Chapter V: Part 5

"Higginson would know," I answered. "He was with Mr. Ashurst at Florence at the time, and he would take good care to keep a watch upon his movements. In my belief, it was he who suggested this whole plot to Lord Southminster."

"Of course it was," Lady Georgina put in. "That's absolutely certain. Bertie's a rogue as well as a fool: but he's too great a fool to invent a clever roguery, and too great a knave not to join in it foolishly when anybody else takes the pains to invent it."

"And it _was_ a clever roguery," Mr. Hayes interposed. "An ordinary rascal would have forged a later will in Lord Southminster's favour, and run the risk of detection: Higginson had the acuteness to forge a will exactly like the real one, and to let your husband bear the burden of the forgery. It was as sagacious as it was ruthless."

"The next point," I said, "will be for us to prove it."

At that moment the bell rang, and one of the house-servants--all puzzled by this conflict of interests--came in with a telegram, which he handed me on a salver. I broke it open, without glancing at the envelope. Its contents baffled me: "My address is Hotel Bristol, Paris; name as usual. Send me a thousand pounds on account at once. I can't afford to wait. No shillyshallying."

The message was unsigned. For a moment, I couldn't imagine who sent it, or what it was driving at.

Then I took up the envelope. "Viscount Southminster, 24, Park Lane North, London."

My heart gave a jump. I saw in a second that chance or Providence had delivered the conspirators into my hands that day. The telegram was from Higginson! I had opened it by accident.

It was obvious what had happened. Lord Southminster must have written to him on the result of the trial, and told him he meant to take possession of his uncle's house immediately. Higginson had acted on that hint, and addressed his telegram where he thought it likely Lord Southminster would receive it earliest. I had opened it in error, and that, too, was fortunate, for even in dealing with such a pack of scoundrels, it would never have occurred to me to violate somebody else's correspondence had I not thought it was addressed to me. But having arrived at the truth thus unintentionally, I had, of course, no scruples about making full use of my information.

I showed the despatch at once to Lady Georgina and Mr. Hayes. They recognised its importance. "What next?" I inquired. "Time presses. At half-past three Harold comes up for examination at Bow Street."

Mr. Hayes was ready with an apt expedient. "Ring the bell for Mr. Ashurst's valet," he said, quietly. "The moment has now arrived when we can begin to set these conspirators by the ears. As soon as they learn that we know all, they will be eager to inform upon one another."

I rang the bell. "Send up White," I said. "We wish to speak to him."

The valet stole up, self-accused, a timid, servile creature, rubbing his hands nervously, and suspecting mischief. He was a rat in trouble. He had thin brown hair, neatly brushed and plastered down, so as to make it look still thinner, and his face was the average narrow cunning face of the dishonest man-servant. It had an ounce of wile in it to a pound or two of servility. He seemed just the sort of rogue meanly to join in an underhand conspiracy, and then meanly to back out of it. You could read at a glance that his principle in life was to save his own bacon.

He advanced, fumbling his hands all the time, and smiling and fawning. "You wished to see me, sir?" he murmured, in a deprecatory voice, looking sideways at Lady Georgina and me, but addressing the lawyer.

"Yes, White, I wished to see you. I have a question to ask you. _Who_ put the forged will in Mr. Ashurst's desk? Was it you, or some other person?"

The question terrified him. He changed colour and gasped. But he rubbed his hands harder than ever and affected a sickly smile. "Oh, sir, how should _I_ know, sir? _I_ had nothing to do with it. I suppose--it was Mr. Tillington."

Our lawyer pounced upon him like a hawk on a titmouse. "Don't prevaricate with me, sir," he said, sternly. "If you do, it may be worse for you. This case has assumed quite another aspect. It is you and your associates who will be placed in the dock, not Mr. Tillington. You had better speak the truth; it is your one chance, I warn you. Lie to me, and instead of calling you as a witness for our case, I shall include you in the indictment."

White looked down uneasily at his shoes, and cowered. "Oh, sir, I don't understand you."

"Yes, you do. You understand me, and you know I mean it. Wriggling is useless; we intend to prosecute. We have unravelled this vile plot. We know the whole truth. Higginson and Lord Southminster forged a will between them----"

"Oh, sir, _not_ Lord Southminster! His lordship, I'm sure----"

Mr. Hayes's keen eye had noted the subtle shade of distinction and admission. But he said nothing openly. "Well, then, Higginson forged, and Lord Southminster accepted, a false will, which purported to be Mr. Marmaduke Ashurst's. Now, follow me clearly. That will could not have been put into the escritoire during Mr. Ashurst's life, for there would have been risk of his discovering it. It must, therefore, have been put there afterward. The moment he was dead, you, or somebody else with your consent and connivance, slipped it into the escritoire; and you afterwards showed Mr. Tillington the place where you had set it or seen it set, leading him to believe it was Mr. Ashurst's will, and so involved him in all this trouble. Note that that was a felonious act. We accuse you of felony. Do you mean to confess, and give evidence on our behalf, or will you force me to send for a policeman to arrest you?"

The cur hesitated still. "Oh, sir," drawing back, and fumbling his hands on his breast, "you don't mean it."

Mr. Hayes was prompt. "Hesslegrave, go for a policeman."

