Chapter Ten.

The Forbidden Room

There was no one to turn to, no one to consult, no one to help her.

She read and re-read those words, scrawled on what seemed a scrap torn from a paper bag.

“I think--it’s Wren…” she said to herself. “He tried to tell me something before. He’s still here…”

She thought of Rogers. If Wren were really in danger…? But Rogers would find him and arrest him, send him to prison. She was not asked to give any assistance, only not to go away, as if only her presence here prevented a crime.

“Aunt Emma wants me to go,” she thought.

After all, was it Wren who had written? It might be someone else. Uncle Rufus, perhaps? He had told her plainly enough that he believed his life to be in danger, and had asked her to remain here. Perhaps he had been somehow intimidated, and dared not urge her to stay while those people were in the room.

But whoever had written, and whatever the cause, she could not go until she had discovered the meaning of that note. She took off her hat and almost laughed.

“I can’t go,” she thought. “I’ll _never_ be able to leave--”

That was a bad thought to entertain. Never be able to leave? Had she known that the first day she came here? Something had weighed so heavily upon her then… As if she had known that she could never get away, never get back to the cheerful outside world, that here was the end…

“No!” she said to herself. “I cannot think--things like that. I have no one but myself to depend on now. I’ve got to keep cool. I’ve got to be sensible.”

She tore the note into fragments, and putting them into the wash-basin, let the water run on them until they were washed down the drain.

What helped her was the thought that some other human creature had appealed to her.

“I’ve got to find out,” she said to herself. “I’ve got to use my wits.”

There was, first of all, the ordeal of telling Aunt Emma that she had changed her mind about going. She discovered then that she was afraid of Aunt Emma; Uncle Peter had been brutal, Uncle Rufus not much better, Miles was dangerously uncertain, yet of all the inmates of this house, Aunt Emma, who had tended her kindly when she was ill, who had brought up her meals, Aunt Emma was the one she feared most.

“But I have the advantage now,” she told herself. “Aunt Emma expects to get money from me. She can’t afford to antagonize me. I’ve got to use that advantage.”

She opened her door and went out into the corridor. There was no reason why that long red-carpeted hall should seem horrible to her; no reason to think the silence here was sinister… A door opened behind her, and Aunt Emma came out.

“Ready?” she asked. “If you are, I’ll call Miles.”

“I’ve been thinking--” said Di. “While I was dressing I felt--quite miserable… If you don’t mind, I’d like to stay here, in the country, for another day or so, until I feel better.”

Aunt Emma made no answer for a time.

“I think you’re making a mistake,” she said at last. “This house isn’t good for you.”

A threat, was that?

“The country’s so pretty, this time of the year,” said Di.

“You’re highly nervous and impressionable,” Aunt Emma went on. “If I’d realized that before, I’d never have let you come here. There’s something about this house…”

She came quickly down the hall, and turned the knob of the door next to Uncle Rufus’s room. It opened, she looked at the lock, looked down at the floor, and then closed the door again.

“Let me try your key!” she said, and Di gave it to her.

“No, it doesn’t fit,” she said. “Very well! If you’re going to stay here, let me earnestly warn you against going into that room.”

“That--sounds like Bluebeard,” said Di, with a pretty poor attempt at lightness.

Aunt Emma stood with her back to the door, looking at the girl with a faint smile.

“After Bluebeard was dead,” she said, “and the unlucky wives removed, do you think the family ever cared much for that little room?”

Di looked back at her, not understanding, yet uneasy.

“I imagine,” Aunt Emma proceeded, “that no one would ever use that room again. Even when the sun shone into it. Even if the castle were pulled down, one stone from the walls of that room, built into some other wall, would bring dreams…”

“Well, but Bluebeard never lived here,” said Di, more and more disturbed.

“I believe you went in there once, by mistake, thinking it was Uncle Rufus’s room,” said Aunt Emma. “Perhaps you felt then that it wasn’t--” she paused--“a good room for you to be in,” she added, with the grim shadow of a smile. “If you’re going to stay here, I warn you, for your own peace of mind. There’s nothing there. See!” She flung open the door, and Di saw a neat bare room with the usual hotel furnishings. Aunt Emma closed the door again. “Don’t go in there--_if you can help it_.”

“That shouldn’t be difficult,” said Di, smiling herself.

For she was, to the best of her ability, defying Aunt Emma. She knew she must do this, for the good of her soul. She must not be repressed or dismayed.

“Can I help you with the lunch?” she asked.

Aunt Emma accepted the offer, and they went downstairs together. And all the way, Di was thinking “Why mustn’t I go into that room? And why should I want to?”

She tried to forget that room.

“I’ve stayed here to find out who wrote me that note,” she told herself. “That’s the important thing. That’s what I must think of.”

But she kept on thinking about the room. She remembered going into it that night, finding it empty and dark, with the wind blowing into it. And hadn’t she, even then, felt something there, something terrible…?

“No!” she said to herself. “And anyhow, it doesn’t matter. That’s not the important thing.”

She moved about the kitchen, working under Aunt Emma’s directions, beating eggs for an omelette, making cocoa for Uncle Rufus.

“Did she mean that something had happened in that room? Well, what of it? Nothing to do with me! I _must_ think about that note. I must do something.”

With no little effort, she forced herself to return to that subject.

“It must have been written either by Wren or Uncle Rufus. The first thing is, to find out if Uncle Rufus wrote it. If he didn’t, then Wren must be somewhere in the house…”

That was not an agreeable thought, that someone was hidden in this house, among all these empty rooms.

“If I find that Uncle Rufus wrote it, I’m going to tell that detective,” she thought. “But if it was Wren--I can’t. He did all he could for me. I won’t help to send him to jail.”

