"Yes, I know," said Mr. Paddock. "Been here so long my brain's a little flabby. But I'm glad to see you, old man."
"Same here." Mr. Minot stared at the car. "I say, Jack, did you earn that writing fiction?"
Paddock laughed.
"I'm not writing much fiction now," he replied. "The car belongs to Mrs. Helen Bruce, the wittiest hostess in San Marco." He came closer. "My boy," he confided, "I have struck something essentially soft. Some time soon, in a room with all the doors and windows closed and the weather-strips in place, I'll whisper it to you. I've been dying to tell somebody."
"And the car—"
"Part of the graft, Dick. Here comes Mrs. Bruce now. Did I mention she was the wittiest—of course I did. Want to meet her? Well, later then. You're at the Pax, I suppose. See you there."
Mr. Minot moved on from the imminence of Mrs. Bruce. A moment later the limousine sped by him. One seat was generously filled by the wittiest hostess in San Marco. Seated opposite her, Mr. Paddock waved an airy hand. Life had always been the gayest of jokes to Mr. Paddock.
Life was at the moment quite the opposite to Dick Minot. He devoted the next hour to sad introspection in the lobby. It was not until he was on his way in to dinner that he again saw Cynthia Meyrick. Then, just outside the dining-room door, he encountered her, still all in white, lovelier than ever, in her cheek a flush of excitement no doubt put there by the most important luncheon of her life. He waited for her to recognize him—and he did not wait in vain.
"Ah, Mr.—"
"Minot."
"Of course. In the hurry of this noon I quite overlooked an introduction. I am—"
"Miss Cynthia Meyrick. I happen to know because I met his lordship in New York. May I ask—was the luncheon—"
"Quite without a flaw. So you know Lord Harrowby?"
"Er—slightly. May I offer my very best wishes?"
"So good of you."
Formal, formal, formal. Was that how it must be between them hereafter? Well, it was better so. Miss Meyrick presented her father and her aunt, and that did not tend to lighten the formality. Icicles, both of them, though stocky puffing icicles. Aunt inquired if Mr. Minot was related to the Minots of Detroit, and when he failed to qualify, at once lost all interest in him. Old Spencer Meyrick did not accord him even that much attention.
Yet—all was not formal, as it happened. For as Cynthia Meyrick moved away, she whispered: "I must see you after dinner—on important business." And her smile as she said it made Minot's own lonely dinner quite cheery.
At seven in the evening the hotel orchestra gathered in the lobby for its nightly concert, and after the way of orchestras, it was almost ready to begin when Minot left the dining-room at eight. Sitting primly in straight backed chairs, an audience gathered for the most part from the more inexpensive hostelries waited patiently. Presumably these people were there for an hour with music, lovely maid. But it was the gowns of more material maids that interested the greater number of them, and many drab little women sat making furtive mental notes that should while away the hours conversationally when they got back to Akron or Terre Haute.
Minot sat down in a veranda chair and looked out at the courtyard. In the splendor of its evening colors, it was indeed the setting for romance. In the midst of the green palms and blooming things splashed a fountain which might well have been the one old Ponce de Leon sought. On three sides the lighted towers and turrets of that huge hotel climbed toward the bright, warm southern sky. A dazzling moon shamed Mr. Edison's lamps, the breeze came tepid from the sea, the very latest in waltzes drifted out from the gorgeous lobby. Here romance, Minot thought, must have been born.
"Mr. Minot—I've been looking everywhere—"
She was beside him now, a slim white figure in the dusk—the one thing lacking in that glittering picture. He leaped to meet her.
"Sitting here dreaming, I reckon," she whispered, "of somebody far away."
"No." He shook his head. "I leave that to the newly engaged."
She made no answer. He gave her his chair, and drew up another for himself.
"Mr. Minot," she said, "I was terribly thoughtless this noon. But you must forgive me—I was so excited. Mr. Minot—I owe you—"
She hesitated. Minot bit his lip savagely. Must he hear all that again? How much she owed him for his service—for getting her to that luncheon in time—that wonderful luncheon—
"I owe you," finished the girl softly, "the charges on that taxi."
It was something of a shock to Minot. Was she making game of him?
"Don't," he answered. "Here in the moonlight, with that waltz playing, and the old palms whispering—is this a time to talk of taxi bills?"
"But—we must talk of something—oh, I mean—I insist. Won't you please tell me the figure?"
"All the time we were together this morning, I talked figures—the figures on the face of a watch. Let us find some pleasanter topic. I believe Lord Harrowby said you were to be married soon?"
"Next Tuesday. A week from to-morrow."
"In San Marco?"
"Yes. It breaks auntie's heart that it can't be in Detroit. Cord Harrowby is her triumph, you see. But father can't go north in the winter—Allan wishes to be married at once."
Minot was thinking hard. So Harrowby was auntie's triumph? And was he not Cynthia Meyrick's as well? He would have given much to be able to inquire.
Suddenly, with the engaging frankness of a child, the girl asked:
"Has your engagement ever been announced, Mr. Minot?"
"Why—er—not to my knowledge," Minot laughed. "Why?"
"I was just wondering—if it made everybody feel queer. The way it makes me feel. Ever since one o'clock—I ought never to say it—I've felt as though everything was over. I've seemed old! Old!" She clenched her fists, and spoke almost in terror. "I don't want to grow old. I'd hate it."
"It was here," said Minot softly, "Ponce de Leon sought the fountain of youth. When you came up I was pretending the one splashing out there was that very fountain itself—"
"If it only were," the girl cried. "Oh—you could never drag me away from it. But it isn't. It's supplied by the San Marco Water Works, and there's a meter ticking somewhere, I'm sure. And now—Mr. Minot—"
"I know. You mean the thirty-five dollars I paid our driver. I wish you would write me a check. I've a reason."
"Thank you. I wanted to—so much. I'll bring it to you soon."
She was gone, and Minot sat staring into the palms, his lips firm, his hands gripping the arms of his chair. Suddenly, with a determined leap, he was on his feet.
A moment later he stood at the telegraph counter in the lobby, writing in bold flowing characters a message for Mr. John Thacker, on a certain seventeenth floor, New York.
"I resign. Will stay on the job until a substitute arrives, but start him when you get this.
"RICHARD MINOT."
The telegram sent, he returned to his veranda chair to think. Thacker would be upset, of course. But after all, Thacker's claim on him was not such that he must wreck his life's happiness to serve him. Even Thacker must see that. And the girl—was she madly in love with the lean and aristocratic Harrowby? Not by any means, to judge from her manner. Next Tuesday—a week. What couldn't happen in a—Minot stopped. No, that wouldn't do, either. Even if a substitute arrived, he could hardly with honor turn about and himself wreck the hopes of Thacker and Jephson. He lost, either way. It was a horrible mix-up. He cursed beneath his breath.
The red glow of a cigar near by drew closer as the smoker dragged his chair across the veranda floor. Minot saw behind the glow the keen face of a man eager for talk.
