CHAPTERIX.BEFRIENDING A REPORTER.
Though several weeks had passed, no trace had been discovered of Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson’s missing property. For reasons of her own she had prevented any mention of the robbery being made in the newspapers, and apparently even the Metropolitan Secret Agency had this time failed to make good.
Preparations were in progress for the great ball to be given at the Albert Hall by Aloysius Stapleton and his friend, young La Planta, and as Jessica still said she preferred not to act as hostess on that occasion, Stapleton had succeeded in enlisting the services of a well-known peeress who, helped by friends of her own, would receive his guests on the eventful night.
It was expected that “all London” would be there, and as the ball had been organized by Stapleton and La Planta ostensibly in aid of some charitable object, the newspaper press had laid itself out to give plenty of publicity.
“If I had arranged to make it a private ball,” Stapleton observed to Jessica one evening, “it would have cost me an enormous sum, and hundreds who have now bought tickets would not have done so. I was right to take your advice—you remember telling me the way to make a ball of this sort anunqualified success, and at the same time run it at other people’s expense, was to make it a ‘charity’ concern; get the newspapers to print columns of fancy stories about it and publish lists of names of people with titles likely to be present; and let it be known that women of high social standing would receive the guests. That advice was excellent, Jessica. There has been such a rush for tickets that if it continues we shall have to stop selling.”
“Have I ever given you bad advice?” Jessica asked with a smile. “In matters of this sort, and for that matter in most cases, a clever woman’s advice is the safest advice to follow. You have not yet asked me what I am going to wear. It is too late now to tell you. But this I can say—my dress will surprise you.”
“I don’t want to be surprised.”
“Naturally. Nobody does. But I have a reason for wanting to surprise you at your own ‘charity’ ball,” and she laughed. “You will find out why, later. Have you any idea what Cora Hartsilver and her precious friend, Yootha Hagerston, intend to wear?”
“Not the slightest. How should I? And why should their dresses interest you?”
“They do interest me, and that is sufficient. If you have not enough acumen to guess the reason, I don’t think much of your intellectual foresight,” and she laughed again in her deep contralto voice.
Meanwhile Jessica Mervyn-Robertson and Cora Hartsilver met often at receptions, dances andother social functions, and, though outwardly friendly, each knew the other secretly hated her.
At a lunch party in Mayfair during the first days of June there had been talk about Ascot, and Jessica had mentioned casually that on Gold Cup Day fortune invariably favored her. Twice, she said, she had found herself at the end of the day much richer than in the morning, “and in other ways,” she added, “Gold Cup Day has helped me towards happiness.”
“Would it be too much to inquire what the other ways were?” Cora, who sat near her at the angle of the table, said lightly. “I can’t see how good fortune could come to anybody on a race day except through the actual racing unless——”
“Unless what?” Jessica asked quickly, with an odd look, as Cora checked herself.
“Well, one might happen to meet somebody whom afterwards one might come to like very much,” Cora replied with a far-away look.
One or two people, happening to remember they had heard somewhere that Jessica had first become acquainted with Aloysius Stapleton at an Ascot meeting, smiled.
“I agree,” Jessica said with exaggerated indifference. “But the same thing might happen to anybody anywhere—say at lunch at the Ritz, or at one of my own musical At Homes, or at——”
She was interrupted by one of the men at the end of the table who, not seeing she was engaged in conversation, inquired if she would make one ofthe party he meant to drive down to Ascot on his coach.
“It is rather short notice, Mrs. Robertson,” he added, “but until this morning I had not actually decided to go down. Do say ‘Yes’ if you have not made other arrangements.”
“I shall be delighted to come,” she answered after a moment’s hesitation. “I suppose you mean Gold Cup Day?”
“Yes, Gold Cup Day. That is good of you. Then it is settled?”
“Lucky again!” Cora Hartsilver said with a curious laugh. “I shall end by becoming superstitious myself. Will you give me all the winners on Gold Cup Day, Jessica?”
“Oh, then you will be there?”
“If I am lucky, too.”
“And I suppose Yootha with you? Oh! but I needn’t ask,” she ended with a malicious little laugh.
The luncheon came to an end just then, which was as well, for the two women were each awaiting an opportunity to deal the other metaphorically a blow between the eyes. For weeks past their hatred had been smoldering. To-day it had come near to bursting into flame.
When Cora met Yootha that afternoon, she at once told her of her passage-of-arms at lunch with Jessica Robertson, and of Jessica’s hardly veiled sneer at their friendship.
