Hildebrand Spencer Poyns de Burgh John Hannasyde Coombe-Crombie, twelfth Earl of Dreever, was feeling like a toad under the harrow. He read the letter again, but a second perusal made it no better. Very briefly and clearly Molly had broken off the engagement. She “thought it best”; she was “afraid it could make neither of us happy.” All very true, thought his lordship miserably. His sentiments to a T. At the proper time nothing he would have liked better. But why seize for this declaration the precise moment when he was intending, on the strength of the engagement, to separate his uncle from twenty pounds? That was what rankled. That Molly could have no knowledge of his sad condition did not occur to him. He had a sort of feeling that she ought to have known by instinct. Nature, as has been pointed out, had equipped Hildebrand Spencer Poyns de Burgh with one of those cheap-substitute minds. What passed for brain in him was to genuine grey matter what just-as-good imitation coffee is to real Mocha. In moments of emotion and mental distress, consequently, his reasoning, like Spike’s, was apt to be in a class of its own.
He read the letter for the third time, and a gentle perspiration began to form on his forehead. This was awful. The presumable jubilation of Katie, the penniless ripper of the Savoy, when he should present himself to her a free man, did not enter into the mental picture that was unfolding before him. She was too remote. Between him and her lay the fearsome figure of Sir Thomas, rampant, filling the entire horizon. Nor is this to be wondered at. There was probably a brief space during which Perseus, concentrating his gaze upon the monster, did not see Andromeda; and a knight of the Middle Ages, jousting in the gentlemen’s singles for a smile from his lady, rarely allowed the thought of that smile to occupy his whole mind at the moment when his boiler-plated antagonist was descending upon him in the wake of a sharp spear.
So with Spennie Dreever. Bright eyes might shine for him when all was over, but in the meantime what seemed to him more important was that bulging eyes would glare.
If only this had happened later—even a day later! The reckless impulsiveness of the modern girl had undone him. How was he to pay Hargate his money? Hargate must be paid—that was certain; no other course was possible. Lord Dreever’s was not one of those natures which fret restlessly under debt. During his early career at college he had endeared himself to the local tradesmen by the magnitude of the liabilities he had contracted with them. It was not the being in debt that he minded, it was the consequences. Hargate, he felt instinctively, was of a revengeful nature. He had given Hargate twenty pounds’ worth of snubbing, and the latter had presented the bill. If it were not paid things would happen. Hargate and he were members of the same club, and a member of a club who loses money at cards to a fellow-member and fails to settle up does not make himself popular with the committee.
He must get the money—there was no avoiding that conclusion—but how?
Financially, his lordship was like a fallen country with a glorious history. There had been a time, during his first two years at college, when he had revelled in the luxury of a handsome allowance. This was the golden age, when Sir Thomas Blunt, being, so to speak, new to the job, and feeling that, having reached the best circles, he must live up to them, had scattered largesse lavishly. For two years after his marriage with Lady Julia he had maintained this admirable standard, crushing his natural parsimony. He had regarded the money so spent as capital sunk in an investment. By the end of the second year he had found his feet, and began to look about him for ways of retrenchment. His lordship’s allowance was an obvious way. He had not to wait long for an excuse for annihilating it. There is a game called poker, at which a man without much control over his features may exceed the limits of the handsomest allowance. His lordship’s face during a game of poker was like the surface of some quiet pond, ruffled by every breeze. The blank despair of his expression when he held bad cards made bluffing expensive. The honest joy that bubbled over in his eyes when his hand was good acted as an efficient danger-signal to his grateful opponents. Two weeks of poker had led to his writing to his uncle a distressed but confident request for more funds; and the avuncular foot had come down with a joyous bang. Taking his stand on the evils of gambling, Sir Thomas had changed the conditions of the money-market for his nephew with a thoroughness that effectually prevented the possibility of his being again led astray by the fascinations of poker. The allowance vanished absolutely, and in its place there came into being an arrangement. By this his lordship was to have whatever money he wished for, but he must ask for it, and state why it was needed. If the request were reasonable, the cash would be forthcoming; if preposterous, it would not. The flaw in the scheme, from his lordship’s point of view, was the difference of opinion which can exist in the minds of two men as to what the words reasonable and preposterous may be taken to mean.
Twenty pounds, for instance, would, in the lexicon of Sir Thomas Blunt, be perfectly reasonable for the current expenses of a man engaged to Molly McEachern, but preposterous for one to whom she had declined to remain engaged. It is these subtle shades of meaning which make the English language so full of pitfalls for the foreigner.
So engrossed was his lordship in his meditations that it was not till a voice spoke at his elbow that he was aware that Sir Thomas himself was standing by his side.
