Chapter XVEileen Cressage watched the old man eagerly stretch out his hand and take the armlet from Westenhanger’s fingers.“What do you mean, Conway?” she exclaimed. “TherealTalisman? Why, you saw the real Talisman put into that safe over yonder not three days ago by Mr. Dangerfield himself. How do you come to have it here?”For once, Rollo Dangerfield was so moved as to forget his courtesy.“Is it the real thing?” he asked Westenhanger, with anxiety obvious in his tone.The engineer reassured him.“I don’t profess to be an expert; but I can tell the difference between paste and the genuine article. These diamonds are the real thing.”Rollo carried the armlet across to the window and examined it minutely. Eileen followed him, still mystified by the turn of events, though the explanation was beginning to shape itself in her mind.“The end of the Dangerfield Secret, isn’t it?” asked Westenhanger, joining them. “I was pretty sure of my ground when I told you that the Secret had ceased to be of any importance now.”Rollo Dangerfield’s lapse into unintentional brusqueness had been only a momentary one, under the stress of strong emotion. Already he had recovered his balance.“You can perhaps understand something of what this means to me, Mr. Westenhanger, even if you don’t guess the whole story. It’s sometimes difficult to find words for what one has to say. I wish to thank you—and you also, Miss Cressage—for this. You can have no idea of the load which you have taken off my shoulders. You have cleared away the shams, and I can look people in the face again, unashamed. It’s useless to put these things into words. I can’t do it as I would like to do. But at least I can tell you, Miss Cressage, something of the Dangerfield story which will give you an idea of what this has meant to us.”He made a gesture inviting them to sit down again. Eileen seated herself, but Westenhanger paused for a moment.“I think we’d better shut this thing up before we go any further.”He indicated the still open drawer in the panelling.“Just wait a moment until I empty it completely.”He put his hand into the recess and withdrew several other pieces of jewellery which he added to the shining heap on the table. Then he closed the drawer, dropped the arras, and came back to the Chess-board.“You remember you told us that after the Corinthian’s death they found the pieces on this board in the position shown on the document? It’s pretty obvious what was in his mind. He knew that he might be killed in a few minutes. Probably he mistrusted his servants and was afraid to leave family jewellery at their mercy. So he opened the secret recess, tumbled the jewels into it—the Talisman was in it already—and then he closed his combination lock . . . thus.”Westenhanger walked on to the Chessboard and lifted the white knight from Queen’s Seventh.“One reverses the four moves, so, bringing the knight back to its starting-point on the knight’s square.”He suited the action to the word, carrying out the four operations in the reverse order.“Now the drawer is locked,” he explained. “That’s what the Corinthian did, just before he went out to his duel. And that’s why they found the Chess-board in this state. Probably he hadn’t time enough to put the pieces away in the cupboard, so he left them standing as they were. They gave nothing away.”He picked up the document, the wrinkled leather disc, and his own “sucker”; and handed them across the table.“That finishes our part, Mr. Dangerfield. Now, perhaps, you’ll tell us what you wish us to hear.”Rollo Dangerfield’s face had regained its accustomed serenity. The tinge of suspicion had vanished completely and was replaced by a trustful expression, as he looked at his two guests. He turned first to Eileen.“I am sorry you have been kept waiting for an answer to your question, Miss Cressage. It was my fault. You will forgive an old man’s impatience when I tell you that you and Mr. Westenhanger have cleared up something which has hung over fifty years of my life. And there are other reasons, too, as you will hear.”Eileen had no need to say anything. Her face told Rollo that she had not been offended.“You startled me not long ago, Mr. Westenhanger,” their host went on, “by asking me if the Dangerfield Secret was not just three generations old. If that was a mere guess it was a very good one. Actually, what has been called the Dangerfield Secret originated in my father’s day; and since it has been passed on to Eric it has lasted through three generations. And now it passes away, thanks to you young people.”He paused for a moment before speaking again.“You must bear in mind that some of this is conjecture, and that I am trying to fit it together so as to take in the facts which have come to light this afternoon. Before I came into this room I had not the key to the problem; and I have hardly had time to fit the new links into the chain neatly. But it seems evident to me that even in my grandfather’s day, there was a Talisman and a replica; and that the replica was kept under the tinted bell to conceal the fact that the stones were false. From your inferences, Mr. Westenhanger, it seems clear that he devised this particular hiding-place for the real Talisman.