The Mystery of the Boule Cabinet Part 20

I glanced at the dark square of the window with a little s.h.i.+ver. This business was getting on my nerves again. But G.o.dfrey turned away with a shrug of the shoulders.

"Now for the cabinet," he said, and led the way back upstairs.

Rogers was still sitting dejectedly on the cot, and, looking at him more closely, I could see that he was white and shaken. His trouble, whatever its nature, plainly lay heavy on his mind.

"Have you anything to tell us, this evening, Rogers?" I asked, kindly, but he only shook his head.

"I've told you everything I know, sir," he answered, in a low voice.

"I'm not going to worry you, Rogers," I went on, "but I want you to think it over. You can rely upon me to help you, if I can."

He looked up quickly, but caught himself, and turned his eyes away.

"Thank you, sir," was all he said.

"And now," I added, briskly, "I'll have to ask you to get up. Move the cot away from the door, Parks."

Parks obeyed me with astonished face.

"You're not going in there, sir!" he protested, as I turned the k.n.o.b.

"Yes, we are," I said, and opened the door. "Is--is...."

"No, sir," broke in Parks, understanding. "The undertakers brought the coffin and put him in it and moved him over to the drawing-room this afternoon, sir."

"I'm glad of that. I want all the lights lit, Parks, just as they were last night."

Parks reached inside the door and switched on the electrics. Then he went away, came back in a moment with a taper, and proceeded to light the gas-lights. A moment later, the lights in the inner room were also blazing.

"There you are, sir," said Parks, and retreated to the door. "Will you need me?"

"Not now. But wait in the hall outside. We may need you." I had a notion to tell him to have an axe handy, but I saw G.o.dfrey smiling.

"Very good, sir," said Parks, evidently relieved, and went out and closed the door.

I led the way into the inner room.

"Well, there it is," I said, and nodded toward the Boule cabinet, standing in the full glare of the light, every inlay and incrustation glittering like the eyes of a basilisk. "It isn't too late to give it up, G.o.dfrey."

"Oh, yes, it is," he said, coolly, removing his coat "It was too late the moment you told me that story. Why, Lester, if I gave it up, I should never sleep again!"

"And if you don't, you may never wake again," I pointed out.

He laughed lightly.

"What a dismal prophet you are! Draw up a chair and watch me."

He pulled back his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves, and placed his electric torch on the floor beside the cabinet. Then he paused with folded arms to contemplate this masterpiece of M. Boule.

"It _is_ a beauty," he said, at last, and then drew out the little drawers, one after another, looked them over, and placed them carefully on a chair. "Now," he added, "let us see if there is any s.p.a.ce that isn't accounted for."

He took from his pocket a folding rule of ivory, opened it, and began a series of measurements so searching and intricate that half an hour pa.s.sed without a word being spoken. Then he pulled up another chair, and sat down beside me.

"I seem to be pretty much up against it," he said, "no doubt just as the designer of the cabinet would wish me to be. The whole bottom of the desk is inclosed, and those three little drawers take up only a small part of the s.p.a.ce. Then the back of the cabinet seems to be double--at least, there's a s.p.a.ce of three inches I can't account for. So there's room for a dozen secret drawers, if the Montespan required so many. And now to find the combination."

He adjusted the steel gauntlet carefully to his right hand and sat down on the floor before the cabinet.

"I'll begin at the bottom," he said. "If there is any spot I miss, tell me of it."

He ran his fingers up and down the graceful legs, carefully feeling every inequality of the elaborate bronze ornamentation. Particularly did his fingers linger on every boss and point, striving to push it in or move it up or down; but they were all immovable. Then he examined the bottom of the table minutely, using his torch to illumine every crevice; but again without result.

Another half hour pa.s.sed so, and when at last he came out from under the table, his face was dripping with sweat.

"It's trying work," he said, sitting down again and mopping his face.

"But isn't it a beauty, Lester? The more I look at it, the more wonderful it seems."

"I told Philip Vantine I wasn't up to it, and I'm not," I said.

"Nor I, but I can appreciate it to the extent of my capacity. It's the Louis Fourteenth ideal of beauty--splendour carried to the nth degree. Look at the arabesques along the front--can you imagine anything more graceful? And the engraving--nothing cut-and-dried about that. It was done by a burin in the hands of a master--perhaps by Boule himself. I don't wonder Vantine was rather mad about it. But we haven't found that drawer yet," and he drew his chair close to the cabinet.

"I'd point out one thing to you, G.o.dfrey," I said: "if you go on poking about with the fingers of both hands, as you've been doing, you are just as apt to get struck on the left hand as on the right."

"That's true," he agreed. "Stop me if I forget."

There were three little drawers in the front of the table, and these G.o.dfrey had removed. He inserted his hand into the s.p.a.ce from which he had taken them, and examined it carefully. Then, inch by inch, he ran his fingers over the bosses and arabesques with which the sides and top of the table were incrusted. It seemed to me that, if the secret drawer were anywhere, it must be somewhere in this part of the cabinet, and I watched him with breathless interest. Once I thought he had found the drawer, for a piece of inlay at the side of the table seemed to give a little under the pressure of his fingers; but no hidden spring was touched; no drawer sprang open; no poisoned fangs descended.

"Well," said G.o.dfrey, sitting back in his chair at last, and wiping his face again, "there's so much done. If there is any secret drawer in the lower part of the cabinet, it is mighty cleverly concealed.

Now we'll try the upper part."

The upper part of the cabinet consisted of a series of drawers, rising one above the other, and terminated by a triangular pediment, its tympanum ornamented with some beautiful little bronzes. The drawers themselves were concealed by two doors, opening in the centre, and covered with a most intricate design of arabesqued incrustations.

"If there is a secret drawer here," said G.o.dfrey, "it is somewhere in the back, where there seems to be a hollow s.p.a.ce. But to discover the combination...."

He ran his fingers over the inlay, and then, struck by a sudden thought, tested each of the little figures along the tympanum, but they were all set solidly in place.

"There's one thing sure," he said, "the combination, whatever it is, is of such a nature that it could not be discovered accidentally--by a person leaning on the cabinet, for instance. It isn't a question of merely touching a spring; it is probably a question of releasing a series of levers, which must be worked in a certain order, or the drawer won't open. I'm afraid we are up against it."

"I can't pretend I'm sorry," I said, with a sigh of relief. "As far as I am concerned, I'm perfectly willing that the drawer should go undiscovered."

"Well, I am not!" retorted G.o.dfrey, curtly, and he sat regarding the cabinet with puckered brows. Then he rose and began tapping at the back.

I don't know what it was--for I was conscious of no noise--but some mysterious attraction drew my eyes to the window at the farther side of the room. Near the top of the wooden shutter, which Parks and I had put in place, was a small semi-circular opening, to allow the pa.s.sage of a little light, perhaps, and peering through this opening were two eyes--two burning eyes....

They were fixed upon G.o.dfrey with such feverish intentness that they did not see my glance, and I lowered my head instantly.

"G.o.dfrey," I said, in a shaking voice, "don't look up; don't move your head; but there is some one peering through the hole in the shutter opposite us."

G.o.dfrey did not answer for quite a minute, but kept calmly on with his examination of the cabinet.