“Dear Miss Turner,“I put the money on Averstone as you said. So sorry he wasn’t placed. He got away badly and had no luck from the start. In haste,“Yours sincerely,“J. Sidney.”
“Dear Miss Turner,
“I put the money on Averstone as you said. So sorry he wasn’t placed. He got away badly and had no luck from the start. In haste,
“Yours sincerely,“J. Sidney.”
“Thanks, I think that is all I want just now,” said Gimblet, and he turned to leave the room. But Amélie was in no mind to let him go like that. She had hoped for some confidences, that she might have a theory to retail downstairs.
“If Monsieur will listen to my idea,” she said, “I will tell him what I believe has happened to Madame.She has been killed for the sake of her jewels. That is what I think. And it would be prudent before making so many inquiries that one should look for her on the floor of her box at the opera. It is probable that she is there,la pauvre, just as they struck her down and left her!”
“Thank you for your suggestion,” replied Gimblet gravely. “I assure you that I will not neglect to visit the box. But I think that the bodies of two ladies, ‘struck down’ in it, would have called forth some expression of astonishment on the part of the caretakers.”
“Monsieur is laughing at me,” began Amélie in injured tones, but Gimblet was already half-way down the stairs.
On the landing outside the drawing-room door Blake was still hovering.
“Ah, there you are,” Gimblet said. “Can I see the second footman now? Thomas, I think you said he was called.”
Thomas, being summoned, proved to be a tall lad possessing an honest and ingratiating smile, adorning a fair and open countenance.
“It was you, I think,” the detective said to him, “who accompanied the motor last night when it left here with the two ladies?”
“Yes, sir,” said Thomas, “I did, sir.”
“And you were told the car would not be required again after the opera?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Can you remember Mrs. Vanderstein’s exact words when she gave you the order not to return?”
“It wasn’t Mrs. Vanderstein who told me, sir,” said Thomas, “it was Miss Turner. ‘Mrs. Vanderstein says she won’t have the car again this evening,’ she said, and, ‘do you understand, Wilcox?’ she says—that’sthe chauffeur, Wilcox is; she come running down to speak to him just as he put the clutch in and we was moving off—‘You’re not to come to fetch us to-night after the opera,’ I heard every word of course as plain as Wilcox did. ‘Very good, miss,’ he says, and she ran back through the swing doors. Mrs. Vanderstein had gone straight in and I didn’t see her again. We was very surprised, Wilcox and me, as it was the first time that Mrs. Vanderstein hadn’t had the motor to bring her home that either of us could remember. But orders is orders,” concluded Thomas with an engaging smile at Mr. Gimblet, who ignored it.
“Thank you, that will do for the present,” he said; and, when Thomas had gone, turned once more to Blake.
“How long has Wilcox been in Mrs. Vanderstein’s service?” he asked.
“He was with Mr. Vanderstein before he married,” replied Blake. “The same as I was myself, sir. Wilcox was a groom in the old days, but they had him taught to drive the motor some years ago. He’s a most respectable, steady man, sir.”
“Thanks, I should like to see him,” said Gimblet.
Wilcox, it appeared, was in the house at the moment, having come round from the garage to hear if there was any news, and Gimblet had him in and cross-examined him. His story was the same as Thomas’, with one small addition.
“Was there anything that struck you as the least unusual?” Gimblet asked him. “Did you notice anything in the appearance of either of the ladies, or overhear anything they said to each other as they got in or out of the car, that was not perfectly natural?”
“No, sir, I did not,” said Wilcox stolidly. He was rather a fat man with a very horsey look. “Not that I paid any heed to what they might be saying so longas it wasn’t to me they said it. As far as I remember, Mrs. Vanderstein got into the car and Miss Turner after her, and ‘To Covent Garden’ one of them says to Thomas, and Miss Turner calls out, ‘Just stop at a post office on the way.’ And so we did.”
“Ah,” said Gimblet, “you stopped at a post office, did you? Was that quite in the usual course? And which post office did you stop at?”
“It was not in the usual course,” admitted Wilcox, “in fact, I don’t remember doing it on the way to the opera before. But Miss Turner had a telegram to send. We stopped in Piccadilly and she gave the form to Thomas to take into the office. After that we drove straight on to the opera house.”
Thomas, recalled, remembered handing in the telegram, certainly. Didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of mentioning it before. Miss Turner gave him a sealed envelope with “Telegram” written outside it, and told him to give it with some money to the young person in the office, and not to bother about waiting for the change, as they were in a hurry. He did as she said, and that was all he could tell about it.
Not much information to be collected from Thomas. Possibly Gimblet’s face showed a trace of disappointment, for the footman added in a regretful tone:
“I’m very sorry, sir, that I didn’t open the envelope so as I could tell you what the telegram was, sir; but the ladies being in a hurry I didn’t scarcely have time. If I’d known it was important, or anyway if I’d had a minute or two to myself, I’d have taken a look at it. I’m very sorry indeed, sir.”
Gimblet dismissed him somewhat peremptorily. He felt that he was taking an unreasoning dislike for the apologising Thomas, so anxious to ingratiate himself.
Inthe morning-room he found Sir Gregory, who had refrained, with an impatient delicacy, from following him further than the drawing-room. He was walking to and fro before the hearth, another big cigar between his lips.
“Well?” he asked, as the detective entered.
Gimblet looked at him with a disapproving sternness.
“If you intend to accompany me further in my investigations, Sir Gregory,” he began, “I must warn you that I can allow no smoking. The sense of smell is as valuable to me in my work as it is to a questing hound, and I cannot have red herrings like your cigars dragged across the trail I might possibly be following.”
“My cigars! Red herrings!” Sir Gregory stuttered. “This, Mr. Gimblet, is the finest Havana!”
“No doubt,” said Gimblet, “as tobacco it is good enough. But if it came straight from Paradise I could not let the strong smell of it interfere with my business. I must keep my nose free from such gross odours, or it will not serve me when I most need it. When we first came into this room it was filled with a perfume all its own. Now that I return I can smell nothing but the taint of your cigar.”
Though considerably incensed at Gimblet’s choice of words—Sir Gregory nearly choked when he heard them—he controlled his feelings of indignation as best he could, for he was bent on seeing the detective at work. “If the flavour of the best tobacco reallyimpedes you,” said he, swallowing his annoyance, “I will defer the pleasure of smoking until you have arrived at some conclusion. I suppose you have not discovered anything of importance so far?”
“I think I have added to my knowledge by this visit,” returned Gimblet, “whether importantly or not it is too soon to say. You did not mention to me, by the way, that Miss Turner had inherited her father’s partiality for horses.”
“Didn’t I? I didn’t know it would interest you. Yes; she seems very devoted to riding.”
“And to racing,” added Gimblet.
“I don’t know about that. She’s never been near a race-course, as far as I know. What makes you think so? Have you been talking to Blake about her?”
“When a young lady’s room is full of pictures of race-horses, and ‘Ruff’s Guide to the Turf’ occupies a prominent position on her bookshelf,” said Gimblet indifferently, “it is not really necessary to ask the servants whether she takes an interest in racing. But come, Sir Gregory, I think we have no more to do here. Shall we go back to my flat and see if anything has been heard at the hospitals?”