“Now take the state of affairs on the morning of my grandfather’s death. He knew the risk he ran—his opponent was a noted duellist; and he had no one at hand whom he could trust. Probably, as you suggested, he collected the more valuable family jewels and placed them with the real Talisman for safety’s sake. We did him an injustice when we assumed that he had already sold them to pay his gambling debts.“I don’t care to speculate on his mental condition at that moment. Quite probably, after a night’s carousing he was not clear-headed. He jotted down the memory-help he used himself as a clue to the hiding place, and very probably he failed to realise that it was no real help to anyone but himself. Then he went out—and that was the end.”With quite unconscious dramatic effect the old man paused in his narrative and sat for some instants in silence. When he spoke again it was in a lighter tone.“And now I come to a fresh character. I never knew him, but I have been trying to reconstruct him in my mind from many things which were told to me about him. He was the solicitor for the Dangerfield estate at the time my Corinthian grandfather died.“Imagine his position, Miss Cressage. He takes over the administration of the estate—you remember that my father was a mere child then—and he finds it terribly encumbered with the debts which had accumulated in my grandfather’s day, a load of liabilities which even a generation failed to clear away. Credit was essential if the ship was to be kept afloat at all. And the biggest asset of the estate was the Dangerfield Talisman. So long as that remained, no one could suppose that things were seriously involved, and with care, he could just pilot us through. Without that palladium, the creditors would have come down at once and the game would have been up. Friocksheim would have come to the hammer. Everything would have gone down in the crash. And in the midst of all his anxiety he learned that the Talisman was a sham of gilded lead and spurious stones!”Rollo broke off his narrative, leaving time for them to appreciate the position.“I have seen the document in his own handwriting,” he continued, “which gives an account of the affair. He had taken the Talisman from under the bell and asked a jeweller what it would cost to make a replica. He thought the thing should be put in safety; and it seems that he, too, had hit on the idea of substituting a counterfeit for the real thing, the notion of a stalking-horse which I explained to you once before, Mr. Westenhanger. And you can guess his consternation when he learned from the jeweller that the thing was worth no more than a few pounds. The whole mainstay of his scheme for keeping the Dangerfield credit secure, now turned out to be worthless. There was no other easily-vended article—all the valuable jewellery had vanished, sold to pay the Corinthian’s debts, as we have wrongly believed until to-day.“He had to come to a decision. Rightly or wrongly, he chose his course. He started the Dangerfield Secret as we have known it. He quieted any suspicions of the jeweller by ordering ‘a second replica.’ And he embarked on a career of concealment. It was safe enough. The Corinthian had had the armlet valued out of curiosity. Everyone knew it was worth £50,000. No one had any reason to suppose that it had gone astray. And with that sham asset behind him to strengthen confidence, he pulled the estate out of its immediate difficulties. I have no right to criticise him. He worked according to his lights, with the sole purpose of handing over Friocksheim to my father when he came of age.”It was plain enough from the old man’s tone that he himself might have chosen the same course had the alternatives been offered.“We have paid dearly enough for his decision,” Rollo went on. “He involved us all in his machinations, even those of us who were born long after he died. When my father came of age, the old solicitor laid the whole case before him. The estate was still in a shaky state, and an involuntary liquidation would have left us insolvent. More, in a forced sale we could not have hoped to pay our creditors in full. We’d have been defaulters and real losses would have been incurred by innocent people. On the other side, by keeping up the estate’s credit, we gained time enough to pay in full, eventually—to be honest, in fact—provided that the Talisman deception could be kept in being. It was merely a choice, you see, between two forms of dishonesty; but the one alternative would hurt other people, whilst the second course laid a burden on ourselves alone. My father chose the second path. I cannot say that in his position, I would have done otherwise myself.”His face took on a bitter cast.“That was the beginning of the Dangerfield Secret—the trickery of the spurious Talisman. Can you wonder that I described it to you, once, as a memorial of lying and deceit? How do you suppose I felt, being driven to lie to my own guests in my own house every time I was asked to show it to anyone? The famous Dangerfield Talisman!”He moved in his chair, almost as though he wished to free himself from some physical contamination.