CHAPTER XIV
This is not a story of the Maharajah's emeralds; only a knot in the landing-net of which I have already spoken. I may add with equal frankness that Haggerty, upon his own initiative, never proceeded an inch beyond the keyhole episode. It was one of his many failures; for, unlike the great fictional detectives who never fail, Haggerty was human, and did. It is only fair to add, however, that when he failed only rarely did any one else succeed. If ever criminal investigation was a man's calling, it was Haggerty's. He had infinite patience, the heart of a lion and the strength of a gorilla. Had he been highly educated, as a detective he would have been a fizzle; his mind would have been concerned with variant lofty thoughts, and the sordid would have repelled him: and all crimes are painted on a background of sordidness. In one thing Haggerty stood among his peers and topped many of them; in his long record there was not one instance of his arresting an innocent man.
So Haggerty had his failures; there are geniuses on both sides of the law; and the pariah-dog is always just a bit quicker mentally than the thoroughbred hound who hunts him; indeed, to save his hide he has to be.
Nearly every great fact is like a well-balanced kite; it has for its tail a whimsy. Haggerty, on a certain day, received twenty-five hundred dollars from the Hindu prince and five hundred more from the hotel management. The detective bore up under the strain with stoic complacency. "The Blind Madonna of the Pagan—Chance" always had her hand upon his shoulder.
Kitty went to Bar Harbor, her mother to visit friends in Orange. Thomas walked with a straight spine always; but it stiffened to think that, without knowing a solitary item about his past, they trusted him with the run of the house. The first day there was work to do; the second day, a little less; the third, nothing at all. So he moped about the great house, lonesome as a forgotten dog. He wrote a sonnet on being lonesome, tore it up and flung the scraps into the waste-basket. Once, he seated himself at the piano and picked out with clumsy forefinger Walking Down the Old Kent Road. Kitty could play. Often in the mornings, while at his desk, he had heard her; and oddly enough, he seemed to sense her moods by what she played. (That's the poet.) When she played Chopin or Chaminade she went about gaily all the day; when she played Beethoven, Grieg or Bach, Thomas felt the presence of shadows.
There was a magnificent library, mostly editions de luxe. Thomas smiled over the many uncut volumes. True, Dickens, Dumas and Stevenson were tolerably well-thumbed; but the host of thinkers and poets and dramatists and theologians, in their hand-tooled Levant…! Away in an obscure corner (because of its cheap binding) he came across a set of Lamb. He took out a volume at random and glanced at the fly-leaf—"Kitty Killigrew, Smith College." Then he went into the body of the book. It was copiously marked and annotated. There was something so intimate in the touch of the book that he felt he was committing a sacrilege, looking as it were into Kitty's soul. Most men would have gone through the set. Thomas put the book away. Thou fool, indeed! What a hash he had made of his affairs!
He saw Killigrew at breakfast only. The merchant preferred his club in the absence of his family.
Early in the afternoon of the fourth day, Thomas received a telephone call from Killigrew.
"Hello! That you, Webb?"
"Yes. Who is it?"
"Killigrew. Got anything to do to-night?"
"No, Mr. Killigrew."
"You know where my club is, don't you?"
"Yes."
"Well, be there at seven for dinner. Tell the butler and the housekeeper. Mr. Crawford has a box to the fight to-night, and he thought perhaps you'd like to go along with us."
"A boxing-match?"
"Ten rounds, light-weights; and fast boys, too. Both Irish."
"Really, I shall be glad to go."
"Webb?"
"Yes."
"Never use that word 'really' to me. It's un-Irish."
Thomas heard a chuckle before the receiver at the other end clicked on the hook. What a father this hearty, kindly, humorous Irishman would have made for a son!
In London Thomas' amusements had been divided into three classes. During the season he went to the opera twice, to the music-halls once a month, to a boxing-match whenever he could spare the shillings. He belonged to a workingmen's club not far from where he lived; an empty warehouse, converted into a hall, with a platform in the center, from which the fervid (and often misinformed) socialists harangued; and in one corner was a fair gymnasium. Every fortnight, for the sum of a crown a head, three or four amateur bouts were arranged. Thomas rarely missed these exhibitions; he seriously considered it a part of his self-acquired education. What Englishman lives who does not? Brains and brawn make a man (or a country) invincible.
At seven promptly Thomas called at the club and asked for Mr. Killigrew. He was shown into the grill, where he was pleasantly greeted by his host and Crawford and introduced to a young man about his own age, a Mr. Forbes. Thomas, dressed in his new stag-coat, felt that he was getting along famously. He had some doubt in regard to his straw hat, however, till, after dinner, he saw that his companions were wearing their Panamas.
