Chapter VI: Part 6

“Will it?” he cried, pink to the ears. “Will it, by George? I’ll pay you every frightful penny of it to-morrow—and then you can clear out, instead of Pitt. What do you take me for, I should like to know?”

“A fool, if you refuse my offer.”

“I’ve a jolly good mind to give you a most frightful kicking.”

“I shouldn’t try if I were you. It’s not the sort of game you’d shine at. Better stick to piquet.”

“If you think I can’t pay you your rotten money—”

“I do. But if you can, so much the better. Money is always useful.”

“I may be a fool in some ways——”

“You understate it, my dear man.”

“But I’m not a cad.”

“You’re getting quite rosy, Dreever. Wrath is good for the complexion.”

“And if you think you can bribe me, you never made a bigger mistake in your life.”

“Yes, I did,” said Hargate, “when I thought you had some glimmerings of intelligence. But if it gives you any pleasure to behave like the juvenile lead in a melodrama, by all means do. Personally, I shouldn’t have thought the game would be worth the candle. But if your keen sense of honour compels you to pay the twenty pounds, all right. You mentioned to-morrow? That’ll suit me. So we’ll let it go at that.”

He walked off, leaving Lord Dreever filled with that comfortable glow which comes to the weak man who for once has displayed determination. He felt that he must not go back from his dignified stand-point. That money would have to be paid, and on the morrow. Hargate was the sort of man who could, and would, make it exceedingly unpleasant for him if he failed. A debt of honour was not a thing to be trifled with.

But he felt quite safe. He knew he could get the money when he pleased. It showed, he reflected philosophically, how out of evil cometh good. His greater misfortune, the engagement, would, as it were, neutralise the loss, for it was ridiculous to suppose that Sir Thomas, having seen his ends accomplished, and being presumably in a spacious mood in consequence, would not be amenable to a request for a mere twenty pounds.

He went on into the hall. He felt strong and capable. He had shown Hargate the stuff there was in him. He was Spennie Dreever, the man of blood and iron, the man with whom it was best not to trifle. But it was really, come to think of it, uncommonly lucky that he was engaged to Molly. He recoiled from the idea of attempting, unfortified by that fact, to extract twenty pounds from Sir Thomas for a card debt.

In the hall he met Saunders.

“I have been looking for your lordship,” said the butler.

“Eh? Well, here I am.”

“Just so, your lordship. Miss McEachern entrusted me with this note to deliver to you in the event of her not being able to see you before dinner personally, your lordship.”

“Right-O. Thanks.”

He started to go upstairs, opening the envelope as he went. What could the girl be writing to him about? Surely she wasn’t going to start sending him love-letters or any of that frightful rot? Deuced difficult it would be to play up to that sort of thing.

He stopped on the landing to read the note, and at the first line his jaw fell. The envelope fluttered to the ground.

“Oh, my sainted aunt!” he moaned, clutching at the banisters. “Now I am in the soup!”

★ 21 ★
_Loathsome Gifts_

There are doubtless men so constructed that they can find themselves accepted suitors without any particular whirl of emotion. King Solomon probably belonged to this class, and even Henry VIII must have become a trifle blasé in time. But to the average man the sensations are complex and overwhelming. A certain stunned feeling is perhaps predominant. Blended with this is relief—the relief of a general who has brought a difficult campaign to a successful end, or a member of a forlorn hope who finds that the danger is over and that he is still alive. To this must be added a newly-born sense of magnificence. Our suspicion that we were something rather out of the ordinary run of men is suddenly confirmed. Our bosom heaves with complacency, and the world has nothing more to offer.

With some there is an alloy of apprehension in the metal of their happiness, and the strain of an engagement sometimes brings with it even a faint shadow of regret. “She makes me buy things,” one swain, in the third quarter of his engagement, was overhead to moan to a friend. “Two new ties only yesterday.” He seemed to be debating within himself whether human nature could stand the strain.

But, whatever tragedies may cloud the end of the period, its beginning at least is bathed in sunshine.

Jimmy, regarding his lathered face in the glass as he dressed for dinner that night, marvelled at the excellence of this best of all possible worlds.