With a farewell word to Blake they prepared to leave the house, the butler hastening before them to open the hall door. As he drew back the latch and they stepped forth into the street, they were confronted by a grey-haired man carrying a small black bag, who stood with a hand already upon the bell.
“Whom have we here?” said the detective to himself, and taking Sir Gregory’s arm he drew him back into the house, leaving Blake to parley with the new-comer.
“No, sir, Mrs. Vanderstein’s not at home,” they could hear him saying.
The two men retreated to the morning-room but here in a few minutes Blake followed them.
“If you please, sirs,” he said, “here is Mr. Chark, Mrs. Vanderstein’s solicitor.”
On his heels came the stranger.
“You will excuse me coming to see you, gentlemen,” said he, fixing his eyes, after a momentary hesitation, upon the detective, “but hearing that Mr. Gimblet was in the house”—here he bowed to that gentleman—“I thought I had better seize the opportunity of offering such help as I may be able to furnish in your investigations. Very little, I fear, still possibly I am in possession of a fact which may as yet be unknown to you.”
Mr. Chark, partner in the firm of D’Allby and Chark, was a man of medium height, of medium age, less than medium good looks, and medium intellect. His face and hair were of different shades of grey and, although clean-shaven, he conveyed the impression that he wore side whiskers. His manner and movements were precise and deliberate. He spoke slowly, and as he did so his hands slowly revolved round each other. It seemed as if he were grinding out each word by some secret mill-like process differing from that of ordinary speech.
“I have just heard from the butler,” he continued, after Gimblet and Sir Gregory had acknowledged his greeting in suitable terms, “that my client, Mrs. Vanderstein, is absent under circumstances I must be permitted to designate as unusual. That, in short, she went out last night, ‘on gaiety intent,’ he he! and has not since been heard of. This is very startling news, very strange news indeed. I think I can prove to you, Mr. Gimblet, that Mrs. Vanderstein’s continued absence is unintentional.”
So saying Mr. Chark unlocked his black bag, whichhe had placed on the floor between his feet as if fearing that it might be surreptitiously removed if he did not keep in touch with it, and drew from its dark recesses a letter in a large mauve coloured envelope, which he handed with another bow to Mr. Gimblet.
The detective took it and lifted it to his nose with a look of surprise.
“This,” he cried, “is a letter from Mrs. Vanderstein herself.”
“Your surmise is correct,” said Mr. Chark. “I was unaware that you and my client were acquainted, but I see that you know her handwriting.”
“I never saw it before,” Gimblet answered absently. He was studying it now with a look of deep interest.
“Indeed. Then, may I inquire your reason for thinking that this document bore her inscription?” Mr. Chark’s drawling tones were plainly sceptical.
“Arome de la Corse,” murmured Gimblet, as he handed the letter to Sir Gregory. “You, Sir Gregory, know the lady’s writing, I suppose?”
“Yes,” said Sir Gregory. “It is from her. Will you not read it aloud? Without spectacles, I’m sorry to say, I should find a difficulty in doing so,” and he gave it back to Gimblet.
The detective opened the envelope and unfolding the sheet it contained read aloud what was written on it:
“Grosvenor Street:“Monday Evening.“Dear Sirs,“I shall be much obliged if one of your firm will call on me to-morrow, Tuesday, between four and five o’clock, for the purpose of altering my will. Mr. Sidney has made it impossible for me to contemplate longer the thought of his inheriting any portion of my late husband’s fortune. If Mr. Vanderstein werealive I am sure he would agree with me on this point, but as he is no more and has left the matter to my discretion, it becomes a sacred duty with me utterly to ignore the wishes he expressed, and to alter my will immediately to that effect. Trusting you will make it convenient to call at teatime to-morrow,“I remain,“Yours faithfully,“Ruth Vanderstein.”
“Grosvenor Street:“Monday Evening.
“Dear Sirs,
“I shall be much obliged if one of your firm will call on me to-morrow, Tuesday, between four and five o’clock, for the purpose of altering my will. Mr. Sidney has made it impossible for me to contemplate longer the thought of his inheriting any portion of my late husband’s fortune. If Mr. Vanderstein werealive I am sure he would agree with me on this point, but as he is no more and has left the matter to my discretion, it becomes a sacred duty with me utterly to ignore the wishes he expressed, and to alter my will immediately to that effect. Trusting you will make it convenient to call at teatime to-morrow,
“I remain,“Yours faithfully,“Ruth Vanderstein.”
Gimblet folded the letter carefully, replaced it in the envelope, and handed it back to Mr. Chark.
“We heard something of a quarrel between Mrs. Vanderstein and Mr. Sidney,” he said. “I wonder whether she would have stuck to her threat of cutting him off with a penny. People write this sort of letter when they lose their tempers, but very often they have calmed down by the following day.”
“You do not know Mrs. Vanderstein, Mr. Gimblet,” interrupted Sir Gregory. “She isn’t one of those women who fly into a rage about nothing at all, or try to frighten people with threats. She does not suffer from nerves; her health is as excellent as her temper. I am persuaded she wouldn’t have written that letter unless she had the gravest reasons for doing so.”
“That also is my view,” agreed Mr. Chark. “I can endorse Sir Gregory Aberhyn Jones’s opinion as regards the character of my client, Mr. Gimblet; I can endorse it thoroughly. Mrs. Vanderstein is a level-headed, shrewd woman, far from being driven by every impulse.”
“There is something decidedly womanly about the way she considers it her sacred duty to ignore her husband’s wishes,” commented Gimblet, and then, as he saw the wrathful light flashing in Sir Gregory’s eyes, he added quickly, “I hope that Mrs. Vanderstein herself will be able to make everything clear in a fewhours’ time at the most. Sir Gregory and I, Mr. Chark, were on our way to see if she had been heard of at the hospitals, at the moment of your arrival. We fear she may have met with some misadventure.”
Mr. Chark was disappointed. Beneath his stiff, outer shell there lurked a tiny spark of romantic fire, which had never been entirely extinguished by the stifling routine of the legal casuistries with which D’Allby and Chark principally occupied themselves. Mortgages, settlements of property, the continual framing in a maze of words of those deeds which should mystify any but creatures like himself, to whom their lack of intelligibility meant profitable business; all this systematic dullness had failed to choke that imperceptible glimmer, and at the mere knowledge of Gimblet’s presence in the house it had leapt on a sudden to a hot and burning flame. All his life he had cherished a secret regret that his way had not lain along the precipitous bypaths of criminal law, and now his excited imagination saw murder and violence beckoning from all sides, with fingers redly fascinating. He gave a stiff bow at the detective’s words, and spoke with a feeling of irritation and a sensation of being played with, which he was careful to conceal beneath his usual precise and colourless tones.
“Indeed,” he drawled, his hands revolving as ever in their stroking movement. “I may venture to say that my impression is a different one. Though no detective, I am still, in my capacity of lawyer, able to put two and two together. This letter”—he tapped Mrs. Vanderstein’s note—“and the evidence of the butler that a quarrel between my client and her nephew did occur yesterday afternoon in this house, and immediately preceded the writing of this letter; the knowledge that the lady left her home intending to return in two or three hours, but has actually failed todo so in twenty—these facts, gentlemen, if they convey nothing to you, appear to me to be eminently suggestive.”