That curt sentence brought the rogue on his marrow-bones at once. He clasped his hands and debated inwardly. "If I tell you all I know," he said, at last, looking about him with an air of abject terror, as if he thought Lord Southminster or Higginson would hear him, "will you promise not to prosecute me?" His tone became insinuating. "For a hundred pounds, I could find the real will for you. You'd better close with me. To-day is the last chance. As soon as his lordship comes in, he'll hunt it up and destroy it."

I flourished it before him, and pointed with one hand to the broken desk, which he had not yet observed in his craven agitation.

"We do not need your aid," I answered. "We have found the will, ourselves. Thanks to Lady Georgina, it is safe till this minute."

"And to me," he put in, cringing, and trying, after his kind, to curry favour with the winners at the last moment. "It's all _my_ doing, my lady! I wouldn't destroy it. His lordship offered me a hundred pounds more to break open the back of the desk at night, while your ladyship was asleep, and burn the thing quietly. But I told him he might do his own dirty work if he wanted it done. It wasn't good enough while your ladyship was here in possession. Besides, I wanted the right will preserved, for I thought things might turn up so; and I wouldn't stand by and see a gentleman like Mr. Tillington, as has always behaved well to me, deprived of his inheritance."

"Which is why you conspired with Lord Southminster to rob him of it, and to send him to prison for Higginson's crime," I interposed, calmly.

"Then you confess you put the forged will there?" Mr. Hayes said, getting to business.

White looked about him helplessly. He missed his headpiece, the instigator of the plot. "Well, it was like this, my lady," he began, turning to Lady Georgina, and wriggling to gain time. "You see, his lordship and Mr. Higginson----" he twirled his thumbs and tried to invent something plausible.

Lady Georgina swooped. "No rigmarole!" she said, sharply. "Do you confess you put it there or do you not--reptile?" Her vehemence startled him.

"Yes, I confess I put it there," he said at last, blinking. "As soon as the breath was out of Mr. Ashurst's body I put it there." He began to whimper. "I'm a poor man with a wife and family, sir," he went on, "though in Mr. Ashurst's time I always kep' that quiet; and his lordship offered to pay me well for the job; and when you're paid well for a job yourself, sir----."

Mr. Hayes waved him off with one imperious hand. "Sit down in the corner there, man, and don't move or utter another word," he said, sternly, "until I order you. You will be in time still for me to produce at Bow Street."

Just at that moment, Lord Southminster swaggered back, accompanied by a couple of unwilling policemen. "Oh, I say," he cried, bursting in and staring around him, jubilant. "Look heah, Georgey, _are_ you going quietly, or must I ask these coppahs to evict you?" He was wreathed in smiles now, and had evidently been fortifying himself with brandies and soda.

Lady Georgina rose in her wrath. "Yes, I'll go if you wish it, Bertie," she answered, with calm irony. "I'll leave the house as soon as you like--for the present--till we come back again with Harold and _his_ policemen to evict you. This house is Harold's. Your game is played, boy." She spoke slowly. "We have found the other will--we have discovered Higginson's present address in Paris--and we know from White how he and you arranged this little conspiracy."

She rapped out each clause in this last accusing sentence with deliberate effect, like so many pistol-shots. Each bullet hit home. The pea-green young man, drawing back and staring, stroked his shadowy moustache with feeble fingers in undisguised astonishment. Then he dropped into a chair and fixed his gaze blankly on Lady Georgina. "Well, this is a fair knock-out," he ejaculated, fatuously disconcerted. "I wish Higginson was heah. I really don't quite know what to do without him. That fellah had squared it all up so neatly, don't yah know, that I thought there couldn't be any sort of hitch in the proceedings."

"You reckoned without Lois," Lady Georgina said, calmly.

"Ah, Miss Cayley--that's true. I mean, Mrs. Tillington. Yaas, yaas, I know, she's a doosid clevah person for a woman, now isn't she?"

It was impossible to take this flabby creature seriously, even as a criminal. Lady Georgina's lips relaxed. "Doosid clever" she admitted, looking at me almost tenderly.

"But not quite so clevah, don't yah know, as Higginson!"

"There you make your blooming little erraw," Mr. Hayes burst in, adopting one of Lord Southminster's favourite witticisms--the sort of witticism that improves, like poetry, by frequent repetition. "Policemen, you may go into the next room and wait: this is a family affair; we have no immediate need of you."

"Oh, certainly," Lord Southminster echoed, much relieved. "Very propah sentiment! Most undesirable that the constables should mix themselves up in a family mattah like this. Not the place for inferiahs!"

"Then why introduce them?" Lady Georgina burst out, turning on him.

He smiled his fatuous smile. "That's just what I say," he answered. "Why the jooce introduce them? But don't snap my head off!"

The policemen withdrew respectfully, glad to be relieved of this unpleasant business, where they could gain no credit, and might possibly involve themselves in a charge of assault. Lord Southminster rose with a benevolent grin, and looked about him pleasantly. The brandies and soda had endowed him with irrepressible cheerfulness.

"Well?" Lady Georgina murmured.

"Well, I think I'll leave now, Georgey. You've trumped my ace, yah know. Nasty trick of White to go and round on a fellah. I don't like the turn this business is taking. Seems to me, the only way I have left to get out of it is--to turn Queen's evidence."

Lady Georgina planted herself firmly against the door. "Bertie," she cried, "no, you don't--not till we've got what we want out of you!"