No doubts disturbed him. That the relations between Mr. McEachern and himself offered a permanent bar to his prospects he did not believe. For the moment he declined to consider the existence of the ex-constable at all. In a world that contained Molly there was no room for other people. They were not in the picture. They did not exist.

To him, musing contentedly over the goodness of life, there entered, in the furtive manner habitual to that unreclaimed buccaneer, Spike Mullins. It may have been that Jimmy read his own satisfaction and happiness into the faces of others, but it certainly seemed to him that there was a sort of restrained joyfulness about Spike’s demeanour. The Bowery boy’s shuffles on the carpet were almost a dance. His face seemed to glow beneath his crimson hair.

“Well,” said Jimmy, “and how goes the world with young Lord FitzMullins? Spike, have you ever been best man?”

“What’s dat, boss?”

“Best man at a wedding—chap who stands by the bridegroom with a hand on the scruff of his neck to see that he goes through with it. Fellow who looks after everything, crowds the money on to the minister at the end of the ceremony, and then goes off and marries the first bridesmaid and lives happily ever after.”

Spike shook his head.

“I ain’t got no use for gettin’ married, boss.”

“Spike the misogynist! You wait, Spike. Some day love will awake in your heart, and you’ll start writing poetry.”

“I’se not dat kind of mug, boss,” protested the Bowery boy. “I ain’t got no use for goils. It’s a mutt’s game.”

This was rank heresy. Jimmy laid down the razor from motives of prudence, and proceeded to lighten Spike’s reprehensible darkness.

“Spike, you’re an ass,” he said. “You don’t know anything about it. If you had any sense at all, you’d understand that the only thing worth doing in life is to get married. You bone-headed bachelors make me ill. Think what it would mean to you, having a wife. Think of going out on a cold winter’s night to crack a crib, knowing that there would be a cup of hot soup waiting for you when you got back, and your slippers all warmed and comfortable. And then she’d sit on your knee, and you’d tell her how you shot the policeman, and you’d examine the swag together! Why, I can’t imagine anything cosier. Perhaps there would be little Spikes running about the house. Can’t you see them jumping with joy as you slid in through the window and told the great news? ‘Fahzer’s killed a pleeceman!’ cry the tiny, eager voices. Sweets are served out all round in honour of the event. Golden haired little Jimmy Mullins, my godson, gets sixpence for having thrown a stone at a plain clothes detective that afternoon. All is joy and wholesome revelry. Take my word for it, Spike, there’s nothing like domesticity.”

“Dere was a goil once,” said Spike, meditatively. “Only I was never her steady. She married a cop.”

“She wasn’t worthy of you, Spike,” said Jimmy sympathetically. “A girl capable of going to the bad like that would never have done for you. You must pick up some nice, sympathetic girl with a romantic admiration for your line of business. Meanwhile, let me finish shaving, or I shall be late for dinner. Great doings on to-night, Spike.”

Spike became animated.

“Sure, boss! Dat’s just what——”

“If you could collect all the blue blood that will be under this roof to-night, Spike, into one vat, you’d be able to start a dyeing works. Don’t try, though. They mightn’t like it. By the way, have you seen anything more—of course you have. What I mean is, have you talked at all with that valet man—the one you think is a detective?”

“Why, boss, dat’s just——”

“I hope, for his own sake, he’s a better performer than my old friend Galer. That man is getting on my nerves, Spike. He pursues me like a smell dog. I expect he’s lurking out in the passage now. Did you see him?”

“Did I! Boss! Why——”

Jimmy inspected Spike gravely.

“Spike,” he said, “there’s something on your mind. You’re trying to say something. What is it? Out with it.”

Spike’s excitement vented itself in a rush of words.

“Gee, boss! There’s bin doin’s to-night for fair. Me coco’s still buzzin’. Sure t’ing! Why, say, when I was to Sir Tummas’s dressing-room dis afternoon——”

“What!”

“Surest t’ing, you know. Just before de storm come on, when it was all as dark as could be. Well, I was——”

Jimmy interrupted.

“In Sir Thomas’s dressing-room! What——”

Spike looked somewhat embarrassed. He grinned apologetically and shuffled his feet.

“I’ve got dem, boss,” he said, with a smirk.

“Got them? Got what?”

“Dese.”

He plunged his hand in his pocket and drew forth, in a glittering mass, Lady Julia Blunt’s rope of diamonds.

