"Yes, Tabor. Here is the key."
The man unlocked the drawer and drew it out.
"Is this the only one you want, Miss Eden?" he asked.
"Yes, I think so. Wait. None of the rest are locked. I'll see if I need others."
Swiftly she drew them out one at a time and glanced over the orderly contents.
"No, they are just routine things. Records, receipts, things that aren't very important." She closed them all and they started up the stairs, Tabor carrying the drawer and leading the way.
"Just put it down on the table by my desk," said Eden, "and thank you, Tabor. Now don't you two worry any more about me. I shall be quite all right, and I hope you won't lose any more sleep over prowlers. I'm quite sure Ellery Fane is the only one who would dare, and I think you thoroughly scared him off with your promise of the police."
"Right you are, Miss Eden. I'm positive you'll be entirely safe from any intruders from now on."
So the two servants were presently gone, and Eden locked her door and sat down to the reading of her father's letter, entirely assured that this time she would not look up to see Ellery's hateful eyes looking at her.
Sitting there in her own pretty room, in the luxurious chair that had been her father's gift on her last birthday, with all her pretty belongings about her, she could take a deep breath and really enjoy this last little conversation that her father had prepared to help her through the first hard evening after he had left her finally.
And so she began to read:
Dear little lass:
I promised you a last few words, so you could feel this first night that my love is still with you.
Because I have felt for a long time that you had missed the most beautiful thing out of your little-girl life, when your mother was called away, I have been casting about in my mind to find something that will partly make up for it. So I am now leaving you a packet of her own letters, which have for years been the most precious possession I owned and which nobody else but myself has ever read. Of course, I have told you a great deal about your dear mother, but even at its best the telling of a thing is never as good as the thing itself. Just hearing about what a mother you had could never be like growing up from childhood under her loving care. It is for this reason that I have left you her letters, that you may gather from them the atmosphere of the home into which you were born and really sense what a wonderful mother you had.
We talked a lot about you before you came, and afterward before she went away. You have a right to know what we said, and how we loved you, and what we hoped for your future. You will gather much of that from these letters, which are now yours, dear lassie. Don't weep when you read them. Just be glad to know we are safe with our heavenly Father, who is always watching over you.
Good-bye, little one, till we meet in heaven, and don't forget we'll be counting on your coming Home when your work down here is done.
Your loving father,
Charles Hamilton Thurston
Eden did not weep as she read the last words and let her eyes trace the precious familiar signature with a tender glance. But her cheeks were flushed, and there was a wonderful light in her eyes as she lifted them for an instant to look into a far distance, as if she were trying to send a smile beyond the gates of heaven to let her father know that she was being true to her promise that she would not let herself grieve for him.
A great swelling of her heart came as she folded up her father's letter and slipped it inside her blouse just over her heart. It seemed to her when it was there that she could feel his dear hand resting on her head, his voice telling her to be strong and not to think about her disappointments, but just trust and not be afraid.
Then half shyly she put out her hand to take the first letter of her unknown mother, whom she could scarcely remember, except as a sweet presence; she was always smiling. How glad that mother must be now that her dear husband had come to be with her in heaven. But it was all so vague. Did people live and feel and think and rejoice in heaven as they did on earth? Sometime when she found some very wise person who had studied about heaven she would ask about that.
Then her glance came down to the letter, as she took it out of the delicate envelope and scanned the beautiful writing. Oh, she had seen her mother's writing before of course. There was a lovely little white book, her own baby record written in this same charming penmanship, but somehow this was different. The book was a formal record with an occasional little merry account of some quaint child saying or bright idea.
But this letter was different. It was going to be like listening to her darling mother talking with her precious father.
"Dear Charlie."
The words thrilled the heart of the young girl, and for the first time some faint realization came to her of what it must have been to her mother to be in love with her father, as he must have been when he was young. Then she settled down breathlessly to read that sweet wonderful letter, the first real love letter that Eden had ever read. Oh, she had read love letters in novels of course, just fiction. But this was real life. This love letter had been lived, and by special dispensation was so linked to her life that she had a right not only to read it but to cherish it as a very part of herself.
Breathlessly she read the lovely girl-thoughts. More beautiful than all the dreams of romance that had ever visited her imagination--waking or dreaming.
On she read through the sweet impassioned words, which grew only more tender and delicate in expression as she went from one charming letter to the next. Reading a rare continued love story, through the first days of the beautiful courtship and on to the wedding day.
Then came a letter that told of a visit to relatives. It was most enlightening--Aunt Phoebe in a pale gray silk with blush roses in her little gray bonnet tied under her sweet little trembly chin. Eden remembered her only as a little old woman with tired eyes and skin like old parchment and a way of falling asleep in her chair. Grandma Haybrook with snapping black eyes that couldn't brook a fault in any but herself. She almost laughed aloud as she read about Uncle Pepperill, who would continue to take a pinch of snuff, even at a wedding.
There were fewer letters after that, save now and then a note written just for the joy of saying, "I love you." For she sensed that the two were continually together now, seldom separated except for a day or two occasionally for some business reason. But ever was that perfect flow of harmony and love in the very atmosphere, even of the brief silences between the letters.
