The indiscretions of a lady's maid

June 11th

I obtained the situation as maid to Miss Rutherford-Morgan through the medium of the Morning Post.

She lived with her father in one of those large houses in Lancaster Gate, a pretty dark-haired girl of twenty-two.

When I arrived, with my trunk on the top of a four-wheeler as usual, a big green motor-car was standing at the door, and there descended the steps a middle-aged round-faced jovial-looking man, clean shaven, spruce in dress, and wearing round, gold-rimmed glasses. I saw that only one arm—the left—was in his thick grey motor-coat, for the right was in a black sling beneath.

He was very helpless, having recently broken his arm. Behind him came a well-dressed young lady, his daughter. She wore a splendid seal-skin coat reaching to her heels, and behind her pale-blue motor veil I discerned that she was uncommonly good-looking.

They were my master and young mistress, Mr. and Miss Rutherford-Morgan.

Mademoiselle spoke briefly with me, then she entered the car with her father and drove off, leaving me to settle myself to my new work.

They were not back before an hour previous to dinner, and as I dressed her I found she was a particularly chic and gay little person. From the first moment I took to her. She liked smart frocks and hats, and seemed to possess a most extensive wardrobe. From her conversation she seemed to be a constant play-goer, and presently she said—

“I shall want you, Mariette, to come out with me in the car very often. My father, who is such an invalid with his broken arm, does not care much for motoring, and I hate going about alone.”

“Bien, Mademoiselle,” was my response. I loved to ride en automobile.

Mais oui, my new situation was full of rosy promise.

There seemed but little mending to do. Some pressing of ribbons and laces, and a little repairing of chiffon upon the demi-toilettes; but the duties were certainly not exacting, and the pay most generous. English ladies pay well for a French maid of the first order.

Monsieur, the father of Mademoiselle, frequently complained of his arm. He carried it in a sling and was unable to move it. He had, it seemed, been knocked down by a cab in Piccadilly and sustained a compound fracture.

Almost from the first I went out with Mademoiselle Violet, accompanying her upon long runs in the car to Hitchin, Dorking, Tunbridge Wells, Hindhead, Oxford, and other places frequented by motorists.

Twice when we had arranged to go out together Mademoiselle’s father had suddenly changed his mind and, it being bright weather, had come with us.

On the first occasion we ran down to Guildford, and had lunched at the Angel, when he and Mademoiselle Violet went out to re-enter the car to return home. The “boots” was not outside as usual. Therefore Monsieur went to open the door for his daughter, and chose extraordinaire! he used his right hand in doing so. Yet, next second, he replaced it in the black sling, and held it there as before.

Again, another strange incident occurred about a week later. We had gone down to Brighton one Sunday, and put up at the Métropole as usual. Monsieur’s arm had been rather painful for several days, hence we had not been out. Indeed, that morning, when I had respectfully asked him how he felt, he had replied—

“None too grand, Mariette, I’m sorry to say. My arm doesn’t get better at all. I’ve got no use in it.”

And yet that same afternoon, on searching for him in the crowded Métropole at Brighton, I saw him in the smoking-room seated with his back to me, writing a letter!

Mystère!

Mademoiselle had gone out along King’s Road with a young gentleman friend she had met at the Métropole, a Monsieur Cave. I had seen him once before, and I did not like him. He was a blagueur, over-dressed and somewhat caddish in his manners.

I could never see what attraction she found in him.

A fortnight later, as I was walking in Westbourne Grove and looking into Whiteley’s windows, it being my afternoon out, a tall elderly monsieur raised his hat, and addressed me by name, saying he wished to have a few moments private conversation with me.

“I think, Mademoiselle,” he said, “that you know a young man named Cave—a friend of your mistress—eh?”

In surprise, I admitted that I did.

“Well,” he said, “the fact is I am a solicitor,” and he handed me his card, “and I am deputed to make some inquiries as to the young man’s mode of life. He has a very wealthy aunt, a client of mine, who is about to make a will in his favour; but she desires to know something of his ways of living. My client lives in Scotland, an infirm old lady. You, of course, know where young Cave lives.”

