“Plan completely spoilt will explain meanwhile try telling your aunt the truth as you promised she will be in at teatime and it will be best to get it over one way or another.”
“Plan completely spoilt will explain meanwhile try telling your aunt the truth as you promised she will be in at teatime and it will be best to get it over one way or another.”
Would he come? she asked herself, as she went back to the house; and all the afternoon the same question echoed in her mind. Would he come? And, if he came and did not succeed in enlisting Mrs. Vanderstein’s sympathies, what then?
There seemed no other possible course. In vain,as she sat beside her friend in the motor, she racked her brains to imagine some way in which Joe could still raise the money if this attempt failed. But she had his assurance that he had already exhausted all practicable means.
Mrs. Vanderstein wished to visit a shop in the Strand, and their way to it led them past the theatre that Madame Querterot had visited a week before, in the company of her daughter and her daughter’s suitor.
Large placards ornamented the front of the house, depicting some of the more thrilling episodes of the play. These were varied by photographs of the young actor who played the principal rôle. He was portrayed in immaculate evening dress and in the act of opening the safe; another picture showed him snapping his fingers at the officers of the law; and yet a third displayed him as he took—in the fourth act—the heroine to his arms.
Mrs. Vanderstein and Barbara had seen the play, which was making a roaring success, on more than one occasion. Mrs. Vanderstein smiled as she observed the posters.
“That is a good play,” she said to her companion. “I can hardly help screaming when he escapes by the window as the police burst into the room. It is almost too exciting. And he, the gentleman burglar, you know, is so good-looking. One can’t help being on his side, can one? And of course one is intended to be. All the honest people are so terribly dull. Besides, of course, he was a count and quite charming really. I don’t wonder the heroine forgave him.” She put down her parasol, as they turned into a shady street. “Do you know, Barbara,” she went on, “I think that sort of play might do a lot of harm. It can’t be right to make dishonesty appear so attractive.”
Barbara made no reply, and Mrs. Vanderstein, glancing at her in surprise, was still more astonished at the strange look in the girl’s eyes.
“What do you think about it?” she asked again.
“It depends on what you call harm,” Barbara answered slowly, and as they pulled up at their destination the conversation came to an end.
They went home early and had barely finished tea when Sidney was announced. He looked rather pale and shook hands with Barbara without speaking as she made a hasty excuse and left the room. Going into another sitting-room, she waited in an agony of suspense till the drawing-room door should open and the interview be over for good or ill.
She had not long to wait.
Five minutes had scarcely passed before she heard the sound of hurried footsteps descending the stairs, and a moment later the front door banged behind Sidney’s retreating figure. At the same time a bell pealed violently and, before it could be answered, Barbara caught the sound of the swish of silken skirts and the light tread of Mrs. Vanderstein’s feet as she ran down a few steps and called over the banisters to the butler.
“Blake,” she called, as that portly person emerged from the door leading to the basement. “Is that you, Blake?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Blake, I am not at home in future to Mr. Joseph Sidney. You are never to let him come into this house again. Do you understand?”
“Very good, ma’am.” Blake’s tones were as imperturbed as if he were receiving an order to post a letter.
“And tell the footmen. I will not see him again on any account whatever. Let it be clearly understood. And, Blake, please telephone at once to Sir GregoryAberhyn Jones and say, if it is convenient to him, I should like to see him immediately. Ask him to come at once; or to come to dinner; or to the opera. No,” she corrected herself, “not to the opera to-night. But ask him to come and see me before I start if he possibly can. It is most important.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Blake showed no surprise: in moments of distress his mistress always telephoned to Sir Gregory Aberhyn Jones.
Mrs. Vanderstein, still in a state of great agitation, retreated to write a letter before dressing for the opera, a matter that demanded, to-night of all nights, both time and undistracted attention.
When she descended to the dining-room all traces of the disturbance caused by Sidney’s visit had vanished from her face; and her expression was again one of joyful expectation, as it had been throughout the day. After writing a hurried note, she had entirely dismissed all memory of her husband’s nephew.
It was natural that, in the contest with other interests so enthralling as those which that evening filled the mind of his uncle’s widow, Sidney should cease to occupy a place in Mrs. Vanderstein’s thoughts; should become, as he would have expressed it, an “also ran.” What was more remarkable was the fact that Barbara’s countenance, when she took her place at the early dinner, wore a look of pleasant anticipation almost equalling that of her friend, very different from the signs of anxiety and distress that had been visible upon it during the earlier part of the day. Mrs. Vanderstein had seen nothing of the weeping figure which, after Joe’s dismissal, lay with its face buried in the pillows on Barbara’s bed trying to stifle the great sobs that shook it in spite of every effort, or even she, preoccupied as she was, would have felt astonished at so complete a recovery of spirits.