"Some scene, isn't it?" said the stranger. "Sort of makes the musical comedies look cheap. All it needs is seven stately chorus ladies walking out from behind that palm down to the left, and it would have Broadway lashed to the mast."
"Yes," replied Minot absently. "This is the real thing."
"I've been sitting here thinking," the other went on. "It doesn't seem to me this place has been advertised right. Why, there are hundreds of people up north whose windows look out on sunset over the brewery—people with money, too—who'd take the first train for here if they realized the picture we're looking at now. Get some good hustler to tell 'em about it—" He paused. "I hate to talk about myself, but say—ever hear of Cotrell's Ink Eraser? Nothing ever written Cotrell can't erase. Will not soil or scratch the paper. If the words Cotrell has erased were put side by side—"
"Selling it?" Minot inquired wearily.
"No. But I made that eraser. Put it on every desk between New York and the rolling Oregon. After that I landed Helot's Bottled Sauces. And then Patterson's Lime Juice. Puckered every mouth in America. Advertising is my specialty."
"So I gather."
"Sure as you sit here. Have a cigar. Trimmer is my name—never mind the jokes. Henry Trimmer. Advertising specialist. Is your business flabby? Does it need a tonic? Try Trimmer. Quoting from my letter-head." He leaned closer. "Excuse a personal question, but didn't I see you talking with Miss Cynthia Meyrick a while back?"
"Possibly."
Mr. Trimmer came even closer.
"Engaged to Lord Harrowby, I understand."
"I believe so—"
"Young fellow," Mr. Trimmer's tone was exultant, "I can't keep in any longer. I got a proposition in tow so big it's bursting my brain cells—and it takes some strain to do that. No, I can't tell you the exact nature of it—but I will say this—to-morrow night this time I'll throw a bomb in this hotel so loud it'll be heard round the world."
"An anarchist?"
"Not on your life. Advertiser. And I've got something to advertise this hot February, take it from me. Maybe you're a friend of Miss Meyrick. Well, I'm sorry. For when I spring my little surprise I reckon this Harrowby wedding is going to shrivel up and fade away."
"You mean to say you—you're going to stop the wedding?"
"I mean to say nothing. Watch me. Watch Henry Trimmer. Just a tip, young fellow. Well, I guess I'll turn in. Get some of my best ideas in bed. See you later."
And Mr. Trimmer strode into the circle of light, a fine upstanding figure of a man, to pass triumphantly out of sight among the palms. Dazed, Dick Minot stared after him.
A voice spoke his name. He turned. The slim white presence again, holding toward him a slip of paper.
"The check, Mr. Minot. Thirty-five dollars. Is that correct?"
"Correct. It's splendid. Because I'm never going to cash it—I'm going to keep it—"
"Really, Mr. Minot, I must say good—"
He came closer. Thacker and Jephson faded. New York was far away. He was young, and the moon was shining—
"—going to keep it—always. The first letter you ever wrote me—"
"And the last, Mr. Minot. Really—I must go. Good night."
He stood alone, with the absurd check in his trembling fingers. Slowly the memory of Trimmer came back. A bomb? What sort of a bomb?
Well, he had given his word. There was no way out—he must protect old Jephson's interests. But might he not wish the enemy—success? He stared off in the direction the advertising wizard had gone.
"Trimmer, old boy," he muttered, "here's to your pitching arm!"
Miss Cynthia Meyrick was a good many girls in one. So many, indeed, that it might truthfully be added that while most people are never so much alone as when in a crowd, Miss Meyrick was never so much in a crowd as when alone. Most of these girls were admirable, a few were more mischievous than admirable, but rely upon it that every single one of them was nice.
It happened to be as a very serious-minded girl that Miss Meyrick opened her eyes on Tuesday morning. She lay for a long time watching the Florida sunshine, spoken of so tenderly in the railroad's come-on books, as it danced across the foot of her bed. To-day theLilethwas to steam into San Marco harbor! To-day her bridegroom was to smile his slow British smile on her once more! She recalled these facts without the semblance of a thrill.
Where, she wondered, was the thrill? The frivolous girl who had met Lord Harrowby abroad, and dazzled by dreams of social triumphs to come had allowed her aunt to urge her into this betrothal, was not present at the moment. Had she been, she would have declared this Cynthia Meyrick a silly, and laughed her into gaiety again.
Into the room toddled the aunt who had stood so faithfully on the coaching line abroad. With heavy wit, she spoke of the coming of Lord Harrowby. Miss Cynthia did not smile. She turned grave eyes on her aunt.
"I'm wondering," she confessed. "Was it the thing to do, after all? Shall I be so very happy?"
"Nonsense. Ninety-nine out of a hundred engaged girls have doubts. It's natural." Aunt Mary sat down on the bed, which groaned in agony. "Of course you'll be happy. You'll take precedence over Marion Bishop—didn't we look that up? And after the airs she's put on when she's come back to Detroit—well, you ought to be the happiest of girls."
"I know—but—" Miss Meyrick continued to gaze solemnly at her aunt. She was accustomed to the apparition. To any one who knew Aunt Mary only in her public appearances, a view of her now would have been startling. Not to go too deeply into the matter, she had not yet been poured into the steel girders that determined her public form. Her washed-out eyes were puffy, and her gray hair was not so luxurious as it would be when she appeared in the hotel dining-room for lunch. There she sat, a fat little lump of a woman who had all her life chased will-o'-the-wisps.
"But what?" she demanded firmly.
"It seems as if all my fun were over. Didn't you feel that way when you became engaged?"
"Hardly. But then—I hadn't enjoyed everything money will buy, as you have. I've always said you had too much. There, dear—cheer up. You don't seem to realize. Why, I can remember when you were born—in the flat down on Second Street—and your father wearing his old overcoat another year to pay the doctor's bill. And now that little fluffy baby is to marry into the peerage! Bless you, how proud your mother would be had she lived—"
"Are you sure, Aunt Mary?"
"Positive." Aunt Mary's eyes filled, and with a show of real, if clumsy affection, she leaned over and kissed her niece. "Come, dear, get up. I've ordered breakfast in the rooms."
Miss Cynthia sat up. And as if banished by that act, the serious little mouse of a girl scampered into oblivion, and in her place appeared a gay young rogue who sees the future lying bright ahead.
"After all," she smiled, "I'm not married—yet." And humming brightly from a current musical comedy—"Not just yet—just yet—just yet—" she stretched forth one slim white arm to throw aside the coverlet. At which point it is best discreetly to withdraw.
Mr. Minot, after a lonesome if abundant breakfast, was at this moment strolling across the hotel courtyard toward yesterday morning's New York papers. As he walked, the pert promises of Mr. Trimmer filled his mind. What was the proposition Mr. Trimmer had in tow? How would it affect the approaching wedding? And what course of action should the representative of Jephson pursue when it was revealed? For in the sensible light of morning Dick Minot realized that while he remained in San Marco as the guardian of Jephson's interests, he must do his duty. Adorable Miss Meyrick might be, but any change of mind on her part must be over his dead body. A promise was a promise.