“Well, Spennie, my boy,” said the knight. “Time to dress for dinner, I think. Eh? Eh?”
He was plainly in high good-humour. The thought of the distinguished company he was to entertain that night had changed him temporarily, as with some wave of a fairy wand, into a thing of joviality and benevolence. One could almost hear the milk of human kindness gurgling and splashing within him. The irony of Fate! To-night—such was his mood—a dutiful nephew could have come and felt his pockets and helped himself—if circumstances had been different. Oh, woman, woman, how you bar us from Paradise!
His lordship gurgled a wordless reply, thrusting the fateful letter hastily into his pocket. He would break the news anon—soon. Not yet—later on; in fact, anon.
“Up in your part, my boy?” continued Sir Thomas. “You mustn’t spoil the play by forgetting your lines. That wouldn’t do.”
His eye was caught by the envelope which Spennie had dropped. A momentary relapse from the jovial and benevolent was the result. His fussy little soul abhorred small untidinesses.
“Dear me,” he said, stooping, “I wish people would not drop paper about the house. I cannot endure a litter.”
He spoke as if somebody had been playing hare-and-hounds and scattering the scent on the stairs. This sort of thing sometimes made him regret the old days. In Blunt’s Stores Rule 67 imposed a fine of half a crown on employés convicted of paper-dropping.
“I——” began his lordship.
“Why”—Sir Thomas straightened himself—“it’s addressed to you!”
“I was just going to pick it up. It’s—er—there was a note in it.”
Sir Thomas Blunt gazed at the envelope again. Joviality and benevolence resumed their thrones.
“And the feminine handwriting,” he chuckled. He eyed the limp peer almost roguishly. “I see, I see,” he said. “Very charming. Quite delightful! Girls must have their little romance. I suppose you two young people are exchanging love-letters all day? Delightful—quite delightful! Don’t look as if you were ashamed of it, my boy. I like it. I think it’s charming.”
Undoubtedly this was the opening. Beyond a question his lordship should have said at this point, “Uncle, I cannot tell a lie. I cannot even allow myself to see you labouring under a delusion which a word from me can remove. The contents of this note are not what you suppose. They run as follows——”
What he did say was, “Uncle, can you let me have twenty pounds?”
Those were his amazing words. They slipped out. He could not stop them.
Sir Thomas was taken aback for an instant, but not seriously. He started as might a man who, stroking a cat, receives a sudden but trifling scratch.
“Twenty pounds, eh?” he said reflectively.
Then the milk of human kindness swept over displeasure like a tidal wave. This was a night for rich gifts to the deserving.
“Why, certainly, my boy, certainly. Do you want it at once?”
His lordship replied that he did, please; and he had seldom said a thing more fervently.
“Well, well. We’ll see what we can do. Come with me.”
He led the way to his dressing-room. Like nearly all the rooms at the castle, it was large. One wall was completely hidden by the curtain behind which Spike had taken refuge that afternoon.
Sir Thomas went to the dressing-table and unlocked a small drawer.
“Twenty, you said? Five—ten—fifteen—here you are, my boy.”
Lord Dreever muttered his thanks. Sir Thomas accepted the guttural acknowledgment with a friendly pat on the shoulder.
“I like a little touch like that,” he said.
His lordship looked startled.
“I wouldn’t have touched you,” he began, “if it hadn’t been——”
“A little touch like that letter-writing,” Sir Thomas went on. “It shows a warm heart. She is a warm-hearted girl, Spennie—a charming, warm-hearted girl! You’re uncommonly lucky, my boy.”
His lordship, crackling the four bank-notes, silently agreed with him.
“But come, I must be dressing. Dear me, it is very late. We shall have to hurry. By the way, my boy, I shall take the opportunity of making a public announcement of the engagement to-night. It will be a capital occasion for it, I think, perhaps, at the conclusion of the theatricals, a little speech—something quite impromptu and informal, just asking them to wish you happiness, and so on. I like the idea. There is an old-world air about it that appeals to me. Yes.”
He turned to the dressing-table and removed his collar.
“Well, run along, my boy,” he said. “You must not be late.”
His lordship tottered from the room. He did quite an unprecedented amount of thinking as he hurried into his evening clothes; but the thought which occurred most frequently was that, whatever happened, all was well in one way, at any rate. He had the twenty pounds. There would be something colossal in the shape of disturbances when his uncle learned the truth. It would be the biggest thing since the San Francisco earthquake. But what of it? He had the money.
He slipped it into his waistcoat pocket. He would take it down with him, and pay Hargate directly after dinner.