Gimblet made no reply; but Sir Gregory, whose face had been getting pinker and pinker till it resembled a full-blown peony, burst out with a truculent snort:
“And what do they suggest to you, sir?”
“They suggest,” Mr. Chark resumed with apparent calm, “that Mr. Joseph Sidney could very probably inform us of his aunt’s whereabouts.”
“I have the pleasure of Mr. Sidney’s acquaintance,” exclaimed Sir Gregory, “and let me inform you, Mr. Chark, if that is your name, that he is a gentleman holding a commission in His Majesty’s army. I hope it is unnecessary to say more. Your insinuations are absurd.”
“You cannot deny in the face of the facts that matters look very black against this young gentleman,” drawled the lawyer.
“Black!” Sir Gregory seemed about to choke. “I consider it black behaviour, sir, to come here and make these libellous and scandalous assertions about an officer and a gentleman. One who, moreover, is, as I gather, entirely unknown to you. Do you know him, sir, or do you not?” demanded Sir Gregory, leaning forward and rapping out an accompaniment to the words with the palm of his hand on a small table which stood near him, so that the flower glasses on it danced and jingled.
“I do not know him, it is true,” admitted Mr. Chark, “but I do know that he would benefit to the extent of several hundred thousands of pounds, if Mrs. Vanderstein should die before she found it possible to revise her will. And I have no doubt that she told him her intention of altering it.”
“Die? What do you say?” Sir Gregory’s voicecame faintly. The rosy colour faded from his cheeks. The utmost horror and astonishment were depicted in his countenance.
Gimblet, at the sight, got up from his chair.
“Mr. Chark,” he said severely, “you are letting your imagination run away with you. You are, indeed, talking like a halfpenny feuilleton. There is no reason to take so melodramatic a view while Mrs. Vanderstein’s absence still admits of some more or less ordinary explanation. I am going now to ascertain if she has not been discovered in the accident ward of one of the hospitals. Are you coming, Sir Gregory?”
With a word of farewell they left the house, cutting short more observations on the part of Mr. Chark, who followed them, deeply chagrined at being treated with such scant ceremony.
Sir Gregory, as he drove with Gimblet in the direction of Whitehall, returned nervously to the implication of foul play.
“What made him think of such a thing, d’ye think?” he asked. “It is impossible that young Sidney would harm her. A nice civil lad; I have always liked him. Why should he? I’ll not believe it.” He spoke disjointedly; the suggestion had shaken him.
Gimblet did his best to reassure him, but when they reached his flat, and found that the hospitals had been drawn blank for news of the two ladies, he felt more concerned than he liked to show. Still, the order that had been given to the chauffeur, not to return to the opera house, seemed to point to some intention other than that of going back to Grosvenor Street, and it was still to be hoped that any moment might bring tidings. There were, however, other considerations not quite so encouraging.
Gimblet, who had left Sir Gregory below while he ran up to his rooms, gave some instructions to Higgs,the man who at times combined the duties of servant with those of an assistant in the more tiresome but necessary details of the detective’s work. Then he went down again to break to the baronet, with reluctant gravity, that there was no news.
“We will go to Covent Garden now,” he said; and they got into another taxi.
Sir Gregory had become very silent. His face was drawn with anxiety. “What can have happened?” he kept muttering to himself.
To divert his thoughts, Gimblet recalled the suspicion he had harboured at first—that Mrs. Vanderstein had flown with some other admirer. But the fear that she was in danger, or that worse had befallen her, had taken hold of the man, and it was he who now pooh-poohed the idea and found arguments to show its improbability.
“She had no need to run away,” he objected in his turn, “she could marry whom she liked. And whoever heard of a woman’s taking a friend on a wedding trip? No, if it had been anything of the sort, Miss Turner would have been left behind, we may be sure of that.”
At Covent Garden they learnt very little. The box had been cleaned out, and bore no sign of having been used the night before. Gimblet went sniffing round it, but could find no trace of lingering Arome de la Corse. The box opener told them that Mrs. Vanderstein and the young lady who generally came with her had occupied it at the gala performance, and had left before the end of the last scene. She hadn’t noticed anything strange or otherwise about either of them, and as far as she knew no one had visited the box during the intervals.
No one, it appeared, had observed their departure from the doors of the theatre. One commissionaire thought he remembered two ladies coming out earlyand driving off in a carriage, but he couldn’t say, he was sure, what they were like. Might have been young and lovely, or again, might have been old and ugly. He had seen a powerful lot of ladies in the course of the evening, and never had enjoyed what you might call a memory for faces. If it had not been for the lack of that useful talent, the commissionaire concluded regretfully, he would, as likely as not, have been sitting in the hall of a West End club at the present moment, with no more to do than to answer the inquiries of one gentleman for another gentleman. Never had been what you might call the victim of good luck.
They left him testing a shilling doubtfully with his teeth, as if unwilling to believe that his fortune could have changed sufficiently for the coin to be other than a bad one.
It was growing late, the doors of the theatres would soon be open. Already shutters were up in front of shop windows, and the crowds that still filled the streets had no excuse for loitering now there was nothing to look at, nowhere left for noses to be flattened. Instead, every one seemed to be hurrying in one direction, the direction of railway station or tram, or whatever would carry them to their homes. The sinking sun had at last left the streets full of shadows and, though the pavements and walls still radiated heat, a cool breeze had arisen and was rushing in from the river. In open spaces, where the tall walls of houses did not prevent a glimpse of the western sky, one could see a cloud or two slowly climbing the heavens.
The two men walked together in silence for a little way, and then Gimblet stopped, holding out his hand.
“I don’t think we can do any more to-night,” he said. “Put away your anxieties for a few hours, Sir Gregory; it does no good to worry. To-morrow, if fresh tidings come, we must see what else can be done.I think perhaps you will be wise to consult the police.”
But at this Sir Gregory raised an outcry.
“Well, we will see about that when to-morrow comes,” said Gimblet. “In the meantime I must say good night.”
Gimblet saw Sir Gregory off in the direction of his club, and then, after a moment’s hesitation, hailed a taxi himself, and drove to the residence of the Postmaster-General. He thought that at this hour he had a good chance of finding that Minister at home, and he was not mistaken.
Sir James was in, said the footman who answered his ring, but at the present moment engaged in dressing, before dining early and going to the theatre. He would take up Mr. Gimblet’s card.
As luck had it, it had been Gimblet’s fortune to render a considerable service to Sir James Mossing, at a date in this gentleman’s career when his foot was still insecurely placed on the first rung of the ladder he subsequently climbed; and, as he rose in power, the politician had never failed to show that he gratefully remembered the obligation. The detective had only to wait ten minutes before the man he had come to see hurried into the room, with apologies for keeping him waiting. Gimblet lost no time in explaining the object of his visit, and had little difficulty in obtaining the written order he wished for. Armed with this, he detained the affable statesman no longer, but withdrew quickly and turned his steps homeward.
“Higgs,” he said, as his servant met him in the hall of the flat. “I want you to go at once to the post office in Piccadilly and get a telegram which was handed in last evening by a footman. It was in a sealed envelope, which also held the money for the message. It may, or may not, be signed by Miss Barbara Turner.It was certainly written by her. Here is an order from the Postmaster-General, which will make things easy for you. I have one or two things to do that ought to have been finished this morning or I should go myself. They will take me about an hour, and I hope you will be back by that time.”