He gazed at her blandly. His face broke once more into an imbecile smile. "You were always a rough 'un, Georgey. Your hand did sting! Well, what do you want now? We've each played our cards, and you needn't cut up rusty over it--especially when you're winning! Hang it all, I wish I had Higginson heah to tackle you!"

"If you go to see the Treasury people, or the Solicitor-General, or the Public Prosecutor, or whoever else it may be," Lady Georgina said, stoutly, "Mr. Hayes must go with you. We've trumped your ace, as you say, and we mean to take advantage of it. And then you must trundle yourself down to Bow Street afterwards, confess the whole truth, and set Harold at liberty."

"Oh, I say now, Georgey! The whole truth! the whole blooming truth! That's really what I call humiliating a fellah!"

"If you don't, we arrest you this minute--fourteen years' imprisonment!"

"Fourteen yeahs?" He wiped his forehead. "Oh, I say. How doosid uncomfortable. I was nevah much good at doing anything by the sweat of my brow. I ought to have lived in the Garden of Eden. Georgey, you're hard on a chap when he's down on his luck. It would be confounded cruel to send me to fourteen yeahs at Portland."

"You would have sent my husband to it," I broke in, angrily, confronting him.

"What? You too, Miss Cayley?--I mean Mrs. Tillington. Don't look at me like that. Tigahs aren't in it."

His jauntiness disarmed us. However wicked he might be, one felt it would be ridiculous to imprison this schoolboy. A sound flogging and a month's deprivation of wine and cigarettes was the obvious punishment designed for him by nature.

"You must go down to the police-court and confess this whole conspiracy," Lady Georgina went on after a pause, as sternly as she was able. "I prefer, if we can, to save the family--even you, Bertie. But I can't any longer save the family honour--I can only save Harold's. You must help me to do that; and then, you must give me your solemn promise--in writing--to leave England for ever, and go to live in South Africa."

He stroked the invisible moustache more nervously than before. That penalty came home to him. "What, leave England for evah? Newmarket--Ascot--the club--the music-halls!"

"Or fourteen years' imprisonment!"

"Georgey, you spank as hard as evah!"

"Decide at once, or we arrest you!"

He glanced about him feebly. I could see he was longing for his lost confederate. "Well, I'll go," he said at last, sobering down; "and your solicitaw can trot round with me. I'll do all that you wish, though I call it most unfriendly. Hang it all, fourteen yeahs would be so beastly unpleasant!"

We drove forthwith to the proper authorities, who, on hearing the facts, at once arranged to accept Lord Southminster and White as Queen's evidence, neither being the actual forger. We also telegraphed to Paris to have Higginson arrested, Lord Southminster giving us up his assumed name with the utmost cheerfulness, and without one moment's compunction. Mr. Hayes was quite right: each conspirator was only too ready to save himself by betraying his fellows. Then we drove on to Bow Street (Lord Southminster consoling himself with a cigarette on the way), just in time for Harold's case, which was to be taken, by special arrangement, at 3.30.

A very few minutes sufficed to turn the tables completely on the conspirators. Harold was discharged, and a warrant was issued for the arrest of Higginson, the actual forger. He had drawn up the false will and signed it with Mr. Ashurst's name, after which he had presented it for Lord Southminster's approval. The pea-green young man told his tale with engaging frankness. "Bertie's a simple Simon," Lady Georgina commented to me; "but he's also a rogue; and Higginson saw his way to make excellent capital of him in both capacities--first use him as a catspaw, and then blackmail him."

On the steps of the police-court, as we emerged triumphant, Lord Southminster met us--still radiant as ever. He seemed wholly unaware of the depths of his iniquity: a fresh dose of brandy had restored his composure. "Look heah," he said, "Harold, your wife has bested me! Jolly good thing for you that you managed to get hold of such a clevah woman! If you hadn't, deah boy, you'd have found yourself in Queeah Street! But, I say, Lois--I call yah Lois because you're my cousin now, yah know--you were backing the wrong man aftah all, as I told yah. For if you'd backed _me_, all this wouldn't have come out; you'd have got the tin and been a countess as well, aftah the governah's dead and gone, don't yah see. You'd have landed the double event. So you'd have pulled off a bettah thing for yourself in the end, as I said, if you'd laid your bottom dollah on me for winnah!"

Higginson is now doing fourteen years at Portland; Harold and I are happy in the sweetest place in Gloucestershire; and Lord Southminster, blissfully unaware of the contempt with which the rest of the world regards him, is shooting big game among his "boys" in South Africa. Indeed, he bears so little malice that he sent us a present of a trophy of horns for our hall last winter.

_A Town in the Tree-Tops._

By Ellsworth Douglass.

Everybody at the _pension_ had heard it, but Bayly has a circumstantial and picturesque manner of narration, which gives old stories a new interest.

"Wasn't it your American millionaire, Mr. Waldorf Astor," he said, addressing me, "who made a wager that he would comfortably seat thirty-two guests around the stump of a California big tree? And didn't he do it? Brought a slice off the tree-stump more than 6,000 miles, and had a grand dinner on it in London?"

"I must say I like your big tree stories better than your big tree wines," put in Gaillet, a dashing young Frenchman, who spoke English fluently; "but I don't think all that is so wonderful. I can show you a place, within less than an hour of Paris, where more than thirty-two persons can dine around comfortable tables high up in the branches of a single tree!"