Forbes, the artist, had reached that blasé period when, only upon rare occasions, did he feel disposed to enlarge his acquaintance. But this fresh-skinned young Britisher went to his heart at once, a kindred soul, and he adopted him forthwith. He and Thomas paired off and talked "fight" all the way to the boxing club.
There was a great crowd pressing about the entrance. There were eddies of turbulent spirits. A crowd in America is unlike any other. It is full of meanness, rowdyism, petty malice. A big fellow, smelling of bad whisky, shouldered Killigrew aside, roughly. Killigrew's Irish blood flamed.
"Here! Look where you're going!" he cried.
The man reached back and jammed Killigrew's hat down over his eyes. Killigrew stumbled and fell, and Crawford and Forbes surged to his rescue from the trampling feet. Thomas, however, caught the ruffian's right wrist, jammed it scientifically against the man's chest, took him by the throat and bore him back, savagely and relentlessly. The crowd, packed as it was, gave ground. With an oath the man struck. Thomas struck back, accurately. Instantly the circle widened. A fight outside was always more interesting than one inside the ropes. A blow ripped open Thomas' shirt. It became a slam-bang affair. Thomas knocked his man down just as a burly policeman arrived. Naturally, he caught hold of Thomas and called for assistance. The wrong man first is the invariable rule of the New York police.
"Milligan!" shouted Killigrew, as he sighted one of the club's promoters.
Milligan recognized his millionaire patron and pushed to his side.
After due explanations, Thomas was liberated and the real culprit was forced swearing through the press toward the patrol-wagon, always near on such nights. Eventually the four gained Crawford's box. Aside from a cut lip and a torn shirt, Thomas was uninjured. If his fairy-godmother had prearranged this fisticuff, she could not have done anything better so far as Killigrew was concerned.
"Thomas," he said, as the main bout was being staged, the chairs and water-pails and paraphernalia changed to fresh corners, "I'll remember that turn. If you're not Irish, it's no fault of yours. I wish you knew something about coffee."
"I enjoy drinking it," Thomas replied, smiling humorously.
Ever after the merchant-prince treated Thomas like a son; the kind of a boy he had always wanted and could not have. And only once again did he doubt; and he longed to throttle the man who brought into light what appeared to be the most damnable evidence of Thomas' perfidy.
CHAPTER XV
We chaps who write have magic carpets.
Whiz!
A marble balcony, overlooking the sea, which shimmered under the light of the summer moon. Lord Henry Monckton and Kitty leaned over the baluster and silently watched the rush of the rollers landward and the slink of them back to the sea.
For three days Kitty had wondered whether she liked or disliked Lord Monckton. The fact that he was the man who had bumped into Thomas that night at the theater may have had something to do with her doddering. He might at least have helped Thomas in recovering his hat. Dark, full-bearded, slender, with hands like a woman's, quiet of manner yet affable, he was the most picturesque person at the cottage. But there was always something smoldering in those sleepy eyes of his that suggested to Kitty a mockery. It was not that recognizable mockery of all those visiting Englishmen who held themselves complacently superior to their generous American hosts. It was as though he were silently laughing at all he saw, at all which happened about him, as if he stood in the midst of some huge joke which he alone was capable of understanding: so Kitty weighed him.
He did not seem to care particularly for women; he never hovered about them, offering little favors and courtesies; rather, he let them come to him. Nor did he care for dancing. But he was always ready to make up a table at bridge; and a shrewd capable player he was, too.
The music in the ballroom stopped.
"Will you be so good, Miss Killigrew, as to tell me why you Americans call a palace like this—a cottage?" Lord Monckton's voice was pleasing, with only a slight accent.
"I'm sure I do not know. If it were mine, I'd call it a villa."
"Quite properly."
"Do you like Americans?"
"I have no preference for any people. I prefer individuals. I had much rather talk to an enlightened Chinaman than to an unenlightened white man."
"I am afraid you are what they call blasé."
"Perhaps I am not quite at ease yet. I was buffeted about a deal in the old days."
Lord Monckton dropped back into the wicker chair, in the deep shadow. Kitty did not move. She wondered what Thomas was doing. (Thomas was rubbing ointment on his raw knuckles.)
"I am very fond of the sea," remarked Lord Monckton. "I have seen some odd parts of it. Every man has his Odyssey, his Aeneid."
Aeneid. It seemed to Kitty that her body had turned that instant into marble as cold as that under her palms.
The coal of the man's cigar glowed intermittently. She could see nothing else.
Aeneid—Enid.
