Part 34

“Supposing you take it down. You can reach it, can you not?”

“Oh, yes. But what--”

“Lift it down, dear Mrs. Quintard; and then turn it round and look at its back.”

Agitated and questioning, the lady did as she was bid, and at the first glance gave a cry of surprise, if not of understanding. The square of brown paper, acting as a backing to the picture, was slit across, disclosing a similar one behind it which was still intact.

“Oh! was it hidden in here?” she asked.

“Very completely,” assented Violet. “Pasted in out of sight by a lady who amuses herself with mounting and framing photographs. Usually, she is conscious of her work, but this time she performed her task in a dream.”

Mrs. Quintard was all amazement.

“I don’t remember touching these pictures,” she declared. “I never should have remembered. You are a wonderful person, Miss Strange. How came you to think these photographs might have two backings? There was nothing to show that this was so.”

“I will tell you, Mrs. Quintard. You helped me.”

“I helped you?”

“Yes. You remember the memorandum you gave me? In it you mentioned pasting photographs. But this was not enough in itself to lead me to examine those on the mantel, if you had not given me another suggestion a little while before. We did not tell you this, Mrs. Quintard, at the time, but during the search we were making here that day, you had a lapse into that peculiar state which induces you to walk in your sleep. It was a short one, lasting but a moment, but in a moment one can speak, and, this you did--”

“Spoke? I spoke?”

“Yes, you uttered the word ‘paper!’ not the paper, but ‘paper!’ and reached out towards the shears. Though I had not much time to think of it then, afterwards upon reading your memorandum I recalled your words, and asked myself if it was not paper to cut, rather than to hide, you wanted. If it was to cut, and you were but repeating the experience of the night before, then the room should contain some remnants of cut paper. Had we seen any? Yes, in the basket, under the desk we had taken out and thrown back again a strip or so of wrapping paper, which, if my memory did not fail me, showed a clean-cut edge. To pull this strip out again and spread it flat upon the desk was the work of a minute, and what I saw led me to look all over the room, not now for the folded document, but for a square of brown paper, such as had been taken out of this larger sheet. Was I successful? Not for a long while, but when I came to the photographs on the mantel and saw how nearly they corresponded in shape and size to what I was looking for, I recalled again your fancy for mounting photographs and felt that the mystery was solved.

“A glance at the back of one of them brought disappointment, but when I turned about its mate--You know what I found underneath the outer paper. You had laid the will against the original backing and simply pasted another one over it.

“That the discovery came in time to cut short a very painful interview has made me joyful for a week.

“And now may I see the children?”

END OF PROBLEM V

PROBLEM VI. THE HOUSE OF CLOCKS

Miss Strange was not in a responsive mood. This her employer had observed on first entering; yet he showed no hesitation in laying on the table behind which she had ensconced herself in the attitude of one besieged, an envelope thick with enclosed papers.

“There,” said he. “Telephone me when you have read them.”

“I shall not read them.”

“No?” he smiled; and, repossessing himself of the envelope, he tore off one end, extracted the sheets with which it was filled, and laid them down still unfolded, in their former place on the table-top.

The suggestiveness of the action caused the corners of Miss Srange’s delicate lips to twitch wistfully, before settling into an ironic smile.

Calmly the other watched her.

“I am on a vacation,” she loftily explained, as she finally met his studiously non-quizzical glance. “Oh, I know that I am in my own home!” she petulantly acknowledged, as his gaze took in the room; “and that the automobile is at the door; and that I’m dressed for shopping. But for all that I’m on a vacation--a mental one,” she emphasized; “and business must wait. I haven’t got over the last affair,” she protested, as he maintained a discreet silence, “and the season is so gay just now--so many balls, so many--But that isn’t the worst. Father is beginning to wake up--and if he ever suspects--” A significant gesture ended this appeal.

The personage knew her father--everyone did--and the wonder had always been that she dared run the risk of displeasing one so implacable. Though she was his favourite child, Peter Strange was known to be quite capable of cutting her off with a shilling, once his close, prejudiced mind conceived it to be his duty. And that he would so interpret the situation, if he ever came to learn the secret of his daughter’s fits of abstraction and the sly bank account she was slowly accumulating, the personage holding out this dangerous lure had no doubt at all. Yet he only smiled at her words and remarked in casual suggestion:

“It’s out of town this time--‘way out. Your health certainly demands a change of air.”

“My health is good. Fortunately, or unfortunately, as one may choose to look at it, it furnishes me with no excuse for an outing,” she steadily retorted, turning her back on the table.