Self-possession was one of Jimmy's leading characteristics, but for the moment he found himself speechless. This girl had been occupying his thoughts for so long that—in his mind—he had grown very intimate with her. It was something of a shock to come suddenly out of his dreams, and face the fact that she was in reality practically a stranger. He felt as one might with a friend whose memory has been wiped out. It went against the grain to have to begin again from the beginning after all the time they had been together.
A curious constraint fell upon him.
"Why, how do you do, Mr. Pitt?" she said, holding out her hand.
Jimmy began to feel better. It was something that she remembered his name.
"It's like meeting somebody out of a dream," said Molly. "I have sometimes wondered if you were real. Everything that happened that night was so like a dream."
Jimmy found his tongue.
"You haven't altered," he said, "you look just the same."
"Well," she laughed, "after all, it's not so long ago, is it?"
He was conscious of a dull hurt. To him, it had seemed years. But he was nothing to her—just an acquaintance, one of a hundred. But what more, he asked himself, could he have expected? And with the thought came consolation. The painful sense of having lost ground left him. He saw that he had been allowing things to get out of proportion. He had not lost ground. He had gained it. He had met her again, and she remembered him. What more had he any right to ask?
"I've crammed a good deal into the time," he explained. "I've been traveling about a bit since we met."
"Do you live in Shropshire?" asked Molly.
"No. I'm on a visit. At least, I'm supposed to be. But I've lost the way to the place, and I am beginning to doubt if I shall ever get there. I was told to go straight on. I've gone straight on, and here I am, lost in the snow. Do you happen to know whereabouts Dreever Castle is?"
She laughed.
"Why," she said, "I am staying at Dreever Castle, myself."
"What?"
"So, the first person you meet turns out to be an experienced guide. You're lucky, Mr. Pitt."
"You're right," said Jimmy slowly, "I am."
"Did you come down with Lord Dreever? He passed me in the car just as I was starting out. He was with another man and Lady Julia Blunt. Surely, he didn't make you walk?"
"I offered to walk. Somebody had to. Apparently, he had forgotten to let them know he was bringing me."
"And then he misdirected you! He's very casual, I'm afraid."
"Inclined that way, perhaps."
"Have you known Lord Dreever long?"
"Since a quarter past twelve last night."
"Last night!"
"We met at the Savoy, and, later, on the Embankment. We looked at the river together, and told each other the painful stories of our lives, and this morning he called, and invited me down here."
Molly looked at him with frank amusement.
"You must be a very restless sort of person," she said. "You seem to do a great deal of moving about."
"I do," said Jimmy. "I can't keep still. I've got the go-fever, like that man in Kipling's book."
"But he was in love."
"Yes," said Jimmy. "He was. That's the bacillus, you know."
She shot a quick glance at him. He became suddenly interesting to her. She was at the age of dreams and speculations. From being merely an ordinary young man with rather more ease of manner than the majority of the young men she had met, he developed in an instant into something worthy of closer attention. He took on a certain mystery and romance. She wondered what sort of girl it was that he loved. Examining him in the light of this new discovery, she found him attractive. Something seemed to have happened to put her in sympathy with him. She noticed for the first time a latent forcefulness behind the pleasantness of his manner. His self-possession was the self-possession of the man who has been tried and has found himself.
At the bottom of her consciousness, too, there was a faint stirring of some emotion, which she could not analyze, not unlike pain. It was vaguely reminiscent of the agony of loneliness which she had experienced as a small child on the rare occasions when her father had been busy and distrait, and had shown her by his manner that she was outside his thoughts. This was but a pale suggestion of that misery; nevertheless, there was a resemblance. It was a rather desolate, shut-out sensation, half-resentful.
It was gone in a moment. But it had been there. It had passed over her heart as the shadow of a cloud moves across a meadow in the summer-time.
For some moments, she stood without speaking. Jimmy did not break the silence. He was looking at her with an appeal in his eyes. Why could she not understand? She must understand.
But the eyes that met his were those of a child.
As they stood there, the horse, which had been cropping in a perfunctory manner at the short grass by the roadside, raised its head, and neighed impatiently. There was something so human about the performance that Jimmy and the girl laughed simultaneously. The utter materialism of the neigh broke the spell. It was a noisy demand for food.
"Poor Dandy!" said Molly. "He knows he's near home, and he knows it's his dinner-time."
"Are we near the castle, then?"
"It's a long way round by the road, but we can cut across the fields. Aren't these English fields and hedges just perfect! I love them. Of course, I loved America, but—"
"Have you left New York long?" asked Jimmy.
"We came over here about a month after you were at our house."
"You didn't spend much time there, then."