In an hour Higgs was back. He looked pleased with himself, and proffered the detective a sheet of paper.
“That’s right, Higgs, you’ve been quick,” Gimblet commended him.
“They were a little while looking through the forms,” said Higgs, “but luckily there was no fuss about giving it to me after I’d shown your card and Sir James’ order.”
Gimblet was reading the paper. It was a telegraph form addressed to Joseph Sidney, and contained a short message:
“Luck is coming your way at last expect to have good news by Wednesday removing all difficulties.”
“Luck is coming your way at last expect to have good news by Wednesday removing all difficulties.”
There was no signature.
“How do you know this is the right one?” Gimblet asked sharply.
“The young person at the office happened to remember it, sir. It was handed in, enclosed in an envelope, and when she opened it and saw there was no signature she ran out after the footman, intending to ask that the space at the back of the form, where the name and address is requested for reference only, should be filled in. She was only in time to see the motor drive away. Still, it stamped the message on her memory, especially as there was some change to give back.”
“She may easily be mistaken,” grumbled the detective.
“I thought you might not be satisfied, sir,” said Higgs, “so I went on to Grosvenor Street and asked the butler to let me have a specimen of Miss Turner’s writing. I didn’t tell him why I wanted it, of course. I just let him think a letter had been found and that you wanted something to identify it by,” added Higgs, with some pride. He produced a menu as he spoke, written in a large round hand. “Miss Turner always writes the menus in Grosvenor Street,” he explained.
Gimblet took it and compared it with the telegram. It was easy to see that both had been written by the same person.
Thenext morning dawned grey and boisterous. The English climate was giving an example of that infinite variety to which custom never reconciles the stranger within our gates. Julie Querterot, whose life had been passed entirely in London, suffered from an hereditary sensitiveness to the changes of the weather, and was never able to prevent her spirits from drooping as the barometer fell. Rain and gloomy skies made her dismal even when her whole day was spent within doors, and on this Wednesday morning, when she had done with the business of sweeping and cleaning about the house, and took up her station in the little shop behind the hair-pins and pomades, the view from the window must have had more than its usual depressing effects upon her, for if the unlooked for had happened and a customer had chanced to enter he might have seen that her eyelids were swollen as by the shedding of many tears.
Soon after midnight the storm that had been brewing had burst over the empty streets; for hours the lightning had torn the clouds and the tremendous noise of the thunder had made sleep impossible. All night torrents of rain had fallen, and people lying awake, or at best dozing uneasily, had heard its constant patter. Julie’s face, white and weary, looked as if to her at least the night had brought no rest. Sitting in the half-dusk of the shop she took up her work withslow deliberation; then letting it fall back to her knee leant her chin upon her palm with a hopeless gesture. She had had no breakfast, and hunger was combining with fatigue to bring her to the point of exhaustion. By her, on the counter where she had put it down, a halfpenny paper lay spread out; and presently she took it up, and glanced again at the prominent headlines, which in large black type flaunted across the page.
“DISAPPEARANCE OF LADIES FROM THEIRHOME IN WEST END.”
“Mystery of Missing Millionairess.”
After a while Julie rose and put away her needlework. Going up to her little bedroom, she took from the cupboard a small black hat, and regardless of the weather prepared to go out. Not that she made an elaborate toilette. A neat coat of plainest black was added to her blouse and skirt, a rather tawdry brooch pinned where a button had been torn off, and another, for pure ornament, in a place where it was not needed. It has already been said that Julie was fond of trinkets, and she seemed to derive some slight comfort from them even this morning. Two or three bracelets jingled already on either wrist, and when she had added a pair of gloves her attire was complete. A few minutes later the girl opened her umbrella and stepped into the street; then, locking the shop door behind her, she set her face westward. The rain was falling less heavily, and before she had taken many turnings it ceased altogether. Julie shut her umbrella with a sigh of relief. Since leaving the house she had not been able to put aside a minor, but still consuming, anxiety, as to the fate of her hat.
. . . . .
In his rooms in Whitehall, Gimblet was studying a copy of the same newspaper that lay now neglected in the Pimlico shop. One glance at the headlines had told him to whom they referred, and the paragraph that followed was still more explicit.
“We learn that anxiety is felt as to the whereabouts of Mrs. Vanderstein, a lady residing at No. 90, Grosvenor Street, W. Mrs. Vanderstein left her house on the evening of Monday last for the purpose of attending the gala performance at the Royal opera house at Covent Garden. She was accompanied by a young lady, Miss Barbara Turner, who lives at Grosvenor Street in the capacity of friend and companion to Mrs. Vanderstein. The two ladies drove to the opera in their private motor car, and some surprise was felt by the servants on being told at the door of the theatre that their return after the performance was over was not desired. No alarm, however, was experienced until yesterday morning, when the household awoke to find that neither of the ladies had returned.“Inquiry at the hospitals, where it was thought the ladies might have been carried in the event of an accident having occurred, were productive of no result, and as the day passed without news of their whereabouts being obtained it was deemed advisable to secure the services of a detective. It is whispered that one of London’s most celebrated criminal investigators has consented to look into the matter. Rumours reach us that differences between Mrs. Vanderstein and one of her nearest relatives have more to do with her disappearance than at first seems obvious. Mrs. Vanderstein is the widow of the late Mr. Moses Vanderstein, a financier well known in city circles. She is a lady of remarkable personal attractions, and is a great favourite in Jewish society. Miss Turner is thedaughter of the late Mr. William Turner, of Newmarket, and is not much over twenty years of age. It is believed that the police have a clue to the continued absence of the two ladies, and that foul play is apprehended.”
“We learn that anxiety is felt as to the whereabouts of Mrs. Vanderstein, a lady residing at No. 90, Grosvenor Street, W. Mrs. Vanderstein left her house on the evening of Monday last for the purpose of attending the gala performance at the Royal opera house at Covent Garden. She was accompanied by a young lady, Miss Barbara Turner, who lives at Grosvenor Street in the capacity of friend and companion to Mrs. Vanderstein. The two ladies drove to the opera in their private motor car, and some surprise was felt by the servants on being told at the door of the theatre that their return after the performance was over was not desired. No alarm, however, was experienced until yesterday morning, when the household awoke to find that neither of the ladies had returned.
“Inquiry at the hospitals, where it was thought the ladies might have been carried in the event of an accident having occurred, were productive of no result, and as the day passed without news of their whereabouts being obtained it was deemed advisable to secure the services of a detective. It is whispered that one of London’s most celebrated criminal investigators has consented to look into the matter. Rumours reach us that differences between Mrs. Vanderstein and one of her nearest relatives have more to do with her disappearance than at first seems obvious. Mrs. Vanderstein is the widow of the late Mr. Moses Vanderstein, a financier well known in city circles. She is a lady of remarkable personal attractions, and is a great favourite in Jewish society. Miss Turner is thedaughter of the late Mr. William Turner, of Newmarket, and is not much over twenty years of age. It is believed that the police have a clue to the continued absence of the two ladies, and that foul play is apprehended.”
“So,” said Gimblet to himself, “it appears that the worthy Mr. Chark has been talking.”
