Mr. Paxton heard no more--he made no serious attempt to hear. As the German-American ceased to speak the train slowed into Preston Park. At the station Mr. Paxton saw that some one else got into the next compartment, forming a third, with its previous occupants, the rest of the way to Brighton.
Mr. Paxton had heard enough. The whirlwind in his brain, instead of becoming less, had grown more. His mental confusion had become worse confounded. He seemed unable to collect his ideas. He had attained to nothing like an adequate grasp of the situation by the time the train had arrived at its journey's end. He alighted, his Gladstone in his hand, feeling in a sort of intellectual fog. He saw Mr. Lawrence--also carrying a Gladstone--get out of the next compartment. A tall, thin man, with high cheekbones, a heavy moustache, and a pronounced stoop, got out after him--evidently the German-American. Mr. Paxton allowed the pair to walk down the platform in front, keeping himself a respectful distance in the rear. They turned into the refreshment-room. He went in after them, taking up his position close beside them, with, however, no sort of definite intention in his head. Mr. Lawrence recognised him at once, showing that he also had a memory for faces. He nodded.
"Mr. Paxton, I believe."
Mr. Paxton admitted that that was his name, conscious, on a sudden, of a wild impulse to knock the fellow down for daring to accost him.
"What is your drink, Mr. Paxton?"
That was too much; Mr. Paxton was certainly not going to drink with the man. He responded curtly--
"I have ordered."
"That doesn't matter, does it? Drink up, and have another with me."
The fellow was actually pressing him to accept of his pestilent charity--that was how Mr. Paxton put it to himself. He said nothing--not because he had nothing to say, but because never before in his life had he felt so stupid, with so little control over either his senses or his tongue. He shook his head, walked out of the refreshment-room, got into a cab, and drove off to Makell's hotel.
Directly the cab had started and was out of the station yard he told himself that he had been a fool--doubly, trebly, a fool--a fool all round, from every possible point of view. He ought never to have let the scoundrels out of his sight; he ought to have spoken to the police; he ought to have done something; under the circumstances no one but an idiot would have done absolutely nothing at all. Never mind--for the moment it was too late. He would do something to repair his error later. He would tell Miss Strong the tale; she would rejoice to find a friend of her own figuring as the hero of such a narrative; it would be a warning to her against the making of chance acquaintance! He would ask her advice; it was a case in which two heads might be better than one.
Reaching the hotel, he went straight to his bedroom, still in a sort of mental haze. He had a wash--without, however, managing to wash much of the haze out of his head. He turned to unlock his Gladstone, intending to take out of it his brush and comb. There was something the matter with the key, or else with the lock--it would not open. It was a brand-new Gladstone, bought with a particular intent; Mr. Paxton was very far from being desirous that his proposed voyage to foreign parts should prematurely be generally known. Plainly, the lock was not in the best of order. Half abstractedly he fumbled with it for some seconds, before it could be induced to open, then it was opened rather by an exertion of force, than in response to the action of the key.
Having opened it, Mr. Paxton found himself a little puzzled by the arrangement of its contents. He could not at first remember just where he had put his brush and comb. He felt on the one side, where he had a sort of dim idea that it ought to be, and then on the other. He failed to light on it on either side. He paused for a moment to consider. Then, by degrees, distinctly remembered having placed it in a particular corner. He felt for it. It was not there. He wondered where it had contrived to conceal itself. He was certain that he had placed it in the bag. It must be in it now. He began to empty the bag of all its contents.
The first thing he took out was a shirt. He threw it from him on to the bed. As it passed through the air something fell from it on to the floor--something which came rolling against his foot. He picked it up.
It was a ring.
He could scarcely believe the evidence of his own eyes. He sat staring at the trinket in a stupor of surprise. And the more he stared the more his wonder grew. That it was a ring there could not be the slightest shadow of doubt. It was a woman's ring, a costly one--a hoop of diamonds, the stones being of unusual lustre and size.
How could such an article as that have found its way into his Gladstone bag?
He picked up another shirt, and as he did so felt that in the front there was something hard. He opened the front to see what it was. The shirt almost dropped from his hand in the shock of his amazement. Something gleamed at him from inside the linen. Taking this something out he found himself holding in his hand a magnificent tiara of diamonds.
As he knelt there, on one knee, gazing at the gaud, he would have presented a promising study for an artist possessed of a sense of humour. His mouth was open, his eyes distended to their fullest; every feature of his countenance expressed the bewilderment he felt. The presence of a ring in that brand-new bag of his was sufficiently surprising--but a tiara of diamonds! Was he the victim of some extraordinary hallucination, or the hero of a fairy tale?
He stared at the jewel, and from the jewel to the shirt, and from the shirt to the bag. Then an idea, beginning at first to glimmer on him dimly, suddenly took vivid shape, filling him with a sense of strange excitement. He doubted if the bag were his. He leant over it to examine it more closely. New brown Gladstone bags, thirty inches in length, are apt to be as like each other as peas. This was a new bag, his was a new bag--he perceived nothing in the appearance of this one to suggest that it was not his.
And yet that this was not his bag he was becoming more and more convinced. He turned to the shirt he had been holding. The contents of his bag had all been freshly purchased--obviously, this shirt had just come from the maker's too. He looked at the maker's name inside the neckband. This was not his shirt--it had been bought at a different shop; it had one buttonhole in front instead of three; it was not his size. He looked hastily at the rest of the things which were in the bag--they none of them were his. Had he had his wits about him he would have discovered that fact directly the bag was opened. Every garment seemed to have been intended to serve as cover to a piece of jewellery. He tumbled on to the bed rings, bracelets, brooches, necklets; out of vests, shirts, socks, and drawers. Till at last he stood, with an air of stupefaction, in front of a heap of glittering gems, the like of which he had scarcely thought could have existed outside a jeweller's shop.
What could be the meaning of it? By what accident approaching to the miraculous could a bag containing such a treasure trove have been exchanged for his? What eccentric and inexcusably careless individual could have been carrying about with him such a gorgeous collection in such a flimsy covering?