The change, indeed, had been instantaneous and coincided with the moment, when, in the midst of her grief, a sudden idea had flashed into Barbara’s mind, an inspiration, it seemed, that immediately smoothed away all trouble and made plain the way by which Sidney’s difficulties should be removed. How was it possible that she had not thought of it before? The knowledge that Joe would never agree to the means she proposed to take, that the persuasions and sophistries of yesterday would be of no use here, that it would be impossible even to broach the subject to him, she swept from her impetuously. There was no need that he should ever suspect her hand in the matter. Care must be taken; she must act with prudence and caution, and all would be well. One thought only held her mind to the exclusion of all else, the wish to protect and save this boy whom she loved from the consequences of his own folly. Nothing was worth considering except this. No fear of the possible effect on her own life shook her resolution, for what, she thought, is life or for that matter death, if it does not imply the prolongation on the one hand, or, on the other, the cutting short of the ties of affection.
She remembered the reckless air with which Joe had said that this business would be the end of all for him, and with a shudder she told herself that the words could only have one meaning. If by sacrificing her life his could be saved, she would not hesitate to give it. Here plain to her eye was the opportunity to serve him, and whatever the result might be to herself she did not shrink from it. As she dressed for the evening, Barbara smiled gladly to herself and sang softly a little song. One thought disturbed her. Sidney was unaware that his salvation was so near. She could not bear to think of him now, worried and despairing. Yet how could she reassure him without betrayingherself and the great idea? With a little frown Barbara mused over this question, as she stuck a paste comb that Mrs. Vanderstein had given her into the masses of her thick fair hair. Presently she scrawled a few words upon a sheet of paper, and hastily folding it into an envelope tucked it into the front of her dress; then, fearing she was late, she ran down the stairs.
“Sir Gregory Aberhyn Jones is out of town, ma’am,” Blake was saying as she entered the room.
“Oh well, never mind now,” said Mrs. Vanderstein.
Dinner that evening was a silent meal. Mrs. Vanderstein, gloriously arrayed, sat smiling abstractedly at nothing from one end of the small table. So preoccupied was she that she forgot to eat, and Blake was obliged to ask her repeatedly whether she would partake of a dish before she could be brought to notice that it was being handed to her. Once, as, recalled suddenly to the present, she brought her thoughts back with a start from their wanderings and turned with some trivial remark towards Barbara, she noticed with a faint feeling of amusement that the girl was as much engrossed in her own imaginings as she was herself, and was sitting absently pulling a flower to pieces, her great eyes fixed vacantly on the shining pearls that swung suspended from the neck of her friend.
They started in good time, Barbara begging to be allowed to stop for one minute at a post office on the way.
She had, she said, forgotten to reply to an invitation, and thought that now it was so late she had better send an answer by wire. She gave the message, which was already written out and in a sealed envelope, to the footman, together with some money, and told him tohand it in as it was, and not to waste time in waiting to see it accepted.
The man was back in a minute, and they drove on, to take their places a few minutes later in the long string of motors and carriages which was slowly advancing to the doors of the Covent Garden opera house.
Mr. Gimbletlived in a flat in the neighbourhood of Whitehall. It was a fad of his to be more comfortably housed than most solitary men. The situation was conveniently near to Scotland Yard, where officials were much in the habit of requiring to see him at odd moments. The view from the windows, overlooking the river, was delightful to one of cultivated and artistic propensities, and the rooms, large and well-proportioned, were capable of displaying to advantage the old and valuable pictures and furniture with which it was the detective’s delight to surround himself.
Much of his time was spent in curiosity shops, and he was among the first to discover that former happy hunting ground of the bargain seeker—the Caledonian market. Many an impatient member of the Force, sent round from the “Yard” to ask Mr. Gimblet’s assistance in some obscure case, had, after kicking his heels for an hour or two in the hall, left the flat in desperation, only to meet the detective coming up the stairs with a dusky, dust-covered picture in his hand, or hugging to his breast a piece of ancient china.
The younger son of a Midland family, which had moderately enriched itself in the course of the preceding century by commercial transactions in which a certain labour-saving machine for the weaving industries had played a large part, Mr. Gimblet had received the usual public school education, and had spent two orthree subsequent years at Oxford. His artistic propensities had always been strongly marked, but his family showing much opposition to his becoming an artist, and he himself having a modest idea of his own genius and doubting his ability to make his way very high up the ladder of success by the aid of talent which he knew to be somewhat limited, he had ended by going into an architect’s office, where he had worked with interest and enjoyment for several more years. It was by accident that he discovered his capacity for tracking the most wary of criminals to his hiding place and for discovering the authors of mysterious and deeply plotted crimes. It happened that a workman employed in the building of a house for which Gimblet had provided the design was found murdered in circumstances as peculiar as they were sinister. There appeared to be no clue to the author of the deed, and after a week or two the official investigators had confessed among themselves that they were completely at a loss.