★ 22 ★
_How Two of a Trade did not Agree_

“One hundred t’ousand plunks,” murmured Spike, gazing lovingly at them. “I says to meself, ‘De boss ain’t got no time to be gettin’ after dem himself. He’s too busy dese days wit jollyin’ along de swells. So it’s up to me,’ I says, ‘’cos de boss’ll be tickled to deat’, all right, all right, if we can git away wit dem.’ So I——”

Jimmy gave tongue with an energy which amazed his faithful follower. The nightmare horror of the situation had affected him much as a sudden blow in the parts about the waistcoat might have done. But now, as Spike would have said, he caught up with his breath. The smirk faded slowly from the other’s face as he listened. Not even in the Bowery, full as it was of candid friends, had he listened to such a trenchant summing-up of his mental and moral deficiencies.

“Boss!” he protested.

“That’s just a sketchy outline,” said Jimmy, pausing for breath. “I can’t do you justice impromptu like this. You’re too vast and overwhelming.”

“But, boss, what’s eatin’ you? Ain’t youse tickled?”

“Tickled!” Jimmy sawed the air. “Tickled! You lunatic! Can’t you see what you’ve done?”

“I’ve got dem,” said Spike, whose mind was not readily receptive of new ideas. It seemed to him that Jimmy missed the main point.

“Didn’t I tell you there was nothing doing when you wanted to take those things the other day?”

Spike’s face cleared. As he had suspected, Jimmy had missed the point.

“Why, say, boss, yes—sure. But dose was little dinky t’ings. Of course, youse wouldn’t stand for swipin’ chicken-feed like dem. But dese is different. Dese di’monds is boids. It’s one hundred thousand plunks fer dese.”

“Spike!” said Jimmy, with painful calm.

“Huh?”

“Will you listen for a moment?”

“Sure.”

“I know it’s practically hopeless. To get an idea into your head one wants a proper outfit—drills, blasting-powder, and so on. But there’s just a chance, perhaps, if I talk slowly. Has it occurred to you, Spike—my bonny, blue-eyed Spike—that every other man, more or less, in this stately home of England is a detective who has probably received instructions to watch you like a lynx? Do you imagine that your blameless past is a sufficient safeguard? I suppose you think that these detectives will say to themselves, ‘Now, whom shall we suspect? We must leave out Spike Mullins, of course, because he naturally wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing. It can’t be dear old Spike who’s got the stuff.’”

“But, boss,” interposed Spike brightly. “I ain’t! Dat’s right—I ain’t got it. Youse has!”

Jimmy looked at him with reluctant admiration. After all, there was a breezy delirium about Spike’s methods of thought which was rather stimulating when you got used to it. The worst of it was that it did not fit in with practical, everyday life. Under different conditions—say, during convivial evenings at Colney Hatch—he could imagine the Bowery boy being a charming companion. How pleasantly, for instance, such remarks as that last would while away the monotony of a padded cell!

“But, laddie,” he said, with steely affection, “listen once more. Reflect! Ponder! Does it not seep into your consciousness that we are, as it were, subtly connected in this house in the minds of certain bad persons? Are we not imagined by Mr. McEachern, for instance, to be working hand in hand like brothers? Do you fancy that Mr. McEachern, chatting with his tame sleuth-hound over their cigars, will have been reticent on this point? I think not. How do you propose to baffle that gentlemanly sleuth, Spike, who, I may mention once again, has rarely moved more than two yards away from me since his arrival?”

An involuntary chuckle escaped Spike.

“Sure, boss, dat’s all right!”

“All right, is it? Well, well! What makes you think it is all right?”

“Why, say, boss, dose sleuts is out of business.” A merry grin split his face. “It’s funny, boss! Gee, it’s got a circus skinned! Listen! Deyse bin an’ arrest each other.”

Jimmy moodily revised his former view. Even in Colney Hatch this sort of thing would be coldly received. Genius must ever walk alone. Spike would have to get along without any hope of meeting a kindred spirit, a fellow-being in tune with his brain-processes.

“Dat’s right,” chuckled Spike. “Leastways, it ain’t.”

“No, no,” said Jimmy soothingly. “I quite understand.”