CHAPTER XVI
Thomas slammed the ball with a force which carried it far over the wire backstop.
"You must not drive them so hard, Mr. Webb; at least, not up. Drive them down. Try it again."
Tennis looked so easy from the sidelines that Thomas believed all he had to do was to hit the ball whenever he saw it within reach; but after a few experiments he accepted the fact that every game required a certain talent, quite as distinct as that needed to sell green neckties (old stock) when the prevailing fashion was polka-dot blue. How he loathed Thomas Webb. How he loathed the impulse which had catapulted him into this mad whirligig! Why had not fate left him in peace; if not satisfied with his lot, at least resigned? And now must come this confrontation, the inevitable! No poor rat in a trap could have felt more harassed. Mentally, he went round and round in circles, but he could find no exit. There is no file to saw the bars of circumstance.
That the lithe young figure on the other side of the net, here, there, backward and forward, alert, accurate, bubbling with energy… Once, a mad rollicking impulse seized and urged him to vault the net and take her in his arms and hold her still for a moment. But he knew. She was using him as an athlete uses a trainer before a real contest.
There was something more behind his stroke than mere awkwardness. It was downright savagery. Generally when a man is in anger or despair he longs to smash things; and these inoffensive tennis-balls were to Thomas a gift of the gods. Each time one sailed away over the backstop, it was like the pop of a safety-valve; it averted an explosion.
"That will be enough!" cried Kitty, as the last of a dozen balls sailed toward the distant stables.
The tennis-courts were sunken and round them ran a parapet of lawn, crisp and green, with marble benches opposite the posts, generally used as judges' stands. Upon one of these Kitty sat down and began to fan herself. Thomas walked over and sat down beside her. The slight gesture of her hand had been a command.
It was early morning, before breakfast; still and warm and breathless, a forerunner of a long hot summer day. A few hundred yards to the south lay the sea, shimmering as it sprawled lazily upon the tawny sands.
The propinquity of a pretty girl and a lonely young man has founded more than one story.
"You'll be enjoying the game, once you learn it."
"Do you think I ever will?" asked Thomas. He bent forward and began tapping the clay with his racket. How to run away!
Kitty, as she looked down at his head, knew that there were a dozen absurd wishes in her heart, none of which could possibly ever become facts. He was so different from the self-assertive young men she knew, with their silly flirtations, their inane small-talk, their capacity for Scotch whisky and long hours. For days she had studied him as through microscopic lenses; his guilelessness was real. It just simply could not be; her ears had deceived her that memorable foggy night in London. And yet, always in the dark his voice was that of one of the two men who had talked near her cab. Who was he? Not a single corner of the veil had he yet lifted, and here it was, the middle of August; and except for the week at Bar Harbor she had been with him day by day, laid she knew not how many traps, over which he had stepped serenely, warily or unconsciously she could not tell which. It made her heart ache; for, manly and simple as he appeared, honest as he seemed, he was either a rogue or the dupe of one, which was almost as bad. But to-day she was determined to learn which he was.
"What have you done with the romance?"
"I have put it away in the bottom of my trunk. The seventh rejection convinces me that I am not a story-teller."
He had a desperate longing to tell her all, then and there. It was too late. He would be arrested as a smuggler, turned out of the house as an impostor.
"Don't give up so easily. There are still ninety-three other editors waiting to read it."
"I have my doubts. Still, it was a pleasant pastime." He sat back and stared at the sea. He must go this day; he must invent some way of leaving. Then came the Machiavellian way; only, he managed as usual to execute it in his blundering English style. Without warning he dropped his racket, caught Kitty in his arms tightly and roughly, kissed her cheek, rose, and strode swiftly across the courts, into the villa. It was done. He could go now; he knew very well he had to go.
His subsequent actions were methodical enough; a shower, a thorough rub-down, and then into his workaday clothes. He packed his trunk and hand-luggage, overlooked nothing that was his, and went down into the living-room where he knew he would find Killigrew with the morning papers. He felt oddly light-headed; but he had no time to analyze the cause.
"Good morning, Thomas," greeted the master of the house cordially.
"I am leaving, Mr. Killigrew. Will you be kind enough to let me have the use of the motor to the station?"
"Leaving! What's happened? What's the matter? Young man, what the devil's this about?"
"I am sorry, sir, but I have insulted Miss Killigrew."
"Insulted Kitty?" Killigrew sprang up.
"Just a moment, sir," warned Thomas. The tense, short but powerful figure of Kitty's father was not at that moment an agreeable thing to look at; and Thomas knew that those knotted hands were rising toward his throat. "Do not misinterpret me, sir. I took Miss Kitty in my arms and kissed her."