As he threw aside the paper, and took up another to see if it also had something to say on the same subject, the bell of the flat rang, and a moment later Higgs announced Mr. Joseph Sidney.
With a scarcely perceptible start Gimblet recognised the young man he had observed in the Park on Sunday.
“I hope I don’t disturb you,” Sidney said at once, “but they told me in Grosvenor Street that you had been up there asking questions, and so I suppose Sir Gregory has engaged you to look into this business.”
“That is so,” said Gimblet. “I hope you have come to give me some assistance.”
“Why, I wish to goodness I could,” said Sidney, “but I never heard a word about it till I saw the paper this morning; and then I couldn’t believe it. But I rang up Grosvenor Street pretty quick, and old Blake, my aunt’s butler, swears it’s gospel. It’s a queer thing to happen, isn’t it? What can they have done with themselves? Really, women ought not to be allowed out alone. If my aunt couldn’t take care of herself, I do think she might have made an effort to look after Miss Turner!”
“It’s a queer business indeed,” said Gimblet, “and I’m afraid it looks stranger every minute, and very much more serious than it did at first. For here’s another night gone by and no news of either of the ladies. And we have no clue, no idea where to hunt, nor anything whatever to go on in our search. I wasin hopes you might have some information to offer me, Mr. Sidney; you were, I believe, one of the last people who spoke with Mrs. Vanderstein on Monday.”
Gimblet looked narrowly at the young man, who, for his part, seemed not altogether at his ease. He hesitated, crossed to the window and drummed with his fingers on the pane. In the detective’s ears was echoing a sentence heard above the murmur of the crowd: “I’m pretty desperate, I can tell you. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to get the money.”
A second later Sidney turned; and, coming back to where Gimblet sat impassively waiting, drew up a chair upon which he sat himself down with an air of resolution.
“I did see my aunt on Monday, Mr. Gimblet, and to tell you the truth I don’t like telling you what she said to me then. One doesn’t care about confiding one’s private family affairs to strangers. Still, if you think it can be of any possible use.... Well, the fact is that I had a frightful row with Mrs. Vanderstein on Monday.”
“What about?” asked Gimblet.
“I,” Sidney hesitated again, and then continued with a plunge, “I have been losing a great deal of money lately; I am ashamed to say that I have lost it on race-courses, and that it is a sum far larger than I can afford. I went to my aunt to ask for help. I asked her, in fact, to lend me some money to tide over my difficulties for the present. She was very irate about it. She can’t stand betting; and as soon as I told her she got in a fearful rage and threw me out of the house. That is all the conversation I had with her on Monday. You can understand I don’t much like owning up to it, as it’s not precisely to my credit.” Sidney ended with a rueful laugh.
“Mrs. Vanderstein absolutely refused to help you in any way?”
“Said she’d see me damned first. Well, you know, she mayn’t have put it exactly like that.”
“Hardly, I should think. I’d rather have her own words, if you can remember them, please.”
Sidney searched his memory. “As far as I can recollect, what she actually said was, ‘I will have nothing whatever to do with a gambler like you. Not only will I not give you money now, but you shall never have a penny that is mine to use for that degrading vice. I shall alter my will,’ she said, ‘and that to-morrow. And never let me see you again. I’ll not have you in my house.’ That’s what she said, and I had nothing to do but to go out of the house like a whipped dog. And I went.” Sidney’s voice was bitter as he recalled his humiliation, but when he spoke again he had recovered his normal good temper. “Poor Aunt Ruth,” he said, “there’s a good deal to be said on her side, you know, and just about nothing at all on mine. However, I didn’t come to talk about my own rotten affairs. I wonder where she can have got to? There’s something uncommon fishy about her vanishing this way, don’t you think? Hope to goodness she’s not been knocked on the head for the sake of her diamonds, you know.”
His tone was light, but Gimblet seemed to perceive a note of genuine anxiety underlying it.
“I hope not, indeed,” he agreed gravely.
“I really feel a bit worried about her—her and Miss Turner,” went on the young man. “Hang it all, since I’ve begun confiding in you I think I may as well make a clean breast of the whole show. The fact is I’ve got a beastly guilty conscience sort of feeling, because I was on the verge, a day or two ago, of playing the dickens of a shabby trick on Aunt Ruth. You can see how badly I want this money, as I told you, to pay my debts next week. Well, I as near as makes no differencetried to get it out of my aunt by what I suppose you’d call false pretences—which sounds a nice blackguardly thing to do, don’t it? I don’t suppose anyone’s told you that she had a craze for Royalty in any shape? Well, I didn’t know it myself till lately, but it seems there’s nothing she wouldn’t do to get in contact with great people. A friend of mine suggested that we should get another of my pals to impersonate some royal prince, and that I should introduce him to my aunt. The idea was that he should rather make up to her, and then intercede on my behalf, or get the money out of her in some way. I don’t think I should have done it when it came to the point, because I saw very plainly the next day what an impossible thing it was to do. And if I’d gone as far as to ask my friend to help, I haven’t the slightest doubt he would have told me not to be an ass. But there you are—I did think of it, and it sticks on my conscience now. I shall never get the taste out of my mouth, I believe, and if there’s anything you think I could do to be of any use, now that she’s gone and mislaid herself, you can understand that I’d do it all the more gladly since I feel I owe her a good turn.”
He ceased speaking, crossed one leg over the other, and leant back, looking at Gimblet with an air half ashamed, half ingenuous.
The detective returned his gaze with interest.
“Here,” he was saying to himself, “is a young man either very innocent or beyond the common crafty.”
“Who was it who suggested this questionable proceeding in the first place?” he asked.
“Oh, I really can’t tell you that,” cried Sidney; “it can’t have any importance, and I’m not so dead to all sense of decency as you naturally think!”
“You say you only contemplated it for a short time. Did you tell your friend ultimately that, onsecond thoughts, you didn’t like the idea and had decided to give it up?”
“It wasn’t necessary. Before I could communicate with my friend I got a message from her—him—my friend, I mean——” Sidney grew scarlet as he realised his slip, but continued hastily in the vain hope of covering it, “a message to say that the plan was ruined. I don’t know what had happened, but for some reason, apparently, it was completely off, irrespective of my jibbing.”
“And so now,” said Gimblet, after a pause, “you have no hope, I suppose, of paying your debts.”
A shade crossed Sidney’s face as he replied sadly: “Devil a hope.”
“There has been no alteration in your prospects since Monday then,” pursued the detective; “you have had no better news to-day? Your difficulties have not so far been removed?” He spoke with great deliberation, while one hand, hidden in his pocket, fingered the telegraph form that Barbara Turner had omitted to sign.
Sidney looked up suspiciously, but the little man’s face wore no expression beyond one of calm inquiry.
“No,” said he slowly, “everything is just as it was. I have heard nothing at all and my prospects are as bad as they can be.”
There was something about Sidney that disarmed suspicion, and Gimblet did not fail to be influenced by it. In vain he reflected that the young man was certainly refraining from telling him of Miss Turner’s telegram, and deliberately, since Gimblet had purposely reminded him of it by quoting words it actually contained. As he sat considering what should be his next move, the door opened, and Sir Gregory Aberhyn Jones was announced.