“It’s dis way, boss. One of dem has bin an’ arrest de odder mug. Dey had a scrap, each t’inking de odder guy was after de jools, an’ not knowin’ dey was bote sleuts, an’ now one of dem’s bin an’ taken de odder off, an’”—there were tears of innocent joy in his eyes—“an’ locked him into de coal-cellar.”

“What on earth do you mean?”

Spike giggled helplessly.

“Listen, boss! It’s dis way. Gee, it beat de band. When it’s all dark, ’cos of de storm comin’ on, I’m in de dressin’-room chasin’ around for de jool-box, and just as I gets a line on it—gee!— I hears a footstep coming down de passage, very soft, straight for de door. Was I to de bad? Dat’s right. I says to meself, ‘Here’s one of de sleut guys what’s bin and got wise to me, an’ he’s comin’ in to put de grip on me,’ so I gets up quick, an’ I hides behind a coitain. Dere’s a coitain at de side of de room. Dere’s dude suits an t’ings hangin’ behind it. I chases meself in dere, and stands waitin’ for de sleut to come in, ’cos den, you see, I’m goin’ to try an’ get busy before he can see who I am—it’s pretty dark ’cos of de storm—an’ jolt him one on de point of de jaw, an’ den, while he’s down an’ out, chase meself fer de soivants’ hall.”

“Yes?” said Jimmy.

“Well, dis guy, he gets to de door and opens it, and I’m just gettin’ ready for one sudden boist of speed when dere jumps out from de room on de odder side de passage—you know de room—anodder guy, an’ gets de rapid strangleholt on de foist mug. Say, wouldn’t dat make youse glad you hadn’t gone to de circus? Honest, it was better dan Coney Island.”

“Go on. What happened then?”

“Day falls to scrappin’ good and hard. Dey couldn’t see me, an’ I couldn’t see dem, but I could hear dem bumpin’ about and sluggin’ each odder to beat de band. And by and by one of de mugs puts de odder mug to de bad, so dat he goes down and takes de count; and den I hears a click. And I know what dat is. It’s one of de gazebos has put de irons on de odder gazebo.”

“Call them A and B,” suggested Jimmy.

“Den I hears him—de foist mug—strike a light, ’cos it’s dark dere ’cos of de storm, an’ den he says, ‘Got youse, have I?’ he says. ‘I’ve had my eye on you, t’inkin’ youse was up to somet’ing of dis kind. I’ve bin watchin’ youse!’ I knew de voice. It’s dat mug what calls himself Sir Tummas’s vally. And de odder——”

Jimmy burst into a roar of laughter.

“Don’t, Spike! This is more than man was meant to stand. Do you mean to tell me that it is my bright, brainy, persevering friend Galer who has been handcuffed and locked in the coal-cellar?”

“Sure, dat’s right,” he said.

“It’s a judgment,” said Jimmy delightedly—“that’s what it is. No man has a right to be such a consummate ass as Galer. It isn’t decent.”

There had been moments when McEachern’s faithful employé had filled Jimmy with an odd sort of fury, a kind of hurt pride, almost to the extent of making him wish that he really could have been the desperado McEachern fancied him. Never in his life before had he sat still under a challenge, and this espionage had been one. Behind the clumsy watcher he had seen always the self-satisfied figure of McEachern. If there had been anything subtle about the man from Dodson’s he could have forgiven him; but there was not. Years of practice had left Spike with a sort of sixth sense as regarded representatives of the law. He could pierce the most cunning disguise. But in the case of Galer even Jimmy could detect the detective.

“Go on,” he said.

Spike proceeded.

“Well, de odder mug, de one down and out on de floor wit de irons on——”

“Galer, in fact,” said Jimmy. “Handsome, dashing Galer!”