“And all the time, we were in the toils which that old man had wrapped around us a century ago. How could we shake free from that web of deception? We still need the asset—at least we needed it yesterday. And to let the thing leak out would be to put a black mark on my father’s name. You know what people would say about the part we have played. There was no getting clear. We had to go on as we had begun.”He glanced at his two guests as though he feared that he had wearied them by a long story; but their expressions encouraged him to continue to the end.“People often wonder why we do not insure a thing of such immense value. How could we insure it? It would need to be valued—and the game would be up! So we have been forced into that second series of deceptions—the return of the Talisman after it has been stolen. We have to keep a series of replicas; and put out a fresh one every time there is a theft. We have to play that silly game of pretending we believe in an old legend—another lie—because we dare not call in the police if the thing vanishes, and because we dare not admit that we have lost it.”Rollo’s voice became gloomier still.“And in front of us, always, there was the risk of an inevitable exposure. We had to avoid the Government valuers in the matter of Death Duties. We could do that only by transferring the Talisman from hand to hand. My father made it over to me when I was twenty-one; I gave it to Eric when he came of age. It has never been subject to Death Duties yet. But there is always the chance of accident. If Eric died before me the whole thing would have been exposed when they came to value his estate. That possible Nemesis has been imminent for the holders of the Talisman.”He seemed to brood for a time on his retrospect. When he spoke again, both his voice and manner had altered. It was as if at last he had emerged from the shadows.“And now, after a century of deceit, we’ve come out into the light again, thanks to you both! And to think that the Talisman was here all the time, within the walls of Friocksheim. Of course we had puzzled over the Corinthian’s cypher; but we’d never taken it seriously, because we believed all along that he had sold the armlet and the jewellery. It never occurred to any of us that the thing was within our grasp, under our very roof. Even his own man of affairs believed that, and it never crossed our minds that anything else could have happened.”“I think it was very natural,” said Eileen.Westenhanger made no comment. He had been touched, like the girl, by the story of the Dangerfield Secret as it was now revealed. By his candid narrative old Rollo had enlisted their sympathy without having directly besought it from them; and they could understand the feelings which his position had stirred in him through fifty long years.“No wonder he often looked as if he’d grown sick of life,” was the younger man’s unspoken comment.“Well, it’s all right now, isn’t it?” he said aloud. “The Talisman’s come back for the last time.”Eileen broke in, before the old man could reply.“You’ve no idea how glad I am that we are able to help, Mr. Dangerfield. Less than a week ago, I felt that Friocksheim was a place I’d never want to visit again; it had such miserable associations in my mind, in more ways than one. But now, somehow, it’s all different. We can all be happy here; there’s nothing hanging over any of us any more. You understand, don’t you?”Rollo Dangerfield looked at her with something like affection showing in his eyes.“Who could understand better than I do? It’s like waking out of a nightmare to find the sun shining in through the window. And we owe our awakening to you and Mr. Westenhanger. You don’t imagine I under-rate that, surely? I dare say you think you understand what this means for me; perhaps you have some faint conception. But unless you had actually gone through it yourselves you couldn’t come near the real thing. It’s lasted fifty years, and that’s only a few years less than your two lives put together. And now—daylight! I shall be glad to have a year or two of decent life at the end of it all.”Westenhanger saw something in the old man’s eyes which made him interpose with a fresh subject.“And what about the Talisman now, Mr. Dangerfield? Will you use the Corinthian’s safe deposit still? It’s lain there safely enough all these years. That’s why I locked the door—so that no one should blunder in and notice the hiding-place when it was open. I thought you might want it again.”“The Talisman?” repeated Rollo. “Do you know, I could almost find it in my heart to sell the Talisman—give Wraxall his desire, after all. If I had a decent excuse for doing it, I think I would. I’ve hated it for years. But I suppose we must keep it, now that it’s come into our hands again. I want no more possible regrets, and one might regret having let it go, after these centuries. We don’t need to sell it; there are other things to sell.”He bent over the table and examined the jewellery which had come from the Corinthian’s hiding-place. After a careful scrutiny he picked up the diamond pendant and turned to Eileen.“You talked about your memories of Friocksheim, Miss Cressage, and, believe me, I was touched by what you said. Now I should like you to have something which will always remind you of the old place in that aspect.”He offered her the glittering gems, and, when she made a gesture of refusal, he continued as though he had not noticed it.