Joan Smith - Delsie

When she was gone, deVigne said, “Might this not be a good opportunity to discover the key of Andrew’s vault? It must be looked into for the settling of his estate.”

“Where should I begin to look? I haven’t a notion where he would have kept it.”

“Let’s start with his desk.’“

They went to the study and looked through drawers, which yielded a welter of papers, but no keys. “Here is something-the receipt for the Bristcombes’ wages for the last quarter of this year. He paid them two hundred and fifty pounds! You told me two hundred, deVigne.”

“Servants do get an increase from time to time,” he pointed out.

“Usually for improved service. They aren’t worth half that.”

“You are mentally comparing to your own salary as a teacher,” he said, correctly.

“They got room and board as well.”

“Along with all the sheets and towels they could carry off.”

“You may laugh at me all you like. They are overpaid, and I will be rid of them.”

“That is your affair. Now, about the keys-his bedroom very likely. He seldom left it the last few months.”

“There is a table covered with medicine bottles and things just by his bed. It may be there.” She excused herself and went to the room. She returned with not only the key, but another bag of gold.

“I found the key at the very back of the little drawer, hidden in a bottle under some pills,” she explained.

“You’re a sharp observer. How did you come to find it?”

“I pushed aside the papers-designs for some sort of an engine he had in mind, they looked like-and there was this one bottle. When I lifted it, it seemed very heavy, and then I saw the key, and at the very back of the drawer, this bag. It is just as I said. The pixies have been coming here for years and leaving bags of gold.”

The bag was emptied and discovered to contain the same sum, one hundred guineas. One bag of gold deVigne could credit having become misplaced in the garden by accident. He had thought it was Andrew’s entire savings, which he had somehow dropped in the garden while drunk, but two identical bags holding the same sum was more than coincidence.

“What the devil can this mean?” he asked, frowning.

“There are bound to be others around the house. Let us try if this is the key to the vault.”

Without further ado it was tried, and it opened the vault, which was found to contain another ten of the canvas bags, each with what looked intriguingly like a hundred guineas, though they did not count them. “Where did they come from? I don’t understand!” the widow wailed, more chagrined than pleased to have this small fortune in her hands. No more did deVigne seem pleased.

“Could it be an income from some source, some investment?” she wondered. “He was used to be a partner in the shipyards, was he not?”

“He was the major owner. The Blewes Shipyard used to be the Grayshott Shipyard. He took Blewes in as junior partner when he married. When Andrew began drinking after Louise’s death, Blewes gradually took over, becoming first senior partner, then later buying Andrew out entirely. Andrew foolishly put his money into unsound investments that went broke. He was always looking for a get-rich-quick scheme, instead of contenting himself with a good dividend. He blew the last of his money in setting up a small manufactory in Merton to produce a contrivance of his own invention. Some mechanical contraption to turn a spit it was, for roasting meat, you know. Quite clever, really, but it didn’t catch on. He had no commercial enterprise going at the time of his death, however. I have been to see his solicitor. I can’t imagine where this money could have been coming from. It is an utter mystery to me.”

“I’ll be arrested. I know it as surely as I am sitting here,” she said resignedly. “You have married me to a thief! Oh, what shall I do with all this money?”

“I suggest you return it to the vault for the time being, and keep a close hand on the key. Here, take this bag you saddled me with too.” He handed back the bag he had taken for her.

“Yes, you are eager to clean your hands of the evidence, and palm it all off on me,” she charged, accepting the bag gingerly, as though it were dirty, and stuffing it into the vault with the others. “That is twelve hundred guineas we have found today, and we haven’t even begun to look about the house yet.”

“He wouldn’t have left it sitting around the place under plants or on window ledges. He wasn’t that senile.”

“Never mind trying to put a respectable face on it, calling it senility. He was an alcoholic, which is much worse. I shall have a good look around as soon as you have left.”

“Is that an oblique hint for me to leave, and without a glass of Andrew’s excellent brandy to prepare me for the cold winds of December?” deVigne inquired.

“I hope I am not so uncivil. Let us go into the saloon, where I endeavor to keep a few twigs smoldering to ward off the worst of the weather.”

DeVigne went to kick the few logs into flames, while the widow fetched the decanter and one glass. She had no taste for the strong beverage. When she returned, deVigne sat very much at his ease, fingering a bolt of black crepe she had bought that morning.

“Thank you,” he said, accepting the glass. “May I make a suggestion? I cannot speak for others, but for myself, I like a very small glass of brandy, not a brimming vessel. I can’t drink the half of this, and it is a shame to waste it.” He carefully tossed half a glass into the fire, where it flared into leaping flames, blue and green.

“How lovely!” Delsie exclaimed, smiling at the show. “Now I know something useful to do with that dreadful drink.”

“Wastrel! If you discover a hogshead of the stuff you don’t want, I’ll take it off your hands.” He turned back to the materials on the sofa beside him. “Pity you must be confined to black for a year. You would look well in brighter colors,” he mentioned, examining her face, as though selecting his preferred shade.

She felt a sudden warmth at the personal tone the conversation was taking. “I am used to black,” she answered dampingly.

“I have never seen you in anything but dark colors.”

“I didn’t begin wearing black till after my mother’s death. I was obliged to dress somberly when I worked at St. Mary’s. Now, of course, I am a widow, and when they put me in Bridewell for possessing stolen money, I daresay I shall have to wear black there too.”

“I shall use my influence to have you transported if you prefer it, ma’am,” he offered kindly.

“I knew I might depend on you to do the right thing by me, so caring as you have been for my every comfort! Pray make it America, and not Australia. I think I would prefer even wild Indians to the sultry climate that prevails in the latter.”

“You may be sure I shall do all in my power to ease your shipment to America. Plead for the widow, like the Good Book says. I’ll see if I can’t get you isolated from the murderers and the less desirable of the criminal element. But seriously, where could he regularly steal such a sum? One would think even the most simple-minded of victims would tumble to it after a couple of times, and take some precautions to prevent ten or twelve repetitions.”

“What was the one bag doing in the orchard, that is what I cannot fathom.”

“Right in the orchard was it, or at the edge?”

“In the middle, under one of those little runted trees. Why are those two smaller than the others? Do you know?”

“I believe Sir Harold told me, after I returned from a season in London one year, that two trees had died, and Andrew replaced them. It is not unusual to lose a tree. I have a couple of smaller ones in my own orchard, but they never produce gold, only apples.”