To Gimblet, visiting the scene of the crime in his capacity of architect—but not without an unwonted and hitherto unknown quickening of the pulse—a piece of board nailed upright where it should have been horizontal had proved immediately suggestive; and its removal had brought to light certain hastily concealed objects, which with one or two previously unnoticed trifles had resulted in the capture and ultimate hanging of the murderer.
This success had led the young man to feel an interest in other mysterious affairs of the same nature; and it was not long before he found the task of assisting the police in such researches so much more profitable and engrossing than his work as an architect, that he gradually came to give more and more of his leisure to the attempt to discover secrets and to solve problems which at first sight seemed to offer no solution. By thetime he was thirty there was scarcely a crime of any importance that he was not called upon to assist in bringing home to its perpetrator; and he had entirely abandoned the pursuit of architectural learning for that of criminal mankind.
He refused an invitation to become attached to the official staff, although this was conveyed in terms that were in the highest degree flattering, preferring to be at liberty to decide for himself whether or no he should take up a case. It was the sensational and odd that attracted him; and he found that quite enough of this came his way to make his occupation an extremely profitable one.
Early on Tuesday afternoon Gimblet sat in his dining-room, contemplating with some satisfaction a large dish of strawberries and a pot of cream sent him by a Devonshire friend. He was finishing a luncheon which he considered well earned, as that morning he had discovered in a narrow back street in Lambeth, and purchased for a mere song, a little picture black with age and dirt, in which his hopeful eye discerned a crowd of small but masterfully painted figures footing it to the strains of a fiddle upon the grass under a spreading tree. Gimblet told himself that it was in all probability from the brush of Teniers, and he had propped it on the dining-room mantelpiece so that in the intervals of eating he could refresh his eyes as well as his body. Beside him lay the day’s paper which he had hardly had time to read before going out that morning. He heaped cream upon his strawberries, sprinkled them with sugar, and took, in succession, a spoonful of the mixture, a look at his picture, and a glance at the paper. With a contented sigh he repeated the process.
At the moment he had no work in hand, and no one more thoroughly enjoyed an occasional loaf.
It was good, he felt, to have nothing to do for once; to have time to idle; to eat greedily delicious food; to spend as many hours as he chose in the dusty recesses of second-hand shops; to do a little painting sometimes; even to be able to arrange beforehand to play a game of golf. Gimblet had an excellent eye, and had been rather good at games in early days. He seldom had time now and, if he did go down to a golf ground occasionally in the afternoons, had to resign himself to play with anyone he could find, as he never knew till the last minute whether he would be able to get away.
He thought of going this afternoon, and looked at his watch. There would be a train from Waterloo in half an hour. Just time to finish his strawberries and catch it. That picture would look well when he had cleaned it. He took up the paper again. It must have been a fine sight last night at Covent Garden. And what a list of singers. Gimblet, who loved music, wished he had been there. “The Verterexes might have asked me to their box,” he said to himself. “Life is full of ingratitude. After all I did for them.”
And then it struck him that he had not done much for the Verterexes after all, beyond nearly arresting Mr. Verterex by mistake for a murder he had not committed.
Gimblet laughed.
Then his thoughts reverted lazily to the pleasures of loafing.
“I think I shall give up work,” he said to himself. “Why not? I have enough money put by to keep me, with economy, in moderate comfort. Not quite so many strawberries perhaps,” he added regretfully, taking another mouthful, “but what I want is leisure. Yes. I am decided I will do no more work. Let the police catch its own burglars!”
He spoke aloud, and defiantly, addressing himself to the picture.
At that moment his servant came into the room.
“A gentleman very anxious to see you, sir,” he said. “I have shown him into the library.”
“Ask him to come in here if he’s in a hurry,” said Gimblet. “I haven’t finished lunch.”
A minute later the man opened the door again, announcing:
“Major Sir Gregory Aberhyn Jones.”
Major Sir Gregory Aberhyn Jones was a little man with a pink complexion and a small brown moustache. He was short and rather plumper than he could wish, but carried himself very uprightly and with a great sense of his own importance, glaring at those who might be so obtuse as not immediately to recognise it with such concentrated disapproval that it was usual for the offenders to realise their mistake in the quickest possible time. Behind a fussy, self-satisfied exterior he hid a fund of kindness and good nature seldom to be met with. Sir Gregory prided himself on his youthful appearance, was, in his turn, a source of some pride to one of the best tailors in London, took remarkable interest in his ties and boots, trained his remaining hair in the way it should go, and, though he was sixty-five, flattered himself that he looked not a day over fifty-nine.