“I know you don’t wear jewellery, so in its present form it would hardly serve. But this central stone would set well in a ring. Get it taken out; and do as you please with the rest—sell them, if you choose. There’s no sentiment in the matter; for I intend to sell the rest of the things here and use the money to clear our feet at last. So you are free to follow that good example if you please.”He saw her expression and tried a different argument.“If you refuse, I shall feel that you think I have been trying to pay you for your help—and that you flung the payment back. Nobody could find a real payment for what you and Mr. Westenhanger have done. This isn’t payment, Miss Cressage. It’s a thank-offering, if you care to put it in that way. I still hope you won’t refuse.”Eileen saw the pain in the old man’s eyes.“I ought to refuse,” she said, hesitatingly.Then, after another look at Rollo’s face, she added:“But I can understand how you feel. I’ll take your gift, though it’s far too valuable. And I’ll do with it just as you wish. We needn’t pretend to misunderstand each other, need we? I’ll sell some of the stones and clear my own feet, just as you’re going to clear yours. And I’ll wear the ring to remind me of Friocksheim, though I won’t need it for that.”She took the pendant and examined it, thoughtfully.“It’s a lovely thing . . . I feel rather tongue-tied, Mr. Dangerfield,” she confessed with a smile.“I’m glad to hear that,” he smiled in response. “You’ll understand better now, how I felt myself not many minutes ago.”And with that he brushed her thanks aside.“There’s one thing you can do, Miss Cressage. Come back often to Friocksheim. I shall look forward to your coming. You’re one of us, now, and not merely a visitor; for you know more about our affairs than some of our family ever knew. You, too, Westenhanger. We’re going to need young people about the place, since we shall be losing Helga. . . .”Suddenly his face changed. A smile came over it, the first really care-free smile that had crossed it in fifty years. The touch of wistfulness had vanished—it was the natural Rollo coming out at last after the long suppression.“Helga’s birthday falls next week. She will be twenty-five—the age when our girls are told the Dangerfield Secret. What a disappointment for her when she learns that now there is no Secret at all!”The End
Eileen Cressage watched the old man eagerly stretch out his hand and take the armlet from Westenhanger’s fingers.
“What do you mean, Conway?” she exclaimed. “TherealTalisman? Why, you saw the real Talisman put into that safe over yonder not three days ago by Mr. Dangerfield himself. How do you come to have it here?”
For once, Rollo Dangerfield was so moved as to forget his courtesy.
“Is it the real thing?” he asked Westenhanger, with anxiety obvious in his tone.
The engineer reassured him.
“I don’t profess to be an expert; but I can tell the difference between paste and the genuine article. These diamonds are the real thing.”
Rollo carried the armlet across to the window and examined it minutely. Eileen followed him, still mystified by the turn of events, though the explanation was beginning to shape itself in her mind.
“The end of the Dangerfield Secret, isn’t it?” asked Westenhanger, joining them. “I was pretty sure of my ground when I told you that the Secret had ceased to be of any importance now.”
Rollo Dangerfield’s lapse into unintentional brusqueness had been only a momentary one, under the stress of strong emotion. Already he had recovered his balance.
“You can perhaps understand something of what this means to me, Mr. Westenhanger, even if you don’t guess the whole story. It’s sometimes difficult to find words for what one has to say. I wish to thank you—and you also, Miss Cressage—for this. You can have no idea of the load which you have taken off my shoulders. You have cleared away the shams, and I can look people in the face again, unashamed. It’s useless to put these things into words. I can’t do it as I would like to do. But at least I can tell you, Miss Cressage, something of the Dangerfield story which will give you an idea of what this has meant to us.”
He made a gesture inviting them to sit down again. Eileen seated herself, but Westenhanger paused for a moment.
“I think we’d better shut this thing up before we go any further.”
He indicated the still open drawer in the panelling.
“Just wait a moment until I empty it completely.”
He put his hand into the recess and withdrew several other pieces of jewellery which he added to the shining heap on the table. Then he closed the drawer, dropped the arras, and came back to the Chess-board.
“You remember you told us that after the Corinthian’s death they found the pieces on this board in the position shown on the document? It’s pretty obvious what was in his mind. He knew that he might be killed in a few minutes. Probably he mistrusted his servants and was afraid to leave family jewellery at their mercy. So he opened the secret recess, tumbled the jewels into it—the Talisman was in it already—and then he closed his combination lock . . . thus.”
