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“Why do you find that a matter for blushing?” he pressed on, observing her with a peculiar, knowing smile. “Come, tell me the whole. You went out, didn’t you, when I most particularly cautioned you not to?”

“I took a step outside,” she admitted.

“Foolhardy in the extreme. Don’t stop now. You stepped outside, and…”

“Well, if you must know, he kissed me.”

“How did you enjoy being kissed by a larcenous valet?” he inquired politely. No anger, no concern at her danger!

“It was not quite so bad as I had thought! There, now I hope you are satisfied.”

“If you are, I have not a word to say against it.”

She sniffed, and changed the subject at once. “I mean to ransack this place from attic to kitchen tomorrow, and I hope you will go through the cellars, as you promised you would do today.”

“I hadn’t realized it was a vow. No Bible was brought forth for me to lay my hand on. Come now, confess you are only angry because you have a devil of a job of cleaning up on your hands. Your life was never in any danger whatsoever, and the intruder did not get the money, so where is the harm? Why, you even got a kiss out of it! I will have the locks changed tomorrow, and you will not be bothered by Samson again.”

“Next you will be telling me I am fortunate to have been burgled at all.”

“A little excitement and adventure are the very things to distract your mind from this melancholy that seems constitutional with you,” he returned reasonably.

“I cannot think burglary is the diversion a doctor would recommend.”

“Very true, but there are so few diversions one can recommend to a widow without offending the proprieties. I daresay even a hand of cards on the Sabbath is not quite the thing. Shall we settle for my poor conversation after all?”

“No, I mean to begin the search tonight, but I shan’t inconvenience you by asking your help.” She arose and began peering under chairs, sofas, tables, and into vases for the canvas bags. After regarding her in amusement for some moments, deVigne shrugged his shoulders and joined in, investigating such unlikely spots as under lace doilies, candle holders, and in the coal scuttle.

“It is not dust and dirt we are looking for, but bags of gold,” she pointed out.

There were few places of concealment in the saloon, and they were soon searched, after which they went to the dining room for a similar treasure hunt. Nothing of the least interest was discovered. They settled for conversation, enriched in the gentleman’s case by a glass of brandy. Before taking his leave, he reminded her to lock the door.

“Much good it will do me!”

“True, but you would look a fool if you were robbed and had to admit you’d left your doors standing on the latch.”

“I shall have the great satisfaction in the morning, when I find the study vault standing open and the money gone, of knowing I did my poor best.”

“Put the money in the bank. It is foolish to leave temptation unguarded. I should have thought you learned that lesson last night, with Mr. Samson in the garden.”

Chapter Thirteen

The widow passed a night undisturbed by any actual occurrence of a physical nature, but somewhat ruffled by the awareness of a burglar possessing a key, bent on breaking into her house. She expected to see her two ex-students bright and early in the morning, for she had asked in her note that they come at eight-thirty. At nine-thirty, there was still no sign of them, and at ten o’clock two squares of folded paper were given to her hand by Mrs. Bristcombe, just as deVigne came to the door with a man to change the locks. She opened them in his presence. She was shocked and dismayed at the two identical messages.

“My girls are not coming to me!” she exclaimed, frowning.

“Neither of them has accepted? That is strange, with work in such short supply in the village,” he replied.

“I made sure I was doing them a favor. Their families are not well off, and I offered them fifty pounds each, but only see what they have to say: ‘Under the circumstances, my parents do not feel they can allow me to come.’ Word for word-they have worked this answer out together. What can it mean? It must refer to Mr. Grayshott, but it is well known by now that he is dead. Is it that they object to working for me, their former teacher? Is that the feeling in the village, that I am not fit to be mistress of this establishment?” she asked her caller.

“Certainly not. Whatever it may mean, it cannot be that. Is there any use making the offer to a different set of girls? You must know many from your work.”

“No, these two were the likeliest-good, reliable girls, with whom I got on particularly well. They liked me, admired me. If they refuse, no one else will accept,” she told him, defeated. She was a little angry as well, for while they had refused her, she had an inkling that if the offer had come from deVigne, it would have been accepted fast enough.

“It is a pity, but I can spare you a couple for the time being. I’ll have my housekeeper send down two. Come, don’t despair, cousin. I’ll speak to Mrs. Forrester as soon as I get back to the Hall. I’ll go to the cellars now, and you continue with the search abovestairs. We’ve done this floor. It will be easier for you to examine the spare bedrooms without a couple of servants at your elbow for instructions every ten minutes. It is always so the first day.”

She accepted this small crumb of good from her disappointment, and went to check the spare bedrooms and later the attic, without finding a thing but dust, dirt, and one bent penny. DeVigne, returning to the saloon an hour later, with cobwebs clinging to his head and shoulders of his jacket, had the same non-news to impart. No canvas bags were found in the cellars.

“I was happy to see the state of the cellars, though,” he continued. “A vast deal of good wine set by, and two whole hogsheads of brandy untapped.”

“The brandy was to be your payment for the search,” she reminded him. “Only fancy his having such a quantity of it-two hogsheads.”

“I am well paid for my hour’s work, but you are not completely unrewarded either. You will no longer be reduced to wrinkling your nose in distaste while I sip brandy. There are shelves of excellent claret and Bordeaux wine there, and a couple of cases of sherry. I took the liberty of bringing up some sherry for you. Bristcombe is cleaning a bottle now.”

In a few moments, Bristcombe brought in the sherry, and the widow tasted it, proclaiming, on very limited experience, that it was unexceptionable.

“So it seems we have discovered the last of the bags of gold,” deVigne said, settling back on the settee. “Only twenty-five hundred guineas-hardly a sum to get excited over.” Mrs. Grayshott looked her disagreement with this speech. “I wonder where it came from.”

“I hope I never find out,” she replied with great feeling and proceeded to enumerate aloud various possible sources, each more criminal than the preceding.

“All that brandy he had below makes me wonder whether smuggling was not the source of the money,” deVigne mentioned, when her imagination had petered out. “Living here on the ocean’s doorstep, and with Andrew’s marine connections from the shipyards, it would have been easy enough for him to arrange it. He might have financed the importing and not taken an actual hand in the shipping, for he was no sailor. He was certainly in touch with the smugglers. Besides the two full hogsheads, there is one empty.”

“What a pair of dullards we are!” she agreed at once. “Of course that is what he was up to! Every circumstance points to it: his knowing the sailors hereabouts, our location, not half a mile from the ocean, his own propensity for brandy. It is clear as the nose on your face. The bags of guineas are the payment for the various shipments he had brought in. It is just as Sir Harold said-he was involved in an illegal business, and here am I, sitting with a cellarfull of smuggled brandy and a houseful of illegal money. This is the busiest season for it too-winter coming on, and no moon to speak of. They do the smuggling on moonless nights, do they not?”