"Father had just made a good deal of money in Wall Street. He must have been making it when I was on the Lusitania. He wanted to leave New York, so we didn't wait. We were in London all the winter. Then, we went over to Paris. It was there we met Sir Thomas Blunt and Lady Julia. Have you met them? They are Lord Dreever's uncle and aunt."
"I've met Lady Julia."
"Do you like her?"
Jimmy hesitated.
"Well, you see—"
"I know. She's your hostess, but you haven't started your visit yet. So, you've just got time to say what you really think of her, before you have to pretend she's perfect."
"Well—"
"I detest her," said Molly, crisply. "I think she's hard and hateful."
"Well, I can't say she struck me as a sort of female Cheeryble Brother. Lord Dreever introduced me to her at the station. She seemed to bear it pluckily, but with some difficulty."
"She's hateful," repeated Molly. "So is he, Sir Thomas, I mean. He's one of those fussy, bullying little men. They both bully poor Lord Dreever till I wonder he doesn't rebel. They treat him like a school-boy. It makes me wild. It's such a shame—he's so nice and good-natured! I am so sorry for him!"
Jimmy listened to this outburst with mixed feelings. It was sweet of her to be so sympathetic, but was it merely sympathy? There had been a ring in her voice and a flush on her cheek that had suggested to Jimmy's sensitive mind a personal interest in the down-trodden peer. Reason told him that it was foolish to be jealous of Lord Dreever, a good fellow, of course, but not to be taken seriously. The primitive man in him, on the other hand, made him hate all Molly's male friends with an unreasoning hatred. Not that he hated Lord Dreever: he liked him. But he doubted if he could go on liking him for long if Molly were to continue in this sympathetic strain.
His affection for the absent one was not put to the test. Molly's next remark had to do with Sir Thomas.
"The worst of it is," she said, "father and Sir Thomas are such friends. In Paris, they were always together. Father did him a very good turn."
"How was that?"
"It was one afternoon, just after we arrived. A man got into Lady Julia's room while we were all out except father. Father saw him go into the room, and suspected something was wrong, and went in after him. The man was trying to steal Lady Julia's jewels. He had opened the box where they were kept, and was actually holding her rope of diamonds in his hand when father found him. It's the most magnificent thing I ever saw. Sir Thomas told father he gave a hundred thousand dollars for it."
"But, surely," said Jimmy, "hadn't the management of the hotel a safe for valuables?"
"Of course, they had; but you don't know Sir Thomas. He wasn't going to trust any hotel safe. He's the sort of a man who insists on doing everything in his own way, and who always imagines he can do things better himself than anyone else can do them for him. He had had this special box made, and would never keep the diamonds anywhere else. Naturally, the thief opened it in a minute. A clever thief would have no difficulty with a thing like that."
"What happened?"
"Oh, the man saw father, and dropped the jewels, and ran off down the corridor. Father chased him a little way, but of course it was no good; so he went back and shouted, and rang every bell he could see, and gave the alarm; but the man was never found. Still, he left the diamonds. That was the great thing, after all. You must look at them to-night at dinner. They really are wonderful. Are you a judge of precious stones at all?"
"I am rather," said Jimmy. "In fact, a jeweler I once knew told me I had a natural gift in that direction. And so, of course, Sir Thomas was pretty grateful to your father?"
"He simply gushed. He couldn't do enough for him. You see, if the diamonds had been stolen, I'm sure Lady Julia would have made Sir Thomas buy her another rope just as good. He's terrified of her, I'm certain. He tries not to show it, but he is. And, besides having to pay another hundred thousand dollars, he would never have heard the last of it. It would have ruined his reputation for being infallible and doing everything better than anybody else."
"But didn't the mere fact that the thief got the jewels, and was only stopped by a fluke from getting away with them, do that?"
Molly bubbled with laughter.
"She never knew. Sir Thomas got back to the hotel an hour before she did. I've never seen such a busy hour. He had the manager up, harangued him, and swore him to secrecy—which the poor manager was only too glad to agree to, because it wouldn't have done the hotel any good to have it known. And the manager harangued the servants, and the servants harangued one another, and everybody talked at the same time; and father and I promised not to tell a soul; so Lady Julia doesn't know a word about it to this day. And I don't see why she ever should—though, one of these days, I've a good mind to tell Lord Dreever. Think what a hold he would have over them! They'd never be able to bully him again."
"I shouldn't," said Jimmy, trying to keep a touch of coldness out of his voice. This championship of Lord Dreever, however sweet and admirable, was a little distressing.
She looked up quickly.
"You don't think I really meant to, do you?"
"No, no," said Jimmy, hastily. "Of course not."
"Well, I should think so!" said Molly, indignantly. "After I promised not to tell a soul about it!"
Jimmy chuckled.
"It's nothing," he said, in answer to her look of inquiry.
"You laughed at something."
"Well," said Jimmy apologetically, "it's only—it's nothing really—only, what I mean is, you have just told one soul a good deal about it, haven't you?"
Molly turned pink. Then, she smiled.
"I don't know how I came to do it," she declared. "It just rushed out of its own accord. I suppose it is because I know I can trust you."
Jimmy flushed with pleasure. He turned to her, and half-halted, but she continued to walk on.
"You can," he said, "but how do you know you can?"
She seemed surprised.
"Why—" she said. She stopped for a moment, and then went on hurriedly, with a touch of embarrassment. "Why, how absurd! Of course, I know. Can't you read faces? I can. Look," she said, pointing, "now you can see the castle. How do you like it?"
They had reached a point where the fields sloped sharply downward. A few hundred yards away, backed by woods, stood the gray mass of stone which had proved such a kill-joy of old to the Welsh sportsmen during the pheasant season. Even now, it had a certain air of defiance. The setting sun lighted the waters of the lake. No figures were to be seen moving in the grounds. The place resembled a palace of sleep.
"Well?" said Molly.
"It's wonderful!"
"Isn't it! I'm so glad it strikes you like that. I always feel as if I had invented everything round here. It hurts me if people don't appreciate it."
They went down the hill.
"By the way," said Jimmy, "are you acting in these theatricals they are getting up?"
"Yes. Are you the other man they were going to get? That's why Lord Dreever went up to London, to see if he couldn't find somebody. The man who was going to play one of the parts had to go back to London on business."
"Poor brute!" said Jimmy. It seemed to him at this moment that there was only one place in the world where a man might be even reasonably happy. "What sort of part is it? Lord Dreever said I should be wanted to act. What do I do?"
"If you're Lord Herbert, which is the part they wanted a man for, you talk to me most of the time."
Jimmy decided that the piece had been well cast.
The dressing-gong sounded just as they entered the hall. From adoor on the left, there emerged two men, a big man and a little one,in friendly conversation. The big man's back struck Jimmy asfamiliar.
"Oh, father," Molly called. And Jimmy knew where he had seen the back before.
The two men stopped.
"Sir Thomas," said Molly, "this is Mr. Pitt."
The little man gave Jimmy a rapid glance, possibly with the object of detecting his more immediately obvious criminal points; then, as if satisfied as to his honesty, became genial.
"I am very glad to meet you, Mr. Pitt, very glad," he said. "We have been expecting you for some time."
Jimmy explained that he had lost his way.
"Exactly. It was ridiculous that you should be compelled to walk, perfectly ridiculous. It was grossly careless of my nephew not to let us know that you were coming. My wife told him so in the car."
"I bet she did," said Jimmy to himself. "Really," he said aloud, by way of lending a helping hand to a friend in trouble, "I preferred to walk. I have not been on a country road since I landed in England." He turned to the big man, and held out his hand. "I don't suppose you remember me, Mr. McEachern? We met in New York."
"You remember the night Mr. Pitt scared away our burglar, father," said Molly.
Mr. McEachern was momentarily silent. On his native asphalt, there are few situations capable of throwing the New York policeman off his balance. In that favored clime, savoir faire is represented by a shrewd blow of the fist, and a masterful stroke with the truncheon amounts to a satisfactory repartee. Thus shall you never take the policeman of Manhattan without his answer. In other surroundings, Mr. McEachern would have known how to deal with the young man whom with such good reason he believed to be an expert criminal. But another plan of action was needed here. First and foremost, of all the hints on etiquette that he had imbibed since he entered this more reposeful life, came the maxim: "Never make a scene." Scenes, he had gathered, were of all things what polite society most resolutely abhorred. The natural man in him must be bound in chains. The sturdy blow must give way to the honeyed word. A cold, "Really!" was the most vigorous retort that the best circles would countenance. It had cost Mr. McEachern some pains to learn this lesson, but he had done it. He shook hands, and gruffly acknowledged the acquaintanceship.
"Really, really!" chirped Sir Thomas, amiably. "So, you find yourself among old friends, Mr. Pitt."
"Old friends," echoed Jimmy, painfully conscious of the ex-policeman's eyes, which were boring holes in him.
"Excellent, excellent! Let me take you to your room. It is just opposite my own. This way."
In his younger days, Sir Thomas had been a floor-walker of no mean caliber. A touch of the professional still lingered in his brisk movements. He preceded Jimmy upstairs with the restrained suavity that can be learned in no other school.
They parted from Mr. McEachern on the first landing, but Jimmy could still feel those eyes. The policeman's stare had been of the sort that turns corners, goes upstairs, and pierces walls.
Nevertheless, it was in an exalted frame of mind that Jimmy dressed for dinner. It seemed to him that he had awakened from a sort of stupor. Life, so gray yesterday, now appeared full of color and possibilities. Most men who either from choice or necessity have knocked about the world for any length of time are more or less fatalists. Jimmy was an optimistic fatalist. He had always looked on Fate, not as a blind dispenser at random of gifts good and bad, but rather as a benevolent being with a pleasing bias in his own favor. He had almost a Napoleonic faith in his star. At various periods of his life (notably at the time when, as he had told Lord Dreever, he had breakfasted on bird-seed), he had been in uncommonly tight corners, but his luck had always extricated him. It struck him that it would be an unthinkable piece of bad sportsmanship on Fate's part to see him through so much, and then to abandon him just as he had arrived in sight of what was by far the biggest thing of his life. Of course, his view of what constituted the biggest thing in life had changed with the years. Every ridge of the Hill of Supreme Moments in turn had been mistaken by him for the summit; but this last, he felt instinctively, was genuine. For good or bad, Molly was woven into the texture of his life. In the stormy period of the early twenties, he had thought the same of other girls, who were now mere memories as dim as those of figures in a half-forgotten play. In their case, his convalescence had been temporarily painful, but brief. Force of will and an active life had worked the cure. He had merely braced himself, and firmly ejected them from his mind. A week or two of aching emptiness, and his heart had been once more in readiness, all nicely swept and garnished, for the next lodger.
But, in the case of Molly, it was different. He had passed the age of instantaneous susceptibility. Like a landlord who has been cheated by previous tenants, he had become wary. He mistrusted his powers of recuperation in case of disaster. The will in these matters, just like the mundane "bouncer," gets past its work. For some years now, Jimmy had had a feeling that the next arrival would come to stay; and he had adopted in consequence a gently defensive attitude toward the other sex. Molly had broken through this, and he saw that his estimate of his will-power had been just. Methods that had proved excellent in the past were useless now. There was no trace here of the dimly consoling feeling of earlier years, that there were other girls in the world. He did not try to deceive himself. He knew that he had passed the age when a man can fall in love with any one of a number of types.
This was the finish, one way or the other. There would be no second throw. She had him. However it might end, he belonged to her.
There are few moments in a man's day when his brain is more contemplative than during that brief space when he is lathering his face, preparatory to shaving. Plying the brush, Jimmy reviewed the situation. He was, perhaps, a little too optimistic. Not unnaturally, he was inclined to look upon his luck as a sort of special train which would convey him without effort to Paradise. Fate had behaved so exceedingly handsomely up till now! By a series of the most workmanlike miracles, it had brought him to the point of being Molly's fellow-guest at a country-house. This, as reason coldly pointed out a few moments later, was merely the beginning, but to Jimmy, thoughtfully lathering, it seemed the end. It was only when he had finished shaving, and was tying his cravat, that he began to perceive obstacles in his way, and sufficiently big obstacles, at that.
In the first place, Molly did not love him. And, he was bound to admit, there was no earthly reason why she ever should. A man in love is seldom vain about his personal attractions. Also, her father firmly believed him to be a master-burglar.
"Otherwise," said Jimmy, scowling at his reflection in the glass, "everything's splendid." He brushed his hair sadly.
There was a furtive rap at the door.
"Hullo?" said Jimmy. "Yes?"
The door opened slowly. A grin, surmounted by a mop of red hair, appeared round the edge of it.
"Hullo, Spike. Come in. What's the matter?"
The rest of Mr. Mullins entered the room.
"Gee, boss! I wasn't sure was dis your room. Say, who do you t'ink I nearly bumped me coco ag'inst out in de corridor downstairs? Why, old man McEachern, de cop. Dat's right!"
"Yes?"
"Sure. Say, what's he doin' on dis beat? I pretty near went down an' out when I seen him. Dat's right. Me breath ain't got back home yet."
"Did he recognize you?"
"Did he! He starts like an actor on top de stoige when he sees he's up ag'inst de plot to ruin him, an' he gives me de fierce eye."
"Well?"
"I was wonderin' was I on Thoid Avenoo, or was I standin' on me coco, or what was I doin' anyhow. Den I slips off, an' chases meself up here. Say, boss, what's de game? What's old man McEachern doin' stunts dis side fer?"
"It's all right, Spike. Keep calm. I can explain. He has retired—like me! He's one of the handsome guests here."
"On your way, boss! What's dat?"
"He left the force just after that merry meeting of ours when you frolicked with the bull-dog. He came over here, and butted into society. So, here we are again, all gathered together under the same roof, like a jolly little family party."
Spike's open mouth bore witness to his amazement.
"Den—" he stammered.
"Yes?"
"Den, what's he goin' to do?"
"I couldn't say. I'm expecting to hear shortly. But we needn't worry ourselves. The next move's with him. If he wants to comment on the situation, he won't be backward. He'll come and do it."
"Sure. It's up to him," agreed Spike.
"I'm quite comfortable. Speaking for myself, I'm having a good time. How are you getting along downstairs?"
"De limit, boss. Honest, it's to de velvet. Dey's an old gazebo, de butler, Saunders his name is, dat's de best ever at handin' out long woids. I sits an' listens. Dey calls me Mr. Mullins down dere," said Spike, with pride.
"Good. I'm glad you're all right. There's no reason why we shouldn't have an excellent time here. I don't think that Mr. McEachern will try to have us turned out, after he's heard one or two little things I have to say to him—just a few reminiscences of the past which may interest him. I have the greatest affection for Mr. McEachern—I wish it were mutual—but nothing he can say is going to make me stir from here."
"Not on your life," agreed Spike. "Say, boss, he must have got a lot of plunks to be able to butt in here. An' I know how he got dem, too. Dat's right. I comes from little old New York, meself."
"Hush, Spike, this is scandal!"
"Sure," said the Bowery boy doggedly, safely started now on his favorite subject. "I knows, an' youse knows, boss. Gee! I wish I'd bin a cop. But I wasn't tall enough. Dey's de fellers wit' de big bank-rolls. Look at dis old McEachern. Money to boin a wet dog wit' he's got, an' never a bit of woik fer it from de start to de finish. An' look at me, boss."
"I do, Spike, I do."
"Look at me. Gittin' busy all de year round, woikin' to beat de band—"
"In prisons oft," said Jimmy.
"Sure t'ing. An' chased all roun' de town. An' den what? Why, to de bad at de end of it all. Say, it's enough to make a feller—"
"Turn honest," said Jimmy. "That's it, Spike. Reform. You'll be glad some day."
Spike seemed to be doubtful. He was silent for a moment, then, as if following up a train of thought, he said:
"Boss, dis is a fine big house."
"I've seen worse."
"Say, couldn't we—?"
"Spike!" said Jimmy, warningly.
"Well, couldn't we?" said Spike, doggedly. "It ain't often youse butts into a dead-easy proposition like dis one. We shouldn't have to do a t'ing excep' git busy. De stuff's just lyin' about, boss."
"I shouldn't wonder."
"Aw, it's a waste to leave it."
"Spike," said Jimmy, "I warned you of this. I begged you to be on your guard, to fight against your professional instincts. Be a man! Crush them. Try and occupy your mind. Collect butterflies."
Spike shuffled in gloomy silence.
"'Member dose jools youse swiped from de duchess?" he said, musingly.
"The dear duchess!" murmured Jimmy. "Ah, me!"
"An' de bank youse busted?"
"Those were happy days, Spike."
"Gee!" said the Bowery boy. And then, after a pause: "Dat was to de good," he said, wistfully.
Jimmy arranged his tie at the mirror.
"Dere's a loidy here," continued Spike, addressing the chest of drawers, "dat's got a necklace of jools what's wort' a hundred t'ousand plunks. Honest, boss. A hundred t'ousand plunks. Saunders told me dat—de old gazebo dat hands out de long woids. I says to him, 'Gee!' an' he says, 'Surest t'ing youse know.' A hundred t'ousand plunks!"
"So I understand," said Jimmy.
"Shall I rubber around, an' find out where is dey kept, boss?"
"Spike," said Jimmy, "ask me no more. All this is in direct contravention of our treaty respecting keeping your fingers off the spoons. You pain me. Desist."
"Sorry, boss. But dey'll be willy-wonders, dem jools. A hundred t'ousand plunks. Dat's goin' some, ain't it? What's dat dis side?"
"Twenty thousand pounds."
"Gee!...Can I help youse wit' de duds, boss?"
"No, thanks, Spike, I'm through now. You might just give me a brush down, though. No, not that. That's a hair-brush. Try the big black one."
"Dis is a boid of a dude suit," observed Spike, pausing in his labors.
"Glad you like it, Spike. Rather chic, I think."
"It's de limit. Excuse me. How much did it set youse back, boss?"
"Something like seven guineas, I believe. I could look up the bill, and let you know."
"What's dat—guineas? Is dat more dan a pound?"
"A shilling more. Why these higher mathematics?"
Spike resumed his brushing.
"What a lot of dude suits youse could git," he observed meditatively, "if youse had dem jools!" He became suddenly animated. He waved the clothes-brush. "Oh, you boss!" he cried. "What's eatin' youse? Aw, it's a shame not to. Come along, you boss! Say, what's doin'? Why ain't youse sittin' in at de game? Oh, you boss!"
Whatever reply Jimmy might have made to this impassioned appeal was checked by a sudden bang on the door. Almost simultaneously, the handle turned.
"Gee!" cried Spike. "It's de cop!"
Jimmy smiled pleasantly.
"Come in, Mr. McEachern," he said, "come in. Journeys end in lovers meeting. You know my friend Mr. Mullins, I think? Shut the door, and sit down, and let's talk of many things."
Mr. McEachern stood in the doorway, breathing heavily. As the result of a long connection with evil-doers, the ex-policeman was somewhat prone to harbor suspicions of those round about him, and at the present moment his mind was aflame. Indeed, a more trusting man might have been excused for feeling a little doubtful as to the intentions of Jimmy and Spike. When McEachern had heard that Lord Dreever had brought home a casual London acquaintance, he had suspected as a possible drawback to the visit the existence of hidden motives on the part of the unknown. Lord Dreever, he had felt, was precisely the sort of youth to whom the professional bunco-steerer would attach himself with shouts of joy. Never, he had assured himself, had there been a softer proposition than his lordship since bunco-steering became a profession. When he found that the strange visitor was Jimmy Pitt, his suspicions had increased a thousand-fold.
And when, going to his room to get ready for dinner, he had nearly run into Spike Mullins in the corridor, his frame of mind had been that of a man to whom a sudden ray of light reveals the fact that he is on the brink of a black precipice. Jimmy and Spike had burgled his house together in New York. And here they were, together again, at Dreever Castle. To say that the thing struck McEachern as sinister is to put the matter baldly. There was once a gentleman who remarked that he smelt a rat, and saw it floating in the air. Ex-Constable McEachern smelt a regiment of rats, and the air seemed to him positively congested with them.
His first impulse had been to rush to Jimmy's room there and then; but he had learned society's lessons well. Though the heavens might fall, he must not be late for dinner. So, he went and dressed, and an obstinate tie put the finishing touches to his wrath.
Jimmy regarded him coolly, without moving from, the chair in which he had seated himself. Spike, on the other hand, seemed embarrassed. He stood first on one leg, and then on the other, as if he were testing the respective merits of each, and would make a definite choice later on.
"You scoundrels!" growled McEachern.
Spike, who had been standing for a few moments on his right leg, and seemed at last to have come to, a decision, hastily changed to the left, and grinned feebly.
"Say, youse won't want me any more, boss?" he whispered.
"No, you can go, Spike."
"You stay where you are, you red-headed devil!" said McEachern, tartly.
"Run along, Spike," said Jimmy.
The Bowery boy looked doubtfully at the huge form of the ex-policeman, which blocked access to the door.
"Would you mind letting my man pass?" said Jimmy.
"You stay—" began McEachern.
Jimmy got up and walked round to the door, which he opened. Spike shot out. He was not lacking in courage, but he disliked embarrassing interviews, and it struck him that Jimmy was the man to handle a situation of this kind. He felt that he himself would only be in the way.
"Now, we can talk comfortably," said Jimmy, going back to his chair.
McEachern's deep-set eyes gleamed, and his forehead grew red, but he mastered his feelings.
"And now—" said he, then paused.
"Yes?" asked Jimmy.
"What are you doing here?"
"Nothing, at the moment."
"You know what I mean. Why are you here, you and that red-headed devil, Spike Mullins?" He jerked his head in the direction of the door.
"I am here because I was very kindly invited to come by Lord Dreever."
"I know you."
"You have that privilege. Seeing that we only met once, it's very good of you to remember me."
"What's your game? What do you mean to do?"
"To do? Well, I shall potter about the garden, you know, and shoot a bit, perhaps, and look at the horses, and think of life, and feed the chickens—I suppose there are chickens somewhere about—and possibly go for an occasional row on the lake. Nothing more. Oh, yes, I believe they want me to act in some theatricals."
"You'll miss those theatricals. You'll leave here to-morrow."
"To-morrow? But I've only just arrived, dear heart."
"I don't care about that. Out you go to-morrow. I'll give you till to-morrow."
"I congratulate you," said Jimmy. "One of the oldest houses in England."
"What do you mean?"
"I gathered from what you said that you had bought the Castle. Isn't that so? If it still belongs to Lord Dreever, don't you think you ought to consult him before revising his list of guests?"
McEachern looked steadily at him. His manner became quieter.
"Oh, you take that tone, do you?"
"I don't know what you mean by 'that tone.' What tone would you take if a comparative stranger ordered you to leave another man's house?"
McEachern's massive jaw protruded truculently in the manner that had scared good behavior into brawling East Siders.
"I know your sort," he said. "I'll call your bluff. And you won't get till to-morrow, either. It'll be now."
"'Why should we wait for the morrow? You are queen of my heart to-night," murmured Jimmy, encouragingly.
"I'll expose you before them all. I'll tell them everything."
Jimmy shook his head.
"Too melodramatic," he said. "'I call on heaven to judge between this man and me!' kind of thing. I shouldn't. What do you propose to tell, anyway?"
"Will you deny that you were a crook in New York?"
"I will. I was nothing of the kind."
"What?"
"If you'll listen, I can explain—"
"Explain!" The other's voice rose again. "You talk about explaining, you scum, when I caught you in my own parlor at three in the morning—you—"
The smile faded from Jimmy's face.
"Half a minute," he said. It might be that the ideal course would be to let the storm expend itself, and then to explain quietly the whole matter of Arthur Mifflin and the bet that had led to his one excursion into burglary; but he doubted it. Things—including his temper—had got beyond the stage of quiet explanations. McEachern would most certainly disbelieve his story. What would happen after that he did not know. A scene, probably: a melodramatic denunciation, at the worst, before the other guests; at the best, before Sir Thomas alone. He saw nothing but chaos beyond that. His story was thin to a degree, unless backed by witnesses, and his witnesses were three thousand miles away. Worse, he had not been alone in the policeman's parlor. A man who is burgling a house for a bet does not usually do it in the company of a professional burglar, well known to the police.
No, quiet explanations must be postponed. They could do no good, and would probably lead to his spending the night and the next few nights at the local police-station. And, even if he were spared that fate, it was certain that he would have to leave the castle—leave the castle and Molly!
He jumped up. The thought had stung him.
"One moment," he said.
McEachern stopped.
"Well?"
"You're going to tell them that?" asked Jimmy.
"I am."
Jimmy walked up to him.
"Are you also going to tell them why you didn't have me arrested that night?" he said.
McEachern started. Jimmy planted himself in front of him, and glared up into his face. It would have been hard to say which of the two was the angrier. The policeman was flushed, and the veins stood out on his forehead. Jimmy was in a white heat of rage. He had turned very pale, and his muscles were quivering. Jimmy in this mood had once cleared a Los Angeles bar-room with the leg of a chair in the space of two and a quarter minutes by the clock.
"Are you?" he demanded. "Are you?"
McEachern's hand, hanging at his side, lifted itself hesitatingly. The fingers brushed against Jimmy's shoulder.
Jimmy's lip twitched.
"Yes," he said, "do it! Do it, and see what happens. By God, if you put a hand on me, I'll finish you. Do you think you can bully me? Do you think I care for your size?"
McEachern dropped his hand. For the first time in his life, he had met a man who, instinct told him, was his match and more. He stepped back a pace.
Jimmy put his hands in his pockets, and turned away. He walked to the mantelpiece, and leaned his back against it.
"You haven't answered my question," he said. "Perhaps, you can't?"
McEachern was wiping his forehead, and breathing quickly.
"If you like," said Jimmy, "we'll go down to the drawing-room now, and you shall tell your story, and I'll tell mine. I wonder which they will think the more interesting. Damn you," he went on, his anger rising once more, "what do you mean by it? You come into my room, and bluster, and talk big about exposing crooks. What do you call yourself, I wonder? Do you realize what you are? Why, poor Spike's an angel compared with you. He did take chances. He wasn't in a position of trust. You—"
He stopped.
"Hadn't you better get out of here, don't you think?" he said, curtly.
Without a word, McEachern walked to the door, and went out.
Jimmy dropped into a chair with a deep breath. He took up his cigarette-case, but before he could light a match the gong sounded from the distance.
He rose, and laughed rather shakily. He felt limp. "As an effort at conciliating papa," he said, "I'm afraid that wasn't much of a success."
It was not often that McEachern was visited by ideas. He ran rather to muscle than to brain. But he had one that evening during dinner. His interview with Jimmy had left him furious, but baffled. He knew that his hands were tied. Frontal attack was useless. To drive Jimmy from the castle would be out of the question. All that could be done was to watch him while he was there. For he had never been more convinced of anything in his life than that Jimmy had wormed his way into the house-party with felonious intent. The appearance of Lady Julia at dinner, wearing the famous rope of diamonds, supplied an obvious motive. The necklace had an international reputation. Probably, there was not a prominent thief in England or on the Continent who had not marked it down as a possible prey. It had already been tried for, once. It was big game, just the sort of lure that would draw the type of criminal McEachern imagined Jimmy to be.
From his seat at the far end of the table, Jimmy looked at the jewels as they gleamed on their wearer's neck. They were almost too ostentatious for what was, after all, an informal dinner. It was not a rope of diamonds. It was a collar. There was something Oriental and barbaric in the overwhelming display of jewelry. It was a prize for which a thief would risk much.
The conversation, becoming general with the fish, was not of a kind to remove from his mind the impression made by the sight of the gems. It turned on burglary.
Lord Dreever began it.
"Oh, I say," he said, "I forgot to tell you, Aunt Julia, Number Six was burgled the other night."
Number 6a, Eaton Square, was the family's London house.
"Burgled!" cried Sir Thomas.
"Well, broken into," said his lordship, gratified to find that he had got the ear of his entire audience. Even Lady Julia was silent and attentive. "Chap got in through the scullery window about one o'clock in the morning."
"And what did you do?" inquired Sir Thomas.
"Oh, I—er—I was out at the time," said Lord Dreever. "But something frightened the feller," he went on hurriedly, "and he made a bolt for it without taking anything."
"Burglary," said a young man, whom Jimmy subsequently discovered to be the drama-loving Charteris, leaning back and taking advantage of a pause, "is the hobby of the sportsman and the life work of the avaricious." He took a little pencil from his waistcoat pocket, and made a rapid note on his cuff.
Everybody seemed to have something to say on the subject. One young lady gave it as her opinion that she would not like to find a burglar under her bed. Somebody else had heard of a fellow whose father had fired at the butler, under the impression that he was a house-breaker, and had broken a valuable bust of Socrates. Lord Dreever had known a man at college whose brother wrote lyrics for musical comedy, and had done one about a burglar's best friend being his mother.
"Life," said Charteris, who had had time for reflection, "is a house which we all burgle. We enter it uninvited, take all that we can lay hands on, and go out again." He scribbled, "Life—house—burgle," on his cuff, and replaced the pencil.
"This man's brother I was telling you about," said Lord Dreever, "says there's only one rhyme in the English language to 'burglar,' and that's 'gurgler—' unless you count 'pergola'! He says—"
"Personally," said Jimmy, with a glance at McEachern, "I have rather a sympathy for burglars. After all, they are one of the hardest-working classes in existence. They toil while everybody else is asleep. Besides, a burglar is only a practical socialist. People talk a lot about the redistribution of wealth. The burglar goes out and does it. I have found burglars some of the decentest criminals I have ever met."
"I despise burglars!" ejaculated Lady Julia, with a suddenness that stopped Jimmy's eloquence as if a tap had been turned off. "If I found one coming after my jewels, and I had a pistol, I'd shoot him."
Jimmy met McEachern's eye, and smiled kindly at him. The ex-policeman was looking at him with the gaze of a baffled, but malignant basilisk.
"I take very good care no one gets a chance at your diamonds, my dear," said Sir Thomas, without a blush. "I have had a steel box made for me," he added to the company in general, "with a special lock. A very ingenious arrangement. Quite unbreakable, I imagine."
Jimmy, with Molly's story fresh in his mind, could not check a rapid smile. Mr. McEachern, watching intently, saw it. To him, it was fresh evidence, if any had been wanted, of Jimmy's intentions and of his confidence of success. McEachern's brow darkened. During the rest of the meal, tense thought rendered him even more silent than was his wont at the dinner-table. The difficulty of his position was, he saw, great. Jimmy, to be foiled, must be watched, and how could he watch him?
It was not until the coffee arrived that he found an answer to the question. With his first cigarette came the idea. That night, in his room, before going to bed, he wrote a letter. It was an unusual letter, but, singularly enough, almost identical with one Sir Thomas Blunt had written that very morning.
It was addressed to the Manager of Dodson's Private Inquiry Agency, of Bishopsgate Street, E. C., and ran as follows:
Sir,—
On receipt of this, kindly send down one of your smartest men. Instruct him to stay at the village inn in character of American seeing sights of England, and anxious to inspect Dreever Castle. I will meet him in the village and recognize him as old New York friend, and will then give him further instructions. Yours faithfully,
J. McEACHERN.
P. S. Kindly not send a rube, but a real smart man.
This brief, but pregnant letter cost some pains in its composition. McEachern was not a ready writer. But he completed it at last to his satisfaction. There was a crisp purity in the style that pleased him. He sealed up the envelope, and slipped it into his pocket. He felt more at ease now. Such was the friendship that had sprung up between Sir Thomas Blunt and himself as the result of the jewel episode in Paris that he could count with certainty on the successful working of his scheme. The grateful knight would not be likely to allow any old New York friend of his preserver to languish at the village inn. The sleuth-hound would at once be installed at the castle, where, unsuspected by Jimmy, he could keep an eye on the course of events. Any looking after that Mr. James Pitt might require could safely be left in the hands of this expert.
With considerable fervor, Mr. McEachern congratulated himself on his astuteness. With Jimmy above stairs and Spike below, the sleuth-hound would have his hands full.