Westenhanger walked on to the Chessboard and lifted the white knight from Queen’s Seventh.
“One reverses the four moves, so, bringing the knight back to its starting-point on the knight’s square.”
He suited the action to the word, carrying out the four operations in the reverse order.
“Now the drawer is locked,” he explained. “That’s what the Corinthian did, just before he went out to his duel. And that’s why they found the Chess-board in this state. Probably he hadn’t time enough to put the pieces away in the cupboard, so he left them standing as they were. They gave nothing away.”
He picked up the document, the wrinkled leather disc, and his own “sucker”; and handed them across the table.
“That finishes our part, Mr. Dangerfield. Now, perhaps, you’ll tell us what you wish us to hear.”
Rollo Dangerfield’s face had regained its accustomed serenity. The tinge of suspicion had vanished completely and was replaced by a trustful expression, as he looked at his two guests. He turned first to Eileen.
“I am sorry you have been kept waiting for an answer to your question, Miss Cressage. It was my fault. You will forgive an old man’s impatience when I tell you that you and Mr. Westenhanger have cleared up something which has hung over fifty years of my life. And there are other reasons, too, as you will hear.”
Eileen had no need to say anything. Her face told Rollo that she had not been offended.
“You startled me not long ago, Mr. Westenhanger,” their host went on, “by asking me if the Dangerfield Secret was not just three generations old. If that was a mere guess it was a very good one. Actually, what has been called the Dangerfield Secret originated in my father’s day; and since it has been passed on to Eric it has lasted through three generations. And now it passes away, thanks to you young people.”
He paused for a moment before speaking again.
“You must bear in mind that some of this is conjecture, and that I am trying to fit it together so as to take in the facts which have come to light this afternoon. Before I came into this room I had not the key to the problem; and I have hardly had time to fit the new links into the chain neatly. But it seems evident to me that even in my grandfather’s day, there was a Talisman and a replica; and that the replica was kept under the tinted bell to conceal the fact that the stones were false. From your inferences, Mr. Westenhanger, it seems clear that he devised this particular hiding-place for the real Talisman.
“Now take the state of affairs on the morning of my grandfather’s death. He knew the risk he ran—his opponent was a noted duellist; and he had no one at hand whom he could trust. Probably, as you suggested, he collected the more valuable family jewels and placed them with the real Talisman for safety’s sake. We did him an injustice when we assumed that he had already sold them to pay his gambling debts.
“I don’t care to speculate on his mental condition at that moment. Quite probably, after a night’s carousing he was not clear-headed. He jotted down the memory-help he used himself as a clue to the hiding place, and very probably he failed to realise that it was no real help to anyone but himself. Then he went out—and that was the end.”
With quite unconscious dramatic effect the old man paused in his narrative and sat for some instants in silence. When he spoke again it was in a lighter tone.
“And now I come to a fresh character. I never knew him, but I have been trying to reconstruct him in my mind from many things which were told to me about him. He was the solicitor for the Dangerfield estate at the time my Corinthian grandfather died.
“Imagine his position, Miss Cressage. He takes over the administration of the estate—you remember that my father was a mere child then—and he finds it terribly encumbered with the debts which had accumulated in my grandfather’s day, a load of liabilities which even a generation failed to clear away. Credit was essential if the ship was to be kept afloat at all. And the biggest asset of the estate was the Dangerfield Talisman. So long as that remained, no one could suppose that things were seriously involved, and with care, he could just pilot us through. Without that palladium, the creditors would have come down at once and the game would have been up. Friocksheim would have come to the hammer. Everything would have gone down in the crash. And in the midst of all his anxiety he learned that the Talisman was a sham of gilded lead and spurious stones!”
Rollo broke off his narrative, leaving time for them to appreciate the position.
“I have seen the document in his own handwriting,” he continued, “which gives an account of the affair. He had taken the Talisman from under the bell and asked a jeweller what it would cost to make a replica. He thought the thing should be put in safety; and it seems that he, too, had hit on the idea of substituting a counterfeit for the real thing, the notion of a stalking-horse which I explained to you once before, Mr. Westenhanger. And you can guess his consternation when he learned from the jeweller that the thing was worth no more than a few pounds. The whole mainstay of his scheme for keeping the Dangerfield credit secure, now turned out to be worthless. There was no other easily-vended article—all the valuable jewellery had vanished, sold to pay the Corinthian’s debts, as we have wrongly believed until to-day.