“Good morning, Mr. Gimblet. Have you any newsfor me? No, I see you have not; and there is none in Grosvenor Street, as you doubtless know. Ah, Sidney, how are you? This is a trying time for us all. I am glad to see you, very.” He shook hands warmly with the young man; and then, before Gimblet guessed what he would be at, the harm was done. “I’m more than glad to meet you, my dear boy,” Sir Gregory was declaring, “so as to be able to tell you that I don’t believe a word they may say against you. I’m positive you never had a hand in this black business, any more than I did myself. And all the Charks and beastly rags of newspapers in London shan’t convince me to the contrary.” Sir Gregory, still holding Joe by the hand, shook it up and down with extra and exaggerated heartiness.
Sidney wrenched it away.
“What the deuce are you talking about?” he exclaimed. “Who’s been saying things about me?”
“I tell you I don’t believe a word of it,” said Sir Gregory soothingly. “But you must have seen it in the papers. ‘It is believed,’ they say, ‘that a quarrel took place between Mrs. Vanderstein and a near relative, which has more to do with the unfortunate ladies’ disappearance than seems plain at first.’ You did quarrel with her, didn’t you? And Chark, her lawyer, you know, is taken with the idea; in fact, he’s been round telling me this morning that he’s ascertained for a fact that you’re infernally hard up, which would provide a motive, he says. Infernal nonsense, of course.”
“Infernal lies,” cried Sidney; “what the devil does anyone mean by suggesting such things? Do they imagine I’ve spirited away not only Aunt Ruth but Miss Turner too, and am holding them for ransom, or what? Or perhaps your friend Chark would rather think that I was given to poisoning my relations? Ifit comes to that, I’ll begin on him if he don’t look out. Infernal ass.”
He was furious. Gimblet, watching him with interest, wondered whether his face was so red from anger or from some other emotion.
Sir Gregory, for once, was silenced.
“Where’s this newspaper editor?” demanded Sidney. “I’m going to kick him, now, at once.”
“You’d better wait till he gets up,” said Gimblet; “at this hour he’s probably still in bed.”
“I’ll soon get him out.”
“Better not take any notice of it. More dignified not to,” urged Sir Gregory, repenting too late his well-meant assurances. “Best treat that sort of idiot with contempt,” he went on. “Chark’s the worst. It’s he that’s put them up to it.”
“Mr. Chark,” said Gimblet, “has a longing to be mixed up in a sensational affair. I saw that yesterday. He ought to know better than to indulge in libel, a lawyer too! I daresay he’s frightened to death, now that he has done it, and has time to think of the consequences.”
“I’ll frighten him,” said the young man.
He calmed down, however, as the detective continued to pour oil on the troubled waters, and was at last persuaded to depart peacefully.
Gimblet wrote out a short description of the missing ladies, together with the promise of a reward to whosoever should bring news of either of them, and this he gave into Sidney’s keeping, charging him to have it inserted in the evening papers, of which the early editions were already appearing in the streets.
Sir Gregorylingered. “I suppose there’s nothing to do but wait?” he said, as the door closed behind Sidney.
“Not much, I’m afraid,” replied the detective. “Believe me, I am doing what is possible, and now that Chark has been talking to the press no doubt the police, on their side, will do what they can. Did you hear anything in Grosvenor Street?”
“No,” said Sir Gregory, “no one had been there. They had seen no more of Mr. Chark. But no doubt there will be folks calling to-day. I daresay the street will be blocked by people wanting to know if what they’ve seen in the papers is true. There’s plenty of curiosity about. It was beginning already, from what I could see, when I came away; there were three or four idlers staring at the house. What they thought they saw in it, don’t ask me. Expect the police soon moved them on. Too much of this lazy loafing about; I’d soon compel them to do some honest work, if I had my way.”
“And yet you’re against compelling them to be trained for the defence of the country!” murmured Gimblet. “Well, well! Just ordinary loafers, were they?” he went on.
“That’s all,” said Sir Gregory, after a moment, during which he glared fiercely at Gimblet.
“Except one young woman,” he continued, as an afterthought. “Poor thing, she seemed really distressed;but more because she thought she’d never see her money than on Mrs. Vanderstein’s account.”
“One of the maidservants?” suggested the detective.
“No, no, I think not. She came up just as I was leaving the house. ‘Oh, sir,’ she cried, ‘can you tell me if there’s any truth in what I’ve seen in the papers, about the lady that lives here having disappeared? Surely it’s not true?’ She seemed so much concerned that I explained the state of affairs to her. ‘It is true,’ I said, ‘that the ladies of this house went out on Monday night, and have not yet come back. But I hope we may find out where they are at any moment.’ To my surprise no sooner had I said this than she leant back against the door-post as if she were going to faint or something, devilish ill she looked, poor creature, and then quite suddenly covered her face with her hands and burst into tears. I must own,” Sir Gregory confessed, “that the sight of so much feeling exhibited on Mrs. Vanderstein’s account moved me considerably. A very little more and I should have mingled my tears with those of the poor girl. ‘Don’t cry, my dear child,’ I said, a good deal affected. ‘It is natural that those who care for her should feel anxious and upset, but we must show a brave face and hope for the best.’ Still, in spite of all I could say, she went on crying, and sobbed very piteously, poor thing; till at last, on my asking her how it was that she was so anxious about Mrs. Vanderstein, she managed to regain control of herself, and said in a doleful tone: ‘I’m only a poor girl, sir, and the lady owes us money. If she is lost it means a great deal to me.’ I own I was disappointed, having thought her distress prompted by affection rather than mercenary considerations; but people are all alike in this world; self-interest, Mr. Gimblet, that’s the only motive thatrules men’s actions nowadays. However, I did my best to comfort her, and told her that whatever happened Mrs. Vanderstein’s bills would not go unpaid. I can’t say I was very successful in my efforts to reassure her and she went off in the end looking dreadfully woe-begone. ’Pon my word, I never saw such a miserable, frightened-looking little creature! I didn’t like to let her go without trying to help her in some way, but I hardly knew what to do, for she didn’t look the sort one could offer money to,” concluded Sir Gregory, who had the kindest heart in the world.
“What was she like?” asked Gimblet with a show of interest.
“A shop girl, I should say, but she had a foreign look about her: a lot of dark hair, and big dark eyes to match, and she was neatly dressed, trim and tidy. You know the sort of way these French girls get themselves up, but all in black or some dark colour. Very quiet and respectable-looking girl. The only thing I thought looked a bit flashy about her was that she wore a heap of common jewellery, bracelets and brooches all over, cheap and nasty; and I could see a string of great beads round her neck under her blouse, imitation pearls as big as marbles. I was astonished, I must say, at her going in for that sort of thing, for in other ways she seemed a very nice, quiet girl. Looked terribly ill, too, poor thing.”
“I wonder who she was,” said Gimblet. “Do you say she wore her necklace under her blouse?”
“Yes, I could see it through the muslin or whatever it was she had on. Some transparent stuff.”
“That was rather curious. Girls of that class, who are fond of decking themselves out with such cheap ornaments, don’t generally hide their finery. It’s generally quite on the surface, I think.”
“I should think it was unusual,” agreed Sir Gregory.“She must have dressed in a hurry, and done it by mistake; don’t you think so?”
Gimblet did not answer. He had been wandering about the room, in an aimless fashion, and now he paused beside a table and offered Sir Gregory the contents of a glass jar that stood upon it.