"You—kissed—Kitty?" Killigrew fell back into his chair, limp. For a moment there had been black murder in his heart; now he wondered whether to weep or laugh. The reaction was too sudden to admit of coherent thought. "You kissed Kitty?" he repeated mechanically.
"Yes, sir."
"What did she do?"
"I did not wait to learn, sir."
Killigrew got up and walked the length of the room several times, his chin in his collar, his hands clasped behind his back, under his coat-tails. The fifth passage carried him out on to the veranda. He kept on going and disappeared among the lilac hedges.
Thomas thought he understood this action, that his inference was perfectly logical; Killigrew, rather than strike the man who had so gratuitously insulted his daughter, had preferred to run away. (I know; for a long time I, too, believed Thomas the most colossal ass since Dobson.) Thomas gazed mournfully about the room. It was all over. He had burned his bridges. It had been so pleasant, so homelike; and he had begun to love these unpretentious people as if they had been his very own.
Except that which had been expended on clothes, Thomas had most of his salary. It would carry him along till he found something else to do. To get away, immediately, was the main idea; he had found a door to the trap. (The chamois-bag lay in his trunk, forgotten.)
"Your breakfast is ready, sir," announced the grave butler.
So Thomas ate his chops and potatoes and toast and drank his tea, alone.
And Killigrew, blinking tears, leaned against the stout branches of the lilacs and buried his teeth in his coat-sleeve. He was as near apoplexy as he was ever to come.
CHAPTER XVII
Meantime Kitty sat on the bench, stunned. Never before in all her life had such a thing happened. True, young men had at times attempted to kiss her, but not in this fashion. A rough embrace, a kiss on her cheek, and he had gone. Not a word, not a sign of apology. She could not have been more astounded had a thunder-bolt struck at her feet, nor more bereft of action. She must have sat there fully ten minutes without movement. From Thomas, the guileless, this! What did it mean? She could not understand. Had he instantly begged forgiveness, had he made protestations of sentiment, a glimmering would have been hers. Nothing; he had kissed her and walked away: as he might have kissed Celeste, and had, for all she knew!
When the numbing sense of astonishment passed away, it left her cold with anger. Kitty was a dignified young lady, and she would not tolerate such an affront from any man alive. It was more than an affront; it was a dire catastrophe. What should she do now? What would become of all her wonderfully maneuvered plans?
She went directly to her room and flung herself upon the bed, bewildered and unhappy. And there Killigrew found her. He was a wise old man, deeply versed in humanity, having passed his way up through all sorts and conditions of it to his present peaceful state.
"Kittibudget, what the deuce is all this about?… You've been crying!"
"Supposing I have?"—came muffled from the pillows.
"What have you been doing to Thomas?"
"I?" she shot back, sitting up, her eyes blazing. "He kissed me, dad, as he probably kisses his English barmaids."
"Kitty, girl, you're as pretty as a primrose. I don't think Thomas was really accountable."
"Are you defending him?"—blankly.
"No. The strange part of it is, I don't think Thomas wants to be defended. A few minutes ago he came to me and told me what he had done. He is leaving."
The anger went out of her eyes, snuffed—candle-wise. "Leaving?"
"Leaving. He asked me for the motor to the station."
"Leaving! Well, that's about the only possible thing he could do, under the circumstances. He has a good excuse." Excuse! Kitty's nimble mind reached out and touched Thomas' Machiavellian inspiration.
"Hang it, Kitty, I had to run out into the lilacs to laugh! Can't this be smoothed over some way? I like that boy; I don't care if he is a Britisher and sometimes as simple as a fool. When I think of the other light-headed duffers who call themselves gentlemen … Pah! They drink my whiskies, smoke my cigars, and dub me an old Mick behind my back. They run around with silly chorus-girls and play poker till sun-up, and never do an honest day's work. It takes a brave man to come to me and frankly say that he has insulted my daughter."
"He said that?" Behind her lips Kitty was already smiling. "You are acting very strangely, dad."
"I know. Ordinarily I'd have taken him by the collar and hustled him into the road. And if it had been one of those young bachelors who are coming down to-night, I'd have done it. I like Thomas; and I don't think he kissed you either to affront or to insult you."
"Indeed!"—icily.
"I dare say I stole a kiss or two in my day."
"Does mother know it?"
"Back in the old country, when I was a lad. It's a normal impulse. There isn't a young man alive who can look upon a pretty girl's face without wishing to kiss it. I don't believe Thomas will repeat the offense. The trouble, girl, is this—you've been living in a false atmosphere, where people hide all their generous impulses because to be natural is not fashionable."