With this resolve firm, he proceeded along the hot sidewalk of San Sebastian Avenue. On his right the rich shops again, a dignified Spanish church as old as the town, a rambling lackadaisical "opera-house." On his left the green and sand colored plaza, with the old Spanish governor's house in the center, now serving Uncle Sam as post-office. A city of the past was this; "other times, other manners" breathed in the air.
At the news-stand Minot met Jack Paddock, jaunty, with a gardenia in his buttonhole and the atmosphere of prosperity that goes with it.
"Come for a stroll," Paddock suggested. "I presume you want the giddy story of my life I promised you yesterday? Been down to the old Spanish fort yet? No? Come ahead, and there on the ramparts I'll impart."
They went down the narrow and very modern street of the souvenir venders. Suddenly the street ended, and they walked again in the past. The remnants of the old city gates restored, loomed in the sunlight. They stepped through the portals, and Minot gave a gasp.
There in the quiet morning stood the great gray fort that the early settlers had built to protect themselves from the gay dogs who roamed the seas. Its massive walls spoke clearly of romance, of bloody days of cutlass and spike, of bandaged heads and ready arms. Such things still stood! Still stood in the United States—land of steam radiators and men who marched in suffrage parades!
The old caretaker let them in, and they went up the stone steps to stand at last on the parapet looking down on the shimmering sea. To Minot, fresh from Broadway, it all seemed like a colorful dream. They climbed to the highest point and sat, swinging their legs over the edge. Far below the bright blue waters broke on the lower walls.
"It's a funny country down here," Paddock said slowly. "A sort of too-good-to-be-true, who-believes-it place. Bright and gay and full of green palms, and so much like a musical comedy you keep waiting all the time for the curtain to go down and the male population to begin its march up the aisle. I've been here three months, and I don't yet think it's really true."
He shifted on the cold stones.
"Ever since white men hit on it," he went on, "it's sort of kept luring them here on fool dream hunts—like a woman. Along about the time old Ponce de Leon came over here prospecting for the fountain that nobody but Lillian Russell has located yet, another Spaniard—I forget his name—had a pipe dream, too. He came over hot-foot looking for a mountain of gold he dreamed was here. I'm sorry for that old boy."
"Sorry for him?" repeated Minot.
"Yes—sorry. He had the right idea, but he arrived several hundred years too soon. He should have waited until the yellow rich from the North showed up here. Then he'd have found his mountain—he'd have found a whole range of them."
"I suppose I'm to infer," Mr. Minot said, "that where he failed, you've landed."
"Yes, Dick. I am right on the mountain with my little alpenstock in hand."
"I'm sorry," replied Minot frankly. "You might have amounted to something if you'd been separated from money long enough."
"So I've heard," Paddock said with a yawn. "But it wasn't to be. I haven't seen you since we left college, have I? Well, Dick, for a couple of years I tried to make good doing fiction. I turned them out by the yard—nice quiet little tea-table yarns with snappy dialogue. Once I got eighty dollars for a story. It was hard work—and I always did yearn for the purple, you know."
"I know," said Minot gravely.
"Well, I've struck it, Dick. I've struck the deep purple with a loud if sickening thud. Hist! The graft I mentioned yesterday." He glanced over his shoulder. "Remember Mrs. Bruce, the wittiest hostess in San Marco?"
"Of course I do."
"Well, I write her repartee for her."
"Her—what?"
"Her repartee—her dialogue—the bright talk she convulses dinner tables with. Instead of putting my smart stuff into stories at eighty per, I sell it to Mrs. Bruce at—I'd be ashamed to tell you, old man. I remarked that it was essentially soft. It is."
"This is a new one on me," said Minot, dazed.
A delighted smile spread over Mr. Paddock's handsome face.
"Thanks. That's the beauty of it I'm a pioneer. There'll be others, but I was the first. Consider the situation. Here's Mrs. Bruce, loaded with diamonds and money, but tongue-tied in company, with a wit developed in Zanesville, Ohio. Bright, but struggling, young author comes to her—offers to make her conversation the sensation of the place for a few pesos."
"You did that?"
"Yes—I ask posterity to remember it was I who invented the graft. Mrs. Bruce fell on my fair young neck. Now, she gives me in advance a list of her engagements, and for the important ones I devise her line of talk. Then, as I'm usually present at the occasion, I swing things round for her and give her her cues. If I'm not there, she has to manage it herself. It's a great life—only a bit of a strain on me. I have to remember not to be clever in company. If I forget and spring a good one, she jumps on me proper afterward for not giving it to her."
"Jack," said Minot slowly, "come way from here with me. Come north. This place will finish you sure."
"Sorry, old man," laughed Paddock, "but I've had a nip of the lotus. This lazy old land suits me. I like to sit on a veranda while a dusky menial in a white coat hands me the tinkle-tinkle in a tall cool glass. Come away? Oh, no—I couldn't do that."
"You'll marry down here," sighed Minot "Some girl with money. And the career we all hoped you'd make for yourself will go up in a golden cloud."
"I met a girl," Paddock replied, half closing his eyes and smiling cynically at the sea—"little thing from the Middle West, stopping at a back street boarding-house—father in the hardware business, nobody at all—but eyes like the sea there, hands like butterflies—sort of—got me— That's how I happen to know I'll never marry. For if I married anybody it would have to be her—and I let her go home without saying a word because I was selfish and like this easy game and intend to stick to it until I'm smothered in rose-leaves. Shall we wander back?"
"See here, Jack—I don't want to preach"—Minot tried to conceal his seriousness with a smile—"but if I were you I'd stick to this girl, and make good—"
"And leave this?" Paddock laughed. "Dick, you old idiot, this is meat and drink to me. This nice old land of loiter in the sun. Nay, nay. Now, I've really got to get back. Mrs. Bruce is giving a tango tea this afternoon—informal, but something has to be said— These fellows who write a daily humorous column must lead a devil of a life."
With a laugh, Minot followed his irresponsible friend down the steps. They crossed the bridge over the empty moat and came through the city gates again to the street of the alligator.
"By the way," Paddock said as they went up the hotel steps, "you haven't told me what brought you south?"
"Business, Jack," said Minot. "It's a secret—perhaps I can tell you later."
"Business? I thought, of course, you came for pleasure."
"There'll be no pleasure in this trip for me," said Minot bitterly.
"Oh, won't there?" Paddock laughed. "Wait till you hear Mrs. Bruce talk. See you later, old man."
At luncheon they brought Mr. Minot a telegram from a certain seventeenth floor in New York. An explosive telegram. It read:
"Nonsense nobody here to take your place, see it through, you've given your word.
"THACKER."
Gloomily Mr. Minot considered. What was there to do but see it through? Even though Thacker should send another to take his place, could he stay to woo the lady he adored? Hardly. In that event he would have to go away—never see her again—never hear her voice— If he stayed as Jephson's representative he might know the glory of her nearness for a week, might thrill at her smile—even while he worked to wed her to Lord Harrowby. And perhaps— Who could say? Hard as he might work, might he not be thwarted? It was possible.
So after lunch he sent Thacker a reassuring message, promising to stay. And at the end of a dull hour in the lobby, he set out to explore the town.