"That sounds interesting, Gaillet; to me it smells like 'good copy.' Eating up in trees might make some novel photographs; what do you say, Bayly?"

I purposely touched the young Englishman on his hobby. He was an amateur photographer of the virulent and persistent type, and had recently infected me with the contagion.

"If the sun looks promising we will ride down there on our wheels to-morrow and have a look at them," he replied. "Can you go with us and show us the way, Gaillet?"

And so, early the next morning, we went. It was a delightful two hours on the wheel in early October. Just as the country began to grow more broken and interesting, and chestnut trees began to strew the paths with prickly burrs, we wheeled up a slight hill into a quaint village, and dismounting, Gaillet exclaimed:--

"Here we are at home with Robinson Crusoe!"

THE VILLAGE OF ROBINSON. [_L. Bayly._]

Had he told me that Robinson Crusoe really lived in the flesh and, after returning from his lonely adventures, founded this little village, and here attempted to bring into fashion his old habit of eating in the trees, I would have believed it. For here is the village bearing his name to this day; here also, as seen in our first photograph, is his effigy in the principal street, under his rough, thatched umbrella, and with his parrot seated upon his shoulder, as every schoolboy knows him. Here, likewise, are a number of great trees, with two or three rustic dining-huts built far up on the limbs of each; and, as Gaillet assured us, here, for the last fifty years, men and their families have eaten in the trees like squirrels.

As Bayly prepared to take the first photograph, he noticed that the highest dining-stage in the tip-top of the biggest tree had curtains drawn around it, which he asked to have pulled back. A waiter informed him that this rustic hut was engaged by a party.

"Yes, I telephoned down yesterday afternoon, and reserved it for us," put in Gaillet. "I also ordered the _déjeuner_. I hope you will like it: sole _au gratin_ and _chateaubriand aux champignons_."

At that moment the wind left the leaves and boughs at rest, and Bayly snapped the shutter, regardless of the curtains. I made reply to Gaillet:--

"I never heard of Crusoe's fare being quite so pretentious as all that. He must have learned cookery since he came to France."

"It is M. Gueusquin _aîné_ who claims the credit for applying the tree idea to modern dining. Doubtless he does it better than Crusoe could have done. At any rate, he has made a large fortune out of the idea--far more than Defoe made out of his story. It was just fifty years ago," continued Gaillet, "that the father of the present proprietor here was struck with the clever idea, bought this picturesque plot of ground with large trees on it, and built rustic dining-rooms on the strongest branches. He called his lonely little country place Robinson, after the Swiss family which figures in the French version of the romance, and invited the patronage of the fun-loving Parisians who delight in fanciful ideas of ibis sort. At that time it was a long coach ride from the city, but it soon became the popular _rendezvous_ for a day's outing. Since then Kings have dined here; thousands of wedding parties have seen life rosy from the tree-tops, and nearly every Parisian boy who reads the story of Robinson's adventures is taken to this quaint little village as a realistic sequel. M. Gueusquin's success tempted others into similar ventures here, so that now nearly every large tree is utilized, and Robinson has grown into quite a respectable village, whose name will always be associated in the French mind with breezy dinners, family picnics, donkey-riding, bracing country air, and charming scenery. The Ligne de Sceaux long ago built a branch line terminating here, and a journey of forty minutes by train brings one down from the Luxembourg Station in Paris."

THE LARGEST ROBINSON TREE. [_L. Bayly._]

Bayly evidently cared little for these facts, for he had busied himself getting a focus on the largest tree, which M. Gueusquin proudly advertises as "_Le Vrai Arbre de Robinson_." You may see the result in the accompanying photograph. Its massive trunk has not much increased in size since the stairway was built around it half a century ago. There is one thatched hut built at the first branch of the tree; another well out on a higher limb on the other side of the trunk; and the third and most desirable in the very tip-top, from which one sees an enchanting view of all the pretty country lying towards Paris. A stairway connects all these rustic huts with each other, and in the busy season a waiter is stationed at each dining stage, and the wines and cooked foods are hauled up to him from the ground by means of a rope and basket running to each stage, as will be seen in most of the photographs. At wedding parties these same baskets have more than once served to lower away some bibulous guest whose frequent toasts to the bride have ended in a decided disinclination to attempt the giddy and precipitous stairway.

LARGE DINING-ROOM BETWEEN TWO TREES. [_Ellsworth Douglass._]

Bayly went next to inspect a larger and more modern dining-room built between two young trees, and I have caught him on the stairway in the photograph above. But I was anxious to climb to some height and get a good view of the nest in the tree-top where we were to breakfast. I heard someone laughing at my first futile attempts at climbing, but at last I gained a point of vantage which gave a view over the tops of the trees to the indefinite stretch of pretty valley beyond.

While breakfast was preparing we visited the neighbouring inns to photograph the trees. Just across the road we found one which claims the distinction of being the tallest in Robinson. As will be seen in the photograph, it has three dining stages one directly above another, so that the same basket may serve them all. A waiter can be seen in the top stage of this thrifty, sturdy chestnut, in which many generations may yet dine.