“Why let that annoy you, Cora dear?” Yootha exclaimed. “Heaven knows why the woman dislikesyou so, or why she dislikes me, as I know she does. I expect the truth is she has heard that we are trying to find out who she is. And I mean to go on trying, until I do find out.”
“And I am with you. I am as certain as that I am standing here that she is an impostor of some sort, though up to the present she and her friends, Stapleton and La Planta, have been clever enough to hide the truth. Has it never struck you as strange, Yootha, that not a word got into the papers about the theft of her jewelry and things, though all one’s friends knew about it? What has made me think of that now is that I was told this morning by a friend of mine who writes or edits, or does something for some paper—no, you don’t know him—that Stapleton and Jessica Robertson both moved heaven and earth to prevent the affair being reported in the press.”
“But why?”
“Exactly—but why? I was wondering if she could have some reason for not wanting her name to get into the papers, but as one sees it in all the ‘social columns’ every day——”
“That may have been the reason, nevertheless. The jewelry, et cetera, were, if you remember, apparently stolen by one of her guests that night, and possibly she suspects one of them and is afraid of the scandal which would follow if he, or she, were convicted of the theft. Indeed, I can’t think what other motive she can have had for not wanting anything to be said in the papers about the crime.”
“I wonder,” Cora said thoughtfully.
They would probably have been surprised if they had known that Captain Preston, too, who of course had also heard of the robbery, had been puzzling his brain to account for Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson’s aversion from press publicity in connection with the robbery.
“I tell you it’s devilish odd, George,” he had said to his friend Blenkiron only the night before, as the two sat smoking together in his rooms in Fig Tree Court, “that woman and her dear friend Stapleton being so desperately anxious to keep the affair out of the papers. If you or I were burgled should we care a button if the facts were made public or not? Would anybody else whose house was burgled object to the fact being known? Then why this hush-hush movement on the part of Jessica Robertson and her friends—young La Planta, too, helped to keep it quiet.”
“Who told you?”
“Harry Hopford. He was with me in Flanders a long time, and I came across him in Whitefriars only the other day—he is back on his newspaper again. He said the steps that woman and her two friends took to prevent mention being made in the papers of the robbery at her house during one of her night parties, aroused a good deal of conjecture in Fleet Street. Some of the reporters were actually paid to say nothing about it. He told me so himself.”
For some moments both were silent.
“She must have had some strong motive for wanting to hush it up,” Blenkiron said at last.
“That is what I say. Now, what can the reason have been? I tell you again, George, there is more behind those people than anybody suspects. And who are they? And where do they come from? You can try as you like, but you won’t find out.”
“I certainly don’t believe Mrs. Robertson’s story that her father was a sheep farmer in Queensland. I know every town and village in Queensland, have known them over twenty years, and it is impossible that if her father had been sheep farming out there, even in a small way, I should not have known him, at any rate by name.”
“It seems that the police were not notified of the theft. Only the Metropolitan Secret Agency was told about it, and for a wonder it failed to discover a clue. You know how clever that Agency is in running thieves to earth. I am told it hardly ever fails, though there are queer rumors as to the methods it employs to catch criminals.”
It was Harry Hopford, though Preston did not know it, who had told Cora Hartsilver about the hushing up in the press. They were not intimately acquainted; Hopford had met Cora at a dance one night which he was attending professionally, and afterwards they had recognized each other at the Chelsea Flower Show and engaged in conversation. Thus neither Hopford nor Cora suspected that the other was acquainted with Captain Preston.
It so happened that, some days after this conversation,Hopford had occasion to call to see Stapleton to obtain from him some facts about the approaching ball at the Albert Hall. Being, as all journalists have to be, of an inquisitive disposition, he referred incidentally to the theft of jewelry and notes from Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson’s house in Cavendish Square, and casually inquired if the stolen property had been recovered.
“I am sure I don’t know,” Stapleton answered quickly. “What makes you think I should know?”
“I thought you might,” Hopford replied calmly, “as you are acquainted with the lady and were at supper at her house on the night of the robbery.”
“Who told you I was there?”
“Oh, the press generally knows these things.”
“‘The press,’ as you call it, is a damned nuisance at times,” Stapleton said sharply. “I suppose a report of that robbery would have appeared in every paper if Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson had not asked the editors to refrain from giving her undesirable notoriety. I can’t think why newspapers always want to publish detailed reports of crimes. Such reports do a lot of harm, I am sure—a lot of harm.”
“The papers wouldn’t publish the reports if the public was not anxious to read them,” Hopford replied with assurance. “You should blame the public, Mr. Stapleton, not the press.”
“Nothing ever did appear about that robbery, did it?” Stapleton asked, looking at the young reporter rather oddly.
“Not so far as I am aware.”
Stapleton remained silent for a minute. He seemed to be thinking.
“Are you ever in need of money, my lad?” he inquired suddenly.
Hopford laughed.
“Show me the journalist who isn’t,” he said. “Why?”
“Supposing I made it worth your while——”
“Yes?”
“Well, it’s like this—by the way, what’s your name?”
“Hopford—Harry Hopford.”
“Come and sit down, Hopford—here, have a cigar. Now then, I am in a position to be able to do you a good turn now and again, in other words, to benefit you pecuniarily, if in return you will do as I suggest and at the same time keep absolutely silent about it. Don’t think I am going to ask you to do anything terrible. I am not,” and he smiled.
“I dare say it could be managed,” Hopford answered dreamily, as he began to enjoy the cigar. “Hadn’t you better tell me exactly what it is you want me to do, then I shall be able to give you a straightforward answer at once. Anything you may tell me I shall, of course, consider confidential.”
“That’s the spirit; that’s the way I like to hear a young fellow talk. Well now, listen.”
Stapleton glanced towards the door to see that it was shut, then continued:
“There are several things you may be able to do for me from time to time, and the first is this. Iam practically certain I know who took the diamonds and the notes, and the rest of the stuff stolen that night, and though naturally I don’t intend to mention the lady’s name, I can hint at it. I believe the thief—yes, thief—to be a young widow whose husband died in tragic circumstances nine or ten months ago—he was found dead in his bath one morning; possibly you recollect the affair.”
“I ought to, seeing that I was sent to the house the same day to obtain particulars of the tragedy. The house is not far from Portland Place—am I right?”
“Quite.”
“So the widow was among Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson’s guests at supper that night?”
“She was not. She was not even invited. Yet I have a good reason for supposing she was admitted, though the hostess never saw her.”
“Would that have been possible?”
“Certainly. There was a great crush. At one time during the night one could hardly force one’s way through it, and it was then the widow was admitted, the footman believing her to be an invited guest.”
“Could you get me an interview with the footman?”
“Quite impossible, my dear fellow. Besides, it may not have been the footman who admitted her. That was merely my conjecture. It may have been one of the other servants.”
“The butler, for instance.”
“No, not the butler.”
“And you are sure that she was there? You saw her?”
“No, no; don’t jump at conclusions. I didn’t see her—myself.”
“Then who did?”
“That I must not tell you. It would be unwise.”
“I have promised to respect your confidence.”
“Quite so, or I should not have told you what I have. But names, you know, are sacred things. If I mentioned names it would be impossible for me afterwards to swear I had not done so, should an occasion for taking the oath, by some unforeseen chance, arise.”
“I see your point. Well, can you, without committing yourself, hint to me the reason you believe the lady, whose identity you have practically revealed to me, ransacked Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson’s safe? Was it, should you say, for the intrinsic value of the things stolen, or was there some deeper reason?”
“Such as?”
“Documents, compromising letters, anything of that sort?”
“I am afraid I must not answer that either. You see, one has to be so careful. My idea in telling you as much as I have is that you should, without, of course, making any definite statement, hint in your paper that the crime was committed by a young widow well known in Society; you might go so far as to say the widow lost her husband in tragic circumstancescomparatively recently, and you might also work in some fancy padding of your own. You could add that you had obtained your information from a trustworthy source.”
“Meaning you.”
“Of course. Who else?”
“And what terms do you propose?”
“That I must leave to you to suggest.”
“I would sooner the offer came from you, Mr. Stapleton.”
Stapleton hesitated a moment, then:
“Would a ten-pound note about meet the case? You see, you score by getting what I believe you call a ‘scoop’ for your paper.”
“And run the risk of being fired if the lady hinted at should think fit to bring an action against my paper. Oh, no, Mr. Stapleton, I am not out to take sporting chances for the sake of pocketing a tenner. If you had said eighty or a hundred pounds I might—I say might—have felt tempted to take a chance, but a tenner——”
He rose, preparatory to leaving.
“Wait a minute, Hopford, wait a minute,” Stapleton exclaimed, trying to conceal his eagerness as he laid a hand on the lad’s shoulder to detain him. “I asked you to name a sum, remember—I have no idea what terms are usual in such cases. Sit down again and I may, after all, be able to meet your wishes.”
With assumed reluctance the reporter sank back into the chair from which he had just risen, andfor another ten minutes he and Stapleton continued to converse. And when, finally, the former left the house, he carried in his breast-pocket five new ten-pound notes, and chuckled as he thought of Stapleton’s promise to hand him five more notes on the publication of the scoop.