“Sure. Well, he’s too busy catchin’ up wit his breat’ to shoot it back swift, but after he’s bin doin’ de deep-breathin’ stunt for a while he says, ‘You mutt,’ he says, ‘youse is to de bad. You’re made a break, you have. Dat’s right. Surest t’ing you know.’ He puts it different, but dat’s what he means. ‘I’m a sleut,’ he says. ‘Take dese t’ings off!’—meanin’ de irons. Does de odder mug, de vally gazebo, give him de glad eye? Not so’s you could notice it. He gives him de merry ha-ha. He says dat dat’s de woist tale dat’s ever bin handed to him. ‘Tell it to Sweeney!’ he says. ‘I knows youse. You woims yourself into de house as a guest, when youse is really after de loidy’s jools.’ At dese crool woids de odder mug, Galer, gits hot under de collar. ‘I’m a sure ’nough sleut,’ he says. ‘I blows into dis house at de special request of Mr. McEachern, de American gent.’ De odder mug hands him de lemon again. ‘Tell it to de King of Denmark,’ he says. ‘Dis cops de limit. Youse has enough gall for ten strong men,’ he says. ‘Show me to Mr. McEachern,’ says Galer. ‘He’ll——crouch,’ is dat it?”

“Vouch?” suggested Jimmy. “Meaning give the glad hand to.”

“Dat’s right—vouch. I wondered what he meant at de time. ‘He’ll vouch for me,’ he says. Dat puts him all right, he t’inks; but no, he’s still in Dutch, ’cos de vally mug says, ‘Nix on dat! I ain’t goin’ to chase around de house wit youse, lookin’ for Mr. McEachern. It’s youse for de coal-cellar, me man, an’ we’ll see what youse has to say when I makes me report to Sir Tummas.’ ‘Well, dat’s to de good,’ says Galer. ‘Tell Sir Tummas. I’ll explain to him.’ ‘Not me!’ says de vally. ‘Sir Tummas has a hard evening’s woik before him, jollyin’ along de swells what’s comin’ to see dis stoige-piece dey’re actin’. I ain’t goin’ to worry him till he’s good and ready. To de coal-cellar for yours! G’wan!’ and off dey goes! And I gets busy again, swipes de jools, and chases meself here.”

“Have you ever heard of poetic justice, Spike?” he asked. “This is it. But in this hour of mirth and good will we must not forget——”

Spike interrupted.

Beaming with honest pleasure at the enthusiastic reception of his narrative, he proceeded to point out the morals that were to be deduced therefrom.

“So youse see, boss,” he said, “it’s all to de merry. When dey rubbers for de jools and finds dem gone, dey’ll t’ink dis Galer guy swiped dem. Dey won’t t’ink of us.”

Jimmy looked at him gravely.

“Of course,” said he. “What a reasoner you are, Spike! Galer was just opening the door from the outside, by your account, when the valet-man sprang at him. Naturally they’ll think that he took the jewels, especially as they won’t find them on him. A man who can open a locked safe through a closed door is just the sort of fellow who would be able to get rid of the swag neatly while rolling about the floor with the valet. His not having the jewels will make the case all the blacker against him. And what will make them still more certain that he is the thief is that he really is a detective. Spike, you ought to be in some sort of a home, you know.”

The Bowery boy looked disturbed.

“I didn’t t’ink of dat, boss,” he admitted.

“Of course not. One can’t think of everything. Now, if you will just hand me those diamonds, I will put them back where they belong.”

“Put dem back, boss!”

“What else would you propose? I’d get you to do it, only I don’t think putting things back is much in your line.”

Spike handed over the jewels. The boss was the boss, and what he said went. But his demeanour was tragic, telling eloquently of hopes blighted.

Jimmy took the necklace with something of a thrill. He was a connoisseur of jewels, and a fine gem affected him much as a fine picture affects the artistic. He ran the diamonds through his fingers, then scrutinized them again, more closely this time.

Spike watched him with a slight return of hope. It seemed to him that the boss was wavering. Perhaps, now that he had actually handled the jewels, he would find it impossible to give them up. To Spike a diamond necklace of cunning workmanship was merely the equivalent of so many “plunks”; but he knew that there were men, otherwise sane, who valued a jewel for its own sake.

“It’s a boid of a necklace, boss,” he murmured encouragingly.

“It is,” said Jimmy. “In its way I’ve never seen anything much better. Sir Thomas will be glad to have it back.”

“Den you’re going to put it back, boss?”

“I am,” said Jimmy. “I’ll do it just before the theatricals; there should be a chance then. There’s one good thing—this afternoon’s affair will have cleared the air of sleuth-hounds a little.”

★ 23 ★
_Family Jars_

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.

★ 24 ★
_The Treasure-Seeker_

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.