He left the room. The flutter of a skirt caught his eye as he reached the landing. A girl was coming down the corridor on the other side. He waited at the head of the stairs to let her go down before him. As she came on to the landing he saw that it was Molly.
For a moment there was an awkward pause.
“Er—I got your note,” said his lordship.
She looked at him, and then burst out laughing.
“You know you don’t mind the least little bit,” she said—“not a scrap. Now, do you?”
“Well, you see——”
“Don’t make excuses. Do you?”
“Well, it’s like this, you see. I——”
He caught her eye. Next moment they were laughing together.
“No; but look here, you know,” said his lordship. “What I mean is, it isn’t that I don’t—I mean, look here, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be the best of pals.”
“Why, of course there isn’t.”
“No, really, I say? That’s ripping. Shake hands on it.”
They clasped hands; and it was in this affecting attitude that Sir Thomas Blunt, bustling downstairs, discovered them.
“Aha!” he cried archly. “Well, well, well! But don’t mind me, don’t mind me!”
Molly flushed uncomfortably; partly because she disliked Sir Thomas even when he was not arch, and hated him when he was: partly because she felt foolish; and principally because she was bewildered. She had not looked forward to meeting Sir Thomas that night. It was always unpleasant meeting him, but it would be more unpleasant than usual after she had upset the scheme for which he had worked so earnestly. She had wondered whether he would be cold and distant or voluble and heated. In her pessimistic moments she had anticipated a long and painful scene. That he should be behaving like this was not very much short of a miracle. She could not understand it.
A glance at Lord Dreever enlightened her. That miserable creature was wearing the air of a timid child about to pull a large cracker. He seemed to be bracing himself up for an explosion.
She pitied him sincerely. So he had not told his uncle the news yet! Of course, he had scarcely had time. Saunders must have given him the note as he was going up to dress.
However, there was no use in prolonging the agony. Sir Thomas must be told sooner or later. She was glad of the chance to tell him herself. She would be able to explain that it was all her doing.
“I’m afraid there’s a mistake,” she said.
“Eh?” said Sir Thomas.
“I’ve been thinking it over, and I came to the conclusion that we weren’t——Well, I broke off the engagement.”
Sir Thomas’s always prominent eyes protruded still farther. The colour of his florid face deepened. Suddenly he chuckled.
Molly looked at him amazed. Sir Thomas was indeed behaving unexpectedly to-night.
“I see it,” he wheezed. “You’re having a joke with me! So this is what you were hatching as I came downstairs! Don’t tell me! If you had really thrown him over you wouldn’t have been laughing together like that. It’s no good, my dear. I might have been taken in if I had not seen you, but I did.”
“No, no,” cried Molly. “You’re wrong—you’re quite wrong. When you saw us we were just agreeing that we should be very good friends—that was all. I broke off the engagement before that. I——”
She was aware that his lordship had emitted a hollow croak, but she took it as his method of endorsing her statement—not as a warning.
“I wrote Lord Dreever a note this evening,” she went on, “telling him that I couldn’t possibly——”
She broke off in alarm. With the beginning of her last speech Sir Thomas had begun to swell, until now he looked as if he were in imminent danger of bursting. His face was purple. To Molly’s lively imagination his eyes appeared to move slowly out of his head, like a snail’s. From the back of his throat came strange noises.
“S-s-so——” he stammered.
He gulped and tried again.
“So this,” he said, “so this—so that was what was in that letter, eh?”
Lord Dreever smiled weakly.
“Eh?” yelled Sir Thomas.
His lordship started convulsively.
“Er—yes,” he said. “Yes, yes—that was it, don’t you know!”
Sir Thomas eyed him with a baleful stare. Molly looked from one to the other in bewilderment.
There was a pause, during which Sir Thomas seemed partially to recover command of himself. Doubts as to the propriety of a family row in mid-stairs appeared to occur to him. He moved forward.
“Come with me,” he said, with awful curtness.
His lordship followed bonelessly. Molly watched them go, and wondered more than ever. There was something behind this. It was not merely the breaking-off of the engagement that had roused Sir Thomas. He was not a just man, but he was just enough to be able to see that the blame was not Lord Dreever’s. There had been something more. She was puzzled.
In the hall Saunders was standing, weapon in hand, about to beat the gong.
“Not yet!” snapped Sir Thomas. “Wait!”
Dinner had been ordered especially early that night because of the theatricals. The necessity for strict punctuality had been straitly enjoined upon Saunders. At some inconvenience he had ensured strict punctuality. And now—— But we all have our cross to bear in this world. Saunders bowed with dignified resignation.
Sir Thomas led the way into his study.
“Be so good as to close the door,” he said.
His lordship was so good.