There were little notations on the envelopes to mark these absences of letter. One read: "The first letter after Eden was born, while I was absent for a day at a banking conference."
Eagerly she opened that letter and found a wee snapshot of herself as a tiny baby, and a tender line:
I never knew or even dreamed what it would be like to have a little soul entrusted to our care! And to think our little Eden has such a wonderful father! I shall ever thank God for that! Oh, how can we ever hope to find a man as good as you, my beloved, as fine and strong and tender, and worthy to marry her? We must ask God Himself to prepare one for her.
It was just then that Janet's quiet footsteps came down the hall with a tinkle of silver and china from the tray she carried. She tapped softly at Eden's door, and Eden was suddenly recalled to the present from a very faraway past that represented her own beginning on the earth.
"Yes, Janet, what is it?" said Eden quickly.
"It's joost a wee drap o' tay an' a scone, my lambkin. Ye mustna make yersel' sick wie yer grievin'!"
Eden sprang to the door and let in her faithful friend.
"But I'm not grieving, you dear faithful friend," she said, taking the tray from Janet's eager hands. "But the tea smells good, and I really believe I'm hungry. Thank you, Janet! But you didn't need to worry about me. I have been having a wonderful time reading these letters that my father prepared for me for this evening. Letters from my own dear mother, Janet. See what pretty writing. And they are wonderful letters. Somed
ay I'll read you some bits of them, especially those about my coming. You were here before I was, Janet. You knew my mother."
Janet stooped and looked sharply at the envelope Eden held out.
"Aye! Weel, I knew yer dear mither, my lambkin. An' thet's her writin'. I had several letters from her mysel', afore I came tae her while I was still in the auld country."
"Oh, did you, Janet? How nice. You never told me about that."
"Didna I tell you? Weel, ye were a wee mite, an' ye missed yer momma somethin' terrible. I didna wantae worry ye. And noo, ma bairnie, let me holp ye tae undress an' get intae yer bed. It's verra late, an' ye've had a hard day."
"No, I want to finish reading the rest of the letters," said Eden, looking wistfully toward the drawer beside her that still had more letters remaining.
"Why not let thim remain until the morn?" asked Janet practically. "Ye're lookin' verra tired, an' I'm quite sure yer feyther would advise thet."
Eden looked up and drew a long breath.
"Why, yes, I suppose Daddy would tell me to go to bed now. But it's been so wonderful to read letters from my own mother to my father, and to think he planned for me to read them now so I wouldn't feel so lost and alone."
"Yes, my bairn. He was a wonnerfoo feyther, an' she were a rare mither. Ye're greatly blest thet ye had them, even though ye air lonely the noo. But noo, let me brush yer hair for ye and get ye tae yer cooch. There'll be people coomin' in the morn perhaps, an' ye'll wantae be good an' rested tae meet them."
"Yes, I suppose you're right, Janet," said the girl, yawning wearily.
And soon Janet had her tucked comfortably in her bed, the light out and the door shut for the night. So thinking the pleasant thoughts about those letters, as her thoughtful father had known she would do if she read them before she went to her bed, she soon fell asleep.
Then the faithful Janet went quietly to her bed, and Tabor, on his makeshift bed across the library door, planned to be quietly alert to any sound.
So the moon rose, then sailed behind a cloud, and later drew heavier storm clouds about itself and slipped down its way to rest also, and the world was very dark.
Then when the night was at its darkest, a dim figure stole across into the deepest shrubbery at the side of the Thurston house and disappeared near a little-used window of the old library. But the family slept on, and not even Tabor with all his wakefulness heard a sound.
In the morning, however, when Tabor opened the shutters and dusted the room, he found the other drawers in the master's big desk had been thoroughly searched, the contents stirred up and everything left in heaps!
He studied the whole situation thoroughly and then went to the kitchen telephone and called up the police station. It was early and no one upstairs was stirring yet. This was something that must be settled without the young lady's knowledge, if possible. He had promised his beloved master that he would guard Miss Eden as his own.
So Mike and Tabor went into the library and examined everything very carefully and very silently. Then all the papers were put back, the drawers locked, and they went around searching for the place where the entrance to the house had been made. They found it soon enough in the long window on the side patio that opened into the library. It was always kept locked. Ellery must have been the intruder and had probably unfastened the window as he stood by it during the last brief altercation before he left.
A few questions Mike asked of Tabor, and then he took himself away to start a search for Ellery Fane.
Chapter 2
Quite early the next morning Lavira Fane alighted from a Western plane, took a taxi from the airport to the railroad station, and after a refreshing cup of coffee and a pile of well-buttered toast with jam, boarded the train for Glencarroll, the city suburb where the Thurstons resided.
Finding no chauffeur to meet her, no taxi at that early hour in the morning, and not even a station agent whom she might blame, she walked with angry, disapproving strides up to the house, reflecting on her hard lot. She did not spend much thought on her lazy son for not attending her, for well she knew his ways. He had probably been up late the night before and was now sleeping the sleep of the shiftless. That was the way she had brought him up. Why should she blame him?