A THREE-STORY TREE. [_L. Bayly._]

Farther down the road is a place called the Maison Robin, possibly in the hope that the kind public will believe that the "true Robinson" was this Robin's son. Here is the "Great Chestnut," which truly looks as if it might antedate Robinson Crusoe by centuries. Yet it still showers its plenteous fruit upon the ground, and as we kicked about its bushels of bursting burrs we wondered how "marron glacé" could be so expensive in Paris. The next photograph shows how the walks were sprinkled with ripe nuts; and also some pretty samples of the vine or ivy-covered _bosquets_ for those who prefer to dine on _terra firma_. These are numerous, and charmingly pretty in the gardens of most of the inns here.

THE GREAT CHESTNUT. [_Ellsworth Douglass._]

Another great feature of Robinson is the family picnic, but the French love ease and comfort too much to dine on the grass under the trees. They prefer to sit properly at a table, and many of the inns recognise the right of visitors to bring their own provisions, and are content with serving them wines, coffee, and the like. When you go to Robinson, you are sure to recognise this place at the turning of the road before reaching the great trees.

NEAR VIEW OF A HUT ON A BRANCH. [_L. Bayly._]

I returned to our second stage with Gaillet, and found the table laid, but not a scrap of food to be seen. The waiter was trotting up the stairs with a heavily-loaded tray, on which was an enormous plate of sole _au gratin_. Gaillet remarked that it looked as if the people in the top hut had not only captured our place, but our breakfast as well. He begged the waiter to hurry our order, and then asked me what I thought might be going on up there behind the curtains. It was very near us, and perhaps for this reason the young ladies refrained from audible conversation. They only whispered among themselves and laughed at intervals, but Gaillet thought he surprised one or two attempts to peep around the curtain at us. I was ravenously hungry, and when the waiter next went past up to the top story I seized a yard of bread from his tray. Looking down at Bayly, who was focusing below, I cried out: "Lancelot, if you are hungry, get a photograph of the only morsel of food I have been able to secure before I devour it!" And our last illustration bears witness that he did so. This detailed view of a thatched, rustic hut perched upon a big limb finished his work.

Aunt Sarah's Brooch.

BY ARTHUR MORRISON

I am afraid to face my Aunt Sarah. Though how I am to get out of it I don't quite see.

At any rate, I will never again undertake the work of a private detective; though that would have been a more useful resolve a fortnight ago. The mischief is done now.

The main bitterness lies in the reflection that it is all Aunt Sarah's fault. Such a muddlesome old----but, there, losing my temper won't mend it. A few weeks ago I was Clement Simpson, with very considerable expectations from my Aunt Sarah and no particular troubles on my mind, and I was engaged to my cousin, Honoria Prescott. Now I am still Clement Simpson (although sometimes I almost doubt even that), but my expectations from my Aunt Sarah are of the most uncomfortable, and my troubles overwhelm me. As for Honoria Prescott----but read and learn it all.

My aunt is a maiden lady of sixty-five, though there is something about her appearance at variance with the popular notion of a spinster, insomuch that it is the way of tradesmen to speak of her as "Mrs." Simpson, and to send their little bills thus addressed. She is a very positive old lady, and she measures, I should judge, about five feet round the waist. She is constantly attended by a doctor, and from time to time, in her sadder moments, it has been her habit to assure me that she shall not live long, and that very soon I shall find myself well provided for; though for an invalid she always ate rather well: about as much, I should judge, as a fairly healthy navvy. She had a great idea of her importance in the family--in fact, she _was_ important--and she had--has now, indeed--a way of directing the movements of all its members, who submit with a becoming humility. It is well to submit humbly to the caprice of a rich elderly aunt, and it has always been my own practice. It was because of Aunt Sarah's autocratic reign in the family that Honoria Prescott and I refrained from telling her of our engagement; for Aunt Sarah had conceived vast matrimonial ambitions on behalf of each of us. We were each to make an exceedingly good marriage; there was even a suggestion of a title for Honoria, though what title, and how it was to be captured, I never heard. And for me, I understood there would be nothing less than a brewer's daughter, or even a company-promoter's. And so we feared that Aunt Sarah might look upon a union between us not only as a flat defiance of her wishes, but as a deplorable _mésalliance_ on both sides. So, for the time the engagement lasted (not very long, alas!), we feared to reveal it. Now there is no engagement to reveal. But this is anticipating.

Aunt Sarah was very fussy about her jewels. In perpetual apprehension lest they might be stolen, she carried them with her whenever she took a change of air (and she had a good many such changes), while in her own house she kept them in some profoundly secret hiding-place. I have an idea that it was under a removable board in the floor of her bedroom. Of course, we all professed to share Aunt Sarah's solicitude, and it had been customary in the family, from times beyond my knowledge, to greet her first with inquiries as to her own health, and next with hopes for the safety of the jewels. But, as a matter of fact, they were not vastly valuable things; probably they were worth more than the case they were kept in, but not very much. Aunt Sarah never wore them--even she would not go as far as that. They were nothing but a small heap of clumsy old brooches, ear-rings, and buckles, with one or two very long, thin watch-chains, and certain mourning and signet rings belonging to departed members of the family who had flourished (or not) in the early part of the century. There were no big diamonds among them--scarcely any diamonds at all, in fact; but the garnets and cats' eyes strove to make good in size and ugliness of setting what they lacked in mere market worth. Chief of all the "jewels," and most precious of Aunt Sarah's possessions, was a big amethyst brooch, with a pane of glass let in behind, inclosing a lock of the reddest hair I have ever seen. It was the hair of Aunt Sarah's own uncle Joseph, the most distinguished member of the family, who had written three five-act tragedies, and dedicated them all, one after another, to George the Fourth. Joseph's initials appeared on the frame of the brooch behind--"J." on one side and "S." on the other. It was, on the whole, perhaps, the ugliest and clumsiest of all Aunt Sarah's jewels, and I never saw anything else like it anywhere, except one; and that, singularly enough, was an exact duplicate--barring, of course, the hair and the inscription--in a very mouldy shop in Soho, where all sorts of hopelessly out-of-date rings and brooches and chains hung for sale. It was the way of the shopkeeper to ticket these gloomy odds and ends with cheerful inscriptions, such as "Antique, 17s. 6d.," "Real Gold, £1 5s.," "Quaint, £2 2s. 6d." But even he could find no more promising adjective for the hideous brooch than "massive"--which was quite true. He wanted £3 for the thing when I first saw it, and it slowly declined, by half-a-crown at a time, to £1 15s., and then it vanished altogether. I wondered at the time what misguided person could have bought it; but I learnt afterward that the shopkeeper had lost heart, and used the window space for something else.