The key to the situation came to him as borne by a flash of lightning. They were all diamonds on the bed--nothing but diamonds. He caught up the evening paper which he had brought with him from town. He turned to the list which it contained of the diamonds which had been stolen from the Duchess of Datchet. It was as he thought. Incredible though it seemed, unless his senses played him false, in front of him were those priceless jewels--the world-famed Datchet diamonds! Reflection showed him, too, that this astounding climax had been brought about by the simplest accident. He remembered that Mr. Lawrence had alighted from the railway carriage on to the Brighton platform with the Gladstone in his hand;--he remembered now, although it had not struck him at the time, that that bag, like his own, had been brown and new. In the refreshment-room Mr. Lawrence had put his bag down upon the floor. Mr. Paxton had put his down beside it. In leaving, he must have caught up Mr. Lawrence's bag instead of his own. He had spoiled the spoiler of his spoils. Without intending to do anything of the kind, he had played on Mr. Lawrence exactly the same trick which that enterprising gentleman had himself--if Mr. Paxton could believe what he had overheard him say in the railway carriage--played on the Duchess of Datchet.
When Mr. Paxton realised exactly how it was he sat down on the side of the bed, and he trembled. It was so like a special interposition of Providence--or was it of the devil? He stared at the scintillating stones. He took them up and began to handle them. This, according to the paper, was the Amsterdam Necklace, so called because one of the Dukes of Datchet had bought all the stones for it in Amsterdam. It, alone, was worth close in the neighbourhood of a hundred thousand pounds.
A hundred thousand pounds! Mr. Paxton's fingers tingled as he thought of it. His lips went dry. What would a hundred thousand pounds not mean to him?--and he held it, literally, in the hollow of his hand. He did not know with certainty whose it was. Providence had absolutely thrown it at his head. It might not be the Duchess's, after all. At any rate, it would be but robbing the robber.
Then there was the Datchet Tiara, the Begum's Brooch, the Banee's Bracelet; if the newspaper could be credited, every piece in the collection was historical. As he toyed with them, holding them to the light, turning them this way and that, looking at them from different points of view, how the touch of the diamonds seemed to make the blood in Mr. Paxton's veins run faster!
He began to move about the bedroom restlessly, returning every now and then to take still another look at the shimmering lumps of light which were beginning to exercise over him a stronger and stronger fascination. How beautiful they were! And how low he himself had fallen! He could scarcely sink much lower. Anyhow, it would be but to pass from one ditch to another. Supposing he obtained for them even a tithe of their stated value! At this crisis in his career, what a fresh start in life five-and-twenty thousand pounds would mean! It would mean the difference between hope and helplessness, between opportunity and despair. With his experience, on such a foundation he could easily build up a monstrous fortune--a fortune which would mean happiness--Daisy's and his own. Then the five-and-twenty thousand pounds could be easily returned. Compared with what he would make with it, it was but a trifle, after all.
And then the main point was--and Mr. Paxton told himself that on that point rested the crux of the position--it would not be the Duchess of Datchet who would be despoiled; it was the robbers who, with true poetic justice, would be deprived of their ill-gotten gains. She had lost them in any case. He--he had but found them. He endeavoured to insist upon it, to himself, that he had but found them. True, there was such a thing as the finder returning what he had found--particularly when he suspected who had been the loser. But who could expect a man situated as he was to throw away a quarter of a million of money? This was not a case which could be judged by the ordinary standards of morality--it was an unparalleled experience.
Still, he could not bring himself to say, straight out, that he would stick to what he had got, and make the most of it. His mind was not sufficiently clear to enable him to arrive at any distinct decision. But he did what was almost equally fatal, he allowed himself, half unconsciously--without venturing to put it into so many words--to drift. He would see which way the wind blew, and then, if he could, go with it. For the present he would do nothing, forgetting that, in such a position as his, the mere fact of his doing nothing involved the doing of a very great deal. He looked at his watch, starting to find it was so late.
"Daisy will be tired of waiting. I must hurry, or she'll be off before I come."
He looked into the glass. Somehow there seemed to be a sort of film before his eyes which prevented him from seeing himself quite clearly, or else the light was bad! But he saw enough of himself to be aware that he was not looking altogether his usual self. He endeavoured to explain this in a fashion of his own.
"No wonder that I look worried after what I've gone through lately, and especially to-day--that sort of thing's enough to take the heart out of any man, and make him look old before his time." He set his teeth; something hard and savage came into his face. "But perhaps the luck has turned. I'd be a fool to throw a chance away if it has. I've gone in for some big things in my time; why shouldn't I go in for the biggest thing of all, and with one bold stroke more than win back all I've lost?"
He suffered his own question to remain unanswered; but he stowed the precious gems, higgledy-piggledy, inside the copy of the evening paper which contained the news of the robbery of the Duchess of Datchet's diamonds; the paper he put into a corner of the Gladstone bag which was not his; the bag he locked with greater care than he had opened it. When it was fastened, he stood for a moment, surveying it a little grimly.
"I'll leave it where it is. No one knows what there is inside it. It'll be safe enough. Anyhow, I'll give the common or garden thief a chance of providing for himself for life; his qualms on the moral aspect of the situation will be fewer than mine. If it's here when I come back I'll accept its continued presence as an omen."
He put on his hat, and he went out to find Miss Strong.
Miss Strong was growing a little tired of waiting. Indeed, she was beginning to wonder if Mr. Paxton was about to fail in still another something he had undertaken. She loitered near the gates of the pier, looking wistfully at every one who entered. The minutes went by, and yet "he cometh not," she said.
It was not the pleasantest of nights for idling by the sea. A faint, but chilly, breeze was in the air. There was a suspicion of mist. Miss Strong was growing more and more conscious that the night was raw and damp. To add to the discomfort of her position, just inside the gates of Brighton pier is not the most agreeable place for a woman to have to wait at night--she is likely to find the masculine prowler conspicuously in evidence. Miss Strong had moved away from at least the dozenth man who had accosted her, when she referred to her watch.
"I'll give him five minutes more, and then, if he doesn't come, I'm off."
Scarcely had she uttered the words than she saw Mr. Paxton coming through the turnstile. With a feeling of no inconsiderable relief she moved hastily forward. In another moment they were clasping hands.
"Cyril! I'm glad you've come at last! But how late you are!"
"Yes; I've been detained."
The moment he opened his mouth it struck her that about his manner there was something odd. But, as a wise woman in her generation, she made no comment. Together they went up the pier.
Now that he had come Mr. Paxton did not seem to be in a conversational mood. They had gone half-way up; still he evinced no inclination to speak. Miss Strong, however, excused him. She understood the cause of his silence--or thought she did. Her heart was heavy--on his account, and on her own. Her words, when they came, were intended to convey the completeness of her comprehension.
"I am so sorry."
He turned, as if her words had startled him.
"Sorry?"
"I know all about it, Cyril."
This time it was not merely a question of appearance. It was an obvious fact that he was startled. He stood stock still and stared at her. Stammering words came from his lips.
"You know all about it? What--what do you mean?"
She seemed to be surprised at his surprise. "My dear Cyril, you forget that there are papers."
"Papers?"
Still he stammered.
"Yes, papers--newspapers. I've had every edition, and of course I've seen how Eries have fallen.
"Eries? Fallen? Oh!--of course!--I see!"
She was puzzled to perceive that he appeared positively relieved, as though he had supposed and feared that she had meant something altogether different. He took off his hat to wipe his brow, although the night was very far from being unduly warm. He began walking again, speaking now glibly enough, with a not unnatural bitterness.
"They have fallen, sure enough--just as surely as if, if I had gone a bear, they would have risen. As you were good enough to say last night, it was exactly the sort of thing which might have been expected."
"I am so sorry, Cyril."
"What's the use of being sorry?"
His tone was rough, almost rude. But she excused him still.
"Is it very bad?"
Then a wild idea came to him--one which, at the moment, seemed to him almost to amount to inspiration. In the disordered condition of his faculties--for, temporarily, they were disordered--he felt, no doubt erroneously enough, that in the girl's tone there was something besides sympathy, that there was contempt as well--contempt for him as for a luckless, helpless creature who was an utter and entire failure. And he suddenly resolved to drop at least a hint that, while she was despising him as so complete a failure, even now there was, actually within his grasp, wealth sufficient to satisfy the dreams of avarice.
"I don't know what you call very bad; as regards the Eries it is about as bad as it could be. But----"
He hesitated and stopped.
"But what?" She caught sight of his face. She saw how it was working. "Cyril, is there any good news to counteract the bad? Have you had a stroke of luck?"
Yet he hesitated, already half regretting that he had said anything at all. But, having gone so far, he went farther.
"I don't want you to reckon on it just at present, but I think it possible that, very shortly, I may find myself in possession of a larger sum of money than either of us has dreamed of."
"Cyril! Do you mean it?"
Her tone of incredulity spurred him on.
"Should I be likely to say such a thing if I did not mean it? I mean exactly what I said. To be quite accurate, it is possible, nay, probable, that before very long I shall be the possessor of a quarter of a million of money. I hope that will be enough for you. It will for me."
"A quarter of a million! Two hundred and fifty thousand pounds, Cyril!"
"It sounds a nice little sum, doesn't it? I hope that it will feel as nice when it's mine!"
"But, Cyril, I don't understand. Is it a new speculation you are entering on?"
"It is a speculation--of a kind." His tone was ironical, though she did not seem to be conscious of the fact. "A peculiar kind. Its peculiarity consists in this, that, though I may not be able to lay my hands on the entire quarter of a million, I can on an appreciable portion of it whenever I choose."
"What is the nature of the speculation? Is it on the Stock Exchange?"
"That, at present, is a secret. It is not often that I have kept a secret from you; you will have to forgive me, Daisy, if I keep one now."
Something peculiar in his tone caught her ear. She glanced at him sharply.
"You are really in earnest, Cyril? You do mean that there is a reasonable prospect of your position being improved at last?"
"There is not only a reasonable prospect, there is a practical certainty."
"In spite of what you have lost in Eries?"
"In spite of everything." A ring of passion came into his voice. "Daisy, don't ask me any more questions now. Trust me! I tell you that in any case a fortune, or something very like one, is within my grasp."
He stopped, and she was silent. They went and stood where they had been standing the night before--looking towards the Worthing lights. Each seemed to be wrapped in thought. Then she said softly, in her voice a trembling--
"Cyril, I am so glad."
"I am glad that you are glad."
"And I am so sorry for what I said last night."
"What was it you said that is the particular occasion of your sorrow?"
She drew closer to his side. When she spoke it was as if, in some strange way, she was afraid.
"I am sorry that I said that if luck went against you to-day things would have to be over between us. I don't know what made me say it. I did not mean it. I thought of it all night; I have been thinking of it all day. I don't think that, whatever happens, I could ever find it in my heart to send you away."
"I assure you, lady, that I should not go unless you sent me!"
"Cyril!" She pressed his arm. Her voice sank lower. She almost whispered in his ear, while her eyes looked towards the Worthing lights. "I think that perhaps it would be better if we were to get married as soon as we can--better for both of us."
Turning, he gripped her arms with both his hands.
"Do you mean it?"
"I do; if you do the great things of which you talk or if you don't. If you don't there is my little fortune, with which we must start afresh, both of us together, either on this side of the world or on the other, whichever you may choose."
"Daisy!" His voice vibrated with sudden passion. "Will you come with me to the other side of the world in any case?"
"What--even if you make your fortune?"
"Yes; even if I make my fortune!"
She looked at him with that something on her face which is the best thing that a man can see. And tears came into her eyes. And she said to him, in the words which have been ringing down the ages--
"Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God, my God; where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried; the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me!"
It may be that the words savoured to him of exaggeration; at any rate, he turned away, as if something choked his utterance. She, too, was still.
"I suppose you don't want a grand wedding."
"I want a wedding, that's all I want. I don't care what sort of a wedding it is so long as it's a wedding. And"--again her voice sank, and again she drew closer to his side--"I don't want to have to wait for it too long."
"Will you be ready to marry me within a month?"
"I will."
"Then within a month we will be married."
They were silent. His thoughts, in a dazed sort of fashion, travelled to the diamonds which were in somebody else's Gladstone bag. Her thoughts wandered through Elysian fields. It is possible that she imagined--as one is apt to do--that his thoughts were there likewise.
All at once she said something which brought him back from what seemed to be a waking dream. She felt him start.
"Come with me, and let's tell Charlie."
The suggestion was not by any means to Mr. Paxton's taste. He considered for a few seconds, seeming to hesitate. She perceived that her proposition had not been received with over-much enthusiasm.
"Surely you don't mind our telling Charlie?"
"No"--his voice was a little surly--"I don't mind."
Miss Charlotte Wentworth, better known to her intimates as Charlie, was in some respects a young woman of the day. She was thirty, and she wrote for her daily bread--wrote anything, from "Fashions" to "Poetry," from "Fiction" to "Our Family Column." She had won for herself a position of tolerable comfort, earning something over five-hundred a year with satisfactory regularity. To state that is equivalent to saying that, on her own lines, she was a woman of the world, a citizen of the New Bohemia, capable of holding something more than her own in most circumstances in which she might find herself placed, with most, if not all, of the sentiment which is supposed to be a feminine attribute knocked out of her. She was not bad-looking; dressed well, with a suggestion of masculinity; wore pince-nez, and did whatsoever it pleased her to do. Differing though they did from each other in so many respects, she and Daisy Strong had been the friends of years. When Mrs. Strong had died, and Daisy was left alone, Miss Wentworth had insisted on their setting up together, at least temporarily, a joint establishment, an arrangement from which there could be no sort of doubt that Miss Strong received pecuniary advantage. Mr. Paxton was not Miss Wentworth's lover--nor, to be frank, was she his; the consequence of which was that her brusque, outspoken method of speech conveyed to his senses--whether she intended it or not--a suggestion of scorn, being wont to touch him on just those places where he found himself least capable of resistance.
When the lovers entered, Miss Wentworth, with her person on one chair and her feet on another, was engaged in reading a magazine which had just come in. Miss Strong, desiring to avoid the preliminary skirmishing which experience had taught her was apt to take place whenever her friend and her lover met, plunged at once into the heart of the subject which was uppermost in her mind.
"I've brought you some good news--at least I think it is good news."
Miss Wentworth looked at her--a cross-examining sort of look--then at Mr. Paxton, then back at the lady.
"Good news? One always does associate good news with Mr. Paxton. The premonition becomes a kind of habit."
The gentleman thus alluded to winced. Miss Strong did not appear to altogether relish the lady's words. She burst out with the news of which she spoke, as if with the intention of preventing a retort coming from Mr. Paxton.
"We are going to be married."
Miss Wentworth displayed a possibly intentional mental opacity.
"Who is going to be married?"
"Charlie! How aggravating you are! Cyril and I, of course."
Miss Wentworth resumed her reading.
"Indeed! Well, it's no affair of mine. Of course, therefore, I should not presume to make any remark. If, however, any one should invite me to comment on the subject, I trust that I shall be at the same time informed as to what is the nature of the comment which I am invited to make."
Miss Strong went and knelt at Miss Wentworth's side, resting her elbows on that lady's knees.
"Charlie, won't you give us your congratulations?"
Miss Wentworth replied, without removing her glance from off the open page of her magazine--
"With pleasure--if you want them. Also, if you want it, I will give you eighteenpence--or even half a crown."
"Charlie! How unkind you are!"
Miss Wentworth lowered her magazine. She looked Miss Strong straight in the face. Tears were in the young lady's eyes, but Miss Wentworth showed not the slightest sign of being moved by them.
"Unfortunately, as it would seem, though I am a woman, I do occasionally allow my conduct to be regulated by the dictates of common sense. When I see another woman making a dash towards suicide I don't, as a rule, give her a helping push, merely because she happens to be my friend; preferentially, if I can, I hold her back, even though it be against her will. I have yet to learn in what respect Mr. Paxton--who, I gladly admit, is personally a most charming gentleman--is qualified to marry even a kitchen-maid. Permit me to finish. You told me last night that Mr. Paxton was going a bull on Eries; that if they fell one he would be ruined. In the course of the day they have fallen more than one; therefore, if what you told me was correct, he must be ruined pretty badly. Then, without any sort of warning, you come and inform me that you intend to marry the man who is doubly and trebly ruined, and you expect me to offer my congratulations on the event offhand! On the evidence which is at present before the court it can't be done."
"Why shouldn't I marry him, even if he is ruined?"
"Why, indeed? I am a supporter of the liberty of the female subject, if ever there was one. Why, if you wished to, shouldn't you marry a crossing-sweep? I don't know. But, on the other hand, I don't see on what grounds you could expect me to offer you my congratulations if you did."
"Cyril is not a crossing-sweep."
"No; he has not even that trade at his finger-ends."
"Charlie!" Mr. Paxton made as if to speak. Miss Strong motioned him to silence with a movement of her hand. "As it happens, you are quite wrong. It is true that Cyril lost by Eries, but he has more than made up for that loss by what he has gained in another direction. Instead of being ruined, he has made a fortune."
"Indeed! Pray, how did he manage to do that? I always did think that Mr. Paxton was a remarkable man. My confidence in him is beginning to be more than justified. And may I, at the same time, ask what is Mr. Paxton's notion of a fortune?"
"Tell her, Cyril, all about it."
Thus suffered at last to deliver his soul in words, Mr. Paxton evinced a degree of resentment which, perhaps, on the whole, was not unjustified.
"I fail to see that there is any necessity for me to justify myself in Miss Wentworth's eyes, who, on more than one occasion, has shown an amount of interest in my affairs which was only not impertinent because it happened to be feminine. But since, Daisy, you appear to be anxious that Miss Wentworth should be as satisfied on the subject of my prospects and position as you yourself are, I will do the best I can. And therefore Miss Wentworth, I would explain that my notion of a fortune is a sum equivalent to some ten or twenty times the amount you yourself are likely to be able to earn in the whole of your life."
"That ought to figure up nicely. And do you really mean to say, Mr. Paxton, that you have lost one fortune and gained another in the course of a single day?"
"I do."
"How was it done? I wish you would put me in the way of doing it for myself."
"Surely, Miss Wentworth, a woman of your capacity is qualified to do anything she pleases without prompting, and solely on her own initiative!"
"Thanks, Mr. Paxton, it's very kind of you to say such pretty things, but I am afraid you estimate my capacity a thought too highly." Miss Wentworth turned in her seat, so as to have the gentleman within her range of vision. "You understand, Mr. Paxton, very well how it is. Daisy is a lonely child. She belongs to the order of women who were in fashion before the commercial instinct became ingrained in the feminine constitution. She wants looking after. There are only Mr. Franklyn and myself to look after her. Satisfy me that, after all liabilities are settled, there is a substantial balance on the right side of your account, and I will congratulate you both."
"That, at the moment, I cannot do. But I will do this. I will undertake, in less than a fortnight, to prove myself the possessor of possibly something like a quarter of a million, and certainly of a hundred thousand pounds."
"A quarter of a million! A hundred thousand pounds! Such figures warm one's blood. One will almost begin to wonder, Mr. Paxton, if you can have come by them honestly."
The words were uttered lightly. Mr. Paxton chose to take them as if they had been meant in earnest. His cheeks flushed. His eyes flamed fire. He stood up, so beside himself with rage that it was a second or two before he could regain sufficient self-control to enable him to speak.
"Miss Wentworth, how dare you say such a thing! I have endured more from you than any man ought to endure from any woman. But when you charge me with dishonesty it is too much, even from you to me. You take advantage of your sex to address to me language for which, were the speaker a man, I would thrash him within an inch of his life."
Miss Strong, with white face, looked from one to the other.
"Cyril, she didn't mean what you think. Tell him, Charlie, that you didn't mean what he thinks."
Through her glasses Miss Wentworth surveyed the angry man with shrewd, unfaltering eyes.
"Really, Mr. Paxton puts me in a difficult position. He is so quick to take offence where none was intended, that one hardly knows what to think. Surely, when a man shows such heat and such violence in resenting what only a distorted imagination could twist into an actual imputation of dishonesty, it suggests that his own conscience can scarcely be quite clear."
Mr. Paxton seemed struggling as if to speak, and then to put a bridle on his tongue. The truth is, that he was only too conscious that he was in no mood to be a match in argument--or, for the matter of that, in retort either--for this clear-sighted lady. He felt that, if he was not careful, he would go too far; that he had better take himself away before he had made a greater exhibition of himself than he had already. So he contented himself with what was meant as an assumption of dignity.
"That is enough. Between you and me nothing more need, or can, be said. I have the honour, Miss Wentworth, of wishing you goodnight."
She showed no symptoms of being crushed. On the contrary, she retained her coolness, and also her powers of exasperation.
"Good-night, Mr. Paxton. Shall I ring the bell, Daisy, or will you show Mr. Paxton to the door?"
Miss Strong darted at her a look which, on that occasion at any rate, was not a look of love, and followed Mr. Paxton, who already had vanished from the room. Finding him in the hall, she nestled up to his side.
"I am sorry, Cyril, that this should have happened. If I had had the least suspicion of anything of the kind, I never would have asked you to come."
Mr. Paxton wore, or attempted to wear, an air of masculine superiority.
"My dear Daisy, I have seldom met Miss Wentworth without her having insulted me. On this occasion, however, she has gone too far. I will never, willingly, darken her door again. I hope you will not ask me; but if you do I shall be compelled to decline."
"It's my door as well as hers. But it won't be for long. Still, I don't think she meant what you thought she did--she couldn't be so absurd! It's a way she has of talking; she often says things without considering the construction of which they are capable."
"It is only the fact of her being a woman, my dear Daisy, which gives her the impunity of which she takes undue advantage."
"Cyril, you mustn't brand all women because of one. We are not all like that. Do you suppose that I am not aware that the person, be it man or woman, who imagines you to be capable of dishonesty either does not know you, or else is stark, raving mad? Do you think that I could love you without the absolute certainty of knowing you to be a man of blameless honour? I don't suppose you are an angel--I'm not one either, though perhaps you mightn't think it, sir! And I take it for granted that you have done plenty of things which you would rather have left undone--as I have too! But I do know that, regarded from the point of view of any standard, whether human or Divine, in all essentials you are an honest man, and that you could be nothing else."
The eulogium was a warm one--it made Mr. Paxton feel a trifle queer.
"Thank you, darling,"
So he murmured, and he kissed her.
"You will meet me again to-morrow night to tell me how the fortune fares?"
He tried to avoid doing so; but the effort only failed--he had to wince. He could only hope that she did not notice it.
"I will, my darling--on the pier."
"And mind you're punctual!"
"I promise you I'll be punctual to a second."
As Mr. Paxton walked away from the house in which the two ladies resided, it was with the consciousness strong upon him that his position had not been made any easier by what he had said to the lady of his love, not to speak of that lady's friend. Before he had met Miss Strong he had been, comparatively, free--free, that is, to return the diamonds to their rightful owner. Now, it seemed to him, his hands were tied--he himself had tied them. He had practically committed himself to a course of action which could only point in one direction, and that an ugly one.
"What a fool I've been!"
One is apt to tell oneself that sort of thing when the fact is already well established, and also, not only without intending to undo one's folly, but even when one actually proposes to make it more! As Mr. Paxton did then. He told himself, frankly, and with cutting scorn, what a fool he had been, and then proceeded to take what, under similar circumstances, seems to be a commonly accepted view of the situation--assuring, or endeavouring to assure himself, that to pile folly on to folly, until the height of it reached the mountain-tops, and then to undo it, would be easier than to take steps to undo it at once, while it was still comparatively a little thing.
It was perhaps this line of reasoning which induced Mr. Paxton to fancy himself in want of a drink. He turned into the Bodega. He treated himself to a whisky and soda. While he was consuming the fluid and abusing Fate, some one touched him on the shoulder. Looking round he found himself confronted by Mr. Lawrence and his friend the German-American. Not only was their appearance wholly unexpected, but obviously the surprise was not a pleasant one. Mr. Paxton clutched at the edge of the bar, glaring at the two men as if they had been ghosts.
"Good evening, Mr. Paxton."
It was Mr. Lawrence who spoke, in those quiet, level tones with which Miss Strong was familiar. To Mr. Paxton's lively imagination their very quietude seemed to convey a threat. And Mr. Lawrence kept those beautiful blue eyes of his fixed on Mr. Paxton's visage with a sustained persistence which, for some cause or other, that gentleman found himself incapable of bearing. He nodded, turned his face away, and picked up his glass.
But to do Mr. Paxton justice, he was very far from being a coward; nor, when it came to the sticking-point, was his nerve at all likely to fail him. He realised instantly that he was in a very delicate situation, and one on which, curiously enough, he had not reckoned. But if Mr. Lawrence and his friend supposed that Mr. Paxton, even if taken by surprise, was a man who could, in the long run, be taken at an advantage, they were wrong. Mr. Paxton emptied his glass, and replied to Mr. Lawrence--
"It's not a pleasant evening, is it? I think that up at the station you asked me to have a drink with you. Now, perhaps, you'll have one with me?"
As he spoke Mr. Paxton was conscious that the German-American was regarding him, if possible, even more intently than his friend. This was the man to whom he had taken an instinctive dislike. There was about the fellow a suggestion of something animal--of something almost eerie. He did not strike one as being a person with whom it would be wise to quarrel, but rather as an individual who would stick at nothing to gain his ends, and who would be moved by no appeals for either sympathy or mercy.
"Would you mind stepping outside for a moment, Mr. Paxton?"
"Outside? Why?"
Mr. Paxton's air of innocence was admirably feigned. It might be that he was a better actor with a man than with a woman.
"There is something which I rather wish to say to you."
"To me? What is it?"
"I would rather, if you don't mind, speak to you outside."
Mr. Paxton turned his back against the bar facing Mr. Lawrence with a smile.
"Aren't we private enough in here? What is it you can have to say to me?"
"You know very well what it is I have to say to you. If you take my advice, you'll come outside."
Mr. Lawrence still spoke softly, but with a softness which, if one might put it so, had in it the suggestion of a scratch. A gleam came into his eyes which was scarcely a friendly gleam. The smile on Mr. Paxton's countenance broadened.
"I know! You are mistaken. I do not know. You are the merest acquaintance; I have never exchanged half a dozen words with you. What communication of a private nature you may have to make to me, I have not the faintest notion, but, whatever it is, I would rather you said it here."
Mr. Paxton's tones were, perhaps purposely, as loud as Mr. Lawrence's were soft. What he said must have been distinctly audible, not only to those who were close to him but also to those who were at a little distance. Especially did the high words seem audible to a shabby-looking fellow who was seated at a little table just in front of them, and wore his hat a good deal over his eyes, but who, in spite of that fact, seemed to keep a very keen eye on Mr. Paxton.
Perceiving that his friend appeared to be slightly nonplussed by Mr. Paxton's manner, the German-American came a little forward, as if to his assistance. This was a really curious individual. As has been already mentioned, he was tall and thin, and, in spite of his stoop, his height was accentuated by the fashion of his attire. He wore a long, straight black overcoat, so long that it reached almost to his ankles. It was wide enough to have admitted two of him. He kept it buttoned high up to his chin. His head was surmounted by a top hat, which could scarcely have been of English manufacture, for not only was it a size or two too large for him, but, relatively, it was almost as long as his overcoat. Thus, since his hat came over his forehead, and his overcoat came up to his chin, not much of his physiognomy was visible, and what was visible was not of a kind to make one long for more. His complexion was of a dirty red. His cheekbones were high, and his cheeks were hollow. They were covered with tiny bristles, which gleamed in the light as he moved his head. His eyes were small, and black, and beady, and he had a trick of opening and shutting them, as if they were constantly being focussed. His nose was long, and thin, and aquiline--that aquiline which suggests a vulture. His voluminous moustache was black; one wondered if it owed that shade to nature. But, considerable though it was, it altogether failed to conceal his mouth, which, as the Irishman said, "rolled right round his jaws." Indeed, it was of such astonishing dimensions that the surprise which one felt on first encountering it, caused one, momentarily, to neglect to notice the practically entire absence of a chin.
This pleasing-looking person, coming to Mr. Paxton, raised a long, lean forefinger, capped by what rather resembled a talon than a human fingernail, and crooked it in Mr. Paxton's face. And he said, speaking with that pronounced German-American accent--
"Permit me, my dear friend, to ask of Mr. Paxton just one question--just one little question. Mr. Paxton, what was the colour of your Gladstone bag, eh?"
Mr. Paxton felt, as he regarded the speaker, that he was looking at what bore a stronger resemblance to some legendary evil creature than to a being of our common humanity.
"I fail to understand you, sir."
"And yet my question is a very simple one--a very simple one indeed. I ask you, what was the colour of your Gladstone bag, eh?"
"My Gladstone bag!--which Gladstone bag?"
"The Gladstone bag which you brought with you in the train from town, eh?"
Mr. Paxton gazed at his questioner with, on his countenance, an entire absence of any sort of comprehension. He turned to Mr. Lawrence--
"Is this a friend of yours?"
page 80"What was the colour of your Gladstonebag, eh?"The Datchet Diamonds.Page82.
The pair looked at Mr. Paxton, then at each other, then back at Mr. Paxton, then again at each other. The German-American waggled his lean forefinger.
"He is very difficult, Mr. Paxton--very difficult indeed, eh? He understand nothing. It is strange. But it is like that sometimes, eh?"
Mr. Lawrence interposed.
"Look here, I'll be plain enough, even for you, Mr. Paxton. Have you got my Gladstone bag?"
Mr. Lawrence still spoke softly, but as he put his question Mr. Paxton was conscious that his eyes were fixed on him with a singular intentness, and his friend's eyes, and the eyes of the man who half concealed them with his hat, and, unless he was mistaken, the eyes of another shabby individual who was seated at a second table, between himself and the door. Indeed, he had a dim perception that sharp eyes were watching him from all over the spacious room, and that they waited for his words. Still, he managed to retain very fair control over his presence of mind.
"Your Gladstone bag! I! What the deuce do you mean?"
"What I say--have you got my Gladstone bag?"
Mr. Paxton drew himself up. Something of menace came on to his face and into his eyes. His tone became hard and dry.
"Either I still altogether fail to understand you, Mr. Lawrence, or else I understand too much. Your question is such a singular one that I must ask you to explain what construction I am intended to place upon it."
The two men regarded each other steadily, eye to eye. It is possible that Mr. Paxton read more in Mr. Lawrence's glance than Mr. Lawrence read in his, for Mr. Paxton perceived quite clearly that, in spite of the man's seeming gentleness, on the little voyage on which he was setting forth he would have to look out, at the very least, for squalls. The German-American broke the silence.
"It is that Mr. Paxton has not yet opened the Gladstone bag, and seen that a little exchange has taken place--is that so, eh?"
Mr. Paxton understood that the question was as a loophole through which he might escape. He might still rid himself of what already he dimly saw might turn out to be something worse than an Old Man of the Sea upon his shoulders. But he deliberately declined to avail himself of the proffered chance. On the contrary, by his reply he burnt his boats, and so finally cut off his escape--at any rate in that direction.
"Opened it? Of course I opened it! I opened it directly I got in. I've no more idea of what you two men are talking about than the man in the moon."
Once more the friends exchanged glances, and again Mr. Lawrence asked a question.
"Mr. Paxton, I've a particular reason for asking, and I should therefore feel obliged if you will tell me what your bag was like?"
Mr. Paxton never hesitated--he took his second fence in his stride.
"Mine? It's a black bag--rather old--with my initials on one side--stuck pretty well all over with luggage labels. But why do you ask?"
Again the two men's eyes met, Mr. Lawrence regarding the other with a glance which seemed as if it would have penetrated to his inmost soul. This time, however, Mr. Paxton's own eyes never wavered. He returned the other's look with every appearance ofsang froid. Mr. Lawrence's voice continued to be soft and gentle.
"You are sure that yours was not a new brown bag?"
"Sure! Of course I'm sure! It was black; and, as for being new--well, it was seven or eight years old at least."
"Would you mind my having a look at it?"
"What do you want to have a look at it for?"
"I should esteem it a favour if you would permit me."
"Why should I?"
Again the two men's glances met. The German-American spoke.
"Where are you stopping, Mr. Paxton, eh?"
Wheeling round, Mr. Paxton treated the inquirer to anything but an enlightening answer.
"What has that to do with you? Although a perfect stranger to me--and one to whom I would rather remain a stranger--you appear to take a degree of interest in my affairs which I can only characterize as--impertinent."
"It is not meant to be impertinent, oh, dear no; oh, no, Mr Paxton, eh?"
Putting up his clawlike hand, the fellow began to rub it against his apology for a chin. Mr. Paxton turned his attention to Mr. Lawrence; it was a peculiarity of that gentleman's bearing that since his appearance on the scene he had never for a single instant removed his beautiful blue eyes from Mr. Paxton's countenance.
"You have asked me one or two curious questions, without giving me any sort of explanation; now perhaps you won't mind answering one or two for me. Have you lost a bag?"
"I can scarcely say that I have lost it. I am parted from it--for a time."
Mr. Paxton stared, as if not comprehending.
"I trust that the parting may not be longer than you appear to anticipate. Was there anything in it of value?"
"A few trifles, which I should not care to lose."
"Where, as you phrase it, did the parting take place?"
"In the refreshment-room at the Central Station--when you went out of it."
Mr. Paxton flushed--it might have been a smart bit of acting, but it was a genuine flush. He looked at the soft-toned but sufficiently incisive speaker as if he would have liked to have knocked him down; possibly, too, came very near to trying to do it. Then seemed to remember himself, confining himself instead to language which was as harsh and as haughty as he could conveniently make it.
"That is not the first time you have dropped a similar insinuation. But it shall be the last. I do not wish to have a scene in a public place, but if you address me again I will call the attention of the attendants to you, and I will have you removed."
So saying, Mr. Paxton, wheeling round on his heels, favoured the offender with a capital view of his back. To be frank, he hardly expected that his Bombastes Furioso air would prove of much effect. He had reason to think that Mr. Lawrence was not the sort of person to allow himself to be cowed by such a very unsubstantial weapon as tall-talk. His surprise was, therefore, the greater when, the words being scarcely out of his mouth, the German-American, touching his associate on the arm, made to him some sort of a sign, and without another word the two marched off together. Somewhat oddly, as it seemed, when they went out two or three other persons went out also; but Mr. Paxton particularly noticed that the man with the hat over his eyes who was seated at the little table remained behind, suddenly appearing, however, to have all his faculties absorbed in a newspaper which had been lying hitherto neglected just in front of him.
Mr. Paxton congratulated himself on the apparent effect which his words had had.
"That's a good riddance, anyhow. I don't think that I'm of the sort that's easily bluffed, but the odds were against me, and--well--the stakes are high--very high!"
As Mr. Paxton took off his hat to wipe his forehead it almost seemed that his temperature was high as well as the stakes. He called for another whisky and soda, As he sipped it, he inquired of himself how long it would be advisable for him to stop before taking his departure; he had no desire to find the enterprising associates waiting for him in the street. While he meditated some one addressed him from behind, in precisely the same words which Mr. Lawrence had originally used. Commonplace though they were, as they reached his ears they seemed to give him a sort of thrill.
"Good evening, Mr. Paxton."
Mr. Paxton turned round so quickly that some of the liquor which was in the glass that he was holding was thrown out upon the floor. The speaker proved to be a rather short and thick-set man, with a stubbly grey beard and whiskers, and a pair of shrewd, brown eyes. Mr. Paxton beheld him with as few signs of satisfaction as he had evinced on first beholding Mr. Lawrence. He tried to pass off his evident discomposure with a laugh.
"You! You're a pretty sort of fellow to startle a man like that!"
"Did I startle you?"
"When a man's dreaming of angels, he's easily startled. What's your liquid?"
"Scotch, cold. Who was that you were talking to just now?"
Mr. Paxton shot at the stranger a keen, inquisitorial glance.
"What do you mean?"
"Weren't you talking to somebody as I came in?--two men, weren't there?"
"Oh yes! One of them I never met in my life before, and I never want to meet again. The other, the younger, I was introduced to yesterday."
"The younger--what's his name?"
"Lawrence. Do you know him?"
The stranger appeared not to notice the second hurried, almost anxious look which Mr. Paxton cast in his direction.
"I fancied I did. But I don't know any one of the name of Lawrence. I must have been wrong."
Mr. Paxton applied himself to his glass. It appeared, he told himself, that he was in bad luck's way. Only one person could have been more unwelcome just at the moment than Mr. Lawrence had been, and that person had actually followed hard on Mr. Lawrence's heels. As is the way with men of his class, who frequent the highways and the byways of great cities, Mr. Paxton had a very miscellaneous acquaintance. Among them were not a few officers of police. He had rather prided himself on this fact--as men of his sort are apt to do. But now he almost wished that he had never been conscious that such a thing as a policeman existed in the world; for there--at the moment when he was least wanted--standing at his side, was one of the most famous of London detectives; a man who was high in the confidence of the dignitaries at the "Yard"; a man, too, with whom he had had one or two familiar passages, and whom he could certainly not treat with the same stand-off air with which he had treated Mr. Lawrence.
He understood now why the associates had stood not on the order of their going; it was not fear of him, as in his conceit he had supposed, which had sped their heels; it was fear of John Ireland. Gentlemen of Mr. Lawrence's kidney were pretty sure to know a man of Mr. Ireland's reputation, at any rate by sight. The "office" had been given him that a "tec." was in the neighbourhood, and Mr. Lawrence had taken himself away just in time, as he hoped, to escape recognition. That that hope was vain was obvious from what John Ireland had said. In spite of his disclaiming any knowledge of a man named Lawrence, Mr. Paxton had little doubt that both men had been "spotted."
A wild impulse came to him. He seemed to be drifting, each second, into deeper and deeper waters. Why not take advantage of what might, after all, be another rope thrown out to him by chance? Why not make a clean breast of everything to Ireland? Why not go right before it was, indeed, too late--return her diamonds to the sorrowing Duchess, and make an end of his wild dreams of fortune? No; that he would--he could not do. At least not yet. He had committed himself to Daisy, to Miss Wentworth. There was plenty of time. He could, if he chose, play the part of harlequin, and with a touch of his magic wand at any time change the scene. He even tried to flatter himself that he might play the part of an amateur detective, and track the criminals on original--and Fabian!--lines of his own; but self-flattery of that sort was too gross even for his digestion.
"Nice affair that of the Duchess of Datchet's diamonds."
The glass almost dropped from Mr. Paxton's hand. The utterance of the words at that identical instant was of course but a coincidence; but it was a coincidence of a kind which made it extremely difficult for him to retain even a vestige of self-control. Fortunately, perhaps, Mr. Ireland appeared to be unconscious of his agitation. Putting his glass down on the bar-counter, he twisted it round and round by the stem. He tried to modulate his voice into a tone of complete indifference.
"The Duchess of Datchet's diamonds? What do you mean?"
"Haven't you heard?"
Mr. Paxton hesitated. He felt that it might be just as well not to feign too much innocence in dealing with John Ireland.
"Saw something about it as I came down in the train."
"I thought you had. Came down from town?"
"Yes--just for the run."
"Came in the same train with Mr. Lawrence?"
"I rather fancy I did."
"He was in the next compartment to yours, wasn't he?"
Mr. Ireland's manner was almost ostentatiously careless, and he seemed to be entirely occupied in the contents of his glass, but for some reason Mr. Paxton was beginning to feel more and more uncomfortable.
"Was he? I wasn't aware of it. I noticed him on the platform when the train got in."
"With his friend?"
"Yes--the other man was with him."
"Went into the refreshment-room with them, didn't you, and had a drink?"
Mr. Paxton turned and looked at the speaker; Mr. Ireland seemed, as it were, to studiously refrain from looking at him.
"Upon my word, Ireland, you seem to have kept a keen eye upon my movements."
"I came down by that train too; you didn't appear to notice me."
Mr. Paxton wished--he scarcely knew why, but he did wish--that he had. He admitted that the detective had gone unrecognised, and there was a pause, broken by Mr. Ireland.
"I am inclined to think that I know where those diamonds are."
Odd how conscience--or is it the want of experience?--plays havoc with the nervous system of the amateur in crime. Ordinarily, Mr. Paxton was scarcely conscious that he had such things as nerves; he was about as cool an individual as you would be likely to meet. But since lighting on those sparkling pebbles in somebody else's Gladstone bag, he had been one mass of nerves, and of exposed nerves, too. Like some substance which is in the heart of a thunderstorm, and which is peculiarly sensitive to the propinquity of electricity, he had been receiving a continual succession of shocks. When Mr. Ireland said in that unexpected and, as Mr. Paxton felt, uncalled-for fashion that he thought that he knew where those diamonds were, Mr. Paxton was the recipient of another shock upon the spot. Half a dozen times it had been with an effort that he had just succeeded in not betraying himself; he had to make another and a similar effort then.
"You think that you know where those diamonds are?"
"I do!"
There was silence; then the officer of the law went on. Mr. Paxton wished within himself that he would not.
"You're a sporting man, Mr. Paxton. I wouldn't mind making a bet that they're not far off! There's a chance for you!"
"Oh!" It was not at all a sort of bet which Mr. Paxton was disposed to take, nor a kind of chance he relished. "Thanks; but it's a thing about which you're likely to know more than I do; I'm not betting. Are you on the job?"
"Half the Yard is on the job already."
Silence once more; then again Mr. Ireland. He stood holding his glass in his hand, twiddling it between his finger and thumb, and all his faculties seemed to be engaged in making an exhaustive examination of the liquor it contained; but Mr. Paxton almost felt as if his voice had been the voice of fate.
"The man who has those diamonds will find that they won't be of the slightest use to him. He'll find that they'll be as difficult to get rid of as the Koh-i-Nor. Like the chap who stole the Gainsborough, he'll find himself in possession of a white elephant. Every dealer of reputation, in every part of the world, who is likely to deal in such things knows the Datchet diamonds as well as, if not better than, the Duke himself. The chap who has them will have to sell them to a fence. That fence will give him no more for them than if they were the commonest trumpery. And for this very good reason--the fence will either have to lock them up, and bequeath them to his great-grandson, on the offchance of his having face enough to put them on the market; or else he will have to break them up and offer them to the trade as if they were the ordinary stones of commerce, just turned up by the shovel. If I were on the cross, Mr. Paxton, I wouldn't have those sparklers if they were offered me for nothing. I should be able to get very little for them; the odds are they would quod me; and you may take this from me, that for the man--I don't care who he is, first offender or not--who is found with the Duchess of Datchet's diamonds in his possession, it's a lifer!"
Mr. Paxton was silent for a moment or two after the detective had ceased. He took another drink; it might have been that his lips stood in need of being moistened.
"You think it would be a lifer, do you?"
"I'm certain. After all the jewel thieves who have got clean off, if a judge does get this gentleman in front of him--which I think he will!--he'll make it as hot for him as ever he can. I shouldn't like to see you in such a position, Mr. Paxton, I assure you."
Again Mr. Paxton raised his glass to his lips.
"I hope that you won't, Mr. Ireland, with all my heart."
"I hope I sha'n't, Mr. Paxton. You know, perhaps as well as I do, it's an awful position for a man to stand in. What did you say your friend's name was--Lawrence? It's queer that I should have thought that I knew his face, and yet I don't think that I ever knew any one of that name. By the way, I fancy that you once told me that you didn't mind having a try at anything in which there was money to be made. Now, if you could give me a hint as to the whereabouts of the Duchess's diamonds, you might find that there was money in that."
As he emptied his glass Mr. Paxton looked the detective in the face.
"I wish I could, John--I'd be on for the deal! Only, I'm sorry that I can't."