“In Ebury Street, Number 44a. I took a note there for Mademoiselle the other day.”

“Exactly; I thought you could perhaps watch and give me some information. I will make it worth your while. Cave is rather sweet on her, eh?” he asked.

“I think so,” I laughed, and then the solicitor, whose name was Percival, after asking a number of other questions and urging me to assist him in his inquiries, turned and left me.

Next day was Mademoiselle’s birthday, and she had arranged that I should go with her in the car for a long run.

Just, however, as we were going out Monsieur met us in the hall, and said—

“I’ll come out with you, dear, if you’ll wait while I get on my coat. I want to do a little shopping.”

Then later on, when he was sitting in the car, he turned to Edwards, the chauffeur, and said—

“We’ll do some shopping this morning. Go first to Horton Brothers, the jewellers, in Old Bond Street.”

Mademoiselle was sitting opposite me, and on our way up Grosvenor Place she remarked with enthusiasm—

“Really my father is awfully good, Mariette. He’s going to buy me a splendid birthday present—a diamond necklet.”

I congratulated her and she chatted until, after threading the unusually congested traffic, we at last pulled up before the well-known jewellers.

No jewellery was displayed in the windows, which were merely closed with brown wire blinds bearing the name “Horton Brothers. Diamond Merchants.”

I suppose I had waited in the car for perhaps twenty minutes when a constable came up and asked us to move on for we were blocking the traffic at the narrowest part of Bond Street. Compelled to go round into Clifford Street I walked back to the shop, and going in told Monsieur where we were.

As I entered father and daughter were seated at a small glass-covered counter with several splendid diamond necklets displayed before them, while Mr. Horton, the senior partner, was attending to his customers himself.

“This,” he was saying, holding one of the necklets in his hand, “is worth two thousand pounds. But, as I tell you, owing to the slump in diamonds, I’m prepared to take seventeen hundred-and-fifty for it. And more, if your daughter don’t like it in twelve months’ time I’ll buy it back from her at the same figure. I’ll give you a written agreement. I can’t say more, can I?”

Monsieur was haggling over the price. He wanted it for sixteen hundred, but the dealer remained obdurate.

“It’s a really handsome present for your daughter,” Mr. Horton was saying, with a laugh, holding it up to the light by the two clasps and then placing it against the dark-blue velvet stand shaped like a woman’s neck.

“They’re the best Cape diamonds, and you may call in any independent expert you wish before taking them away,” he added.

“I do not doubt you,” replied his customer. “Your reputation in the trade is so very high that surely nobody could doubt your word.”

“Some persons would,” laughed the dealer. “It is so very easy in our trade to deceive all but experts. I must admit not one man in a million can tell a notable diamond at first glance.”

But I went back to the car in Clifford Street, reflecting that Mademoiselle was a very lucky young person to receive such a handsome birthday present.

I had waited another twenty minutes or so when Mademoiselle came around the corner with a note in her hand.

“I want Edwards to take this round to Horton’s head office in Hatton Garden and bring back a reply at once,” she said to me. “We are waiting here till you get back.”

“Bien, Mademoiselle,” I said, and Edwards started his engine and we drove off, with the letter.

We had but little difficulty in finding the office of Horton Brothers, apparently a rather dingy first-floor suite in that colony of diamond dealers. Edwards took the note up-stairs, and after waiting ten minutes or so was given a square sealed packet addressed to Mr. Henry Horton, Old Bond Street, with injunction to be careful of it.

I supposed it to be another necklet which the firm had in stock there, and which Mademoiselle wanted to see.

On coming slowly along Clifford Street I saw the tall, well-dressed figure of Mademoiselle impatiently waiting us. So I pulled up and gave her the packet with which she disappeared around the corner and into Horton’s shop.

About ten minutes afterwards both father and daughter returned to the car, and as Mademoiselle entered, she exclaimed with delight—

“Oh, Mariette! dad has bought me such a lovely present.”

“Drive to the Dieudonne,” said her father to Edwards, “we’ll lunch there.”

So I went round with them to the restaurant, where the pair descended, leaving me to drive round to Lancaster Gate to get my lunch.

“You had better remain at home this afternoon, Mariette,” said Mademoiselle. “I shall be back about three.”

So Edwards and I drove off.

I waited till evening—nay, till night, but neither Mademoiselle or Monsieur returned. I went to the Dieudonne next day, but neither had been seen there.

This caused me to wonder greatly. What could have happened?

On the third day, about eleven o’clock in the morning, the butler told me that a gentleman wished to speak with me in the dining-room.

So ascending from the kitchen I found two strangers awaiting me. One of them was Mr. Henry Horton.

“That’s the woman!” he exclaimed, pointing to me.

“Dieu! What does this mean?” I cried, starting in surprise.

“It means, Mademoiselle Le Bas, that I’m a detective officer,” the other explained, “and you are arrested on a charge of being an accomplice with others in a very ingenious piece of fraud. You’ll have to come to the station with me.”

I protested loudly; but I was compelled to go with the pair in a cab to Vine Street Police Station, where I was seen by Mr. Percival, who now revealed to me the fact that he was not a solicitor, but a detective.

I was not long, of course, in convincing the police of my innocence of any criminal action.

Presently, however, before I was released, Detective-inspector Percival said—

“I had my suspicions of Cave, who was through my hands about three years ago. But he was evidently watchful. He somehow knew that I had seen you, and, smelling a rat, made himself scarce. Your employers, Rutherford-Morgan and his daughter, were, we’ve since discovered, none other than Dick Traill and Lily Mayhew, both celebrated jewel thieves, members of the Shorland gang, who are wanted in nearly every European capital.”

“The Shorland gang!” I recollected my strange experience of Monsieur and Madame Shorland. I gasped, utterly amazed. “Diable!”

“Yes. And their game this time was, to say the least, extremely ingenious. Traill or his confederates—who are ever on the watch for a coup—evidently discovered that at the head office of Horton Brothers a big sum in cash is usually kept in the safe for the purpose of buying diamonds from the Dutch dealers. Pretending his arm was broken, Traill went with his female accomplice to the Bond Street shop and there saw Mr. Henry Horton. He picked out a necklet and agreed to pay sixteen hundred-and-eighty pounds for it. Then he explained that he would have to send his chauffeur to his brother’s for the sum in cash, and he asked Mr. Horton to write a note for him. His daughter said she had unfortunately fallen at the rink on the previous day and hurt her wrist. So the pair were both incapable. Horton wrote the letter for Mr. Rutherford-Morgan, who addressed his brother as ‘Dear George,’ and asked Mr. Horton to sign it ‘Your affectionate brother, Harry.’ The letter was addressed to ‘Henry Rutherford, Esq., 305, Newgate Street, E.C.’ Then the customer’s supposed daughter took it outside to you, and——”

“But the letter we took was addressed to Mr. George Horton, of Horton Brothers!”

“Of course. That was the trick! The girl changed the envelopes as she went around to Clifford Street, and you delivered the letter asking for eighteen hundred pounds in notes to be sent by bearer, to Mr. George Horton, the writer’s brother! He always signed himself ‘Harry,’ and the letter being perfectly genuine his brother had no suspicion that it was not an actual transaction until at night when the brothers met at their club.”

I stood dumfounded.

“Yes, Mademoiselle,” the detective added, “it was a very neat bit of business. All three have gone—got clear away to the Continent, no doubt. The irony of it, however, is that Messrs. Hortons’ own money paid for Miss Violet’s birthday present!”

Drôle, n’cest pas?

To-morrow I am leaving London to return home to Pont-Pagny. I have saved a few thousand francs, so I shall not again go back to service.

Assez!

THE END

Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London and Bungay.