Sir Thomas backed to the mantelpiece and stood there in the attitude which for generations has been sacred to the elderly Briton—feet well apart, hands clasped beneath his coat tails. His stare raked Lord Dreever like a searchlight.
“Now, sir!” he said.
His lordship wilted before his gaze.
“The fact is, uncle——”
“Never mind the facts. I know them! What I require is an explanation.”
He spread his feet farther apart. The years had rolled back, and he was plain Thomas Blunt again, of Blunt’s Stores, dealing with an erring employé.
“You know what I mean,” he went on. “I am not referring to the breaking-off of the engagement. What I insist upon learning is your reason for failing to inform me earlier of the contents of that letter.”
His lordship said that somehow, don’t you know, there didn’t seem to be a chance, you know. He had several times been on the point—but—well, somehow—— Well, that’s how it was.
“No chance?” cried Sir Thomas. “Indeed! Why did you require that money I gave you?”
“Oh—er—I wanted it for something.”
“Very possibly. For what?”
“I—the fact is, I owed it to a fellow.”
“Ha! How did you come to owe it?”
His lordship shuffled.
“You have been gambling,” boomed Sir Thomas. “Am I right?”
“No, no! I say, no, no. It wasn’t gambling—it was a game of skill. We were playing piquet.”
“Kindly refrain from quibbling. You lost this money at cards, then, as I supposed. Just so.”
He widened the space between his feet. He intensified his glare. He might have been posing to an illustrator of The Pilgrim’s Progress for a picture of “Apollyon straddling right across the way”.
“So,” he said, “you deliberately concealed from me the contents of that letter, in order that you might extract money from me under false pretences? Don’t speak!” (his lordship had gurgled). “You did! Your behaviour was that of a—of a——”
There was a very fair selection of evil-doers in all branches of business from which to choose. He gave the preference to the race-track.
“Of a common welsher,” he concluded. “But I won’t put up with it. No; not for an instant. I insist upon you returning that money to me here and now. If you have not got it with you, go and fetch it.”
His lordship’s face betrayed the deepest consternation. He had been prepared for much, but not for this. That he would have to undergo what, in his school-days, he would have called a “jaw” was inevitable, and he had been ready to go through with it. It might hurt his feelings, possibly, but it would leave his purse intact. A ghastly development of this kind he had not foreseen.
“But, I say, uncle!” he bleated.
Sir Thomas silenced him with a grand gesture.
Ruefully his lordship produced his little all. Sir Thomas took it with a snort and went to the door.
Saunders was still brooding statuesquely over the gong.
“Sound it!” said Sir Thomas.
Saunders obeyed him with the air of an unleashed hound.
“And now,” said Sir Thomas, “go to my dressing-room and place these notes in the small drawer of the table.”
The butler’s calm, expressionless, yet withal observant eye took in at a glance the signs of trouble. Neither the inflated air of Sir Thomas nor the punctured-balloon bearing of Lord Dreever escaped him.
“Something hup,” he said to his immortal soul as he moved upstairs. “Been a fair old, rare old row, seems to me.”
He reserved his more polished periods for use in public. In conversation with his immortal soul he was wont to unbend somewhat.
Gloom wrapped his lordship about during dinner as with a garment. He owed twenty pounds; his assets amounted to seven shillings and fourpence. He thought, and thought again. Quite an intellectual pallor began to appear on his normally pink cheeks. Saunders silently sympathetic—he hated Sir Thomas as an interloper, and entertained for his lordship, under whose father also he had served, a sort of paternal fondness—was ever at his elbow with the magic bottle; and to Spennie, emptying and re-emptying his glass almost mechanically, wine, the healer, brought an idea. To obtain twenty pounds from any one person of his acquaintance was impossible; to divide the twenty by four and persuade a generous quartet to contribute five pounds apiece was more feasible.
Hope began to stir within him again.
Immediately after dinner he began to flit about the castle like a family spectre of active habits. The first person he met was Charteris.
“Halloa, Spennie!” said Charteris. “I wanted to see you. It is currently reported that you are in love. At dinner you looked as if you had influenza. What’s your trouble? For goodness’ sake bear up until the show’s over. Don’t go swooning on the stage, or anything. Do you know your lines?”
“The fact is,” said his lordship eagerly, “it’s this way. I happen to want—— Can you lend me a fiver?”
“All I have in the world at this moment,” said Charteris, “is eleven shillings and a postage-stamp. If the stamp would be of any use to you as a start——No? You know, it’s from small beginnings like that great fortunes are amassed. However——”
Two minutes later Lord Dreever had resumed his hunt.