“I am in luck to find you, Mr. Gimblet,” he said, advancing with outstretched hand as Gimblet rose to receive him. “But this is a sad occasion, a very sad occasion, I fear.”
“Dear me,” said Gimblet, “I’m sorry to hear that. But won’t you sit down? I thought as my man said you were in a hurry you would rather come in here than wait for me. May I offer you some strawberries? No? I’m sorry I can’t give you any wine, but I’m ateetotaller, you know. Don’t have any in the house. Afraid you’ll think me faddy. And now that the servant has gone, may I ask what is the sad event which has given me the pleasure of seeing you?”
“Bad habit, drinking water,” commented Sir Gregory, seating himself in an arm-chair by the fire-place. “But nowadays young men have no heads. They can’t stand it, that’s what it is. Show them three or four glasses of port and they say it gives them a headache. Absurd, sir! The country is rotten through and through. The men can’t eat, they can’t drink, they can’t even dance! They stroll about a ball-room now in a way that would make you sick. In my days we used to valse properly. But they don’t dance thedeux-tempsany more, I’m told. They say it makes them giddy! Giddy! Rotten constitutions, that’s what we suffer from nowadays. It’s the same with all this talk of reforming the army. Compulsory service indeed,” the major snorted. “What should we want compulsory service for? In my day one Englishman was as good as twenty Germans or any kind of foreigner. At least he would have been if we’d had a European war, which as it happened was not the case while I was in the Service. But now there are actually people who think that if it comes to a fight it would be an advantage for us to have as many men as the enemy. They ought to be ashamed of themselves, if there’s any truth in it. No, no, the army doesn’t need reforming, take my word for it. There are a few alterations which I could suggest in the uniforms which would make all the difference in the world, but except for that, what I say is, let sleeping dogs lie.”
Having delivered himself of these remarks, Sir Gregory felt in his pocket, drew forth a cigar case, selected a cigar and asked for a match.
“Did you come to persuade me to your views on compulsory service?” asked Gimblet pleasantly as he continued to devour his strawberries, which were now nearly all gone. “Because I’m afraid it’s no good. You can’t possibly convince me that its adoption is not a vital necessity to the nation.”
“I’m sorry to hear you think that,” said the other, “for I have the highest opinion of your intellect. Believe me, when you discovered the frauds that were being perpetrated at the Great Continental Bank last year, I marked you down, Mr. Gimblet, as the man I should consult in case of need. And it is to consult you that I am here. I said it was a sad occasion. Well, it is sad for me, but I am not yet, as a matter of fact, quite sure whether or no it is desperately so. What has happened, in a word, is this. A lady to whom I am deeply attached has disappeared.”
“Disappeared?” said Gimblet, pushing back his chair. He had eaten the last of the strawberries. “May I ask who the lady is—a relation of yours?”
“Not exactly. She is a Mrs. Vanderstein, for whom, as I have just said, I have a great regard, I may say an affection. In fact,” said Sir Gregory, leaning forward and speaking in confidential tones, “I don’t mind telling you that she is the lady I have chosen to be the future Lady Aberhyn Jones.”
“Indeed. You are engaged to marry her?”
“Not precisely engaged,” admitted Sir Gregory, with a slightly troubled look.
As a matter of strict accuracy, he had proposed to Mrs. Vanderstein about three times a year ever since the death of her husband; but Mrs. Vanderstein, although tempted by his title, had already been the wife of one man twice her age and did not intend to repeat the experiment. Still, his friendship was dear to her; he was the only baronet of her acquaintanceand she liked to have him about the house. He had been a director on the board of one of her husband’s companies, and, when introduced by him, her pretty face and amiable disposition had quite captured Sir Gregory’s heart, so that he had cultivated Mr. Vanderstein’s society to such good purpose as to become a constant habitué of the house in Grosvenor Street.
After Mr. Vanderstein’s death he lost no more time than decency demanded in proposing to his widow; and, though she refused to marry him, and refused over and over again, yet she did it in so sympathetic a manner and was so kind in spite of her obstinacy that Sir Gregory believed her absence of alacrity in accepting his hand to be prompted by anything rather than a lack of affection. She treated him as her best friend and consulted him on every question of business, to the wise conduct of which her own shrewdness was a far better guide, and had imperceptibly fallen into the habit of never making a decision of any importance without first threshing out the pros and cons in conversation with him. Nothing so strengthened her faith in the soundness of her own judgment as his disapproval of any course she intended to adopt.
“For some reason,” Sir Gregory continued after a pause, “Mrs. Vanderstein has never consented to an actual engagement. It is that which makes me so uneasy now. Can it be—Mr. Gimblet, I give you my word I feel ashamed of mentioning such a suspicion even to you—but can it be that she has fled with another?”