“Diana,” said Aunt Emma, “will you take this tray up to your Uncle Rufus? Then come down, and we’ll have our own lunch.”

Di took the tray and went toward the door.

“The back stairs,” said Aunt Emma, opening a door, “It saves a good many steps.”

Di had not known before of this back stairway leading up from the kitchen. It was dark, with a closed door at the top, and darker still as Aunt Emma closed the kitchen door behind her. And at once, as that door shut, she began thinking again of the forbidden room.

“Oh, how stupid and disgusting of me!” she cried to herself, in a sort of despair. “Exactly like Bluebeard’s wife! Just because Aunt Emma said not to go into it… She probably did that on purpose--one of her horrible psychological experiments… Perhaps she wants to divert my mind from other things…”

She reached the door at the top, and had to set down the tray, to open the door.

“If only I can get a word alone with Uncle Rufus… And I’ll look into that room, just to prove to myself…”

She came out into an unfamiliar corridor, that branched off from the main one; this one, too, was lined with closed doors.

“There must be at least twenty-five empty rooms in this floor,” she thought. “And I don’t know what’s upstairs. There’s the cellar, too. It’s all very well for me to talk about ‘searching the house,’ but it’s not going to be an easy job. Especially without being seen…”

Uncle Rufus’s door was closed, and she knocked. There was no answer, and presently she knocked again. The silence alarmed her; she tried the handle, and found the door locked.

“Uncle Rufus!” she called.

A door across the corridor opened and Uncle Peter appeared.

“Ah!” he said, jauntily. “A little refreshment! I can do with that!”

“It’s for Uncle Rufus,” said Di, indignantly. “His door’s locked--”

“I know,” said Uncle Peter, with his old apologetic air. “He was asleep, and I just stepped into my own room for a smoke--”

“Please unlock the door!”

“Certainly!” he said. “Certainly!” He took the key from his pocket, put it into the lock and flung open the door.

Uncle Rufus was not asleep; he was sitting bolt upright in the bed in that dark, close room.

“Are you feeling better?” Di asked, stirred to pity and concern for him.

He only shook his head.

“Here’s some nice hot cocoa,” she went on. “Will you let me--?”

“I’ll have to feed him,” whispered Uncle Peter.

“Let me!” said Di.

“No,” protested Uncle Peter. “I understand his ways, y’know.” Di went nearer to the bed, but Uncle Peter blocked the way. “Please don’t get him worked up!” he whispered.

Di looked over her shoulder at the old man and saw him looking at her sidelong.

“Uncle Rufus!” she cried. “Please--just tell me how you feel?”

“Better!” he croaked, in a hoarse voice.

“Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Don’t go till I’m better--” he said, in that same hoarse, painful voice.

“I won’t!” she said. “Wouldn’t you like--?”

“He’s hungry,” Uncle Peter explained, and at once began feeding him with the cocoa. “When you go down, would you mind telling your Aunt Emma that _I’m_ hungry too? She keeps me shut up here… Least she can do is to remember my food.”

“Uncle Rufus,” said Di, looking steadily at the old man. “I’ll stay. I’ll be here--all the time--if you want anything. I’ll come back after lunch and see you.”

The room was too dim for her to see his face clearly at that distance, but she hoped that he understood.

“He wrote that note,” she thought. “He’s afraid. Something horrible is going on.”

As she left the room, Uncle Peter closed the door behind her, and she heard the key turn in the lock. The impulse seized her to bang on the door and make him open it again. She could not endure the thought of the old man locked in there, helpless and frightened. And in spite of her previous experience with him, she had no fear of Uncle Peter, only contempt.

“But that wouldn’t do any good,” she thought. “I’ll have to handle this thing better than that. Somehow, I’m going to get away this afternoon and find that detective.”

She had almost reached the head of the front stairs when something checked her. That room… Now was her chance to look at it, to rid herself, once and for all, of this preposterous obsession.

She turned back, she hesitated; she listened.

“Perhaps that’s just what Aunt Emma wants,” she thought. “For me to go in there. Perhaps there’s something--I won’t like…”

Better to see it, though, whatever it was; better to go, and be done with it. She went softly past Uncle Rufus’s door, to that other door, put her hand on the knob. And again she hesitated.

“Perhaps I’ll be sorry…” she said to herself.

But she turned the knob, and opened the door.

Nothing there, surely, to trouble the most timid. Through the window she could see the blue sky, the tree tops, inside, only a dusty neatness. She stepped over the threshold.

Then she felt it. A strange tingling in her veins, a dread, an excitement, that made her heart beat fast. But there was nothing there; nothing at all…

She looked toward the door of the clothes-closet.

“All right!” she said, aloud, and with a sort of rush, went over to it and flung it open. Nothing there but empty shelves and hooks. She closed the door again, and looked about her. Nothing anywhere.

Yet somehow this blankness did not reassure her. Her oppression, her feeling of dread and excitement was increasing; she could not believe there was really nothing here; she felt only that she had not found--what there was to find. She opened the drawers of the bureau; all empty.

And her fear grew. There was something here, something in the very air that stifled her. She hurried to the window, to open it, and stopped there, with her face grown white as chalk.

For printed on the window-sill in neat black letters was a name:

“Inez.”

Her mother’s name… Why was that here?

Ever since she had come into this house, she had been hearing of her mother, had been led back to her vague, childish memories of her. It had always saddened her to think of her mother, and now with that sorrow there was something else, something dark and dreadful. She looked and looked at that name on the window-sill until suddenly she turned and ran out of the room, shutting the door behind her. Tears were running down her cheeks; she was shaken to the soul by an emotion she could not comprehend.

“What is it?” she said to herself. “Oh, what is this…?”