The path of the borrower is a thorny one, especially if, as in the case of Spennie, his reputation as a payer-back is not of the best.
Spennie, in his time, had extracted small loans from most of his male acquaintances, rarely repaying the same. He had a tendency to forget that he had borrowed half-a-crown here to pay a cab fare and ten shillings there to settle up for a dinner; and his memory was not much more retentive of larger sums. This made his friends somewhat wary. The consequence was that the great treasure-hunt was a failure from start to finish. He got friendly smiles, he got honeyed apologies, he got earnest assurances of goodwill; but he got no money, except from Jimmy Pitt.
He had approached Jimmy in the early stages of the hunt and Jimmy, being in the mood when he would have lent anything to anybody, yielded the required five pounds without a murmur.
But what was five pounds? The garment of gloom and the intellectual pallor were once more prominent when his lordship repaired to his room to don the loud tweeds which, as Lord Herbert, he was to wear in the first act.
There was a good deal to be said against stealing, as a habit; but it cannot be denied that, in certain circumstances, it offers an admirable solution of a financial difficulty, and, if the penalties were not so exceedingly unpleasant, it is probable that it would become far more fashionable than it is.
His lordship’s mind did not turn immediately to this outlet from his embarrassment. He had never stolen before, and it did not occur to him directly to do so now. There is a conservative strain in all of us. But gradually, as it was borne in upon him that it was the only course possible, unless he were to grovel before Hargate on the morrow and ask for time to pay—an unthinkable alternative—he found himself contemplating the possibility of having to secure the money by unlawful means. By the time he had finished his theatrical toilet, he had definitely decided that this was the only thing to be done.
His plan was simple. He knew where the money was—in the dressing-table in Sir Thomas’s room. He had heard Saunders instructed to put it there. What could be easier than to go and get it? Everything was in his favour. Sir Thomas would be downstairs receiving his guests. The coast would be clear. Why, it was like finding the money.
Besides, he reflected, as he worked his way through a bottle of Mumm which he had had the forethought to abstract from the supper-table as a nerve-steadier, it was not really stealing. Dash it all, the man had given him the money! It was his own! He had half a mind—he poured himself out another glass of the elixir—to give Sir Thomas a jolly good talking to into the bargain. Yes, dash it all!
He pushed on his cuffs fiercely. The British lion was roused.
A man’s first crime is, as a rule, a shockingly amateurish affair. Now and then, it is true, we find beginners forging with the accuracy of old hands or breaking into houses with the finish of experts. But these are isolated cases. The average tyro lacks generalship altogether. Spennie Dreever may be cited as a typical novice. It did not strike him that inquiries might be instituted by Sir Thomas when he found the money gone, and that suspicion might conceivably fall upon himself. Courage may be born of champagne, but rarely prudence.
The theatricals began at half-past eight with a duologue. The audience had been hustled into their seats, happier than is usual in such circumstances, owing to the rumour which had been circulated that the proceedings were to terminate with an informal dance. The castle was singularly well constructed for such a purpose. There was plenty of room and a sufficiency of retreat for those who sat out, in addition to a conservatory large enough to have married off half the couples in the country.
Spennie’s idea had been to establish an alibi by mingling with the throng for a few minutes, and then to get through his burglarious speciality during the duologue, when his absence would not be noticed. It might be that if he disappeared later in the evening people would wonder what had become of him.
He lurked about till the last of the audience had taken their seats. As he was moving off through the hall a hand fell upon his shoulder. Conscience makes cowards of us all. Spennie bit his tongue and leaped three inches into the air.
“Halloa, Charteris!” he said gaspingly.
Charteris appeared to be in a somewhat overwrought condition. Rehearsals had turned him into a pessimist, and now that the actual moment of production had arrived his nerves were in a thoroughly jumpy condition, especially as the duologue was to begin in two minutes and the obliging person who had undertaken to prompt had disappeared.
“Spennie,” said Charteris, “where are you off to?”
“What—what do you mean? I was just going upstairs.”
“No, you don’t. You’ve got to come and prompt. That fellow Blake has vanished. I’ll wring his neck! Come along!”
Spennie went reluctantly. Half-way through the duologue the official prompter returned, with the remark that he had been having a bit of a smoke on the terrace and that his watch had gone wrong. Leaving him to discuss the point with Charteris, Spennie slipped quietly away.
The delay, however, had had the effect of counteracting the uplifting effects of the Mumm. The British lion required a fresh fillip. He went to his room to administer it. By the time he emerged he was feeling just right for the task in hand. A momentary doubt occurred to him whether it would not be a good thing to go down and pull Sir Thomas’s nose as a preliminary to the proceedings; but he put the temptation aside. Business before pleasure.