He uttered the last words in such a tragic tone that Gimblet, though he felt inclined to smile, restrained the impulse, and, summoning up all the sympathy at his command, inquired again:
“Will you not explain the circumstances to me a little more fully? When did the lady vanish? Have you any reason to think she did not go alone? Wasthere some kind of understanding between you, and what did it amount to?”
“I will be perfectly frank with you,” said Sir Gregory, “much the best thing in these cases is to be absolutely candid. You agree with me there? I thought you would. At the same time where a lady is concerned—you follow me? One must avoid anything that looks like giving her away. But in this case there is really no reason why I should conceal anything from you. Mrs. Vanderstein has never accepted my proposals. On the contrary she has refused to marry me on each of the occasions when I have suggested it to her. You ask me why? My dear sir, I cannot reply to that question. Who can account for a woman’s whims? Not I, sir, not I. Nor you either; if you will allow me to say so.” Sir Gregory’s hands and eyes were uplifted in bewilderment as he considered the inexplicable behaviour of woman in general and of Mrs. Vanderstein in particular. “But I have no doubt that in time she would have reconsidered her decision,” he went on puffing at his cigar, “that is to say Ihadno doubt until this morning.”
“And what happened then?” asked the detective.
“I came up from Surrey, where I had been paying a week-end visit,” pursued his visitor, “arriving at my rooms at midday. My servant at once informed me that Mrs. Vanderstein had sent a telephone message yesterday evening, begging me to go immediately to see her and adding that it was most important. I only waited to change into London clothes, Mr. Gimblet, before I hurried to her house in Grosvenor Street. And when I got there, what did I hear? ’Pon my soul,” exclaimed Sir Gregory, taking his cigar out of his mouth, “you might have knocked me down with a feather!”
“You heard that the lady had disappeared?”
“Exactly. Not been seen or heard of since last night. Drove away from her own door, they tell me, in her own motor car; and has never come back from that hour to this.”
“Did she leave no word as to where she was going?”
“None whatever. She dined early, of course, on account of the opera.”
“The opera! In that case what makes you think she didn’t go there?”
“Of course she went. Didn’t I say so? She drove off to Covent Garden and that’s the last that’s been heard of her.”
“You interest me,” said Gimblet. “Was she not seen to leave the opera house?”
“I don’t know about that,” said Sir Gregory. “I found the servants very much disturbed; and very glad they were, I may say, to see me.”
“She has probably met with some accident and has been taken to a hospital,” suggested Gimblet. “Have any inquiries been made?”
“I rather think they have been telephoning to the hospitals, but I told them not to communicate with the police till I had seen you. Wouldn’t do, you know. She would dislike it extremely, especially if it turns out as I fear and she has gone off with some other man.”
“I can’t see why she should have done that,” said Gimblet. “She was her own mistress, I suppose, and had no need to conceal her movements. Depend on it,” he went on, for the anxiety on Sir Gregory’s face moved him to pity, “she will be found at one of the hospitals; and I advise you to make inquiries at them. A woman, alone as she was, would be carried to one of them if she were taken ill or met with a slight accident that prevented her for the moment from giving her address.”
“But she was not alone,” urged Sir Gregory. “Miss Turner, her companion, was with her, of course.”
“Indeed,” said Gimblet, “you said nothing of there being anyone with her. And what has Miss Turner to say on the subject?”
“She’s not there. She’s vanished too.”
“Really,” said the detective. “This is getting interesting. That two ladies should set out for Covent Garden opera house on a gala night and never return from it, is, to say the least, slightly unconventional. Now, before we go any further,” he went on quickly, “what do you wish me to do in the matter?”
“I want you to find Mrs. Vanderstein, naturally,” returned Sir Gregory, staring at him in astonishment; “I feel the greatest anxiety on her account, the more so since you consider her likely to have met with an accident.”
“But if, as you seem to suspect, the lady has gone off deliberately, will she not be annoyed at our seeking her out? Will she not be angry with you for trying to discover her movements if she wishes them unknown?”
“I daresay she’d think it dashed impertinent. But I can’t help that. She may be in need of me; in fact,” cried Sir Gregory with sudden recollection, “I know she is! Don’t I tell you she telephoned for me last night? A most urgent message. That proves she wishes for my help in some matter of importance to her, and how can I assist her without knowing where she is?”
“As you say,” said Gimblet, “it does look as if she did not wish to leave you unacquainted with her whereabouts. Well, I have nothing to do just now and if you wish me to make inquiries I will do so with pleasure, though I do not think it will prove to be an affair altogether in my line.”
“Thank ’ee. Thank ’ee,” mumbled the old soldierwith his cigar between his teeth. “That’s what I want. Now, how are you going to set about it?”