So she blamed other people for whatever he had not done, and assuming that Ellery had told Eden that she was coming, she blamed Eden for not having sent her chauffeur to meet all trains until she arrived. Hence she stalked along growing more and more irate as she drew nearer to the house, which seemed to have moved to a far greater distance from the station than she remembered.
In due time, however, angry and tired and thinking incessantly of the fine breakfast she anticipated that would be served her soon after her arrival, she marched up the stately stone steps and rang the bell.
This was while Tabor was conversing with the policeman, and Janet had not yet come downstairs.
Tabor heard the bell and frowned, glanced at his watch, and frowned again. The policeman gave him a quick glance and said he had better leave.
"Wait!" said Tabor. "I don't know who that would be unless it's that pest of a mother of his. He said she was coming this morning."
"Mmmmm!" said the policeman in an undertone. "You go ahead. I'll stick around."
So Tabor went reluctantly to the door, and silently Janet began to descend the upper stairs.
Thus reinforced, Tabor opened the front door.
"Well! So you did decide to come to the door at last, did you?" blatted the undesired guest. "I shall certainly report this to the family. Are you the same servant that was here the last time I visited?"
Tabor met this tirade with stern countenance.
"Whom did you wish to see, madam?" he asked, in his most butlerish tone. "What is your errand?"
"Errand!" sneered the would-be guest. "I've come to stay. The family must have known I was coming. Stand aside and let me come in. I think it was most unfeeling of them not to have met my plane at the airport, they with their chauffeurs and butlers and other servants!" She fairly snorted out the last words, but Tabor stood immovable.
"Madam, I'm sorry, but I was told not to let anyone in until further word, and we are not disturbing the lady of the house at this hour. She has been through a heavy strain and needs the rest."
"Lady of the house!" snorted the irate Lavira. "Who's that? You don't mean that conceited Janet with her weird Scotch lingo, do you? Because if you do, I'll have you know that no person like that can keep me out. I belong to the family!"
"Yes, madam, that may be so, but you see I have my orders, and I am not to go beyond them."
"Why, you unspeakable outrageous fool! The very idea of your daring to keep me out of this house! I insist that you take my name up to Eden or whoever she has put in charge of the house. If you don't do so, I'll push by you and go right upstairs to her room myself. I simply won't be treated this way, when I've only come to be of service here, and I'm practically being turned out of the door. You go at once!"
"No, madam. I have been told not to disturb Miss Eden on any account. Perhaps you do not know, madam, that there has been a death in the household, which has made it very hard for everybody, and we are doing all we can to give Miss Eden a chance to rest. In fact, her father, Mr. Thurston, asked me a few hours before he died to especially guard her from all intruders these first few days after he was gone, for he knew they would be more than hard for her."
"But this is ridiculous!" sputtered the woman. "I shall appeal to the authorities!"
Then suddenly Mike stepped into the picture.
"Just what is it you wanted to appeal to the authorities for, madam? I belong to the police force, and I have been asked to look after the comfort of this house. Suppose you come with me and we can talk it over."
Mike was enveloped in a brusque politeness, and his sudden authoritative appearance so startled the woman that she fairly gasped.
"Oh! A policeman!" she exclaimed. "Why, what has happened? Are things in such a
bad shape here that they have to be guarded by a policeman?" she questioned, yielding to the firm pressure on her arm and authority of the law, as she backed down the steps and was propelled down the front walk and out to the street.
"Why, yes, madam," Mike said in a well-guarded whisper. "Last night after they had all retired and the house was carefully locked, somebody broke into the library and went through the late Mr. Thurston's desk and all his private papers!"
The announcement was made solemnly and filled the woman with awe.
"How--how perfectly terrible!" she exclaimed. "Of course, I didn't know about that. No wonder they were all so upset. But, you see, I'm one of the family and came here to help. I ought to go right up and comfort Eden."
But the hand of the law was still firmly upon her arm, and she did not go back. In fact, the alarm that this big Mike had suddenly raised within her was on the increase. She felt she should learn more about this supposed robbery that the man had been looking into. She must find out if her son had been caught in any such mistaken escapade. It would not be beyond his powers to try something like that, she knew. And it was all right, of course, if he found such measures necessary to carry out his plans. He and she had hoped to be able to work quietly from inside the house as members of the family. But anything was all right if he could get away with it, and so far he had always got away with it. Still it was rather frightening to think that there was a possibility that this time he might not get away with it.
She looked up pleadingly to Mike's stern face, with slippery unmotherly eyes.
"I really ought to go right away to Eden. She will wonder why I didn't come."
Mike looked down at her with wise, penetrating eyes.
"What did you say your name was, madam?"
"Fane," said Lavira eagerly, "I'm Mrs. Lavira Fane. And I got word--that is, I had the notice of the death, and I started right away to come, for I knew the dear departed man would have expected me to be here at once. I took the first plane and came right out here as quick as I could."