With a jaunty, if somewhat unsteady, step he climbed the stairs to the floor above, and made his way down the corridor to Sir Thomas’s room. He switched on the light and went to the dressing-table. The drawer was locked, but in his present mood Spennie, like Love, laughed at locksmiths. He grasped the handle and threw his weight into a sudden tug. The drawer came out with a report like a pistol-shot.
“There!” said his lordship, wagging his head severely.
In the drawer lay the four bank-notes. The sight of them brought back his grievances with a rush. He would teach Sir Thomas to treat him like a kid. He would show him!
He was removing the notes, frowning fiercely the while, when he heard a cry of surprise from behind him.
He turned, to see Molly. She wore the costume of a stage milkmaid, and her eyes were round with wonder. Leaving her room a few moments earlier, after dressing for her part, she had almost reached the end of the corridor that led to the landing when she observed his lordship, flashed of face and moving like some restive charger, come curveting out of his bedroom in a dazzling suit of tweeds and make his way upstairs. Ever since their mutual encounter with Sir Thomas before dinner she had been hoping for a chance of seeing him alone. She had not failed to notice his depression during the meal, and her good little heart had been troubled by the thought that she must have been responsible for it. She knew that for some reason what she had said about the letter had brought his lordship into his uncle’s bad books, and she wanted to find him and say she was sorry.
Accordingly, she had followed him. His lordship, still in the war-horse vein, had made the pace upstairs too hot, and had disappeared while she was still half-way up. She had arrived at the top just in time to see him turn down the passage into Sir Thomas’s dressing-room. She could not think what his object might be. She knew that Sir Thomas was downstairs, so it could not be with the idea of a chat with him that Spennie was seeking the dressing-room.
Faint, yet pursuing, she followed on his trail, and arrived in the doorway just as the pistol-report of the burst lock rang out.
She stood looking at him blankly. He was holding a drawer in one hand. Why, she could not imagine.
“Lord Dreever!” she exclaimed.
The sombre determination of his lordship’s face melted into a twisted but kindly smile.
“Good!” he said, perhaps a trifle thickly. “Good! Glad you’ve come—we’re pals—you said so—on stairs—b’fore dinner. Very glad you’ve come. Won’t you sit down?”
He waved the drawer benevolently, by way of making her free of the room. The movement disturbed one of the bank-notes, which fluttered in Molly’s direction and fell at her feet.
She stooped and picked it up. When she saw what it was her bewilderment increased.
“But—but——” she said.
His lordship beamed upon her with a pebble-beached smile of indescribable goodwill.
“Sit down,” he urged. “We’re pals—no quol with you—you’re good friend. Quol—Uncle Thomas.”
“But, Lord Dreever, what are you doing? What was that noise I heard?”
“Opening drawer,” said his lordship affably.
“But——” She looked again at what she had in her hand. “But this is a five pound note.”
“Five pound note,” said his lordship—“quite right. Three more of them in here.”
Still she could not understand.
“But—— Were you—stealing them?”
His lordship drew himself up.
“No,” he said. “No! Not stealing. No.”
“Then——”
“Like this: before dinner old boy friendly as you please; couldn’t do enough for me. Touched him for twenty of the best and got away with it. So far all well. Then met you on stairs. You let cat out of bag.”
“But why? Surely——”
His lordship gave the drawer a dignified wave.
“Not blaming you,” he said magnanimously. “Not your fault—misfortune. You didn’t know—about letter.”
“About the letter?” said Molly. “Yes; what was the trouble about the letter? I knew something was wrong directly I had said that I wrote it.”
“Trouble was,” said his lordship, “that old boy thought it was love letter. Didn’t undeceive him.”
“You didn’t tell him? Why?”
His lordship raised his eyebrows.
“Wanted touch him twenty of the best,” he explained simply.
For the life of her Molly could not help laughing.
“Don’t laugh,” protested his lordship, wounded. “No joke—serious—honour at stake.”
He removed the three notes and replaced the drawer.
“Honour of the Dreevers!” he added, pocketing the money.
“But, Lord Dreever!” she cried. “You can’t! You mustn’t! You can’t be going, really, to take that money? It’s stealing! It isn’t yours!”
His lordship wagged a forefinger very solemnly at her.
“That,” he said, “is where you make error. Mine! Old boy gave them to me.”
“Gave them to you! Then why did you break open the drawer?”
“Old boy took them back again, when he found out about letter.”
“Then they don’t belong to you?”
“Yes. Error! They do. Moral right.”
Molly wrinkled her forehead in her agitation. Men of Lord Dreever’s type appeal to the motherly instinct of women. As a man his lordship was a negligible quantity—he did not count; but as a wilful child, to be kept out of trouble, he had a claim on Molly.