“He had to come to a decision. Rightly or wrongly, he chose his course. He started the Dangerfield Secret as we have known it. He quieted any suspicions of the jeweller by ordering ‘a second replica.’ And he embarked on a career of concealment. It was safe enough. The Corinthian had had the armlet valued out of curiosity. Everyone knew it was worth £50,000. No one had any reason to suppose that it had gone astray. And with that sham asset behind him to strengthen confidence, he pulled the estate out of its immediate difficulties. I have no right to criticise him. He worked according to his lights, with the sole purpose of handing over Friocksheim to my father when he came of age.”
It was plain enough from the old man’s tone that he himself might have chosen the same course had the alternatives been offered.
“We have paid dearly enough for his decision,” Rollo went on. “He involved us all in his machinations, even those of us who were born long after he died. When my father came of age, the old solicitor laid the whole case before him. The estate was still in a shaky state, and an involuntary liquidation would have left us insolvent. More, in a forced sale we could not have hoped to pay our creditors in full. We’d have been defaulters and real losses would have been incurred by innocent people. On the other side, by keeping up the estate’s credit, we gained time enough to pay in full, eventually—to be honest, in fact—provided that the Talisman deception could be kept in being. It was merely a choice, you see, between two forms of dishonesty; but the one alternative would hurt other people, whilst the second course laid a burden on ourselves alone. My father chose the second path. I cannot say that in his position, I would have done otherwise myself.”
His face took on a bitter cast.
“That was the beginning of the Dangerfield Secret—the trickery of the spurious Talisman. Can you wonder that I described it to you, once, as a memorial of lying and deceit? How do you suppose I felt, being driven to lie to my own guests in my own house every time I was asked to show it to anyone? The famous Dangerfield Talisman!”
He moved in his chair, almost as though he wished to free himself from some physical contamination.
“And all the time, we were in the toils which that old man had wrapped around us a century ago. How could we shake free from that web of deception? We still need the asset—at least we needed it yesterday. And to let the thing leak out would be to put a black mark on my father’s name. You know what people would say about the part we have played. There was no getting clear. We had to go on as we had begun.”
He glanced at his two guests as though he feared that he had wearied them by a long story; but their expressions encouraged him to continue to the end.
“People often wonder why we do not insure a thing of such immense value. How could we insure it? It would need to be valued—and the game would be up! So we have been forced into that second series of deceptions—the return of the Talisman after it has been stolen. We have to keep a series of replicas; and put out a fresh one every time there is a theft. We have to play that silly game of pretending we believe in an old legend—another lie—because we dare not call in the police if the thing vanishes, and because we dare not admit that we have lost it.”
Rollo’s voice became gloomier still.
“And in front of us, always, there was the risk of an inevitable exposure. We had to avoid the Government valuers in the matter of Death Duties. We could do that only by transferring the Talisman from hand to hand. My father made it over to me when I was twenty-one; I gave it to Eric when he came of age. It has never been subject to Death Duties yet. But there is always the chance of accident. If Eric died before me the whole thing would have been exposed when they came to value his estate. That possible Nemesis has been imminent for the holders of the Talisman.”
He seemed to brood for a time on his retrospect. When he spoke again, both his voice and manner had altered. It was as if at last he had emerged from the shadows.
“And now, after a century of deceit, we’ve come out into the light again, thanks to you both! And to think that the Talisman was here all the time, within the walls of Friocksheim. Of course we had puzzled over the Corinthian’s cypher; but we’d never taken it seriously, because we believed all along that he had sold the armlet and the jewellery. It never occurred to any of us that the thing was within our grasp, under our very roof. Even his own man of affairs believed that, and it never crossed our minds that anything else could have happened.”
“I think it was very natural,” said Eileen.
Westenhanger made no comment. He had been touched, like the girl, by the story of the Dangerfield Secret as it was now revealed. By his candid narrative old Rollo had enlisted their sympathy without having directly besought it from them; and they could understand the feelings which his position had stirred in him through fifty long years.
“No wonder he often looked as if he’d grown sick of life,” was the younger man’s unspoken comment.
“Well, it’s all right now, isn’t it?” he said aloud. “The Talisman’s come back for the last time.”
Eileen broke in, before the old man could reply.
“You’ve no idea how glad I am that we are able to help, Mr. Dangerfield. Less than a week ago, I felt that Friocksheim was a place I’d never want to visit again; it had such miserable associations in my mind, in more ways than one. But now, somehow, it’s all different. We can all be happy here; there’s nothing hanging over any of us any more. You understand, don’t you?”
Rollo Dangerfield looked at her with something like affection showing in his eyes.
“Who could understand better than I do? It’s like waking out of a nightmare to find the sun shining in through the window. And we owe our awakening to you and Mr. Westenhanger. You don’t imagine I under-rate that, surely? I dare say you think you understand what this means for me; perhaps you have some faint conception. But unless you had actually gone through it yourselves you couldn’t come near the real thing. It’s lasted fifty years, and that’s only a few years less than your two lives put together. And now—daylight! I shall be glad to have a year or two of decent life at the end of it all.”
Westenhanger saw something in the old man’s eyes which made him interpose with a fresh subject.
“And what about the Talisman now, Mr. Dangerfield? Will you use the Corinthian’s safe deposit still? It’s lain there safely enough all these years. That’s why I locked the door—so that no one should blunder in and notice the hiding-place when it was open. I thought you might want it again.”
“The Talisman?” repeated Rollo. “Do you know, I could almost find it in my heart to sell the Talisman—give Wraxall his desire, after all. If I had a decent excuse for doing it, I think I would. I’ve hated it for years. But I suppose we must keep it, now that it’s come into our hands again. I want no more possible regrets, and one might regret having let it go, after these centuries. We don’t need to sell it; there are other things to sell.”
He bent over the table and examined the jewellery which had come from the Corinthian’s hiding-place. After a careful scrutiny he picked up the diamond pendant and turned to Eileen.
“You talked about your memories of Friocksheim, Miss Cressage, and, believe me, I was touched by what you said. Now I should like you to have something which will always remind you of the old place in that aspect.”
He offered her the glittering gems, and, when she made a gesture of refusal, he continued as though he had not noticed it.
“I know you don’t wear jewellery, so in its present form it would hardly serve. But this central stone would set well in a ring. Get it taken out; and do as you please with the rest—sell them, if you choose. There’s no sentiment in the matter; for I intend to sell the rest of the things here and use the money to clear our feet at last. So you are free to follow that good example if you please.”
He saw her expression and tried a different argument.
“If you refuse, I shall feel that you think I have been trying to pay you for your help—and that you flung the payment back. Nobody could find a real payment for what you and Mr. Westenhanger have done. This isn’t payment, Miss Cressage. It’s a thank-offering, if you care to put it in that way. I still hope you won’t refuse.”
Eileen saw the pain in the old man’s eyes.
“I ought to refuse,” she said, hesitatingly.
Then, after another look at Rollo’s face, she added:
“But I can understand how you feel. I’ll take your gift, though it’s far too valuable. And I’ll do with it just as you wish. We needn’t pretend to misunderstand each other, need we? I’ll sell some of the stones and clear my own feet, just as you’re going to clear yours. And I’ll wear the ring to remind me of Friocksheim, though I won’t need it for that.”
She took the pendant and examined it, thoughtfully.
“It’s a lovely thing . . . I feel rather tongue-tied, Mr. Dangerfield,” she confessed with a smile.
“I’m glad to hear that,” he smiled in response. “You’ll understand better now, how I felt myself not many minutes ago.”
And with that he brushed her thanks aside.
“There’s one thing you can do, Miss Cressage. Come back often to Friocksheim. I shall look forward to your coming. You’re one of us, now, and not merely a visitor; for you know more about our affairs than some of our family ever knew. You, too, Westenhanger. We’re going to need young people about the place, since we shall be losing Helga. . . .”
Suddenly his face changed. A smile came over it, the first really care-free smile that had crossed it in fifty years. The touch of wistfulness had vanished—it was the natural Rollo coming out at last after the long suppression.
“Helga’s birthday falls next week. She will be twenty-five—the age when our girls are told the Dangerfield Secret. What a disappointment for her when she learns that now there is no Secret at all!”
The End