"I marvel at you more and more. Is it generous, then, to kiss a girl without so much as by your leave? If he had been sorry, if he had apologized, I might overlook the deed. But he kissed me and walked away. Do you realize what such an action means to any young woman with pride? Very well, if he apologizes he may stay; but no longer on the basis of friendship. It must be purely business. When my guests arrive I shall not consider it necessary to ask him to join any of our amusements."
"Poor devil! He'll have to pay for that kiss."
"Next, I suppose you'll be wanting me to marry him!" Kitty volleyed. But she wasn't half so angry as she pretended.
"What? Thomas?"
"Ah, that's different, isn't it? There, there; I've promised to overlook the offense on condition that he apologize and keep his place. I have always said that you'd rather have a man about than me."
"Well, perhaps I could understand a man better."
"Go down to breakfast. I hear mother moving about. I'll ring for what I need. I must bathe and dress. Some of the people will motor in for lunch."
Killigrew, subdued and mystified, went in search of Thomas and discovered him in almost the exact spot he had left him; for Thomas, having breakfasted, had returned to the living-room to await the motor.
"Thomas, when Kitty comes down, apologize. And remember this, that you can't kiss a pretty girl just because you happen to want to."
"But, Mr. Killigrew, I didn't want to!" said Thomas.
"Well, I'll be tinker-dammed!"
"I mean… Really, sir, it is better that I should return at once to the city. I'm a rotter."
"Don't be a fool! Take your grips back to your room, and don't let's have any more nonsense. Finish up that report from Brazil; and if you handle it right, I'll take you into the office where you'll be away from the women folks."
Thomas' heart went down in despair.
"Mrs. Killigrew can find another secretary for the bureau. I shan't say a word to her, and I'll see that Kitty doesn't. You've had your breakfast. Go and finish up that report. Williams," Killigrew called to the second man, "take Mr. Webb's grips up to his rooms. I'll see you later, Thomas," and Killigrew made off for the breakfast-room, where he chuckled at odd times, much to his wife's curiosity. But he shook his head when she quizzed him.
"You agree with me, Molly, don't you, that Kitty shall marry when and where she pleases?"
"Certainly, Daniel. I don't believe in ready-made matches."
"No more do I. Molly, old girl, I've slathers of money. I could quit now; but I'm healthy and can't play all day. Got to work some of the time. Every one around here shall do as they please. And,"—slyly—"if Kitty should want to marry Thomas…"
"Thomas?"
"Anything against the idea?"
"But Thomas couldn't take care of Kitty."
"H'm."
"And Kitty wouldn't marry a man who couldn't."
"Some truth In that. At present Thomas couldn't support an idea. But there's makings in the boy, give a man time and nothing else to do. There's one thing, though; Thomas seems to have the gift of picking out the chaff when it comes to men. A man who can spot a man is worth something to somebody. Where Thomas' niche is, however, I can't tell to date. He'll never get on socially; he has too much regard for other people's feelings."
"And no tact."
"A poor man needs a good deal of that." Killigrew began paring his fourth chop-bone. He hadn't enjoyed himself so much in months. Thomas had kissed Kitty and hadn't wanted to!
It would take a philosopher to dig up the reason for that; or rather a clairvoyant, since philosophers dealt only with logical sequences, and there was nothing logical to Killigrew's mind in Thomas kissing Kitty when he hadn't wanted to!
CHAPTER XVIII
Sugar, coffee and spices. Thomas dipped his pen into the inkwell and went to work. Were all American fathers mad? To condone an affront like this! He could not understand these Americans. He had approached Killigrew with far more courage than the latter suspected. Thomas had read that here men still shot each other on slight provocation. Sugar, coffee and spices… Sao Paulo and valorization committee… 10,000,000 bags. What should he do? Whither should he turn? To have offered that affront… for nothing! Kitty, whom he revered above all women save one, his mother!… Sugar, coffee and spices. Rio number seven, 7 1/2 to 13 1/2 cents. Leaks in the roasting business… Apologize? On his knees, if need be. Caught like a rat in a trap; done for; at the end of his rope. Why hadn't he taken to his heels when he had had the chance? Gone at once to New York and sent for his belongings?… Sugar, coffee and spices… The pen slipped from his fingers, and he laid his head on his arms. Monumental ass!
Up suddenly, alert eyed. There was a telephone-booth in the hall. This he sought noiselessly. He remained hidden in the booth for as long as twenty minutes. Then he emerged, wiping the perspiration from his forehead. For the time being he was saved. But he was very miserable.