“Have some barley sugar?” he suggested. And, as Sir Gregory indignantly refused: “One must have a pet vice, and after all, this is my only one,” said he, putting a large piece into his mouth. But Sir Gregory only shook his head mournfully and refused to smile.
“I suppose,” he said after a moment, with a shamefaced look, “that there can’t be anything in Chark’s idea, can there?” His tone was that of one who pleads to have a disturbing and discreditable doubt utterly removed. Gimblet remembered the warmth of the baronet’s protestations to Sidney, and suppressed a smile.
“I think we may hope for a solution less shocking than Mr. Chark’s,” he said hopefully. “As for whether his suspicions can have anything in them or not, I can only say that they are nothing much more than the wildest of surmises. They amount to this. Mr. Sidney has lost money in a way disapproved of by Mrs. Vanderstein, and, on appealing to her for assistance, was met not only by reproaches but by threats that he would be cut off from his inheritance. On the other hand, Mrs. Vanderstein is not very much older than her nephew, so that his expectations of enjoying that inheritance could never be other than extremely remote, since the lady enjoys the best of health. Mr. Chark does not hesitate to hint that Sidney may have taken his aunt’s life, in order that he may at once inherit the money of which he is certainly in urgent need. And if he could contemplate such a deed at all there may be said to be this further inducement, thatin the event of Mrs. Vanderstein remaining alive she would most likely marry again; when, if she had children, she would probably—since she has full power over it—leave most if not all her fortune to them, whatever her late husband’s hopes may have been regarding the disposal of it.
“Chark takes these circumstances and finds in them a motive; he then takes Mrs. Vanderstein’s disappearance and proceeds to infer from that, that young Sidney has made away with her. His motive may exist, though it is a question whether such a motive is strong enough to induce so terrible a crime in a young man of Sidney’s class and upbringing, who is in normal health, and we will presume, for the sake of argument, sane. But Chark has not, as far as I know, a shadow of evidence on which to assert that the lady has been injured in any way; and I think any such conjecture is ridiculous without more to support it; while to suggest it publicly, as he has done, is quite scandalous. It is still perfectly possible that Mrs. Vanderstein or Miss Turner received some urgent message while at the opera, which caused them to leave before the end of the performance. It may have been an appeal for help from some friend in trouble, or something involving a certain secrecy of procedure. There are thousands of possible situations that might arise, to the conduct of which privacy would be essential. Wait, Sir Gregory, at least to see if we get an answer to our advertisements, before allowing your imagination to follow headlong in the wake of Mr. Chark’s speculations.”
Latein the afternoon, Gimblet, returning to the flat in Whitehall, found a visitor awaiting him there.
Higgs, hearing his footstep in the hall, hurried out to meet him and inform him of the fact.
“A young lady, sir. She gave me this card, and wants to see you on business. She’s been here about ten minutes, and I’ve taken tea in to her, not knowing how long you might be, sir.”
Gimblet took the card and read: “Miss Seraphina Finner, Inanity Theatre.” “Where is she?” he asked.
“In the waiting-room,” replied Higgs; and Gimblet went at once into the small sitting-room he set apart to be used by people unknown to him.
As he opened the door Gimblet checked himself for a moment on the threshold with the sensation of entering some one else’s room by mistake. His visitor had pushed most of the furniture back against the wall, and was, when he first caught sight of her, in the act of pirouetting round in the middle of the floor, with her skirts lifted high and one foot raised to the level of the mantelpiece. Her back was towards him, but at the sound of the opening door she twisted round with a swinging movement, and confronted him with a laugh.
“They told me you were out,” said Miss Finner gaily, and without any trace of embarrassment, “so I just started doing a bit of practising to fill up the timewhile the tea is standing. Waste not, want not, that’s my motto,” she added.
“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting,” the detective began; “won’t you sit down now?” And he pulled out a chair she had piled with some others in a corner, and offered it to her.
“I suppose I may as well,” admitted the young woman; “though it does seem a pity not to do a bit of exercising now I’ve cleared the room. You see, I dance in ‘The Jodeling Girl,’ and one has to keep one’s limbs supple, or, if you aren’t up to the mark one night, they put on somebody else. Fact is,” she added confidentially, “that’s why they took me on. Dixie Topping, who used to be one of the four of us that do the dance I’m in, let herself get stiff, and one night when it came to kicking William Tell’s apple off the boy’s head, she missed it clean, and, as it’s got to be done in time with the music, that put the conductor out, so when she had another try, and missed it again, he got so mad that they sacked her and put me on. Ill wind that blows no one any good,” said Miss Seraphina philosophically.
Her belongings were strewn about the room: a great bouquet of carnations lay on a chair, gloves and scarf were thrown on the bookshelf, while an enormous hat covered with flowers and ribbons was poised on a cabinet. She had drawn a curtain across the window, no doubt out of consideration for her complexion, as Gimblet happened to have chosen for this room hangings of a becoming rose colour; and the air was filled with the reek of inexpensive scent. The detective compared it mentally, and extremely unfavourably, with the Arome de la Corse. Altogether he would not have recognised his own room, to such an extent had ten minutes of Miss Seraphina Finner’s occupation removed all former traces of his own individuality. Heactually started as he suddenly noticed, perched on the mantelpiece, a pair of small white animals: a smooth-haired cat with eyes of a greenish yellow, and a dog no bigger, but with a long, silky coat. It appeared to be one of the tribe known to the unappreciative as Fidos, and to the admiring owners as Toy Poms. It stood at one end of the shelf, fidgeting and whining, but not daring to jump. The cat had retired to the extreme opposite corner, where it sat with its paws very close together and its tail curled tightly round them, surveying the restless behaviour of the dog with a look of sleepy disdain. The feelings with which Gimblet saw these two, but more especially the dog, sharing this point of vantage with his best blue and white china may be imagined. He was speechless; and perhaps it was just as well.
“I hope you don’t mind Nigger and Pompom,” said Miss Finner, as she accepted a cup of tea, “lots of lumps, please, and heaps of cream too. Seraphina’s pets are her inseparable companions! Don’t they look sweet up there? I put them there to be out of the way while I was on my light fantastic. It bothers me never to know when my foot will come down on one of them, instead of the floor. Pompom seems to enjoy being trampled on by the way he’s always in the middle of the room.” She seized the woolly dog by the scruff of the neck and deposited it in her lap. “Was you frightened of falling on your heady peady, darling,” she murmured, fondling it ecstatically. “No, no, you mustn’t lick your auntie’s face; might give you a pain in your little inside. Isn’t she a sweet little affectionate thing?” she asked, raising her eyes for a moment to Gimblet’s. “Yes,” she went on, as the little dog danced on her knee in a frantic effort to make clear his need to share the cake she had taken, “Pompom shall have a cake too. His auntie wouldn’t let her darlinggo hungry, no, she wouldn’t! And Nigger shall have some cream for a nice treat.”
She poured some cream into a saucer and placed it on the floor at her feet. The cat, which had watched the attentions showered on Pompom with the cold eye of indifference, now abandoned its pose of superiority, and jumping lightly to the ground approached the saucer on noiseless, unhurried tiptoes. It began to lap the cream with a genteel, condescending air, and with due regard for its whiskers, shaking its head sharply if a drop adhered to one of their long, stiff hairs.
