Lady Audley’s Secret M. E. Braddon (best historical fiction books of all time TXT) 📖

lifted a portmanteau from the top of a large trunk, and kneeling down before it with a lighted candle in his hand, carefully examined the lock.

To all appearance it was exactly in the same condition in which George had left it, when he laid his mourning garments aside and placed them in this shabby repository with all other memorials of his dead wife. Robert brushed his coat sleeve across the worn, leather-covered lid, upon which the initials G. T. were inscribed with big brass-headed nails; but Mrs. Maloney, the laundress, must have been the most precise of housewives, for neither the portmanteau nor the trunk were dusty.

Mr. Audley dispatched a boy to fetch his Irish attendant, and paced up and down his sitting-room waiting anxiously for her arrival.

She came in about ten minutes, and, after expressing her delight in the return of “the master,” humbly awaited his orders.

“I only sent for you to ask if anybody has been here; that is to say, if anybody has applied to you for the key of my rooms today⁠—any lady?”

“Lady? No, indeed, yer honor; there’s been no lady for the kay; barrin’ it’s the blacksmith.”

“The blacksmith!”

“Yes; the blacksmith your honor ordered to come today.”

“I order a blacksmith!” exclaimed Robert. “I left a bottle of French brandy in the cupboard,” he thought, “and Mrs. M. has been evidently enjoying herself.”

“Sure, and the blacksmith your honor tould to see to the locks,” replied Mrs. Maloney. “It’s him that lives down in one of the little streets by the bridge,” she added, giving a very lucid description of the man’s whereabouts.

Robert lifted his eyebrows in mute despair.

“If you’ll sit down and compose yourself, Mrs. M.,” he said⁠—he abbreviated her name thus on principle, for the avoidance of unnecessary labor⁠—“perhaps we shall be able by and by to understand each other. You say a blacksmith has been here?”

“Sure and I did, sir.”

“Today?”

“Quite correct, sir.”

Step by step Mr. Audley elicited the following information. A locksmith had called upon Mrs. Maloney that afternoon at three o’clock, and had asked for the key of Mr. Audley’s chambers, in order that he might look to the locks of the doors, which he stated were all out of repair. He declared that he was acting upon Mr. Audley’s own orders, conveyed to him by a letter from the country, where the gentleman was spending his Christmas. Mrs. Maloney, believing in the truth of this statement, had admitted the man to the chambers, where he stayed about half an hour.

“But you were with him while he examined the locks, I suppose?” Mr. Audley asked.

“Sure I was, sir, in and out, as you may say, all the time, for I’ve been cleaning the stairs this afternoon, and I took the opportunity to begin my scouring while the man was at work.”

“Oh, you were in and out all the time. If you could conveniently give me a plain answer, Mrs. M., I should be glad to know what was the longest time that you were out while the locksmith was in my chambers?”

But Mrs. Maloney could not give a plain answer. It might have been ten minutes; though she didn’t think it was as much. It might have been a quarter of an hour; but she was sure it wasn’t more. It didn’t seem to her more than five minutes, but “thim stairs, your honor;” and here she rambled off into a disquisition upon the scouring of stairs in general, and the stairs outside Robert’s chambers in particular.

Mr. Audley sighed the weary sigh of mournful resignation.

“Never mind, Mrs. M.,” he said; “the locksmith had plenty of time to do anything he wanted to do, I dare say, without your being any the wiser.”

Mrs. Maloney stared at her employer with mingled surprise and alarm.

“Sure, there wasn’t anything for him to stale, your honor, barrin’ the birds and the geran’ums, and⁠—”

“No, no, I understand. There, that’ll do, Mrs. M. Tell me where the man lives, and I’ll go and see him.”

“But you’ll have a bit of dinner first, sir?”

“I’ll go and see the locksmith before I have my dinner.”

He took up his hat as he announced his determination, and walked toward the door.

“The man’s address, Mrs. M.?”

The Irishwoman directed him to a small street at the back of St. Bride’s Church, and thither Mr. Robert Audley quietly strolled, through the miry slush which simple Londoners call snow.

He found the locksmith, and, at the sacrifice of the crown of his hat, contrived to enter the low, narrow doorway of a little open shop. A jet of gas was flaring in the unglazed window, and there was a very merry party in the little room behind the shop; but no one responded to Robert’s “Hulloa!” The reason of this was sufficiently obvious. The merry party was so much absorbed in its own merriment as to be deaf to all commonplace summonses from the outer world; and it was only when Robert, advancing further into the cavernous little shop, made so bold as to open the half-glass door which separated him from the merrymakers, that he succeeded in obtaining their attention.

A very jovial picture of the Teniers school was presented to Mr. Robert Audley upon the opening of this door.

The locksmith, with his wife and family, and two or three droppers-in of the female sex, were clustered about a table, which was adorned by two bottles; not vulgar bottles of that colorless extract of the juniper berry, much affected by the masses; but of bona fide port and sherry⁠—fiercely strong sherry, which left a fiery taste in the mouth, nut-brown sherry⁠—rather unnaturally brown, if anything⁠—and fine old port; no sickly vintage, faded and thin from excessive age: but a rich, full-bodied wine, sweet and substantial and high colored.

The locksmith was speaking as Robert Audley opened the door.

“And with that,” he said, “she walked off, as graceful as you please.”

The whole party was thrown into confusion by the appearance of Mr. Audley, but it was to be observed that the locksmith was more embarrassed than his companions. He set down his glass so hurriedly, that he spilt