She spoke soothingly.
“But, Lord Dreever——” she began.
“Call me Spennie,” he urged. “We’re pals. You said so—on stairs. Everybody calls me Spennie, even Uncle Thomas. I’m going to pull his nose,” he broke off suddenly, as one recollecting a forgotten appointment.
“Spennie, then,” said Molly. “You mustn’t, Spennie. You mustn’t, really. You——”
“You look rippin’ in that dress,” he said irrelevantly.
“Thank you, Spennie, dear. But listen.” She spoke as if she were humouring a rebellious infant. “You really mustn’t take that money. You must put it back. See, I’m putting this note back. Give me the others, and I’ll put them in the drawer too. Then we’ll shut the drawer, and nobody will know.”
She took the notes from him, and replaced them in the drawer. He watched her thoughtfully, as if he were pondering the merits of her arguments.
“No,” he said suddenly. “No—must have them—moral right! Old boy——”
She pushed him gently away.
“Yes, yes, I know,” she said. “I know it’s a shame that you can’t have them; but you mustn’t take them. Don’t you see that he would suspect you the moment he found they were gone? And then you’d get into trouble.”
“Something in that,” admitted his lordship.
“Of course there is, Spennie, dear. I’m so glad you see. There they all are, safe again in the drawer. Now we can go downstairs again, and——”
She stopped. She had closed the door earlier in the proceedings, but her quick ear caught the sound of a footstep in the passage outside.
“Quick!” she whispered, taking his hand and darting to the electric light switch. “Somebody’s coming. We mustn’t be caught here. They’d see the broken drawer, and you’d get into awful trouble. Quick!”
She pushed him behind the curtain where the clothes hung, and switched off the light.
From behind the curtain came the muffled voice of his lordship.
“It’s Uncle Thomas. I’m coming out. Pull his nose.”
“Be quiet!”
She sprang to the curtain and slipped noiselessly behind it.
“But, I say——” began his lordship.
“Hush!”
She gripped his arm. He subsided.
The footsteps had halted outside the door. Then the handle turned softly. The door opened and closed again with hardly a sound.
The footsteps passed on into the room.
Jimmy, like Lord Dreever, had been trapped at the beginning of the duologue, and had not been able to get away till it was nearly over. He had been introduced by Lady Julia to an elderly and adhesive baronet, who had recently spent ten days in New York, and escape had not been won without a struggle. The baronet, on his return to England had published a book entitled “Modern America and its People” and it was with regard to the opinions expressed in this volume that he invited Jimmy’s views. He had no wish to see the duologue, and it was only after the loss of much precious time that Jimmy was enabled to tear himself away on the plea of having to dress. He anathematized the authority on “Modern America and its People” freely as he ran upstairs.
While the duologue was in progress there had been no chance of Sir Thomas taking it into his head to visit his dressing-room. He had been, as his valet detective had observed to Mr. Galer, too busy jollying among the swells. It would only be the work of a few moments restoring the necklace to its place. But for the tenacity of the elderly baronet the thing would have been done by this time. But now there was no knowing what might not happen—anybody might come along the passage and see him.
He had one point in his favour: there was no likelihood of the jewels being required by their owner till the conclusion of the theatricals. The part which Lady Julia had been persuaded by Charteris to play mercifully contained no scope for the display of gems.
Before going down to dinner he had locked up the necklace in a drawer. It was still there, Spike having, apparently, been able to resist the temptation of recapturing it. He took it out and went into the corridor. He looked up and down it. There was nobody about. He shut his door and walked quickly in the direction of the dressing-room.
He had provided himself with a lamp from a bicycle belonging to one of the grooms. Once inside, having closed the door, he lit this and looked about him.
Spike had given him minute directions as to the position of the jewel box. He found it without difficulty. To his untrained eye it seemed tolerably massive and impregnable, but Spike had evidently known how to open it without much difficulty. The lid was shut, but it came up without an effort when he tried to raise it, and he saw that the lock had been broken.
“Spike’s coming on!” he said.
He was dangling the necklace over the box, preparatory to dropping it in, when there was a quick rustle at the other side of the room. The curtain was plucked aside and Molly came out.
“Jimmy!” she cried.
Jimmy’s nerves were always in pretty good order, but at the sight of this apparition he certainly jumped.
“Great Scot!” he said.
The curtain again became agitated by some unseen force, violently this time, and from its depths a plaintive voice made itself heard.
“Dash it all,” said the voice, “I’ve stuck!”
There was another upheaval, and his lordship emerged, his yellow locks ruffled and upstanding, his face crimson.