“I am going to ask you a few questions first. You have not yet furnished me with that comprehensive clear account in which the trivial details which look so unimportant and may yet be of such moment are never omitted: the lucid narrative so dear to the detective’s heart. I do not think, if you will pardon my saying so, that I am likely to get it from you, Sir Gregory.”
Sir Gregory glared, but said nothing; and Gimblet continued, with a smile:
“To begin with, who is Mrs. Vanderstein?”
“The widow of a Jewish money-lender.” Sir Gregory spoke somewhat shortly. He considered Gimblet’s remarks disrespectful.
“Rich, then?”
“Yes.”
“Does she live alone in Grosvenor Street?”
“A young lady, Miss Barbara Turner, lives with her.”
“And who is she?”
“She is the daughter of an old pal of Vanderstein’s. A man who used to train his racehorses at Newmarket. He was a bad lot and had to fly the country long ago. Dead now, I believe.”
“Has Miss Turner any money of her own?”
“Old Vanderstein left her a good large sum, £30,000 I think it is, but Mrs. Vanderstein has a life interest in it. The girl has nothing as long as she lives with Mrs. Vanderstein, who, however, I have no doubt, is most generous to her.”
“I suppose you know Miss Turner well? What is she like?”
“Oh, she’s a very ordinary girl, rather pretty some people think, apparently. I don’t admire the robust,muscular type that is fashionable nowadays. Mrs. Vanderstein is very fond of her.”
“That means you don’t like her yourself?”
Sir Gregory hesitated. It was not in him, really, to dislike anyone without very much provocation, but he always had an idea that Barbara was laughing at him, and he cherished his dignity.
“I don’t suppose there’s any harm in the girl,” he grunted at last.
“Has Mrs. Vanderstein the full control of her fortune?” asked Gimblet, after a quick look at him.
“I believe she has, absolutely. But if you think I was after her for her money,” exclaimed Sir Gregory in an angry tone and half rising as he spoke, “you’re dashed well mistaken!”
Gimblet hastened to reassure him on this point and he sat down again, still grumbling.
“It was Vanderstein’s expressed wish that all the money should ultimately be left to his nephew, young Joe Sidney,” he explained, “and I am sure his widow would not disregard his ideas on that point.”
The dining-room faced south-west, and the afternoon sun, creeping round, already shone full on the small square panes of the casement windows, so that the temperature of the room was rapidly rising to an intolerable warmth. Gimblet thought of the train that was to have carried him to the golf links. It would have been unbearably hot in it, he told himself. And the disappearance of a wealthy lady from her house in London was sufficiently unusual to excite his curiosity. Already his vivid imagination was seething with guesses and speculations. His resolution to do no more detective work was utterly forgotten.
“What is Mrs. Vanderstein like to look at?” he asked abruptly.
“She is quite young,” began Sir Gregory, “aboutyour own age, I should say. She is not very tall and has dark hair and a perfect figure, not one of those great maypoles of women one sees about so much now, but beautifully proportioned and just right in every way. She has wonderful brown eyes and a smile for every one. I think she is most beautiful,” concluded her old friend simply.
Gimblet got up.
“I will give instructions about having inquiries made at the hospitals,” he said, “though it does seem hardly likely that both ladies should have been hurt, without some news of it having come before now. And then let us go round to the house. I should like to see the servants and hear what they may have to tell. I hope there may, even now, be some tidings awaiting you there.”
Therewas no news of the missing ladies in Grosvenor Street; but Gimblet interviewed all the servants and heard several facts, which gave him food for thought.
It was from Blake, the butler, that he received most information. It was Blake himself, looking heartily scared, with half his usual pompousness driven out of him by his anxiety, who opened the door to them and, on hearing from Sir Gregory who it was that accompanied him, begged Gimblet to allow him to speak to him for a few moments. They went into the morning-room, a cheerful white-walled apartment, gay with books and flowers, and Blake addressed himself to the detective.
“I’m very glad you’ve come, sir, I am indeed. Sir Gregory will have told you, sir, that Mrs. Vanderstein and Miss Turner, who lives here with her, went out last night to the opera and have not returned. I have been very uneasy about them and at a loss to know what to do, sir, for Mrs. Vanderstein mightn’t like me to inform the police if so be that she’s gone away on purpose. But I never knew her to go away without informing me of the fact or without any luggage and leaving no address, though she does go off very sudden sometimes to spend a week or so in foreign parts, Dieppe being her favourite, I may say.”
“Indeed,” said Gimblet, “was Mrs. Vanderstein in the habit of going abroad at a moment’s notice?”
“She went very sudden, when the fancy took her, sir, but not so sudden as this. I’ve known her say at lunchtime to Miss Turner, ‘My dear, we will go to Boulogne by the 2.20 from Charing Cross,’ which, lunch being at one o’clock, didn’t leave much time for packing, sir.”