Sugar, coffee and spices again. Doggedly he recommenced the transcription, adding, deducting, comparing. He heard a slight noise by the portière, and raised his eyes. Kitty stood there like a picture in a frame; pale, calm of eye.
He was on his feet quickly. "Miss Killigrew, I apologize for my unwarranted rudeness. I did not mean it as you thought I did"—which would have made any other woman furious.
"I know it," said Kitty to herself. "You wanted an excuse to run away. All my conjectures are true. I believe I have you, Mr. Thomas, right in the hollow of my hand." To Thomas, however, she was a presentiment of cold and silent indignation.
He blundered on. "You have all been so kind to me… I am sorry. I am also quite ready to stay or go, whichever you say."
"We shall say no more about it," she replied coldly; turned on her trim little heels and went out into the rose gardens, where she found fault with the head gardener; and on to the stables, where she rated the head groom for not exercising her favorite mount; and back to the villa, where she upset the cook by ordering a hearty breakfast which she could not eat; and all the time striving to smother her generous impulses and the queer little thrills which stirred in her heart.
Guests began to arrive a little before luncheon. A handsome yacht joined Killigrew's in the offing. Laughter and music began to be heard about the villa.
Thomas took his documents and retired to his room, hoping they would forget all about him. He had luncheon there. About four o'clock he looked out of the window toward the beach. They were in bathing; half a dozen young men and women. The diving-raft bobbed up and down. Only yesterday she had tried to teach him how to swim. After all, he was only a bally haberdasher's clerk; he would never be anything more than that.
More guests for dinner, which Thomas also had in his room, despite Killigrew's protests. The villa would be filled for a whole week, and a merry dance he would have to avoid the guests. At nine, just as he was on the point of going to bed, the second man knocked for admittance.
"Miss Killigrew wishes you to come aboard the visiting yacht at ten, sir."
"Offer Miss Killigrew my excuses. I am very tired."
"Miss Killigrew was decided, sir. Her father's orders. He wishes you to meet his resident partner in Rio Janeiro. Mr. Killigrew and Mr. Savage will be in the smoke-room forward, sir."
"Very well. Tell Miss Killigrew that I shall come aboard."
"Thank you, sir. The motor-boat will be at the jetty at nine-thirty, sir." The servants about the Killigrew home understood Thomas' position. They had known young honorables who had served as private secretaries.
A formal command. There was no way of avoiding it. Resignedly Thomas got into his evening clothes. They might smile at his pumps, the hang of his coat, but there would be no question over the correctness of his collar and cravat. He was very bitter against the world, and more especially against Thomas Webb, late of Hodman, Pelt and Company, "haberdashers to H. H. the Duke of" and so forth and so on.
All the way down to the motor-boat his new pumps sang "Fool-fool! Rotter-rotter!" He climbed the yacht's ladder and ran into Kitty and her guests, exactly as she had arranged he should.
"Mr. Webb," she said; and immediately began introducing him, leaving Lord Henry Monckton until the last. A cluster of lights made the spot as bright as day.
Thomas bowed politely and Lord Monckton smiled amiably.
"Mr. Killigrew is in the smoking-room?" Thomas inquired.
"Yes."
Thomas bowed again, indirectly toward the guests and walked away. Lord Monckton commented on the beauty of the night.
And Kitty caught the gasp between her teeth, lest it should be heard. Fog!
CHAPTER XIX
"Rather hot for this time of day," volunteered Lord Monckton, sliding into the Morris chair at the side of Thomas' desk and dangling his legs over the arm.
"Yes, it is," agreed Thomas, folding a sheet of paper and placing the little ivory elephant paper-weight upon it.
"Rippin' doubles this morning. You ought to go into the game. Do you a lot of good."
"I didn't know you played."
"Don't. Watch."
Thomas' gaze was level and steady.
Lord Monckton laughed easily and sought his monocle. He fumbled about the front of his coat and shirt. "By jove! Lost my glass; wonder I can see anything."
Outside, on the veranda, the two men could see the cluster of women of which Kitty was the most animated flower. Voices carried easily.
"Ah—what do you think of these—ah—Americans?" asked Lord Monckton, as one compatriot to another, leaning toward the desk.
"I think them very kindly, very generous people; at least, those I have met. Have you not found them so?"
"Quite so. I am enjoying myself immensely." Lord Monckton swung about in the chair, his back to the veranda.
Thomas loosened his negligee linen-collar.
"Ah, really!" drifted into the room. Lord Monckton sleepily eying Thomas, only heard the voice; he did not see, as Thomas did, the action and gesture which accompanied the phrase. Kitty had put something into her eye, squinted, and twisted an imaginary something a few inches below her dimpled chin. It was a hoydenish trick, but Kitty had enacted it for Lord Monckton's benefit. The women shouted with laughter. Lord Monckton turned in time to see them troop into the gardens. He turned again to Thomas, to find a grin upon that gentleman's face.
[Illustration: It was a hoydenish trick.]
"Miss Killigrew is rather an unusual young person," was his comment.
"Uncommon," replied Thomas, scrutinizing the point of his pen.
"For my part, I prefer 'em clinging." Lord Monckton rose.
"Rotter!" breathed Thomas. He rearranged his papers, crackling them suggestively.
"Picnic this afternoon; going along?" asked Lord Monckton, pausing by the portières.
"Really, I am not a guest here; I am only private secretary to Mrs. Killigrew. If they treat me as a human being it is because they believe that charity should not play in grooves."
"Ah! We are all open to a little charity."
"That's true enough. Good morning."
"Beggar!" murmured Lord Monckton as he let the portières fall behind him.
"Blighter!" muttered Thomas, staring malevolently at the empty doorway. He would be glad when Mr. and Mrs. Crawford and the artist came down. Forbes was a chap you could get along with anywhere, under any conditions.
Some time later Kitty came in. She crossed immediately to the desk. As Thomas looked up, she smiled at him. It was the first smile of the kind he had witnessed, coming in his direction, since before that blunder on the tennis-courts.
"I found Lord Monckton's monocle, Mr. Webb. Will you be so kind as to give it to him?"
"Yes, Miss Killigrew." Absently he raised the monocle and squinted through it. "Why, it's plain glass!" he exclaimed.
"So it is," replied Kitty, with a crooked smile. "And I dare say so are most of the monocles we see. A silly affectation, don't you think so?"
He was instantly up in arms. The monocle was a British institution, and he would as soon have denied the divine right of kings as question an Englishman's right to wear what he pleased in his eye.
"It was originally designed for a man whose left eye was weaker than the right. Besides, we don't notice them over there."
"I have often wondered what the wearers do when their noses itch."
"Doubtless they scratch them."
Kitty's laughter bubbled. It subsided instantly. Her hand reached out, then dropped. She had almost said: "Thomas, what have you done with my sapphires?" Urgent as the impulse was, she crushed it back. For deep in her heart she wanted to believe in Thomas; wanted to believe that it was only a mad wager such as Englishmen propose, accept and see to the end. There was not the slightest doubt in her mind that Thomas and Lord Monckton were the two men who had stood on the curb that foggy night in London. One had taken the necklace and the other had wagered he would carry it six months in America before returning it to its owner. The Nana Sahib's ruby she attributed to a real thief, who had known Crawford in former days and, conscience-stricken, had returned it.
Great Britain was an empire of wagerers she knew; they wagered for and against every conceivable thing which had its dependence on chance.
That first night on board the Celtic, when Thomas came to her cabin in the dark, she had recognized his voice. In the light the activity of the eye had dulled the keenness of the ear; but in the dark the ear had found the chord. For days she had been subconsciously waiting to hear one or the other of those voices; and Thomas' had come with a shock. The words "Aeneid" and "Enid" had so little variation in sound between them that Kitty had found her second man in Lord Monckton. Sooner or later she would trap them.
"Would you like to go to the picnic this afternoon?"—with a spirit which was wholly kind.
"Very much indeed; but I can't"—indicating the stack of papers on his desk.
"Oh," listlessly.
"I am very poor, Miss Killigrew, and perhaps I am ambitious."
Her lips parted expectantly.
"Your father has promised to give me a chance on his coffee plantations in Brazil this autumn, and I wish to show him that I know how to grind. Plug, isn't that the American for it?" He smiled across the desk. "I wish to prove to you all that I am grateful. Your father, who knows something of men, says there is one hidden away in me somewhere, if only I'll take the trouble to dig it out. I should like to be with you and your guests all the time. I like play, and I have been very lonely all my life." He fingered the papers irresolutely. "My place is here, not with your guests; there's the width of the poles between us. I ought not to know anything about the pleasures of idleness till the day comes when I can afford to."
"Perhaps you are right," she admitted. What an agreeable voice he had! Perhaps neither of them was a rogue; only a wild pair of Englishmen embarked on a dangerous frolic. "Don't forget to give Lord Monckton his monocle."
"I shan't."
Kitty departed, smiling. Her thought was: he had kissed her and hadn't wanted to! (Ah, but he had; and not till long hours after did he realize that there had been as much Thomas as Machiavelli in that futile inspiration!)