Aunt Sarah had been for six weeks at a "Hydropathic Establishment" at Malvern. On the day fixed for her return, I left a very agreeable tennis party for the purpose of meeting her at the station, as was dutiful and proper. First I called at her house, to learn the exact time at which the train was expected at Paddington. It was rather sooner than I had supposed, so I hurried to find a cab, and urged the driver to drive his best. I am never lucky with cabs, however--nor, I begin to think, with anything else--and the horse, with all the cabman's efforts, never got beyond a sort of tumultuous shamble; and so I missed Aunt Sarah at Paddington. It was very annoying, and I feared she might take it ill, because she never made allowances for anybody's misfortunes but her own. However, I turned about and cabbed it back as fast as I could. She had been home nearly half an hour when I arrived, and was drinking her third or fourth cup of tea. She was not ill-tempered, on the whole, and she received my explanations with a fairly good grace. She had been a little better, she thought, during her stay at Malvern, but feared that her health could make no permanent improvement. And indeed there seemed very little room for improvement in Aunt Sarah's bodily condition, and no more room at all in her clothes. Then, in the regular manner, I inquired as to the well-being of the jewels.

The jewels, it seemed, were all right. Aunt Sarah had seen to that. She had herself stowed the case at the bottom of her biggest and strongest trunk, which was now upstairs, partly unpacked. My question reminded her, and she rose at once, to transfer her valuables to their permanent hiding-place.

I heard Aunt Sarah going upstairs with a groan at every step, each groan answered by a loud creak from the woodwork. Then for awhile there was silence, and I walked to the French window to look out on the lawn and the carriage-drive. But as I looked, suddenly there came a dismal yell from above, followed by many shrieks.

We--myself and the servants--found Aunt Sarah seated on a miscellaneous heap of clothes by the side of her big trunk, a picture of calamity. "Gone!" she ejaculated. "Stolen! All my jewels! Stop thief! Catch 'em! My jewel-case!"

There was no doubt about it, it seemed. The case had been at the bottom of the big trunk--Aunt Sarah had put it there herself--and now it was gone. The trunk had been locked and tightly corded at Malvern, and it had been opened by Aunt Sarah's maid as soon as it had been set down where it now stood. But now the jewel-case was gone, and Aunt Sarah made such a disturbance as might be expected from the Constable of the Tower if he suddenly learned that the Crown of England was gone missing.

"Clement!" said my aunt, when she rose to her feet, after sending for the police; "go, Clement, and find my jewels. I rely on your sagacity. The police are always such fools. But you--you I can depend upon. Bring the jewels back, my dear, and you will never regret it, I promise you. At least bring back the brooch--the brooch with Uncle Joseph's hair and initials. That I _must_ have, Clement!" And here Aunt Sarah grew quite impressive--almost noble. "Clement, I rely entirely on you. I forbid you to come into my presence again without that brooch! Find it, and you will be rewarded to the utmost of my power!"

Nevertheless, as I have said, Aunt Sarah took care to call in the police.

Now what was I to do? Of course, I must make an effort to satisfy Aunt Sarah; but how? The thing was absurd enough, and personally, I was in little grief at the loss, but Aunt Sarah must be propitiated at any cost. I was to go and find the jewels, or at least the brooch, and the whole world was before me wherein to search. I was confused, not to say dazed. I stood on the pavement outside Aunt Sarah's gate, and I tried to remember what the detectives I had read of did in such circumstances as these.

What they did, of course, was to find a clue--instantly and upon the spot. I stared blankly up and down the street--it was a quiet road in Belsize Park--but I could see nothing that looked like a clue. Perhaps the commonest sort of clue was footprints. But the weather was fine and dry, and the clean, hard pavement was without a mark of any kind. Besides, I had a feeling that footprints as a clue were a little threadbare and out of date; they were so obvious--so "otiose" as I have heard it called. No respectable novelist would depend on footprints alone, nowadays. Then there was a piece of the thief's coat, torn off by a sharp railing, or by a broken bottle on top of a wall; and there was also a lost button. I remembered that many excellent detective stories had been brought to breathless and triumphant terminations by the aid of one or other of these clues. I looked carefully along the line of broken glass that defended the top of Aunt Sarah's outer wall, but not a rag, not a shred, fluttered there. I tried to remember something else, and as I gazed thoughtfully downward, my eye was attracted by some small black object lying on the pavement by the gate. I stooped--and behold, it _was_ a button! A trouser button, by all that's lucky!

