Chapter Five #3
Selena, hoping to prevent another cutting remark from Mrs. Whitlock, quickly replied, “We are, indeed. Mrs. Hillman often likes to start her days here with a few minutes of reflection. On a busy school day, I sometimes steal in here as well, to give myself a moment to ponder and give thanks.”
Selena ended the tour with a peek into Mrs. Hillman’s small front parlor, which she used as a private retreat, and then led the party back through the great hall to the main staircase.
“We will meet again for drinks before dinner at seven P.M.,” Selena told the guests. “Please spend the interval at your leisure.”
The group voiced their thanks for the tour and dispersed.
Miss Goodwin and Mr. Davis directed a covert glance at Mrs. Whitlock and then hurried off together.
Selena wondered with amusement if the couple was, in direct defiance of the older woman’s warning about propriety, headed for the billiard room unchaperoned.
Dr. Scott and Colonel Blackwood said they would return to the library.
Mrs. Whitlock bade Miss Thompson to fetch her knitting.
Selena pounced on this opportunity to spend a bit of time on her own—and to follow her hunch that Mr. Clarke might have hidden a fortune somewhere in the house.
She decided to start with the most obvious place: the chamber Mr. Clarke had occupied the night before.
She hurried upstairs to that room near the end of the north wing and shut the door.
The curtains were open. Outside, wind and snow gusted ferociously, lighting the room in a greyish glow.
A rush of nerves took hold of Selena, and she paused. What would she say if a servant were to walk in? She may have been the heir to Darkmoor Park and have the right to go anywhere and do just about anything she pleased, but servants gossiped. She didn’t want anyone to know she was snooping.
It occurred to her that someone needed to pack up Mr. Clarke’s belongings, a grim task that Mrs. Hillman would probably assign to a member of the staff.
Selena decided to do the job herself—it was the perfect explanation for her presence here, should one be required, and she could search the room while she was at it.
“Under the dragon,” she reminded herself. She made a quick survey of the chamber but found no image, statue, or other sign of a dragon. Had she misinterpreted the message? It was so cryptic, after all.
Selena opened the wardrobe and removed Mr. Clarke’s clothing, methodically checking each coat, shirt, waistcoat, and pair of trousers to see if it might contain a billfold or a packet of money but finding none.
She folded and placed each garment in the leather trunk by the window seat.
There were two pairs of shoes. Nothing was concealed within them.
When the wardrobe was empty, she searched for a hidden drawer or false bottom but found none.
She picked up the shaving kit and comb and brush set from the dresser and added them to the trunk, feeling a stab of sorrow for the gentleman who would have no more need of them.
In the top drawer of the bureau, she discovered Mr. Clarke’s billfold.
It contained twenty-one pounds in cash. She scooped up a stack of stockings and underclothing, and her heart seemed to still.
An envelope lay at the bottom of the drawer.
Selena seized the envelope. It was letter-sized, of high-quality paper, and slight, as if it contained only a letter, not thousands of pounds in cash. Yet Mr. Clarke had deliberately hidden this envelope under his clothing. Why?
It was addressed to Mr. John Clarke at a London address. Why John Clarke, not Jack? John must have been the man’s formal name and Jack a diminutive, Selena deduced.
She knew she ought to place the letter in the trunk with Mr. Clarke’s other possessions and walk away.
But curiosity got the better of her. The envelope had been previously opened.
Surely, no one would ever know if she took a peek.
And she told herself, although they thought Mr. Clarke had no family, she ought to make sure there was no one who needed to be notified about his death.
Selena unfolded the letter within and read it.
December 18, 1852
Hammersmith House, London
My dear Mr. Clarke,
I am so pleased to invest in your worthy project. Enclosed please find the sum we discussed.
I do hope to live long enough to see the London General Hospital built and serving our great city.
Cordially yours,
Mrs. Evelyn Stout
The letter had been folded around a cheque for the sum of a hundred and fifty pounds made out by the Bank of England to the bearer, meaning that whoever possessed it could cash it.
Selena stared at the letter and cheque, her pulse racing.
These proved one aspect of what Mr. Clarke had told his listeners at the White Hart Inn—that he had, at least purportedly, been raising money to build a hospital.
The London General Hospital. Mrs. Evelyn Stout, whoever she was, had invested a hundred and fifty pounds—a large sum of money.
Selena’s gut told her that that the rest of Mr. Clarke’s tale had also been true. He had taken the money he had raised to protect it from a business partner with malicious intent and had brought it to Darkmoor Park—and he had trusted her, with his dying words, to find it.
Now it was up to Selena to make good on that deathbed wish: to locate the money and return it to the hospital building fund.
She began to doubt, though, that it was in this room—because it was the most obvious place to look.
Still, she needed to make sure. She returned the letter and cheque to the envelope, tucked it in her skirt pocket for safekeeping, and made a thorough study of the rest of the room.
She found no secret compartments, loose floorboards, or other places where one might conceal wads of cash. And no dragons.
She was about to leave when the chamber door creaked and then slowly opened.
Selena’s heart leaped into her throat. She had every right to be here, she reminded herself, clearing out Mr. Clarke’s things, but even so, she had hoped to not be discovered. She whirled to face the doorway, readying her explanation for whichever servant might have been coming in.
To her shock, it was Dr. Scott who quietly entered the room and shut the door behind him.