Report 47, on the difference between the shipments to Europe and America. Very dry, very dull; what with the glorious sunshine outside and the chance to play, Report 47 was damnable. A bird-like peck at the inkwell, and the pen began to scratch-scratch-scratch. He was twenty-four; by the time he was thirty he ought to…
"Beg pardon, sir!"
Lord Monckton's valet stood before the desk. Thomas did not like this man, with his soundless approaches, his thin nervous fingers, his brilliant roving eyes. Where had he been picked up? A perfect servant, yes; but it seemed to Thomas that the man was always expecting some one to come up behind him. Those quick cat-like glances over his shoulder were not reassuring. Dark, swarthy; and yet that odd white scar in the scalp above his ear. That ought to have been dark, logically.
"What is it?"
"Lord Monckton has dropped his glass somewhere, sir, and he sent me to inquire, sir."
"Oh, here it is. And tell your master to be very careful of it. Some one might step on it."
"Thank you, sir." The valet departed as noiselessly as he had entered.
"Really," mused Thomas, "there's a rum chap. I don't like him around. He gives me the what-d'-y'-call-it."
They needed an extra man at the table that night, so Thomas came down. He found himself between two jolly young women, opposite Kitty who divided her time between Lord Monckton and a young millionaire who, rumor bruited it, was very attentive to Killigrew's daughter. Still, Thomas enjoyed himself. Nobody seemed to mind that he was only a clerk in the house. The simpleton did not realize that he was a personage to these people; an English private secretary, quite a social stroke on the part of the Killigrews.
He gathered odd bits of news of what was going on among the summer colonists. The lady next to Killigrew, a Mrs. Wilberforce, had had a strange adventure the night before. She and her maid had been mysteriously overpowered by some strange fume, and later discovered that her pearls were gone. She had notified the town police. This brought the conversation around to the maharajah's emeralds. Hadn't he and his attendants been overcome in the same manner? Thomas thought of the sapphires. Since nobody knew he had them, he stood in no danger. But there was Kitty's great fire-opal, glowing like a coal on her breast, seeming to breathe as she breathed. It was almost as large as a crown-piece.
During lulls Thomas dreamed. He was going to give himself until thirty to make his fortune; and he was going to make it down there in the wilds of South America. But invariably the sleepy mocking eyes of Lord Monckton brought him back to earth, jarringly.
Once, Kitty caught Thomas gazing malevolently at Lord Monckton. No love lost between them, evidently. It was the ancient story: to wager, to borrow, to lend, to lose a friend.
Long after midnight Kitty awoke. She awoke hungry. So she put on her slippers and peignoir and stole down-stairs. The grills on each side of the entrance to the main hall were open; that is, the casement windows were thrown back. She heard voices and naturally paused to learn whose they were. She would have known them anywhere in the world.
"Tut, tut, Tommy; don't be a bally ass and lose your temper."
"Temper? Lose my temper? I'm not losing it, but I'm jolly well tired of this rotten business."
"It was you who suggested the wager; I only accepted it."
"I know it."
"And once booked, no Englishman will welch, if he isn't a cad."
"I'm not thinking of welching. But I don't see what you get out of it."
"Sport. And a good hand at bridge."
"Remarkably good."
"I say, you don't mean to insinuate…"
"I'm not insinuating. I'm just damnably tired. Why the devil did you take up that monocle business? You never wore one; and Miss Killigrew found out this morning that it was an ordinary glass."
"She did?" Lord Monckton chuckled.
"And she laughed over it, too."
"Keen of her. But, what the devil! Stick a monocle in your eye, and you don't need any letters of introduction. Lucky idea, your telephoning me that you were here. What a frolic, all around!"
So that was why her coup had fallen flat? thought Kitty.
"I'll tell you this much," said Thomas. (Kitty heard him tap his pipe against the veranda railing.) "Play fair or, by the lord, I'll smash you! I'm going to stick to my end of the bargain, and see that you walk straight with yours."
"I see what's worrying you. Clear your mind. I would not marry the richest, handsomest woman in all the world, Thomas. There's a dead heart inside of me."
"There's another thing. I'd get rid of that valet."
"Why?"—quickly.
"He's too bally soft on his feet to my liking. I don't like him."
"Neither do I, Thomas!" murmured Kitty, forgetting all about her hunger. Not a word about her sapphires, though. Did she see but the surface of things? Was there something deeper?
She stole back up-stairs. As she reached the upper landing, some one brushed past her, swiftly, noiselessly. With the rush of air which followed the prowler's wake came a peculiar sickish odor. She waited for a while. But there was no sound in all the great house.