Miss Finner contemplated the sight with admiring delight.
“Doesn’t it do your heart good to see how he likes it?” she asked, “and aren’t his manners lovely? Oh, Pompom, what an example he is to you, darling!” she exclaimed, as Pompom snatched at a piece of cake and swallowed it with one gulp. “Try and behave like your brother does, my angel. He’s always the same,” she went on, “I don’t care where you put him, Nigger is always the perfect gentleman. Why! I took them across to Paris at Easter. Didn’t know what a trouble I should have smuggling Pompom home again, or I should have left her behind in London. I tied feathers all over her, though, and put her in a bonnet box, so they took her for a hat, the darling. As if any hat was half as beautiful! But, as I was saying, we had a beast of a crossing. Oh my! that channel! And poor Pompom was one of the first to feel it. And much as I love her, I must say, she just gave way, and never made the tiniest little effort to hide her feelings. But Nigger! If you’ll believe me, that cat was so ashamed of the way he felt he was going to behave that the tears streamed down his face, and he just mewed and mewed till I could have cried; only being so sick myself I really didn’t care, as a matter of fact.But though he felt so bad he didn’t forget his manners and he wouldn’t be sick, he simply wouldn’t, till I gave him a basin. Then certainly. Oh Lord!” Miss Finner stopped. The recollection was too much even for her; she was also slightly out of breath.
Gimblet listened to her with amusement. Though he wondered vaguely what her business with him could be, he let her run on, supposing that she would disclose it in time. After a moment she resumed in serious tones:
“It’s a good thing, don’t you think, to have a fad of some kind? It’s so hard to get noticed, isn’t it? Expect you found that when you started looking for thieves? People won’t see that one’s any different to anyone else, do what you like. But manage to have something really out of the common about you, and you get your chance. That’s what I think. They forget me all right, but they remember my white cat and dog, and after a little they begin to notice me too. I had a pretty hard time at first, I tell you,” Miss Finner sighed. “But I’m getting on well now, thanks,” she continued, with a return of her former vivacity. “Of course I haven’t got a speaking part yet, but I’m doing a dance, and that’s something at the Inanity. Some one sent me a diamond brooch last week,” she added with pride, pointing to an ugly little diamond star. “What do you think of it? You’re a judge of stones, I should think, being always in the society of burglars, as one may say.”
Gimblet examined and admired. “I’m afraid, though, I’m not really a judge,” he said.
“That’s your modesty. But, as you see, I’m prosperous. And it isn’t after the reward that I’ve come. Not that I’ll deny that the money would always be useful. Still, it’s the ad. I’m thinking about. Will you put my name in the paper now? ‘MissSeraphina Finner of the Inanity brings news of the missing ladies.’ That’s what I’d like to see, right across a poster.”
A flicker of interest showed itself for an instant on Gimblet’s face. “So that’s it,” he said to himself.
Aloud he answered: “I don’t know whether I can promise you that just yet. It rather depends, you know. But if I am called upon to send any communication on the subject to the press, you may be sure that, if possible, your name shall be inserted.”
Seraphina pouted. “I call that stingy,” she complained. “He might put us on a poster, Pompom, mightn’t he? He’s an unkind, cruel man, he is.”
“What do you know of the missing ladies?” asked Gimblet, disregarding these observations.
Miss Finner assumed an air of importance. “I didn’t know anything about it till lunchtime,” she said. “Not being what you’d call an early riser, it’s not often I take a squint at the newspapers unless it’s in the afternoon. But to-day a friend came to see me and we had lunch together. By and by she begins talking about one thing and another, and presently she says: ‘Have you read about these ladies that have disappeared?’ So I said no, what was it, and she said: ‘What! haven’t you seen the paper? There’s an exciting bit about them in this morning’sCrier.’ When she’d told me all she could remember, I began to get interested. I had a feeling, you know, as if this was in my part. So I sent out for a paper, and they brought in one of the evening editions which had the reward and description of the ladies in it, as well as everything, or so my friend said, that theCrierhad. I read it all out loud, and when I came to the part about wearing a white dress with mauve cloak heavily embroidered and a large amount of valuable jewellery, I said to myself: ‘This, Seraphina, my dear, is whereyou walk on.’ By the time I’d finished the paragraph I was certain sure. It was just a fluke,” said Miss Finner reflectively, “that I ever saw that description or heard anything about it at all, for, as I say, I don’t look at the papers more than about once in a fortnight, unless it’s the notices of a new show.”
Gimblet’s murmured comment might have passed for astonishment, agreement, or merely encouragement to proceed. He thought it best to let her tell her story in her own way.
“It’s a funny thing,” she went on after a moment’s silence; “it seems somehow as if it was meant to be, doesn’t it? Well, the reason why I felt so excited, when I read the description, was because I had seen the ladies later than anyone else. I saw them on Monday night, after they left the opera.”
“And where did you see them?” asked Gimblet, bending over the cat, which, having finished the cream, was rubbing itself in a friendly fashion against his leg, where it left a covering of white hairs on his dark trousers. “Poor pussy,” he said, stroking it.
“I was driving home from the theatre in a taxi,” said Seraphina. “I live up in Carolina Road, N.W. I don’t suppose you know it; up beyond Regent’s Park, to the right, as you may say, of Maida Vale. It was a very hot, sultry night, you remember, and I’d got the cab open so as to get a little air. I was tired for some reason—it’s not often you can tire me—and I put my head back, and my feet on one of the back seats, and as near as possible went off into a snooze. That’s why I can’t tell you exactly which street it was in, and I’m afraid that makes it very awkward.” Miss Finner’s voice was full of regret.
“Suddenly we swung round a corner with such a bump that it roused me, and I sat up and took notice. We were driving through a nice wide street, with treeson each side, and good-sized houses set back in little gardens, all separate from each other. Each garden had two gates, and just room for a carriage to drive in and out. There wasn’t a light to be seen in one of them, and I thought how early the people in those parts went to bye-bye. And then I caught sight of an open doorway, with the light shining from it out into the small yard or garden in front, and a street lamp standing exactly in front of it; so that between the two the place was well lit up. There was a carriage just driving out through the gate, and there were no shrubs or bushes in the garden, nothing but a little yard it was, I think, so I could see the two ladies standing in front of the door as plain as the nose on your face.
“I turned round when we’d passed and stared back at them, for the street wasn’t crowded with people in gorgeous opera cloaks and blazing with diamonds, like one of these two was. I suppose it was Mrs. Vanderstein. She was standing a little to one side, as if she’d taken a step or two after the carriage, and was looking after it still. She had on a white dress, all sparkling, and a mauve or pink cloak thrown open and back on her shoulders, so I could see the jewels flashing and shining away all over her as right as rain, just like it says in the papers. There was a tiara on the top of her head as big as, as—” Seraphina gazed round searchingly for a simile—“as big as that chandelier. Oh, it can’t have been anyone else! And besides, there was the other young lady; I didn’t look at her so much, but I can swear she had a red cloak on. There now! As soon as I read about them I remembered what I’d seen on Monday night, and I said to my friend: ‘My dear, I’m going out to keep an appointment with my photographer. Ta-ta.’ I wasn’t going to let on to her, of course. She’s a bit of a cat, as a matter of fact.”