Miss Cheyne would say, and with that the girl was obliged to rest content. But when she fell into an uneasy sleep, it was with the profound intention to ask Edgar Brenton's advice at the earliest opportunity.

A sprained ankle is not a dangerous occurrence, but it is sufficiently painful and depressing to be worthy of more anxiety than was expended over Lady Margaret.

Rendered practically a prisoner she had only to rely on such books and magazines as Miss Cheyne brought up to her and the days passed very slowly indeed.

She wrote letters to Sir Edgar and to Miss Lorne, bribing Aggie with such coins as she possessed to post them, unknown to her aunt.

No answer came to them, though Aggie swore that they had been sent to the post, and later the girl was not surprised to find them in the possession of Miss Cheyne, opened and mutilated.

At intervals she heard the dull, distant moans, but had schooled herself to believe Aggie's statement.

On the first day that she could walk about her room she was almost hysterical with delight.

For once, too, Miss Cheyne relaxed her firm manner.

"I suppose you know what to-morrow is, my dear," she said, looking almost furtively at her niece.

Lady Margaret thought a moment, then gave a little cry of delight.

"Why, it's my birthday, of course, and I'm eighteen."

"Yes, and what is just as important," said Miss Cheyne, "you are the owner of the Cheyne jewels. We're going up to town in the morning to bring them back."

"Bring them all here?" cried Lady Margaret, startled at the odd look in the black, flashing old eyes. "Do you think it safe enough? Thieves might break in. Why not leave them, at least some of them, where they are, Aunt Marion. It is safer, surely!"

"Because I want them. I want to see them," Miss Cheyne snapped ferociously. "I'm curious, you know, more curious than you are. And I mean to have them here."

"Just as you like, Aunt. I want to see them, too, only I was thinking of the danger."

"There is no danger. I am having special safes made for them downstairs," said Miss Cheyne. "If you have them here you can wear them whenever you like without having to go up to those thieving lawyers every time you happen to want them."

Lady Margaret agreed, but deep down in her own mind she felt that she would prefer to leave the Cheyne jewels in the safe custody of Messrs. Shallcott, Woodward & Company in London. On the other hand, she had gained an unspoken victory in regard to her future marriage.

Indeed it seemed to her as if Miss Cheyne had but one obsession: to see the Cheyne Court jewels. Her inexplicable antipathy even against Ailsa Lorne seemed to have died a natural death. When Lady Margaret, albeit a trifle timidly, ventured to hint at a visit to her newly found friend, Miss Cheyne said pleasantly enough:

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