I snatched it eagerly, and read the name stamped thereon, "J. Pullinger, London." I knew the name--indeed it was the name of my own tailor. The scent would seem to be growing stronger. But at that moment I grew conscious of an uneasy subsidence of my right trouser-leg. Hastily clapping my hand under my waistcoat, I found a loose brace-strap, and then realized that I had merely picked up my own button. I went home.

I spent the evening in fruitless brain-cudgelling. My brightest idea (which came about midnight) was to go back to Aunt Sarah's the first thing in the morning. True, she had forbidden me to come into her presence without that brooch, but that, I felt, must be regarded rather as a burst of rhetoric than as a serious prohibition. Besides, the case might have been stolen by one of her own servants; and, moreover, if I wanted a clue, clearly I must begin my search at the very spot where the theft had been committed. She couldn't object to _that_, anyhow.

So in the morning I went. Aunt Sarah seemed to have forgotten her order that I must not approach her without the brooch, but she seemed hurt to find I had not brought it. She had had no sleep all night, she said. She thought I ought to have discovered the thieves before she went to bed; but at any rate, she expected I would do it to-day. I said I would certainly do my best, and I fear I found it necessary to invent a somewhat exciting story of my adventures of the previous evening in search of the brooch.

There was a plain-clothes constable, it seemed, still about the place, and the police had searched all the servants' boxes, without discovering anything. Their theory, it seemed, was that some thief must have secreted himself about the garden, entered by a French window soon after Aunt Sarah's arrival, made his way to the bedroom--which would be easy, for there were two staircases--and then made off with the case; and, indeed, Aunt Sarah declared that the clothes in the box were much disturbed when she discovered her loss. The police spoke mysteriously about "a clue," but would not say what it was--which, no doubt, would be unprofessional.

All the servants had been closely questioned, and the detective now in the place wished to ask me if I had observed anything unusual. I hadn't, and I told him so. Had I noticed whether any of the French windows were open when I called the first time? No, I hadn't noticed. I didn't happen to have called more than once before my aunt had come in? No, I didn't. Which way had I entered the house when I came back after my aunt's arrival? By the front door, in the usual way. Was the front door open? Yes, I remembered that it was--probably left open by forgetfulness of the servants after the luggage had been brought in; so that I had come in without knocking or ringing. And he asked other questions which I have forgotten. I did not feel hopeful of his success, although he seemed so very sagacious; he spoke with an air of already knowing all about it, but I doubted. All my experience of newspaper reports told me that when the police spoke mysteriously of "a clue," that case might as well be given up at once, to save trouble. That seemed also to be Aunt Sarah's opinion. Before I left she confided to me that she didn't believe in the police a bit; she was sure that they were only staring about and asking questions to make a show of doing something, and that it would end in no result after all. All the more, she said, must she rely on me. The punishment of the thief was altogether a secondary matter; what she wanted were the jewels--or, as a minimum, the brooch with Uncle Joseph's hair in it. She would be glad if I would report progress to her during my search, but whether I did or not, she must insist on my recovering the property. I was a grown man now, she pointed out, and, with my intelligence, ought to be easily equal to such a small thing; certainly more so than mere ordinary ignorant policemen. Of those she gave up all hope. She would not mind if I took a day or two over it, but she would prefer me to find the brooch at once.

I felt a little desperate when I left Aunt Sarah. I _must_ do something. She had made up her mind that I was to recover the trinkets, or at least the brooch, and if I failed her she would cut me off, I knew. There was a fellow called Finch, secretary to the Society for the Dissemination of Moral Literature among the Esquimaux, who had been very friendly with her of late, and although I had no especial grudge against the Esquimaux as a nation, I had a strong objection to seeing Aunt Sarah's fortune go to provide them with moral literature, or Mr. Finch with his salary--the latter being, I had heard, the main object of the society. I spent the day in fruitless cogitation and blank staring into pawnshop windows, in the remote hope of seeing Aunt Sarah's brooch exposed for sale. And on the following morning I went back to Aunt Sarah.

I confess I had a tale prepared to account for my time--a tale, perhaps, not strictly true in all its details. But what was I to do to satisfy such a terrible old lady? I must say I think it was a very interesting sort of tale, with plenty of thieves' kitchens and receivers' dens in it, and, on the whole, it went down very well, although I could see that Aunt Sarah's good opinion of me was in danger for lack of tangible result to my adventures. The police, she said, had given the case up altogether and gone away. They reported, finally, that there was no clue, and that they could do nothing. I came away, feeling a good deal of sympathy with the police.