“Caught my head in a coat or something,” he explained at large. “Halloa, Pitt!”
Pressed rigid against the wall, Molly had listened with growing astonishment to the movements on the other side of the curtain. Her mystification deepened every moment. It seemed to her that the room was still in darkness. She could hear the sound of breathing; and then the light of the lantern caught her eye. Who could this be, and why had he not switched on the electric light?
She strained her ears to catch a sound. For a while she heard nothing except the soft breathing. Then came a voice that she knew well; and, abandoning her hiding-place, she came out into the room, and found Jimmy standing with a lamp in his hand over some dark object in the corner of the room.
It was a full minute after Jimmy’s first exclamation of surprise before either of them spoke again. The light of the lamp hurt Molly’s eyes. She put up a hand to shade them. It seemed to her that they had been standing like this for years.
Jimmy had not moved. There was something in his attitude which filled Molly with a vague fear. In the shadow behind the lamp he looked shapeless and inhuman.
“You’re hurting my eyes,” she said at last.
“I’m sorry,” said Jimmy. “I didn’t think. Is that better?” He turned the light from her face. Something in his voice and the apologetic haste with which he moved the lamp seemed to relax the strain of the situation. The feeling of stunned surprise began to leave her. She found herself thinking coherently again.
The relief was but momentary. Why was Jimmy in the room at that time? Why had he a lamp? What had he been doing? The questions shot from her brain like sparks from an anvil.
The darkness began to tear at her nerves. She felt along the wall for the switch and flooded the room with light.
Jimmy laid down the lantern and stood for a moment undecided. He had concealed the necklace behind him. Now he brought it forward and dangled it silently before the eyes of Molly and his lordship. Excellent as were his motives for being in that room with the necklace in his hand, he could not help feeling, as he met Molly’s startled gaze, quite as guilty as if his intentions had been quite different.
His lordship, having by this time pulled himself together to some extent, was the first to speak.
“I say, you know, what ho!” he observed, not without emotion. “What?”
Molly drew back.
“Jimmy! You were——. Oh, you can’t have been!”
“Looks jolly like it!” said his lordship judicially.
“I wasn’t,” said Jimmy. “I was putting them back.”
“Putting them back?”
“Pitt, old man,” said his lordship solemnly, “that sounds a bit thin.”
“Dreever, old man,” said Jimmy, “I know it does. But it’s the truth.”
His lordship’s manner became kindly.
“Now, look here, Pitt, old son,” he said. “There’s nothing to worry about—we’re all pals here—you can pitch it straight to us. We won’t give you away. We——”
“Be quiet!” cried Molly. “Jimmy!”
Her voice was strained; she spoke with an effort; she was suffering torments. The words her father had said to her on the terrace were pouring back into her mind. She seemed to hear his voice now, cool and confident, warning her against Jimmy, saying that he was crooked. There was a curious whirring in her head. Everything in the room was growing large and misty. She heard Lord Dreever begin to say something that sounded as if some one were speaking at the end of a telephone; and then she was aware that Jimmy was holding her in his arms and calling to Lord Dreever to bring water.
“When a girl goes like that,” said his lordship, with an insufferable air of omniscience, “you want to cut her——”
“Come along!” said Jimmy. “Are you going to be a week getting that water?”
His lordship proceeded to soak a sponge without further parley; but as he carried his dripping burden across the room Molly recovered. She tried weakly to free herself.
Jimmy helped her to a chair. He had dropped the necklace on the floor, and Lord Dreever nearly trod on it.
“What ho!” observed his lordship, picking it up. “Go easy with the jewellery!”
Jimmy was bending over Molly. Neither of them seemed to be aware of his lordship’s presence. Spennie was the sort of person whose existence is apt to be forgotten. Jimmy had had a flash of intuition. For the first time it occurred to him that Mr. McEachern might have hinted to Molly something of his own suspicions.
“Molly, dear,” he said, “it isn’t what you think. I can explain everything. Do you feel better now? Can you listen? I can explain everything.”
“Pitt, old boy,” protested his lordship, “you don’t understand. We aren’t going to give you away. We’re all——”
Jimmy ignored him.
“Molly, listen,” he said.
She sat up.
“Go on, Jimmy,” she said.
“I wasn’t stealing the necklace—I was putting it back. The man who came to the castle with me, Spike Mullins, took it this afternoon and brought it to me.”
Spike Mullins! Molly remembered the name.
“He thinks I am a crook—a sort of Raffles. It was my fault. I was a fool. It all began that night in New York when we met at your house. I had been to the opening performance of a play called Love, the Cracksman—one of those burglar plays.”