The Mermaid Tea House stood on the waterfront, with a small second-floor balcony that looked out on the harbor. Passing that way at four-thirty that afternoon, Minot heard a voice call to him. He glanced up.
"Oh, Mr. Minot—won't you come into my parlor?" Cynthia Meyrick smiled down on him.
"Splendid," Minot laughed. "I walk forlorn through this old Spanish town—suddenly a lattice is thrown wide, a fair hand beckons. I dash within."
"Thanks for dashing," Miss Meyrick greeted him, on the balcony. "I was finding it dreadfully dull. But I'm afraid the Spanish romance is a little lacking. There is no moonlight, no lattice, no mantilla, no Spanish beauty."
"No matter," Minot answered. "I never did care for Spanish types. They flash like a sky-rocket—then tumble in the dark. Now, the home-grown girls—"
"And nothing but tea," she interrupted. "Will you have a cup?"
"Thanks. Was it really very dull?"
"Yes. This book was to blame." She held up a novel.
"What's the matter with it?"
"Oh—it's one of those books in which the hero and heroine are forever 'gazing into each other's eyes.' And they understand perfectly. But the reader doesn't. I've reached one of those gazing matches now."
"But isn't it so in real life—when people gaze into each other's eyes, don't they usually understand?"
"Do they?"
"Don't they? You surely have had more experience than I."
"What makes you think so?" she smiled.
"Because your eyes are so very easy to gaze into."
"Mr. Minot—you're gazing into them—brazenly. And—neither of us 'understand,' do we?"
"Oh, no—we're both completely at sea."
"There," she cried triumphantly. "I told you these authors were all wrong."
Minot, having begun to gaze, found difficulty in stopping. She was near, she was beautiful—and a promise made in New York was a dim and distant thing.
"The railroad folders try to make you believe Florida is an annex to Heaven," he said. "I used to think they were lying. But—"
She blushed.
"But what, Mr. Minot?"
He leaned close, a strange light in his eyes. He opened his mouth to speak.
Suddenly he glanced over her shoulder, and the light died from his eyes. His lips set in a bitter curve.
"Nothing," he said. A silence.
"Mr. Minot—you've grown awfully dull."
"Have I? I'm sorry."
"Must I go back to my book—"
She was interrupted by the shrill triumphant cry of a yacht's siren at her back. She turned her head.
"TheLileth," she said.
"Exactly," said Minot. "The bridegroom cometh."
Another silence.
"You'll want to go to meet him," Minot said, rising. He stood looking at the boat, flashing gaily in the sunshine. "I'll go with you as far as the street."
"But—you know Lord Harrowby. Meet him with me."
"It seems hardly the thing—"
"But I'm not sentimental. And surely Allan's not."
"Then I must be," said Minot. "Really—I'd rather not—"
They went together to the street. At the parting of the ways, Minot turned to her.
"I promised Lord Harrowby in New York," he told her, "that you would have your lamp trimmed and burning."
She looked up at him. A mischievous light came into her eyes.
"Please—have you a match?" she asked.
It was too much. Minot turned and fled down the street. He did not once look back, though it seemed to him that he felt every step the girl took across that narrow pier to her fiancé's side.
As he dressed for dinner that night his telephone rang, and Miss Meyrick's voice sounded over the wire.
"Harrowby remembers you very pleasantly. Won't you join us at dinner?"
"Are you sure an outsider—" he began.
"Nonsense. Mr. Martin Wall is to be there."
"Ah—thank you—I'll be delighted," Minot replied.
In the lobby Harrowby seized his hand.
"My dear chap—you're looking fit. Great to see you again. By the way—do you know Martin Wall?"
"Yes—Mr. Wall and I met just before the splash," Minot smiled. He shook hands with Wall, unaccountably genial and beaming. "The Hudson, Mr. Wall, is a bit chilly in February."
"My dear fellow," said Wall, "can you ever forgive me? A thousand apologies. It was all a mistake—a horrible mistake."
"I felt like a rotter when I heard about it," Harrowby put in. "Martin mistook you for some one else. You must forgive us both."
"Freely," said Minot. "And I want to apologize for my suspicions of you, Lord Harrowby."
"Thanks, old chap."
"I never doubted you would come—after I saw Miss Meyrick."
"She is a ripper, isn't she?" said Harrowby enthusiastically.
Martin Wall shot a quick, almost hostile glance at Minot.
"You've noticed that yourself, haven't you?" he said in Minot's ear.
At which point the Meyrick family arrived, and they all went in to dinner.
That function could hardly be described as hilarious. Aunt Mary fluttered and gasped in her triumph, and spoke often of her horror of the new. The recent admission of automobiles to the sacred precincts of Bar Harbor seemed to be the great and disturbing fact in life for her. Spencer Meyrick said little; his thoughts were far away. The rush and scramble of a business office, the click of typewriters, the excitement of the dollar chase—these things had been his life. Deprived of them, like many another exile in the South, he moved in a dim world of unrealities and wished that he were home. Minot, too, had little to say. On Martin Wall fell the burden of entertainment, and he bore it as one trained for the work. Blithely he gossiped of queer corners that had known him and amid the flow of his oratory the dinner progressed.
It was after dinner, when they all stood together in the lobby a moment before separating, that Mr. Henry Trimmer made good his promise out of a clear sky.
Cynthia Meyrick stood facing the others, talking brightly, when suddenly her face paled and the flippant words died on her lips. They all turned instantly.
Through the lobby, in a buzz of excited comment, a man walked slowly, his eyes on the ground. He was a tall blond Englishman, not unlike Lord Harrowby in appearance. His gray eyes, when he raised them for a moment, were listless, his shoulders stooped and weary, and he had a long drooping mustache that hung like a weeping willow above a particularly cheerless stream.
However, it was not his appearance that excited comment and caused Miss Meyrick to pale. Hung over his shoulders was a pair of sandwich boards such as the outcasts of a great city carry up and down the streets. And on the front board, turned full toward Miss Meyrick's dinner party, was printed in bold black letters:
IAMTHEREALLORDHARROWBY
With a little gasp and a murmured apology, Miss Meyrick turned quickly and entered the elevator. Lord Harrowby stood like a man of stone, gazing at the sandwich boards.
It was at this point that the hotel detective sufficiently recovered himself to lay eager hands on the audacious sandwich man and propel him violently from the scene.
In the background Mr. Minot perceived Henry Trimmer, puffing excitedly on a big black cigar, a triumphant look on his face.
Mr. Trimmer's bomb was thrown.
"All I ask, Mister Harrowby, is that you consent to a short interview with your brother."
Mr. Trimmer was speaking. The time was noon of the following day, and Trimmer faced Lord Harrowby in the sitting-room of his lordship's hotel suite. Also present—at Harrowby's invitation—were Martin Wall and Mr. Minot.
His lordship turned his gray eyes on Trimmer's eager face. He could make those eyes fishy when he liked—he made them so now.
"He is not my brother," he said coldly, "and I shall not see him. May I ask you not to call me Mr. Harrowby?"
"You may ask till you're red in your noble face," replied Trimmer, firm in his disrespect. "But I shall go on calling you 'Mister' just the same. I call you that because I know the facts. Just as I call your poor cheated brother, who was in this hotel last night between sandwich boards, Lord Harrowby."
"Really," said his lordship, "I see no occasion for prolonging this interview."
Mr. Trimmer leaned forward. He was a big man, but his face was incongruously thin—almost ax-like. The very best sort of face to thrust in anywhere—and Trimmer was the very man to do the thrusting without batting an eye.
"Do you deny," he demanded with the air of a prosecutor, "that you had an older brother by the name of George?"
"I certainly do not," answered Lord Harrowby. "George ran off to America some twenty-two years ago. He died in a mining camp in Arizona twelve years back. There is no question whatever about that. We had it on the most reliable authority."
"A lot of lies," said Trimmer, "can be had on good authority. This situation illustrates that. Do you think, Mr. Harrowby, that I'd be wasting my time on this proposition if I wasn't dead sure of my facts. Why, poor old George has the evidence in his possession. Incontrovertible proofs. It wouldn't hurt you to see him and look over what he has to offer."
"Your lordship," Minot suggested, "you know that I am your friend and that my great desire is to see you happily married next week. In order that nothing may happen to prevent, I think you ought to see—"
"This impostor," cut in his lordship haughtily. "No, I can not. This is not the first time adventurers have questioned the Harrowby title. The dignity of our family demands that I refuse to take any notice whatsoever."
"Go on," sneered Trimmer. "Hide behind your dignity. When I get through with you you won't have enough left to conceal your stick-pin."
"Trimmer," said Martin Wall, speaking for the first time, "how much money do you want?"
Mr. Trimmer kept his temper admirably.
"Your society has not corrupted me, Mr. Wall," he said sweetly. "I am not a blackmailer. I am simply a publicity man. I'm working on a salary which Lord Harrowby—the real Lord Harrowby—is to pay me when he comes into his own. I've handled successfully in publicity campaigns prima donnas, pills, erasers, perfumes, holding companies, race horses, soups and society leaders. It isn't likely that I shall fall down on this proposition. For the last time, Mr. Allan Harrowby, will you see your brother?"
"Lord Harrowby, if I were you—" Minot began.
"My dear fellow." His lordship raised one slim hand. "It is quite impossible. Which, I take it, terminates our talk with Mr. Trimmer."
"Yes," said Mr. Trimmer, rising. "Except for one thing. Our young friend here, when he urges you to grant my request, is giving a correct imitation of a wise head on youthful shoulders. He's an American, and he knows about me—about Henry Trimmer. I guess you never heard, Mr. Harrowby, what I did for Cotrell's Ink Eraser—"
"Come on," said Mr. Wall militantly, "erase yourself."
"For the moment, I will," smiled Mr. Trimmer. "But I warn you, Mr. Harrowby, you are going to be sorry. You aren't up against any piker in publicity—no siree. That little sandwich-board stunt of mine last night was just a starter. I'm going to take the public into partnership. Put it up to the people—that's my motto."
"Good day, sir," snapped Lord Harrowby.
"Put it up to the people. And when I pull off the little trick I thought of this morning, you're going to get down before me on your noble knees, and beg off. I warn you. Good day, gentlemen. And may I add one simple request on parting? Watch Trimmer!"
He went out, slamming the door behind him. Mr. Wall rose and walked rapidly toward a decanter.
"Rather tough on you, Lord Harrowby," he remarked, pouring himself a drink. "Especially just now. The fresh bounder! Ought to have been kicked out of the room."
"An impostor," snorted Harrowby. "A rank impostor."
"Of course." Mr. Wall set down his glass. "But don't worry. If Trimmer gets too obstreperous, I'll take care of him myself. I guess I'll be going back to the yacht."
After Wall's departure, Minot and Harrowby sat staring at each other for a long moment.
"See here, your lordship," said Minot at last. "You know why I'm in San Marco. That wedding next Tuesday must take place without fail. And I can't say that I approve of your action just now—"
"My dear boy," Harrowby interrupted soothingly, "I appreciate your position. But there was nothing to be gained by seeing Mr. Trimmer's friend. The Meyricks were distressed, naturally, by that ridiculous sandwich-board affair last evening, but they have made no move to call off the wedding on account of it. The best thing to do, I'm sure, is to let matters take their course. I might be able to prove that chap's claims false—and then again I mightn't, even if I knew they were false. And—there is a third possibility."
"What is that?"
"He might really be—George."
"But you said your brother died, twelve years ago."
"That is what we heard. But—one can not be sure. And, delighted as I should be to know that George is alive, naturally I should prefer to know it after next Tuesday."
Anger surged into Minot's heart.
"Is that fair to the young lady who—"
"Who is to become my wife?" Lord Harrowby waved his hand. "It is. Miss Meyrick is not marrying me for my title. As for her father and aunt, I can not be so sure. I want no disturbance. You want none. I am sure it is better to let things take their course."
"All right," said Minot. "Only I intend to do every thing in my power to put this wedding through."
"My dear chap—your cause is mine," answered his lordship.
Minot returned to the narrow confines of his room. On the bureau, where he had thrown it earlier in the day, lay an invitation to dine that night with Mrs. Bruce. Thus was Jack Paddock's hand shown. The dinner was to be in Miss Meyrick's honor, and Mr. Minot was not sorry he was to go. He took up the invitation and reread it smilingly. So he was to hear Mrs. Bruce at her own table—the wittiest hostess in San Marco—bar none.
The drowsiness of a Florida midday was in the air. Mr. Minot lay down on his bed. A hundred thoughts were his: the brown of Miss Meyrick's eyes, the sincerity of Mr. Trimmer's voice when he spoke of his proposition, the fishy look of Lord Harrowby refusing to meet his long lost brother. Things grew hazy. Mr. Minot slept.
On leaving Lord Harrowby's rooms, Mr. Martin Wall did not immediately set out for theLileth, on which he lived in preference to the hotel. Instead he took a brisk turn about the spacious lobby of the De la Pax.
People turned to look at him as he passed. They noted that his large, placid, rather jovial face was lighted by an eye sharp and queer, and a bit out of place amid its surroundings. Mr. Wall considered himself the true cosmopolite, and his history rather bore out the boast. Many and odd were the lands that had known him. He had loaned money to a prince of Algiers (on excellent security), broken bread with a sultan, organized a baseball nine in Cuba, and coming home from the East via the Indian ports, had flirted on shipboard with the wife of a Russian grand duke. As he passed through that cool lobby it was not to be wondered at that middle west merchants and their wives found him worthy of a second glance.
The courtyard of the Hotel de la Pax was fringed by a series of modish shops, with doors opening both on the courtyard and on the narrow street outside. Among these, occupying a corner room was the very smart jewel shop of Ostby and Blake. Occasionally in the winter resorts of the South one may find jewelry shops whose stock would bear favorably competition with Fifth Avenue. Ostby and Blake conducted such an establishment.
For a moment before the show-window of this shop Mr. Wall paused, and with the eye of a connoisseur studied the brilliant display within. His whole manner changed. The air of boredom with which he had surveyed his fellow travelers of the lobby disappeared; on the instant he was alert, alive, almost eager. Jauntily he strolled into the store.
One clerk only—a tall thin man with a sallow complexion and hair the color of a lemon—was in charge. Mr. Wall asked to be shown the stock of unset diamonds.
The trays that the man set before him caused the eyes of Mr. Wall to brighten still more. With a manner almost reverent he stooped over and passed his fingers lovingly over the stones. For an instant the tall man glanced outside, and smiled a sallow smile. A little girl in a pink dress was crossing the street, and it was at her that he smiled.
"There's a flaw in that stone," said Mr. Wall, in a voice of sorrow. "See—"
From outside came the shrill scream of a child, interrupting. The tall man turned quickly to the window.
"My God—" he moaned.
"What is it?" Mr. Wall sought to look over his shoulder. "Automobile—"
"My little girl," cried the clerk in agony. He turned to Martin Wall, hesitating. His sallow face was white now, his lips trembled. Doubtfully he gazed into the frank open countenance of Martin Wall. And then—
"I leave you in charge," he shouted, and fled past Mr. Wall to the street.
For a moment Martin Wall stood, frozen to the spot. His eyes were unbelieving; his little Cupid's bow mouth was wide open.
"Here—come back—" he shouted, when he could find his voice.
No one heeded. No one heard. Outside in the street a crowd had gathered. Martin Wall wet his dry lips with his tongue. An unaccountable shudder swept his huge frame.
"My God—" he cried in a voice of terror, "I'm alone!"
For the first time he dared to move. His elbow bumped a hundred thousand dollars' worth of unset diamonds. Frightened, he drew back. He collided with a show-case rich in emeralds, rubies and aquamarines. He put out a plump hand to steady himself. It rested on a display case of French, Russian and Dutch silver.
Mr. Wall's knees grew weak. He felt a strange prickly sensation all over him. He took a step—and was staring at the finest display of black pearls south of Maiden Lane, New York.
Quickly he turned away. His eyes fell upon the door of a huge safety vault. It was swinging open!
Little beads of perspiration began to pop out on the forehead of Martin Wall. His heart was hammering like that of a youth who sees after a long separation his lady love. His eyes grew glassy.
He took out a silk handkerchief and passed it slowly across his damp forehead.
Staggering slightly, he stepped again to the trays of unset stones. The glassy eyes had grown greedy now. He put out one huge hand as the lover aforesaid might reach toward his lady's hair.
Then Mr. Wall shut his lips firmly, and thrust both of his hands deep into his trousers pockets. He stood there in the middle of that gorgeous room—a fat figure of a man suffering a cruel inhuman agony.
He was still standing thus when the tall man came running back. Apprehension clouded that sallow face.
"It was very kind of you." The small eyes of the clerk darted everywhere; then came back to Martin Wall. "I'm obliged—why, what's the matter, sir?"
Martin Wall passed his hand across his eyes, as a man banishing a terrible dream.
"The little girl?" he asked.
"Hardly a scratch," said the clerk, pointing to the smiling child at his side. "It was lucky, wasn't it?" He was behind the counter now, studying the trays unprotected on the show-case.
"Very lucky." Martin Wall still had to steady himself. "Perhaps you'd like to look about a bit before I go—"
"Oh, no, sir. Everything's all right, I'm sure. You were looking at these stones—"
"Some other time," said Wall weakly. "I only wanted an idea of what you had."
"Good day, sir. And thank you very much."
"Not at all." And the limp ex-guardian passed unsteadily from the store into the glare of the street.
Mr. Tom Stacy, of the Manhattan Club, half dozing on the veranda of his establishment, was rejoiced to see his old friend Martin Wall crossing the pavement toward him.
"Well, Martin—" he began. And then a look of concern came into his face. "Good lord, man—what ails you?"
Mr. Wall sank like a wet rag to the steps.
"Tom," he said, "a terrible thing has just happened. I was left alone in Ostby and Blake's jewelry shop."
"Alone?" cried Mr. Stacy. "You—alone?"
"Absolutely alone."
Mr. Stacy leaned over.
"Are you leaving town—in a hurry?" he asked.
Gloomily Mr. Wall shook his head.
"He put me on my honor," he complained. "Left me in charge of the shop. Can you beat it? Of course after that, I—well—you know, somehow I couldn't do it. I tried, but I couldn't."
Mr. Stacy threw back his head, and his raucous laughter smote the lazy summer afternoon.
"I can't help it," he gasped. "The funniest thing I ever—you—the best stone thief in America alone in charge of three million dollars' worth of the stuff!"
"Good heavens, man," whispered Wall. "Not so loud!" And well might he protest, for Mr. Stacy's indiscreet and mirthful tone carried far. It carried, for example, to Mr. Richard Minot, standing hidden behind the curtains of his little room overhead.
"Come inside, Martin," said Stacy. "Come inside and have a bracer. You sure must need it, after that."
"I do," replied Mr. Wall, in heartfelt tones. He rose and followed Tom Stacy.
Cheeks burning, eyes popping, Mr. Minot watched them disappear into the Manhattan Club.
Here was news indeed. Lord Harrowby's boon companion the ablest jewel thief in America! Just what did that mean?
Putting on coat and hat, he hurried to the hotel office and there wrote a cablegram:
"Situation suspicious are you dead certain H. is on the level?"
An hour later, in his London office, Mr. Jephson read this message carefully three times.
The Villa Jasmine, Mrs. Bruce's winter home, stood in a park of palms and shrubbery some two blocks from the Hotel de la Pax. Mr. Minot walked thither that evening in the resplendent company of Jack Paddock.
"You'll enjoy Mrs. Bruce to-night," Paddock confided. "I've done her some rather good lines, if I do say it as shouldn't."
"On what topics?" asked Minot, with a smile.
"International marriage—jewels—by the way, I don't suppose you know that Miss Cynthia Meyrick is to appear for the first time wearing the famous Harrowby necklace?"
"I didn't even know there was a necklace," Minot returned.
"Ah, such ignorance. But then, you don't wander much in feminine society, do you? Mrs. Bruce told me about it this morning. Chain Lightning's Collar."
"Chain Lightning's what?"
"Ah, my boy—" Mr. Paddock lighted a cigarette. "You should go round more in royal circles. List, commoner, while I relate. It seems that the Earl of Raybrook is a giddy old sport with a gambling streak a yard wide. In his young days he loved the Lady Evelyn Hollowway. Lady Evelyn had a horse entered in a derby about that time—name, Chain Lightning. And the Earl of Raybrook wagered a diamond necklace against a kiss that Chain Lightning would lose."
"Wasn't that giving big odds?" inquired Minot.
"Not if you believe the stories of Lady Evelyn's beauty. Well, it happened before Tammany politicians began avenging Ireland on Derby Day. Chain Lightning won. And the earl came across with the necklace. Afterward he married Lady Evelyn—"
"To get back the necklace?"
"Cynic. And being a rather racy old boy, he referred to the necklace thereafter as Chain Lightning's Collar. It got to be pretty well known in England by that name. I believe it is considered a rather neat piece of jewelry among the English nobility—whose sparklers aren't what they were before the steel business in Pittsburgh turned out a good thing."
"Chain Lightning's Collar," mused Minot. "I presume Lady Evelyn was the mother of the present Lord Harrowby?"
"So 'tis rumored," smiled Paddock. "Though I take it his lordship favors his father in looks."
They walked along for a moment in silence. The story of this necklace of diamonds could bring but one thing to Minot's thoughts—Martin Wall drooping on the steps of the Manhattan Club while old Stacy roared with joy. He considered. Should he tell Mr. Paddock? No, he decided he would wait.
"As I said," Paddock ran on, "you'll enjoy Mrs. Bruce to-night. Her lines are good, but somehow—it's really a great problem to me—she doesn't sound human and natural when she gets them off. I looked up her beauty doctor and asked him if he couldn't put a witty gleam in her eye, but he told me he didn't care to go that far in correcting Mrs. Bruce's Maker."
They had reached the Villa Jasmine now, a great white palace in a flowery setting more like a dream than a reality. The evening breeze murmured whisperingly through the palms, a hundred gorgeous colors shone in the moonlight, fountains splashed coolly amid the greenery.
"Act Two," muttered Minot. "The grounds surrounding the castle of the fairy princess."
"You have to come down here, don't you," replied Paddock, "to realize that old Mother Nature has a little on Belasco, after all?"
The whir of a motor behind them caused the two young men to turn. Then Mr. Minot saw her coming up the path toward him—coming up that fantastic avenue of palms—tall, fair, white, a lovely figure in a lovely setting—
Ah, yes—Lord Harrowby! He walked at her side, nonchalant, distinguished, almost as tall as a popular illustrator thinks a man in evening clothes should be. Truly, they made a handsome couple. They were to wed. Mr. Minot himself had sworn they were to wed.
He kept the bitterness from his tone as he greeted them there amid the soft magic of the Florida night. Together they went inside. In the center of a magnificent hallway they found Mrs. Bruce standing, like stout Cortez on his Darien peak, triumphant amid the glory of her gold.
Mr. Minot thought Mrs. Bruce's manner of greeting somewhat harried and oppressed. Poor lady, every function was a first night for her. Would the glare of the footlights frighten her? Would she falter in her lines—forget them completely? Only her sisters of the stage could sympathize with her understandingly now.
"So you are to carry Cynthia away?" Minot heard her saying to Lord Harrowby. "Such a lot of my friends have married into the peerage. Indeed, I have sometimes thought you English have no other pastime save that of slipping engagement rings on hands across the sea."
A soft voice spoke in Minot's ear.
"Mine," Mr. Paddock was saying. "Not bad, eh? But look at that Englishman. Why should I have sat up all last night writing lines to try on him? Can you tell me that?"
Lord Harrowby, indeed, seemed oblivious of Mrs. Bruce's little bon mot. He hemmed and hawed, and said he was a lucky man. But he did not mean that he was a lucky man because he had the privilege of hearing Mrs. Bruce.
Mr. Bruce slipped out of the shadows into the weariness of another formal dinner. Mrs. Bruce glittered, and he wrote the checks. He was a scraggly little man who sometimes sat for hours at a time in silence. There were those unkind enough to say that he sought back, trying to recall the reason that had led him to marry Mrs. Bruce.
When he beheld Miss Cynthia Meyrick, and knew that he was to take her in to dinner, Mr. Bruce brightened perceptibly. None save a blind and deaf man could have failed to. Cocktails consumed, the party turned toward the dining-room. Except for the Meyricks, Martin Wall, Lord Harrowby and Paddock, Dick Minot knew none of them. There were a couple of colorless men from New York who, when they died, would be referred to as "prominent club men," a horsy girl from Westchester, an ex-ambassador's wife and daughter, a number of names from Boston and Philadelphia with their respective bearers. And last but not least the two Bond girls from Omaha—blond, lovely, but inclined to be snobbish even in that company, for their mother was a Van Reypan, and Van Reypans are rare birds in Omaha and elsewhere.
Mr. Minot took in the elder of the Bond girls, and found that Cynthia Meyrick sat on his left. He glanced at her throat as they sat down. It was bare of ornament. And then he beheld, sparkling in her lovely hair, the perfect diamonds of Chain Lightning's Collar. As he turned back to the table he caught the eye of Mr. Martin Wall. Mr. Wall's eye happened to be coming away from the same locality.
The girl from Omaha gossiped of plays and players, like a dramatic page from some old Sunday newspaper.
"I'm mad about the stage," she confided. "Of course, we get all the best shows in Omaha. Why, Maxine Elliott and Nat Goodwin come there every year."
Mr. Minot, New Yorker, shuddered. Should he tell her of the many and active years in the lives of these two since they visited any town together? No. What use? On the other side of him a sweet voice spoke:
"I presume you know, Mr. Minot, that Mrs. Bruce has the reputation of being the wittiest hostess in San Marco?"
"I have heard as much." Minot smiled into Cynthia Meyrick's eyes. "When does her act go on?"
Mrs. Bruce was wondering the same thing. She knew her lines; she was ready. True, she understood few of those lines. Wit was not her specialty. Until Mr. Paddock took charge of her, she had thought colored newspaper supplements humorous in the extreme. However, the lines Mr. Paddock taught her seemed to go well, and she continued to patronize the old stand.
She looked up now from her conversation with her dinner partner, and silence fell as at a curtain ascending.
"I was just saying to Lord Harrowby," Mrs. Bruce began, smiling about her, "how picturesque our business streets are here. What with the Greek merchants in their native costumes—"
"Bandits, every one of them," growled Mr. Bruce, bravely interrupting. His wife frowned.
"Only the other day," she continued, "I bought a rug from a man who claimed to be a Persian prince. He said it was a prayer-rug, and I think it must have been, for ever since I got it I've been praying it's genuine."
A little ripple of amusement ran about the table. The redoubtable Mrs. Bruce was under way. People spoke to one another in undertones—little conversational nudges of anticipation.
"By the way, Cynthia," the hostess inquired, "have you heard from Helen Arden lately?"
"Not for some time," responded Miss Meyrick, "although I have her promise that she and the duke will be here—next Tuesday."
"Splendid." Mrs. Bruce turned to his lordship. "I think of Helen, Lord Harrowby, because she, too, married into your nobility. Her father made his money in sausage in the Middle West. In his youth he'd had trouble in finding a pair of ready-made trousers, but as soon as the money began to roll in, Helen started to look him up a coat of arms. And a family motto. I remember suggesting at the time, in view of the sausage: 'A family is no stronger than its weakest link.'"
Mrs. Bruce knew when to pause. She paused now. The ripple became an outright laugh. Mr. Paddock sipped languorously from his wine-glass. He saw that his lines "got over."
"Went into society head foremost, Helen did," Mrs. Bruce continued. "Thought herself a clever amateur actress. Used to act often for charity—though I don't recall that she ever got it."
"The beauty of Mrs. Bruce's wit," said Miss Meyrick in Mr. Minot's ear, "is that it is so unconscious. She doesn't appear to realize when she has said a good thing."
"There's just a chance that she doesn't realize it," suggested Minot.
"Then Helen met the Duke of Lismore," Mrs. Bruce was speaking once more. "Perhaps you know him, Lord Harrowby?"
"No—er—sorry to say I don't—"
"A charming chap. In some ways. Helen was a Shavian in considering marriage the chief pursuit of women. She pursued. Followed Lismore to Italy, where he proposed. I presume he thought that being in Rome, he must do as the Romeos do."
"But, my dear lady," said Harrowby in a daze, "isn't it the Romans?"
"Isn't what the Romans?" asked Mrs. Bruce blankly.
"Your lordship is correct," said Mr. Paddock hastily. "Mrs. Bruce misquoted purposely—in jest, you know. Jibe—japery."
"Oh—er—pardon me," returned his lordship.
"I saw Helen in London last spring," Mrs. Bruce went on. "She confided to me that she considers her husband a genius. And if genius really be nothing but an infinite capacity for taking champagnes, I am sure the poor child is right."
Little murmurs of joy, and the dinner proceeded. The guests bent over their food, shipped to Mrs. Bruce in a refrigerating car from New York, and very little wearied by its long trip. Here and there two talked together. It was like an intermission between the acts.
Mr. Minot turned to the Omaha girl. Even though she was two wives behind on Mr. Nat Goodwin's career, one must be polite.
It was at the close of the dinner that Mrs. Bruce scored her most telling point. She and Lord Harrowby were conversing about a famous English author, and when she was sure she had the attention of the table, she remarked:
"Yes, we met his wife at the Masonbys'. But I have always felt that the wife of a celebrity is like the coupon on one's railway ticket."
"How's that, Mrs. Bruce?" Minot inquired. After all, Paddock had been kind to him.
"Not good if detached," said Mrs. Bruce.
She stood. Her guests followed suit. It was by this bon mot that she chose to have her dinner live in the gossip of San Marco. Hence with it she closed the ceremony.
"Witty woman, your wife," said one of the colorless New Yorkers to Mr. Bruce, when the men were left alone.
Mr. Bruce only grunted, but Mr. Paddock answered brightly:
"Do you really think so?"
"Yes. Don't you?"
"Why—er—really—" Mr. Paddock blushed. Modest author, he.
A servant appeared to say that Lord Harrowby was wanted at once outside, and excusing himself, Harrowby departed. He found his valet, a plump, round-faced, serious man, waiting in the shadows on the veranda. For a time they talked together in low tones. When Harrowby returned to the dining-room, his never cheerful face was even gloomier than usual.
Spencer Meyrick and Bruce, exiles both of them, talked joyously of business and the rush of the day's work for which both longed. The New York man and a sapling from Boston conversed of chamber music. Martin Wall sat silent, contemplative. Perhaps had he spoken his thoughts they would have been of a rich jewel shop at noon—deserted.
A half-hour later Mrs. Bruce's dinner-party was scattered among the palms and flowers of her gorgeous lawn. Mr. Minot had fallen again to the elder girl from Omaha, and blithely for her he was displaying his Broadway ignorance of horticulture. Suddenly out of the night came a scream. Instantly when he heard it, Mr. Minot knew who had uttered it.
Unceremoniously he parted from the Omaha beauty and sped over the lawn. But quick as he was, Lord Harrowby was quicker. For when Minot came up, he saw Harrowby bending over Miss Meyrick, who sat upon a wicker bench.
"Cynthia—what is it?" Harrowby was saying.
Cynthia Meyrick felt wildly of her shining hair.
"Your necklace," she gasped. "Chain Lightning's Collar. He took it! He took it!"
"Who?"
"I don't know. A man!"
"A man!" Reverent repetition by feminine voices out of the excited group.
"He leaped out at me there—by that tree—pinioned my arms—snatched the necklace. I couldn't see his face. It happened in the shadow."
"No matter," Harrowby replied. "Don't give it another thought, my child."
"But how can I help—"
"I shall telephone the police at once," announced Spencer Meyrick.
"I beg you'll do nothing of the sort," expostulated Lord Harrowby. "It would be a great inconvenience—the thing wasn't worth the publicity that would result. I insist that the police be kept out of this."
Argument—loud on Mr. Meyrick's part—ensued. Suggestions galore were offered by the guests. But in the end Lord Harrowby had his way. It was agreed not to call in the police.
Mr. Minot, looking up, saw a sneering smile on the face of Martin Wall. In a flash he knew the truth.
With Aunt Mary calling loudly for smelling salts, and the whole party more or less in confusion, the return to the house started. Mr. Paddock walked at Minot's side.
"Rather looks as though Chain Lightning's Collar had choked off our gaiety," he mumbled. "Serves her right for wearing the thing in her hair. She spoiled two corking lines for me by not wearing it where you'd naturally expect a necklace to be worn."
Minot maneuvered so as to intercept Lord Harrowby under the portico.
"May I speak with you a moment?" he inquired. Harrowby bowed, and they stepped into the shadows of the drive.
"Lord Harrowby," said Minot, trying to keep the excitement from his voice, "I have certain information about one of the guests here this evening that I believe would interest you. Your lordship has been badly buffaloed. One of our fellow diners at Mrs. Bruce's table holds the title of the ablest jewel thief in America!"
He watched keenly to catch Lord Harrowby's start of surprise. Alas, he caught nothing of the sort.
"Nonsense," said his lordship nonchalantly. "You mustn't let your imagination carry you away, dear chap."
"Imagination nothing! I know what I'm talking about." And then Minot added sarcastically: "Sorry to bore you with this."
His lordship laughed.
"Right-o, old fellow. I'm not interested."
"But haven't you just lost—"
"A diamond necklace? Yes." They had reached a particularly dark and secluded spot beneath the canopy of palm leaves. Harrowby turned suddenly and put his hands on Minot's shoulders. "Mr. Minot," he said, "you are here to see that nothing interferes with my marriage to Miss Meyrick. I trust you are determined to do your duty to your employers?"
"Absolutely. That is why—"
"Then," replied Harrowby quickly, "I am going to ask you to take charge of this for me."
Suddenly Minot felt something cold and glassy in his hand. Startled, he looked down. Even in the dark, Chain Lightning's Collar sparkled like the famous toy that it was.
"Your lordship!—"
"I can not explain now. I can only tell you it is quite necessary that you help me at this time. If you wish to do your full duty by Mr. Jephson."
"Who took this necklace from Miss Meyrick's hair?" asked Minot hotly.
"I did. I assure you it was the only way to prevent our plans from going awry. Please keep it until I ask you for it."
And turning, Lord Harrowby walked rapidly toward the house.
"The brute!" Angrily Mr. Minot stood turning the necklace over in his hand. "So he frightened the girl he is to marry—the girl he is supposed to love—"