And then the wicked thought came--the wicked thought that has caused all the trouble. Plainly, the jewels were gone irrecoverably--did not the police admit it? Aunt Sarah would never see them again, and I should be cut out of her will--unless I brought her, at least, that hideous old brooch. The brooch by this time was probably in the melting-pot; _but_--there was, or had been, an exact duplicate in the grimy shop in Soho. There was the wicked idea. _Perhaps_ this duplicate brooch hadn't been sold. If not, it would be easy to buy it, stuff it with red hair, and take it back in triumph to Aunt Sarah. And, as I thought, I remembered that I had frequently seen a girl with just such red hair, waiting at a cheap eating-house, where I sometimes passed on my way home. I had noticed her particularly, not only because of the uproarious colour of her hair, which was striking enough, but because of its exact similarity in shade to that in Aunt Sarah's brooch. No doubt the girl would gladly sell a small piece of it for a few shillings. Then the initials for the brooch-back would be easy enough. They were just the plain italic capitals _J_ and _S_, one at each side, and I was confident that, with the brooch before me, I could trace their precise shape and size for the guidance of an engraver. And Aunt Sarah would never for a moment suppose that there could be another brooch in the world at all like her most precious "jewel." The longer I thought over the scheme the easier it seemed, and the greater the temptation grew. Till at last I went and looked in at the window of the shop in Soho.

Was the brooch sold or not? It was not in the window, and I tried to persuade myself that it must be gone. I hung about for some little while, but at last I took the first step in the path of deception. I went into the shop.

Once there, I was in for it, and nothing but the absence of the brooch could have saved me. But the brooch was there, in all its dusty hideousness, in a box, among scores of others. I turned it over and over; there was no doubt about it--barring the hair and the initials, it was as exact a duplicate as was ever made. The man asked two pounds ten for it, and I was in such a state of agitation that I paid the money at once, feeling unequal to the further agony of beating him down to the price he had last offered it at in his window.

I slipped it into my trouser pocket and sneaked guiltily down the street. There was no going back for me now--fate was too strong. I went home and locked myself in my room. There I spent an hour and a half in marking the exact position and size of the necessary initials. When all was set out satisfactorily, I went back to Soho again to find an engraver.

I might have gone to the shop where I had bought the brooch, but I fancied that might let the shopkeeper some little way into my secret. I walked till I came to just such another shop, and then, feeling, as I imagined, like an inexperienced shoplifter on a difficult job, I went in and gave my instructions. I offered to pay extra if the work could be done at once, and under my inspection. The engraver eyed me rather curiously, I fancied, but he was quite ready to earn his money, and in a quarter of an hour I was sneaking along the street again with the fraudulent brooch, one step nearer completion. The letters, to my eye at least, were as exactly cut as if copied from the original. They were a bit too bright and new, of course, but that I would remedy at home, and I did. A little fine emery on the point of my thumb, properly persevered with, took off all the raw edges and the newness of appearance, and a trifle of greasy black from a candle-wick, well wiped into the incisions and almost all wiped out again, left the initials apparently fifty years old at least.

Next morning's interview with Aunt Sarah was one of veiled triumph. I was on the track of the jewels at last, I said--or at any rate, of the brooch. I might have to sacrifice the rest, I explained, for the sake of getting that. Indeed, I was pretty sure that I could only get at the brooch. I could say no more, just then, but I hinted that nothing must be said to a soul, as my proceedings might possibly be considered, in the eye of the law, something too near compounding a felony. But I would risk that, I assured Aunt Sarah, and more, in her behalf. She was mightily pleased, and said I was the only member of the family worth his salt. I began to think the Esquimaux stood a chance of going short of moral literature, if Mr. Finch were depending much on Aunt Sarah's will.

The rest seemed very easy, but in reality it wasn't. I set out briskly enough for the eating-house, but as I neared it my steps grew slower and slower. It seemed an easy thing, at a distance, to ask for a lock of the red-headed girl's hair, but as I came nearer the shop, and began to consider what I should say, the job seemed a bit awkward. She was a thick-set sort of girl, with very red arms and a snub nose, and I felt doubtful how she would take the request. Perhaps she would laugh, and dab me in the face with a wet lettuce, as I had once seen her do with a jocular customer. Now, I am a little particular about my appearance and bearing, and I was not anxious to be dabbed in the face with a wet lettuce by a red-haired waitress at a cheap eating-house. If I had known anybody else with hair of that extraordinary colour I would not have taken the risk; but I didn't. Nevertheless I hesitated, and walked up and down a little before entering.

There was no customer in the place, for it was at least an hour before mid-day. The girl issued from a recess at the back, and came toward me. She seemed a terrible--a most formidable girl, seen so closely. She had small, sharp eyes, a snub nose, and a very large mouth--the sort of mouth that is ever ready to pour forth shrill abuse or vulgar derision. My heart sank into my boots, I couldn't--no, I _couldn't_ ask her straightaway for a lock of her hair.

I temporized. I said I would have something to eat. She asked what. I said I would take anything there was. After a while she brought a plate of hideous coarse cold beef--like cat's meat. This is a sort of food I _cannot_ eat, but I had to try. And she brought pickles on a plate--horrid, messy yellow pickles. I had often wondered as I passed what gave that eating-house its unpleasant smell, and now I knew it was the pickles.

I cut the offensive stuff into small pieces, made as much show of eating it as I could, and shoved it into a heap at one side of the plate. The girl had retired to a partly inclosed den at the back of the shop, where she seemed to be washing plates. After all, I reflected, there was nothing to be afraid of. It was a purely commercial transaction, and no doubt the girl would be very glad to sell a little of her hair. Moreover, the longer I waited the greater risk I ran of having other customers come in and spoil the thing altogether. There was the hair--the one thing to straighten all my difficulties, and a few shillings would certainly buy all I wanted. I rapped on the table with my fork.