“No, it wouldn’t,” agreed Gimblet.
“But in such cases,” continued Blake, “the maid would often be left to follow with the luggage, the ladies taking no more than what they required for the night. But nothing was said to the maid yesterday on the subject, and I can’t think Mrs. Vanderstein would ever go off like that anywhere, sir, in her evening dress and diamonds.”
“Of course, it being a gala night at the opera, she would be wearing jewels,” Gimblet assented.
“Yes, sir, and that’s partly what makes me feel so upset, sir; I’ve never known Mrs. Vanderstein to wear so many jewels on one occasion. It would have been well worth anyone’s while to rob her last night, sir.”
“Really. What was she wearing? Had she valuable jewels?”
“Indeed, yes,” broke in Sir Gregory, “the Vanderstein jewels were famous.”
“Yes, sir,” repeated Blake; “beautiful jewellery indeed. A great responsibility, sir, in a household. But I have them always in a safe in the pantry, where I sleep myself, and if I go out in the daytime it’s never without one of the footmen stays in the room all the time I’m away. At night we have a night watchman always on the premises, sir, and it was him that first alarmed me this morning. He came to my door about five o’clock and knocked me up. ‘What’s the matter?’ I called out, thinking at first what with sleep and one thing and another that the house was on fire.‘She haven’t come in yet,’ he said, and it was a few minutes before I understood what he was driving at. And then I didn’t really feel anxious; though we’d all thought it very strange last night, when Thomas, the second footman, who had gone with the motor to Covent Garden, came back saying that he’d received orders that the car wasn’t to go back to fetch the ladies at all.”
“What? the car was not to go back after the performance?” exclaimed Gimblet.
“No, sir, orders were given to that effect. Still, I thought possibly they were coming home with some friends, and even this morning I said to myself that perhaps they were staying the night at a friend’s house, having for some reason not been able to get a cab home. I had no doubt I should get a telephone message at any moment, which would explain the whole of the circumstances. But the morning passed away without our hearing anything whatever, and by the time Sir Gregory called I was just about getting ready to go out and make inquiries at the police station.”
Gimblet considered in silence for a few moments.
“Have you noticed anything unusual of late,” he asked, “in the habits or demeanour of anyone in the house?”
“No, nothing unusual beyond the fact that Mrs. Vanderstein seemed to be enjoying uncommonly good spirits. I also thought, but it might be it was only my fancy, that you couldn’t say the same of Miss Turner. Yesterday she appeared to be very much down on her luck.”
“Did the idea of an accident occur to you?” asked Gimblet. “Have you inquired at any of the hospitals?” “I telephoned to St. George’s, sir, but with no result. I didn’t know where else to make inquiries.”
“I understand,” said the detective presently, “thatMrs. Vanderstein has relatives and friends living in London. Did you communicate with any of them this morning?”
“No, sir, I did not. I had already telephoned to Sir Gregory last night and heard he was out of town.”
“Is there no one else to whom you could have appealed for advice? I understand that Mrs. Vanderstein has a nephew or nephew by marriage. Does he live in London?”
“No, sir, his regiment is quartered in the north of England. But it is true,” Blake stammered, with some appearance of reluctance, “that Mr. Sidney is off and on in London, according as he is able to obtain leave, and I believe he is up at the present moment.”
“I should have thought you would have telephoned to him to-day. Did it not occur to you to do so?”
Blake hesitated again. He looked from Gimblet to Sir Gregory, then let his eyes roam to the window and round the room as if help might be hoped for from some unlikely source. Finally, they once more encountered those of the detective and, under that compelling gaze, he spoke.
“I did think of it,” he faltered, “I should have done so if it had not been for one thing. Mr. Sidney came to the house yesterday afternoon and, I don’t like to mention it, sir, but I am afraid that he had words with his aunt. I have no idea what it was about, sir, but he only stayed a few minutes and as soon as he was gone Mrs. Vanderstein called me and gave me strict orders not to allow him to enter the house in future. She seemed very much put out about something and I am sure she wouldn’t like me to have any communications with Mr. Sidney now. It isn’t my place to allude to such a thing at all, but in the peculiar circumstances, sirs, I hope you will excuse my saying that Mrs. Vanderstein appeared to me to be very much put out indeed.”
“Quite so,” said Gimblet, “in the peculiar circumstances your proper course is to tell me everything you can, whether it bears on Mrs. Vanderstein’s failure to return home or not. I shall be less likely to go astray after some false scent if I have a thorough knowledge of the private affairs of these ladies, and there is no knowing what trifling detail may not turn out to be useful. Now about these jewels, can you tell me what your mistress wore last night? I should also like to see the place you keep them in.”
Blake conducted them to the pantry. A small safe let into the wall contained a quantity of jewel cases, for the most part empty. The butler gave Gimblet a list of what they had contained.
“I never knew Mrs. Vanderstein to wear so many ornaments at once,” he repeated. “She would mostly wear her pearls and a necklace and perhaps a tiara and a few bracelets and rings, but last night besides these she had the two diamond necklaces sewn on to her dress, and the emerald set, which takes to pieces so as to make one big ornament, was sewn on it too. I don’t suppose there were many ladies at the gala performance,” said Blake, with some pride, “who wore better jewels than she did—unless it was the Queen herself.”
Gimblet requested to be taken over the house, and in the various sitting-rooms he hunted for some evidence of a documentary character to show that Mrs. Vanderstein had not intended to return on the previous evening. He looked on the mantelpieces for an invitation which should have been stuck up there, on the writing tables for something of the same kind. But though cards for different entertainments were not wanting—most of them bearing well-known Jewish names and conveying invitations to musical parties—there was nothing suggesting that the ladies were toattend one on Monday night. He noticed the subtle odour that hung about the rooms, and his scrutinising eyes noted with delight the many beautiful and rare objects of Mr. Vanderstein’s collection.
He would gladly have lingered to examine the pictures that decorated the walls, and the priceless china, which stood on cabinets against the white panelling. But, deferring this pleasure, he continued his methodical search in the expectant company of Sir Gregory and the half-scandalised Blake, who could not decide in his own mind whether he was doing right in allowing a detective, even one so well known as Mr. Gimblet, to turn over his mistress’ correspondence in this unceremonious fashion. When the detective’s search led him to the door of Mrs. Vanderstein’s bedroom, Blake felt himself unable to remain with him any longer, and summoning Amélie from her workroom he turned over to her the duty of keeping an eye on these doubtful proceedings.
The news of the detective’s presence had spread through the house like wildfire, and Amélie for her part was burning to assist the great man. Quite unhampered by such scruples as those which were felt by the worthy butler, she dragged open drawers, threw wide the doors of cupboards, thrust any letters she could find into Gimblet’s hands and invited him to verify for himself the information, or lack of it, which she volubly imparted. She knew there was nothing enlightening in the letters and did not hesitate to say so. She had read them all long ago.
“That poor lady,” she cried, “they have assassinated her to rob her of her marvellous jewels. Ah, but of that I am well convinced,” she declared, nodding her head with gloomy satisfaction. “She wore too many—it was to tempt Providence.”
Gimblet asked her for a list of the jewels and received the same that he had had from Blake.
“And will you describe to me what clothes Mrs. Vanderstein wore,” he asked, “and also those of Miss Turner?”
“Madame had on a dress of whitemousseline de soie, alldiamantée,” Amélie told him, “ce qu’elle était belle avec cette robe-là! Over it she wore a magnificent cloak ofcrêpe de Chineand silver lace. The cloak is mauve in the daylight, but in the evening one would say that it was pink. She had on silver shoes and white stockings and carried an antique fan of great value.”
“And Miss Turner?” Gimblet was writing down her description in his notebook.
“Mademoiselle also was dressed in white, but with a dress much more simple. She had a cloak of flame-coloured brocade that Madame gave her on her birthday. It is lined with white chiffon; nothing can be more chic.”
As she spoke she glanced in surprise at Gimblet, who was standing in the middle of the room, his head thrown back, his nostrils expanding and contracting. As each succeeding drawer had been pulled out he had stood there, sniffing appreciation. The vague scent that clung about the lower part of the house was more penetrating here, and with each disturbance of Mrs. Vanderstein’s belongings grew stronger. There were flowers about the room, tea roses in many bowls of shining glass; but their faint sweetness was drowned beneath the more powerful smell that pervaded the air.
“Your mistress uses a delicious perfume,” said the detective. “Did she always have the same one?”
“It smells good in here, is it not?” said Amélie. “Yes, Madame uses always the same perfume. See, here it is on her table. It sells itself very expensive,but with one drop one may perfume a whole dress. Everything that Madame touches smells of it.”
Gimblet went to the dressing-table and took up the bottle she indicated; he lifted it to his nose and, removing the stopper, took a long, deep sniff. Then recorking the bottle he put it down again with a glance at the label. “Arome de la Corse,” he read, and below, the name of a French perfumery celebrated for the excellence and high prices of its products.
“Madame is an admirer of the great Napoléon,” explained Amélie helpfully.
“Who does not share her admiration?” rejoined the detective. “And now may I see Miss Turner’s room?”
In Barbara’s chamber his stay was short. Here was no arresting perfume, very little suggestion of feminine personality. The room was more like that of a boy. Photographs adorned the walls; a few books lay about. A couple of letters were on the table; one was a bill. The other, which Gimblet perused under the sympathetic eyes of Amélie, ran as follows: