I hadn't been married long when my husband read out of some newspaper the notice of a clergyman's death, and mentioned that he was a cousin by marriage whom he hadn't met since boyhood, although the clergyman's living was in our county—somewhere off at the other end.My husband thought there was a daughter, and I remember his remarking that we ought to write and find out if she'd been left badly off. Of course, it wasmyduty to have kept his idea alive, and to have carried it out. But I was young and having such a good time that I'm afraid it was a case of "out of sight, out of mind."We forgot to inquire, and heard no more. It washorridof us, and I'm sure it wasourloss. Probably we should have remembered if things had gone well with us: but perhaps you know that my father (whose money used to seem unlimited to me) lost it all, and we were mixed up in the smash. We've been poorer than any church mice since, and trying to make ends meet has occupied our attention from that day to this.I have to confess that, if our attention hadn't been drawn to your name, we might never have thought of it again. But now I've eased my conscience, and as fate seems to have brought us within close touch, do let us see what she means to do with us. We should so like to meet you and Mr. Nelson Smith, who is, apparently, more or less a countryman of mine.I'm not allowed out yet, in this cold weather, after an attack of "flu"; but my husband will call this afternoon on the chance of finding you in, carrying a warm invitation to you both to "waive ceremony" and dine with us at Valley Houseen famille.Looking forward to meeting you,Yours most cordially,Constance Annesley-Seton.
I hadn't been married long when my husband read out of some newspaper the notice of a clergyman's death, and mentioned that he was a cousin by marriage whom he hadn't met since boyhood, although the clergyman's living was in our county—somewhere off at the other end.
My husband thought there was a daughter, and I remember his remarking that we ought to write and find out if she'd been left badly off. Of course, it wasmyduty to have kept his idea alive, and to have carried it out. But I was young and having such a good time that I'm afraid it was a case of "out of sight, out of mind."
We forgot to inquire, and heard no more. It washorridof us, and I'm sure it wasourloss. Probably we should have remembered if things had gone well with us: but perhaps you know that my father (whose money used to seem unlimited to me) lost it all, and we were mixed up in the smash. We've been poorer than any church mice since, and trying to make ends meet has occupied our attention from that day to this.
I have to confess that, if our attention hadn't been drawn to your name, we might never have thought of it again. But now I've eased my conscience, and as fate seems to have brought us within close touch, do let us see what she means to do with us. We should so like to meet you and Mr. Nelson Smith, who is, apparently, more or less a countryman of mine.
I'm not allowed out yet, in this cold weather, after an attack of "flu"; but my husband will call this afternoon on the chance of finding you in, carrying a warm invitation to you both to "waive ceremony" and dine with us at Valley Houseen famille.
Looking forward to meeting you,
Yours most cordially,
Constance Annesley-Seton.
"Sweet of her, isn't it?" Annesley exclaimed when she and Knight had read the letter through.
Knight glanced at his wife quizzically, opened his lips to speak, and closed them. Perhaps he thought it would be unwise as well as wrong to disturb the girl's faith in Lady Annesley-Seton's disinterestedness.
"Yes, it'srealsweet!" he said, exaggerating his American accent, but keeping a grave face.
They were duly "at home" that afternoon, though they had intended to go out, and the caller found them in a private sitting room filled with flowers, suggesting much money and a love of spending it. Annesley had put on Knight's favourite frock, one of the "model dresses" he had chosen for her in their whirlwind rush through Bond Street, a white cloth trimmed with narrow bands of dark fur; and she had never looked prettier.
Lord Annesley-Seton, a tall thin man of the eagle-nosed soldier type, wearing pince-nez, but youthful-looking for the forty-four years Burke gave him, could not help thinking her a satisfactory cousin to pick up: and Nelson Smith was far from being in appearance the rough, self-made man he had dreaded.
He was delighted with them both—so young, so handsome, so happy, so fortunate, and luckily so well bred. He did not make the short conventional call he had intended, but stayed to tea, and at last went home to give his wife an enthusiastic account of the visit.
"The girl's a lady, and might be a beauty if she had more confidence in herself—you know what I mean: taking herself for granted as a charmer, the way you smart women do," he said. "She isn't that kind. But with you to show her the ropes, she'll be liked by the right people. There's a softness and sweetness and genuineness that you don't often see in girls now. As for the man, you'll think him a ripper, Connie—so will other women. Has the air of being a gentleman born, and then having roughed it all over the world. A strong man, I should say. A man's man as well as a woman's. Might 'take' if he's started right."
"We'llsee to that," said Constance Annesley-Seton, who was not too ill to go out but had not wanted to seem too eager.
She was less than thirty, but looked more because she had worried and drawn faint lines between her delicate auburn brows and at the corners of her greenish-gray eyes. There were also a few fading threads in the red locks which were her one real beauty; but she had a marvellous hair-varnish which prevented them from showing.
"We'll see to that! If they'llletus. Are they going to let us?"
"Yes, I think so," Annesley-Seton reassured her. "They're a pair of children, willing to be guided. They can have anything they want in the world, but they don't seem to know what to want."
"Splendid!" laughed Constance. "Can't we will them to want our house in town, and invite us to visit them?"
"I shouldn't wonder," replied her husband. "You might make a start in that direction when they come to dinner to-morrow evening."
Lord Annesley-Seton had outgrown such enthusiasms as he might once have had, therefore his account of the cousins encouraged Constance to hope much, and she was not disappointed. On the contrary, she thought that he had not said enough, especially about the man.
If she had not had so many anxieties that her youthful love of "larks" had been crushed out, she would have "adored" a flirtation with Nelson Smith. It would have been "great fun" to steal him from the pretty beanpole of a girl who would not know how to use her claws in a fight for her man; but as it was, Connie thought only of conciliating "Cousin Anne," and winning her confidence. Other women would try to take Nelson Smith from his wife, but Connie would have her hands full in playing a less amusing game.
She thought, seeing that the handsome, dark young man she admired had a mind of his own, it would be a difficult game to play; and Nelson Smith saw that she thought so. His sense of humour caused him to smile at his own cleverness in producing the impression; and he would have given a good deal for someone to laugh with over her maneuvers to entice him along the road he wished to travel.
But he dared not point out to Annesley the fun of the situation. To do so would be to put her against him and it.
She, too, had a sense of humour, suppressed by five years of Mrs. Ellsworth, but coming delightfully to life, like a half-frozen bird, in the sunshine of safety and happiness. Knight appealed to and encouraged it often, for he could not have lived with a humourless woman, no matter how sweet.
Yet he did not dare wake it where her cousins were concerned. Her sense of honour was more valuable to him than her sense of humour. He was afraid to put the former on the defensive, and he was glad to let her believe the Annesley-Setons were genuinely "warming" to them in a way which proved that blood was thicker than water.
The girl had wondered from the first why he was determined to make friends with these cousins whom she had never known, and he was grateful because she believed in him too loyally to attribute his desire to "snobbishness." He wished her to suppose he had set his heart on providing her with influential guidance on the threshold of a new life; and it was important that she should not begin criticizing his motives.
By the time dinner was over Constance Annesley-Seton had decided that the Nelson Smiths had been sent to her by the Powers that Be, and that it would be tempting Providence not to annex them. Not that she put it in that way to herself, for she did not trouble her mind about Providence. All she knew was that she and Dick would be fools to let the chance slip.
It was as much as she could do not to suggest the idea in her mind: that the Nelson Smiths should take the house in Portman Square; that she and her husband should introduce them to society, and that the Devonshire place should either be let to them or that they should visit there when they wished to be in the country, as paying guests.
But she controlled her impatience, limiting herself to proposing plans for future meetings. She suggested giving a dinner in honour of the bride and bridegroom, and inviting people whom it would be "nice for them to know" in town.
Knight said that he and "Anita" (his new name for Annesley, a souvenir of Spanish South America) would accept with pleasure. And the girl agreed gladly, because she thought her cousin and his wife were very kind.
After dinner Annesley-Seton and Knight followed Constance and "Anita" almost directly, the former asking his guests if they would like to see some of the family treasures which they could only have glanced at in passing with the crowd the other day.
"Before sugar went to smash, we blazed into all sorts of extravagances here," he said, bitterly, with a glance at the deposed Sugar King's daughter. "Among others, putting electric light into this old barn. We'll have an illumination, and show you some trifles Connie and I wish to Heaven a kind-hearted burglar would relieve us of.
"Of course the beastly things are heirlooms, as I suppose you know. We can't sell or pawn them, or I should have done one or the other long ago. They're insured by the trustees, who are the bane of our lives, for the estate. But a sporting sort of company has blossomed out lately, which insures against 'loss of use'—I think that's the expression. I pay the premium myself—even when I can't pay anything else!—and if the valuable contents of this place are stolen or burned, we shall benefit personally.
"I don't mind you or all the world knowing we're stony broke," he went on, frankly. "And everyonedoesknow, anyhow, that we'd be in the deuce of a hole without the tourists' shillings which pour in twice a week the year round. You see, each object in the collection helps bring in those shillings; and 'loss of use' of a single one would be a real deprivation. So it's fair and above board. But thus far, I've paid my premium and got no return, these last three years. Our tourists are so disgustingly honest, or our burglars so clumsy and unenterprising, that, as you say in the States, 'there's nothing doing.'"
As he talked Dick Annesley-Seton sauntered about the immense room into which they had come from the state banqueting hall, switching on more and more of the electric candle-lights set high on the green brocade walls. This was known as the "green drawing room" by the family, and the "Room of the Miniatures" by the public, who read about it in catalogues.
"Come and look at our white elephants," he went on, when the room, dimly and economically lit at first, was ablaze with light; and Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith joined him eagerly. Constance followed, too, bored but resigned; and her husband paused before a tall, narrow glass cabinet standing in a recess.
"See these miniatures!" he exclaimed, fretfully. "There are plenty more, but the best are in this cabinet; and there's a millionaire chap, in New York—perhaps you can guess his name, Smith?—who has offered a hundred thousand pounds for the thirty little bits of ivory in it."
"I think that must have been the great Paul Van Vreck," Knight hazarded.
"I thought you'd guess! There aren't many who'd make such an offer. Think what it would mean to me if it could be accepted, and I could have the handling of the money. There are three small pictures in the little octagon gallery next door, too, Van Vreck took a fancy to on a visit he paid us from Saturday to Monday last summer. We never thought much of them, and they're in a dark place, labelled in the catalogue 'Artist unknown: School of Fragonard'; butheswore they were authentic Fragonards, and would have backed his opinion to the tune of fifteen thousand pounds for the trio, or six thousand for the one he liked best. Isn't it aggravating? In the Chinese room he went mad over some bits of jade, especially a Buddha nobody else had ever admired."
"He's one of the few millionaire collectors who is really a judge of all sorts of things," Knight replied. "But, great Scott! I'm no expert, yet it strikes me these miniatures are something out of the ordinary!"
"Well, yes, they are," Annesley-Seton admitted, modestly. "That queer one at the top is a Nicholas Hilliard. I believe he was the first of the miniaturists. And the two just underneath are Samuel Coopers. They say he stood at the head of the Englishmen. There are three Richard Cosways and rather a nice Angelica Kauffmann."
"It was the Fragonard miniature Mr. Van Vreck liked best," put in Constance. "It seems he painted only a few. And next, the Goya——"
"Good heavens! where is the Fragonard?" cried Dick, his eyes bulging behind his pince-nez. "Surely it was here——"
"Oh, surely, yes!" panted his wife. "It was never anywhere else."
For an instant they were stricken into silence, both staring at a blank space on the black velvet background where twenty-nine miniatures hung. There was no doubt about it when they had reviewed the rows of little painted faces. The Fragonard was gone.
"Stolen!" gasped Lady Annesley-Seton.
"Unless one of you, or some servant you trust with the key, is a somnambulist," said Knight. "I don't see how it would pay a thief to steal such a thing. It must be too well known. He couldn't dispose of it—that is if he weren't a collector himself; and even then he could never show it. But—by Jove!"
"What is it? What have you seen?" Annesley-Seton asked, sharply.
Knight pointed, without touching the cabinet. He had never come near enough to do that. "It looks to me as if a square bit of glass had been cut out on the side where the lost miniature must have hung," he said. "I can't be sure, from where I stand, because the cabinet is too close to the wall of the recess."
Dick Annesley-Seton thrust his arm into the space between green brocade and glass, then slipped his hand through a neatly cut aperture just big enough to admit its passage. With his hand in the square hole he could reach the spot where the miniature had hung, and could have taken it off the hook had it been there. But hook, as well as miniature, was missing.
"That settles it!" he exclaimed. "Itisa theft, and a clever one! Strange we should find it out when I was demonstrating to you how much I wished it would happen. Hurrah! That miniature alone is insured against burglary for seven or eight hundred pounds. Nothing to what it's worth, but a lot to pay a premium on, with the rest of the things besides. I wish now I hadn't been so cheese-paring. You'll be witnesses, you two, of our discovery. I'm glad Connie and I weren't alone when we found it out. Something nasty might have been said."
"We'll back you up with pleasure," Knight replied. "What was the miniature like? I wonder if we saw it when we were here the other day, Anita? I remember these, but can't recall any other."
"Neither can I," returned Annesley. "But I am stupid about such things. We saw so many—and passed so quickly."
"I wonder if Paul Van Vreck was here in disguise among the tourists?" said Dick, beginning to laugh. "It would have been the one he'd have chosen if he couldn't grab the lot."
"Oh, surely no one in the crowd could have cut a piece of glass out of a cabinet and stolen a miniature without being seen!" Annesley cried.
"Dick is half in joke," Constance explained. "It would have been a miracle, yet the servants are above suspicion. Those horrid trustees never let me choose a new one without their interference. And, ofcourseDick didn't mean what he said about Mr. Van Vreck."
"Of course not. I understood that," Annesley excused herself, blushing lest she had appeared obtuse.
"All the same, to carry on the joke, let's go into the octagon room and see if the alleged Fragonard pictures have gone, too," said Annesley-Seton. He led the way, turning on more light in the adjoining room as he went; and, outdistancing the others, they heard him stammer, "Good Lord!" before they were near enough to see what he saw.
"They aren't gone?" shrieked his wife, hurrying after him.
"One of them is."
In an instant the three had grouped behind him, where he stood staring at an empty frame, between two others of the same pattern and size, charming old frames twelve or fourteen inches square, within whose boundaries of carved and gilded wood, nymphs held hands and danced.
"Are wedreamingthis?" gasped Constance.
"Thank Heaven we're not!" the husband answered. "The two paintings are on wood, you see. So was the missing one. Someone has simply unfastened it from the frame, and trusted to this being a dark, out-of-the-way corner, not to have the theft noticed for hours or maybe days. By all that's wonderful, here'sanotherinsurance haul for me! What about the jade Buddha in the Chinese room?"
They rushed back into the green drawing room, and so to the beautiful Chinese room beyond, with its priceless lacquer tables and cabinets. In one of these latter a collection of exquisite jade was gathered together.
And the Buddha which Paul Van Vreck had coveted was gone!
There was great excitement for the next few days at Valley House and throughout the neighbourhood, for the Annesley-Setons made no secret of the robbery, and the affair got into the papers, not only the local ones, but the London dailies.
Two of the latter sent representatives, to whom Lord Annesley-Seton granted interviews. Something he said attracted the reporters' attention to Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith, who had been dining at Valley House on the evening when the theft was discovered, and Knight was begged for an interview.
He was asked if he had formed an opinion as to the disappearance of the three heirlooms, and whether he knew personally Mr. Paul Van Vreck, the American collector and retired head of the famous firm of jewellers, who had wished to buy the vanished treasures.
Having spent most of his life in America, Knight had the theory that unless you wished to be misrepresented, the only safe thing was to let yourself be interviewed. He was accordingly so good-natured and interesting that the reporters were delighted with him. If he had been wishing for a wide advertisement of his personality, his possessions, and his plans, he could not have chosen a surer way of getting it.
The two newspapers which had undertaken to boom the "Valley House Heirloom Theft" had almost limitless circulations. One of them possessed a Continental edition, and the other was immensely popular because of its topical illustrations.
Snapshots, not so unflattering as usual, were obtained of the young Anglo-American millionaire and his bride, as they started away from the Knowle Hotel in their motor, or as they walked in the garden. Though Knight had disclaimed any personal acquaintance with the great Paul Van Vreck, he was able to state that Mr. Van Vreck had been convalescing at Palm Beach, in Florida, at the time of the robbery. He had had an attack of pneumonia in the autumn, and instead of travelling in his yacht to Egypt, as he generally did travel early in the winter, he had been ordered by his doctors to be satisfied with a "place in the sun" nearer home.
Everyone in America knew this, Knight explained, and everyone in England might know it also, unless it had been forgotten. If Mr. Van Vreck were well enough to take an interest in the papers, he was sure to be amused by the coincidence that the things stolen from Valley House were among those he had wanted to buy.
Knight thought, however, that even if the clever thief or thieves had heard of Van Vreck's whim, no attempt would be made to dispose of the spoil to him. The elderly millionaire, though one of the most eccentric men living, was known as the soul of honour.
The relationship between young Mrs. Nelson Smith and Lord Annesley-Seton was touched upon in the papers; and though it was irrelevant to the subject in hand, mention was made of the Nelson Smiths' plan to live in London.
This gave Constance her chance. At an impromptu luncheon at the Knowle Hotel, before the intended dinner party at Valley House, she referred to the interest Society would begin to take in this "romantic couple."
"Everybody will have fallen in love with you already," she said, "from those snapshots in theLooking Glass. They make you both look such darlings—though they don't flatter either of you. All the people we know will be clamouring to meet you, so you must hurry and find a nice house, in the right part of town, before some other sensation comes up and you're forgotten. How would it be if you tookourhouse for a couple of months, while you're looking round? Naturally, if youlikedit, you could keep it on. We'd be delighted, for we have to let it when we can, and it would be a pleasure to think of you in it."
"If we're in it, you must both come and stay, and not only 'think' of us, but be with us: mustn't they, Anita?" Knight proposed. Of course Annesley said yes, and meant yes. Not that she really wanted her duet with Knight to be broken up into a chorus, but she longed to succeed as a woman of the world, since that was what he wanted her to be; and she realized that Lady Annesley-Seton's help would be invaluable.
So, through the theft at Valley House and the developments therefrom, the hidden desires of Nelson Smith and the daughter of the deposed Sugar King accomplished themselves, Connie still believing that she had engineered the affair with diplomatic skill, and Knight laughing silently at the way she had played into his hands.
Detectives were set to work by the two insurance companies, who hoped to trace the thief and discover the stolen Fragonards and the jade Buddha; but their efforts failed; and at the dinner party given in honour of the new cousins, Lord and Lady Annesley-Seton rejoiced openly in their good luck.
"All the same," Constance said, "Ishouldlike to know how the things were spirited out of the house, and where they are. It is the first mystery that has ever come into our lives. I wish I were a clairvoyante. It would be fun!"
"Did you ever hear of the Countess de Santiago, when you lived in America?" asked Knight in his calm voice. He did not glance toward Annesley, who sat at the other end of the table, but he must have guessed that she would turn with a start of surprise on hearing the Countess's name in this connection.
"The Countess de Santiago?" Connie echoed. "No. What about her? She sounds interesting."
"Sheisinteresting. And beautiful." Everybody had stopped talking by this time, to listen; and in the pause Knight appealed to his wife. "That's not an exaggeration, is it, Anita?"
Annesley, wondering and somewhat startled, answered that the Countess de Santiago was one of the most beautiful women she had seen.
This riveted the attention which Knight had caught. He had his audience, and went on in a leisurely way.
"Come to think of it, she can't have been heard of in your part of the world until you'd left for England," he told Constance. "She's the most extraordinary clairvoyante I ever heard of. That's what made me speak of her. Unfortunately she's not a professional, and won't do anything unless she happens to feel like it. But I wonder if I could persuade her to look in her crystal for you, Lady Annesley-Seton?
"She's an old acquaintance of mine," he went on, casually. "I met her in Buenos Aires before her rich elderly husband died, about seven or eight years ago. She was very young then. I came across her again in California, when she was seeing the world as a free woman, after the old fellow's death. Then I introduced her by letter to one or two people in New York, and I believe she has been admired there, and at Newport.
"But I've onlyheardall that," Knight hastened to explain. "I've been too busy till lately to know at first hand what goes on in the 'smart' or the artistic set.Myworld doesn't take much interest in crystal-gazers and palmists, amateur or professional, even when they happen to be handsome women, like the Countess. But I ran against her again on board theMonarchicabout a month ago, crossing to this side, and we picked up threads of old acquaintance. She was staying at the Savoy when I left London."
He paused a moment, and added:
"As a favour to me, she might set her accomplishments to work on this business. Only she'd have to meet you both and see this house, for I've heard her say she couldn't do anything without knowing the people concerned, and 'getting the atmosphere.'"
"Oh, wemusthave her!" cried Constance, and all the other women except Annesley chimed in, begging their hostess to invite them if the Countess came.
No one thought it odd that Mrs. Nelson Smith should be silent, for her remark about the Countess de Santiago's beauty showed that she had met the lady; but to any one who had turned a critical stare upon her then, her expression must have seemed strange. She had an unseeing look, the look of one who has become deaf and blind to everything outside some scene conjured up by the brain.
What Annesley saw was a copy of theMorning Post. Knight's mention of the Countess de Santiago's power of clairvoyance at the same time with the linerMonarchicprinted before her eyes a paragraph which her subconscious self had never forgotten.
For the moment only her body sat between a young hunting baronet and a distinguished elderly general at her cousins' dinner table. Her soul had gone back to London, to the ugly dining room at 22-A, Torrington Square, and was reading aloud from a newspaper to a stout old woman in a tea gown.
She was even able to recall what she had been thinking, as her lips mechanically conveyed the news to Mrs. Ellsworth. She had been wondering how much longer she could go on enduring the monotony, and what Mrs. Ellsworth would do if her slave should stop reading, shriek, and throw theMorning Postin her face.
As she pictured to herself the old woman's amazement, followed by rage, she had pronounced the words:
SENSATIONAL OCCURRENCE ON BOARD THE S.S.MONARCHIC
SENSATIONAL OCCURRENCE ON BOARD THE S.S.MONARCHIC
Even that exciting preface had not recalled her interest from her own affairs. She could remember now the hollow, mechanical sound of her voice in her own ears as she had half-heartedly gone on, tempted to turn the picture of her wild revolt into reality.
The paragraph, seemingly forgotten but merely buried under other memories, had told of the disappearance on board theMonarchicof certain pearls and diamonds which were being secretly brought from New York to London by an agent of a great jewellery firm. He had been blamed by the chief officer for not handing the valuables over to the purser.
The unfortunate man (who had not advertised the fact that he was an agent for Van Vreck & Co. until he had had to complain of the theft) excused this seeming carelessness by the statement that he had hoped his identity might pass unsuspected. His theory was that safety lay in insignificance.
He had engaged a small, cheap cabin for himself alone, taking an assumed name; had pretended to be a schoolmaster on holiday, and had worn the pearls and other things always on his person in a money belt. Even at night he had kept the belt on his body, a revolver under his pillow, and the door of his cabin locked, with an extra patent adjustable lock of his own, invented by a member of the firm he served. It had not seemed probable that he would be recognized, or possible that he could be robbed.
Yet one morning he had waked late, with a dull headache and sensation of sickness, to find that his door, though closed, was unfastened, and that all his most valuable possessions were missing from the belt.
Some were left, as though the thief had fastidiously made his selection, scorning to trouble himself with anything but the best. The mystery of the affair was increased by the fact that, though the man (Annesley vaguely recalled some odd name, like Jekyll or Jedkill) felt certain he had fastened the door, there was no sign that it had been forced open. His patent detachable lock, however, had disappeared, like the jewels.
And despite the sensation of sickness, and pain in the head, there were no symptoms of drugging by chloroform, or any odour of chloroform or other anæsthetic in the room.
It struck Annesley as strange, almost terrifying, that these details of theMonarchic"sensation" should come back to her now; but she could not doubt that she had actually read them, and the rest of the story continued to reprint itself on her brain, as the unrolling of a film might bring back to one of the actors poses of his own which he had let slip into oblivion.
She remembered how some of the more important passengers had suggested that everybody on board should be searched, even to the ship's officers, sailors, and employés of all sorts; that the search had been made and nothing found, but that a lady supposed to possess clairvoyant powers had offered Mr. Jekyll or Jedkill toconsult her crystalfor his benefit.
She had done so, and had seen wireless messages passing between someone on theMonarchicand someone on another ship, with whom the former person appeared to be in collusion. She had seen a small, fair man, dressed as a woman, hypnotizing the jewellers' agent into the belief that he was locking his door when instead he was leaving it unlocked.
Then she had seen this man who, she asserted firmly, was dressed like a woman, walk into his victim's cabin, hypnotize him into still deeper unconsciousness, and take from his belt three long strings of pearls and several magnificent diamonds, set and unset. These things she saw made up into a bundle, wrapped in waterproof cloth, attached to a faintly illuminated life-preserver, and thrown overboard.
Almost immediately after, she said, the life preserver was picked up by a man in a small motor-launch let down from a steam yacht. The launch quickly returned to the yacht, was taken up, and the yacht made off in the darkness.
No life belt was missing from theMonarchicand even if suspicion could be entertained against any "small, fair man" (which was not the case, apparently), there was no justification for a search. Therefore, although a good many people believed in the seeress's vision, it proved nothing, and the sensational affair remained as deep a mystery as ever when theMonarchicdocked.
"The Countess de Santiago was the woman who looked in the crystal!" Annesley said to herself. She wondered why, if Knight had been vexed with the Countess for speaking of their friendship and of theMonarchic, as he had once seemed to be, he should refer to it before these strangers.
She looked down the table, past the other faces to his face, and the thought that came to her mind was, how simple and almost meaningless the rest were compared to his. Among the fourteen guests—seven women and seven men—though some had charm or distinction, his face alone was complex, mysterious, and baffling.
Yet she loved it. Now, more than ever, she loved and admired it!
The dinner ended with a discussion between Knight and Constance as to how the Countess de Santiago could be induced to pay a visit to Valley House, despite the fact that she had never met Lord and Lady Annesley-Seton. Like most women who had lived in Spanish countries, the Countess was rather a "stickler for etiquette," her friend Nelson Smith announced. Besides, her experience as an "amateur clairvoyante" made her quick to resent anything which had the air of patronage. One must go delicately to work to think out a scheme, if Lady Annesley-Seton were really in "dead earnest" about wanting her to come.
At this point Knight reflected for a minute, while everyone hung upon his silence; and at last he had an inspiration:
"I'll tell you what we can do!" he exclaimed. "My wife and I—you're willing, aren't you, Anita?—can ask her to stay over this week-end with us. I think she'll come if she isn't engaged; and we can invite you to meet her at dinner."
"Oh, you must invite usall!" pleaded a pretty woman sitting next to Knight.
"All of you who care to come, certainly," he agreed. "Won't we, Anita?"
"Oh, of course. It will be splendid if everybody will dine with us!" Annesley backed him up with one of the girlish blushes that made her seem so young and ingenuously attractive. "We can—send a telegram to the Countess."
She did her best to speak enthusiastically, and succeeded. No one save Knight and Constance guessed it was an effort.
Knight saw, and was grateful. Constance saw also, and smiled to herself at what she fancied was the girl's jealousy of an old friend of the new husband—an old friend who was "one of the most beautiful women" the girl had seen. Annesley's hesitation inclined Constance to be more interested than ever in the Countess de Santiago.
Motoring back from Valley House to the Knowle Hotel, Annesley was asking herself whether she might dare refer to theMonarchic, and mention the story she had read In theMorning Post. She burned to do so, yet stopped each time a question pressed to her lips, remembering Knight's eyes as he had looked at the Countess in the Savoy restaurant the day before the wedding.
Perhaps the wish would have conquered if some imp had not whispered, "What about that purple envelope, addressed in a woman's handwriting? Maybe it was fromher, hinting to see him again, and that is what has put this plan into his head. Perhaps he brought up the subject of the Countess on purpose to make them invite her here!"
This thought caused the Countess de Santiago to seem a powerful person, with an influence over Knight, though he had appeared not to care for her. Could it be that he wanted an excuse to have her near him? The suggestion closed Annesley's mouth by making her afraid that she was turning into a suspicious creature, like jealous brides she had read about. She determined to be silent as a self-punishment, and firmly steered theMonarchicinto a backwater of her thoughts, while Knight talked of the Valley House party and their credulous superstition.
"Every man Jack and every woman Jill of the lot believe in that crystal and clairvoyant nonsense!" he laughed. "I mentioned it for fun, but I went on simply to 'pull their legs.' I hope you don't mind having the Countess down, do you, child? Of course, I made it out to be a favour that so wonderful a being should consent to come at call. But between us, Anita, the poor woman will fall over herself with joy. She's a restless, lonely creature, who has drifted about the world without stopping anywhere long enough to make friends, and I have a notion that her heart's desire is to 'get into society' in England. This will give her a chance, because these good ladies and gentlemen who are dying to see what she's like, and persuade her to tell their pasts and futures, are at the top of the tree. It's a cheap way for us to make her happy—and we can afford it."
"Don't you believe she really is clairvoyant, and sees things in her crystal?" Annesley ventured.
It was then that Knight made her heart beat by answering with a question. "Didn't you read in the newspapers about the queer thing that happened on board theMonarchic?"
"Ye-es, Ididread it," the girl said, in so stifled a voice that the reply became a confession.
"Why didn't you tell me so?"
"Because—the day I heard you were on theMonarchic, I couldn't remember what I'd read. It was vague in my mind——"
"No other reason?"
"Only that—that—I fancied——"
"You fancied I didn't like to talk about theMonarchic?"
"Well, when the Countess spoke of it, you looked—cross."
"I was cross. But only with thewayshe spoke—as if she and I had come over together because we were pals. That's all. Though I've every cause to hate the memory of that trip! When did you remember what you had read in the newspapers?"
"Only this evening."
"I thought so! At dinner. I saw a look come over your face."
"I didn't know you noticed me."
"I'm always noticing you. And I was proud of you to-night. Well! You remembered——"
"About a man on board being robbed, and a lady—an 'amateur clairvoyante,' seeing things in a crystal. I thought it must have been the Countess de Santiago."
"It was, though her name was kept out of the papers by her request. She's sensitive about the clairvoyance stuff: afraid people may consider her a professional, and look down on her from patronizing social heights. Of course, I suppose it's nonsense about seeing things in a glass ball, but I believe shedoescontrive to take it seriously, for she seems in earnest. She did tell people on board ship things about themselves—true things, they said; and they ought to know!
"As for the jewel affair," he added, "nobody could be sure if there was anything in her 'visions', but people thought them extraordinary—even the captain, a hard-headed old chap. You see, a yacht had been sighted the evening before the robbery while the passengers were at dinner. It might have kept near, with lights out, for theMonarchicis one of the huge, slow-going giants, and the yacht might have been a regular little greyhound. It seems she didn't answer signals. The captain hadn't thought much of that, because there was a slight fog and she could have missed them. But it came back to him afterward, and seemed to bear out the Countess's rigmarole.
"Besides, there was the finding of the patent lock, where she told the man Jedfield he ought to look for it."
"I don't remember that in the paper."
"It was in several, if not all. She 'saw' the missing lock—a thing that goes over a bolt and prevents it sliding back—in one of the lifeboats upon the boat-deck, caught in the canvas covering. Well, it was there! And there could be no suspicion of her putting the thing where it was found, so as to make herself seem a true prophetess. She couldn't have got to the place.
"That'swhy people were so impressed with the rest of the visions. We're all inclined to be superstitious. Even I was interested. Though I don't pin my faith in such things, I asked her to look into the crystal, and see if she could tell what had become of my gold repeater, which disappeared the same night."
"Oh!" exclaimed Annesley. "Soyouhad something stolen?"
"It looked like it. Anyhow, the watch went. And the Countess lost a ring during the trip—a valuable one, I believe. She couldn't 'see' anything for herself, but she got a glimpse of my repeater in the pocket of a red waistcoat. Nobody on board confessed to a red waistcoat. And in the searching of passengers' luggage—which I should have proposed myself if I hadn't been among the robbed—nothing of the sort materialized.
"However, that proved nothing. Jedfield's pearls and other trinkets must have been somewhere on board, in someone's possession, if the yacht vision wasn't true. Yet the strictest search gave no sign of them. It was a miracle how they were disposed of, unless theywerethrown overboard and picked up by someone in the plot, as the Countess said."
"Is that why you hate to think of the trip—because you lost your watch?" Annesley asked.
"Yes. Just that. It wasn't so much the loss of the watch—though it was a present and I valued it—as because it made me feel such a fool. I left the repeater under my pillow when I got up in the middle of the night to go on deck, thinking I heard a cry. I couldn't have heard one, for nobody was there. And next morning, when I wanted to look at the time, my watch was equally invisible. Then there was the business of the passengers being searched, and the everlasting talk about the whole business. One got sick and tired of it. I got tired of the Countess and her crystal, too: but the effect is passing away now. I expect I can stand her if you can."
Annesley said that she would be interested. She refrained from adding that she did not intend to make use of the seeress's gift for her own benefit.
The Countess de Santiago wired her acceptance of the invitation, and appeared at the Knowle Hotel on Saturday with a maid and a good deal of luggage. Annesley had secretly feared that the effect of the beautiful lady on the guests of the hotel would be overpowering, and had pictured her, brilliantly coloured and exquisitely dressed, breaking like a sunburst upon the dining room at luncheon time.
But she had underrated the Countess's cleverness and sense of propriety. The lady arrived in a neat, tailor-made travelling dress of russet-brown tweed which, with a plain toque of brown velvet and fur, cooled the ruddy flame of her hair. It seemed to Annesley also that her lips were less red than before; and though she was as remarkable as ever for her beauty, she was not to be remarked for meretriciousness.
She was pleasanter in manner, too, as well as in appearance; and Annesley's heart—which had difficulty in hardening itself for long—was touched by the Countess's thanks for the invitation.
"You are so happy and wrapped up in each other, I didn't expect you to give a thought to me," the beautiful woman said. "You don't know what it means to be asked down here, after so many lonely days in town, and to find that you and Don are going to give me some new friends."
This note, which Knight also had struck in explaining the Countess's "heart's desire," was the right note to enlist Annesley's sympathy. One might have thought that both had guessed this.
Annesley and Knight gave their dinner party in a private room adjoining their own sitting room, and connecting also with another smaller room which they had had fitted up for a special purpose. This purpose was to enshrine the seeress and her crystal.
As Knight had said, she seemed to take her clairvoyant power seriously, and insisted that she could do herself justice only in a room arranged in a certain way. In the afternoon she directed that the furniture should be removed with the exception of one small table and two chairs. Even the pictures had to be taken down, and under the Countess's supervision purple velvet draperies had to be put up, covering the walls and window. These draperies she had brought with her, and they had curtain rings sewn on at the upper edge, which could be attached to picture hooks or nails.
From the same trunk came also a white silk table-cover embroidered in gold with figures representing the signs of the zodiac. There were in addition three purple velvet cushions: two for the chairs and one—the Countess explained—for the table, to "make an arm rest." By her further desire a large number of hot-house lilies in pots were sent for, and ranged on the floor round the walls.
As for the Turkish carpet of banal reds, blues, and greens, it had to be concealed under rugs of black fur which, luckily, the hotel possessed in plenty. It was all very mysterious and exciting, and Annesley could imagine the effective background these contrivances would give the shining figure of the Countess.
When, later on, she saw her guest dressed for dinner, the girl realized even more vividly the genius of the artist who had planned the picture. For the Countess de Santiago wore a clinging gown made in Greek fashion, of a supple white material shot with interwoven silver threads. She wore her copper-red hair in a classic knot with a wreath of emerald laurel leaves.
She would gleam like a moonlit statue in her lily-perfumed, purple shrine, Annesley thought, and was not surprised that the lady should achieve an instant success with the county folk who had begged for an invitation to meet her.
The Countess de Santiago did not seem to mind answering questions about her powers, which everyone asked across the dinner-table. She said that since her seventh birthday she had been able, under certain circumstances, to see hidden things in people's lives, and future events.
Her first experience, as a child, was being shut up in a darkened room, and looking into a mirror, where figures and scenes appeared, like waking dreams. She had been frightened, and screamed to be let out. Her mother had taken pity and released her, saying that after all it was what "might be expected from the seventh child of a seventh child, born on All Saints' Eve."
The Nelson Smiths' guests listened breathlessly to every word, and were enchanted when she promised to give each man and woman a short "sitting" with her crystal after dinner.
Nothing was said about the purple room, so that the surprise could not help being impressive.
It was a delightful dinner, well thought out between the host and head-waiter, but no one wished to linger over it. Never had "bridge fiends" been so eager to "get to work" as these people were to take their turn with the Countess and her crystal. At Lady Annesley-Seton's suggestion they drew lots for these turns, and Constance herself drew the first chance. She and the gleaming figure of the Countess went out together, and ten or twelve minutes later she returned alone.
Everyone stared eagerly to see if she looked excited, and it took no stretch of imagination to find her face flushed and her eyes dilated.
"Well? Has she told you anything wonderful?" A clamour of voices joined in the question.
"Yes, she has," replied Constance. "She's simplyuncanny! She could pick up a fortune in London in one season, if she were a professional. She has told me in what sort of place the heirlooms are now, but that we shall never see them again."
So saying, Lady Annesley-Seton plumped down on a sofa beside her hostess, as the next person hurried off to plunge into the mysteries. "I feel quite weak in the knees," Constance whispered to Annesley. "Has she told you anything?"
"No," said the girl "I don't—want to know things."
She might have added: "Things told byher." But she did not say this.
Constance shivered. "The woman frightened me with what sheknew. I mean, not about our robbery—that's a trifle—but about the past. That crystal of hers seems to be—a sort ofTown Topics. But I must say she didn't foretell any horrors for the future—not for me personally. If she goes on as she's begun she can do what she likes with us all. Dear little Anne, you must ask her often to your house when you're 'finding your feet'—and I'm helping you—in London. I prophesy that she'll prove an attraction. Why, it would pay to have a room fitted up for her in purple and black, with relays of fresh lilies."
Annesley smiled. But she made up her mind that, if a roomweredone in purple and black with relays of lilies anywhere for the Countess de Santiago, it would not be in her house. Unless, of course, Knight begged it of her as a favour.
And even then—but somehow she didn't believe, despite certain appearances, that Knight was anxious to have his old friend near him. He had the air of one who was paying a debt; and she remembered how he had said, on the day of their wedding: "We will find a time to pay back the favours they've done us."
This visit and dinner and introduction to society was perhaps his way of paying the Countess. Only—was it payment in full, or an instalment? Annesley wondered.
Vaguely she wondered also what had become of Dr. Torrance and the Marchese di Morello. Would the next payment be for them, and what form would it take?
She was far from guessing.
There was no anti-climax that night in the success of the Countess with her "clients." They were deeply impressed, and even startled. Not one woman said to herself that she had been tricked into giving the seeress a "lead." There was nothing in the past hidden from that crystal and the dark eyes which gazed into it! As for the future, her predictions were remarkable; and she must have given people flattering accounts of their characters, as everyone thought the analysis correct.
What a pity, the women whispered, that such an astonishing person was not a professional, who could be paid in cash! As it was, she would expect to be rewarded with invitations: and though she was presentable, "Youknow, my dear, she's frightfully pretty, the red-haired sort, that's the most dangerous—not a bit safe to have about one'smen. Still—no price is too high. We shall all be fighting for her—or over her."
And before the evening had come to an end the Countess de Santiago had had several invitations for town and country houses. To be sure, they were rather informal. But the beautiful lady knew when to be lenient, and so she accepted them all.
"She told me that our stolen things are hidden away for ever, and that we'll be robbed again," Connie said to her husband on the way back to Valley House.
"She told me the same," said Dick. "And I hope to goodness we may be. We've done jolly well out of that last affair!"
"Yes," his wife agreed. "The only thing I don't like about it is themystery. It makes me feel as if something might be hanging over one's head."
"Over the trustees' heads!" laughed Lord Annesley-Seton. "I wish the other night could be what the Countess called the 'first of a series.'"
"The first of a series!" Constance repeated. "What a queer expression! What was she talking about?"
"She was—looking in her crystal," answered Dick, slowly, as if something he had seen rose again before his eyes.
Constance was pricked with curiosity. "You might tell me what the woman said!" she exclaimed.
"You haven't told me what message she had for you."
"I've just said that she prophesied we should be robbed again."
"That's only one thing. What about the rest?"
"Oh! A lot of stuff which wouldn't interestyou!"
"You can keep your secret. And I'll keep mine," remarked Dick Annesley-Seton, aggravatingly. "Anyhow, for the present. We'll see how it works out."
"See howwhatworks out?" his wife echoed.
"The series."
After all, Annesley had not written to her friends, Archdeacon Smith and his wife, on leaving Mrs. Ellsworth's, to tell the surprising news of her engagement. She had asked Mr. Ruthven Smith not to speak of it to his cousins, because she would prefer to write. But then—the putting of the news on paper in a way not to offend them, after their kindness in the past, had been difficult.
Besides, there had been little time to think out the difficulties, and find a way of surmounting them. There had been only one whole day before the wedding, and that day she had spent with Knight, buying her trousseau. It had been a wonderful day, never to be forgotten, but its end had found her tired; and when Knight had said "good-bye" and left her, she had not been equal to composing a letter.
Nevertheless, she had tried, for it had seemed dreadful to marry and go away from London without letting her only friends know what had happened, what she was doing, and why she had not invited them to her wedding.
Ah,why? In explaining that she confronted the great obstacle. She had not known how to exonerate herself without hurting their feelings, or—telling a lie.
The girl hated lying. She could not remember that in her life she had ever spoken or written a lie in so many words, though, like most people who are not saints, she had prevaricated a little occasionally to save herself or others from some unpleasantness.
In this case no innocent prevarication would serve. Even if she had been willing to lie, she could think of no excuse which would seem plausible. Tired as she had been that last night as Annesley Grayle, and throbbing as she was with excitement at the thought of the new life before her, she did begin a letter.
It was a feeble effort. She tore it up and essayed another. The second was worse than the first, and the third was scarcely an improvement.
Discouraged, and so nerve-racked that she was on the point of tears, the girl put off the attempt. But days passed, and when no inspiration came, and she was still haunted by the thought of a duty undone, she compromised by telegraphing from Devonshire. Her message ran: