It was that same Friday night, and about 9.55 by the clock. The men had just come in from the dining-room. They had been warned that the housekeeper, Mrs. Bankes (fear nothing—you will never meet her again) had commandeered the drawing-room. They were not allowed to go back there, for even now the belated serfs were spreading, under Mrs. Bankes' eye, large dingy cloths over the chairs and tables against the early sweep of the morrow.
The Home Secretary had no choice but to shepherd them into the somewhat forlorn, hardly used West Room. A good fire had been ordered. He trusted humbly in God that the parrot Attaboy, securely covered in its black cage cloth, could utter no unseemly Attaboy cry. If it did—well, if it did, Tommy must laugh. After all, it was his fault if he had pulled a horse.
The men crawled in. McTaggart, being by far the meanest, was compelled—in an agony—to go first. Next the Professor slid; after him with sullen assurance Tom Galton. And the great statesman filed in last, as host and chief, and shut the door with all the discretion of the Front Bench and fourteen years of Westminster.
Marjorie was standing on the polar-bear skin rug by the fire, near that fierce grinning head, those ironical teeth, holding the emerald—the brooch—in her open hand; showing it to Victoria, who peered at it cynically enough. She had already heard the story of it—for the third time in two weeks, and for the three hundred and fifty-first in her life—she knew it to be false, and she dreaded to hear again the myth of the diplomat, the old Bohunian lie. But a good heart thumped behind that bony breast and Victoria Mosel spared the child.
With this coming in of a new audience, Marjorie summoned them at once, and they crowded round in obedience to that summons; and once more to the listening earth she told—in her innocence!—the largesse of Catherine the Great to her ancestor the diplomat, in whom she firmly believed.
Lord Galton looked at the jewel with a sort of animosity, as much as to say, "Put on no suspicious airs with me!" McTaggart tittered at it with a nervous smile, as though he liked it well enough, but was rather frightened of it; the Professor glared it down with an expert's pose. The three men stood thus, bunched round their young hostess, touching shoulders, while Marjorie continued her story of the de Bohun mission to the great Empress, adding sundry other details which in her judgment gave a heightened historical value to the gem.
Then the gods struck.
What she did, or how she did it, she never remembered. She felt a sharp shoot in her finger: she should have known it was due to the ill-calculated length of the pin. She said to herself—but in her heart she did not believe it—that some one had jogged her elbow. Anyhow, the Emerald of Catherine the Great jerked out suddenly and fell from her palm, making no noise. It must have fallen upon the bearskin at her feet, where a standard electric light upon a little table near at hand happened to cast a shadow. She gave a startled cry, and at once the three men were on their knees—yes, even the old Professor—groping in the fur.
They were longer at their groping than one might have thought. The object was small, but not so small as all that. It was flat, heavy, metallic: it could not have rolled. It must be within a few inches, or a foot at the most, of the place on which its proprietress had stood.
Unfortunately she moved, and in that movement no one could remember, to half a foot or so, exactly where it should have lain. While the three men still groped, and the impatient Marjorie tapped with her foot in the suspense of it, the unfortunate McTaggart cried excitedly, "I've got it!"
Lord Galton at once jumped up, relieved; the Professor also extended upwards—less smartly; but when they had risen McTaggart was still on his knees. Then with his face peering into the fur of the bearskin, he added, "No! It's a splinter of coal,"—and he threw that fragment into the fire and continued to rummage.
The Professor and Lord Galton looked at each other. They hesitated whether to go down again; they thought it better to leave it to McTaggart. Poor McTaggart thus remained in the abject attitude to which he had now been subjected for two minutes or more, becoming increasingly convinced that something terrible had happened.... He could not conceive why he should not put his hand upon the thing.... But it was not there.... At last, flushed, more disordered than ever, he pressed the fingers of his left hand upon the floor and stood upright. He was a little blown.
"I can't find it!" he said.
"You must find it!" said Marjorie sharply. Then, remembering herself, she looked at the two who were her equals and cousins and she said:
"Oneof you must find it! It can't be lost! Nonsense.... Look here, stand back!" She pushed her poor old aunt, who was peering about in a futile fashion. She enlarged the circle, and then said again:
"Now then, you must find it! Look here, I'll find it." They went down again reluctantly, and she herself sank suddenly to her knees and helped the group.
But they looked in vain. They separated the hair of the rug carefully, they lifted it up pettily, edge by edge, and looked beneath. They pressed upon it with their palms to see whether they could not find a lump. Then they took the poor beast up and shook him savagely. But he yielded no emerald. It was gone.
When at last they all rose again—appalled, for the moment silent—Marjorie was as white as the skin upon which she trod.
"It can't be lost," she said again, bitterly. "I say, itcan'tbe lost."
But lost it was.
"Father," she said angrily. "Do come and look!"
The Home Secretary reluctantly hoisted himself from his chair with a secret groan, shuffled up to the place, and looked down at the rug in a refined manner.
"Look for it, father! Do look for it! Come, it can't be lost!"
Painfully but obediently the Home Secretary went down on his knees in his turn and groped about, with far less chance than any other man would have had, of laying his hand upon the stone. He drew blank, as the others had, and rose with more difficulty, McTaggart helping him; he shuffled back, and sank again into his chair.
"Well, well, well!" he said. "Well! Well!"
There were tears in Marjorie's eyes—which was a weakness in one so born and in such a place, but she could hardly keep them back. They were tears as much of anger as of anything else. Upon Victoria Mosel's face—somewhat apart, and smiling awfully at the bunch of them—there was a look you could not see through. But upon the face of each of the three men who had been first down upon their knees—not upon the face of the Home Secretary—was now drawn an indefinable veil, as of instinctive protection against a censorious world.
It had dawned upon each of them, in varying degrees of rapidity, thathewas possibly suspect.
It had flashed first upon the lordlet. He lived and breathed in an air of challenge. It would not have surprised him if he had seen some day on a glaring sky sign flaming up large over Piccadilly Circus and winking in and out to compel the eye: "Attaboy? Who pulled Attaboy? Tommy Galton!"
The Professor got the message to his brain about a quarter of a minute later. He very nearly spoke—but he caught the words in time. The Mullingar Diamond oppressed him: all the world pointed a finger at him, and the air was full of demoniac whispers: "Mullingar! Mullingar!"
And as for the miserable McTaggart, he was already such a worm in his own eyes among these exalted folk that he thought his poverty might alone have him arrested that very night. It struck him with a pang that, in his innocence, he had remained there on his knees long after the others had risen. Then a new shaft stabbed him. Ingenuous, he had dug his own grave! They would interpret that cry, "I've found it!" as the sudden shock of a real discovery: for him there sounded dully all around, "Ar-r-rest that mon!"—and he was nearly sick.
So there they stood—three men, none of whom had any idea what had happened, and each well convinced that he was the suspect who must fight it out sooner or later: each at the same time firmly believing that one of the other two was the culprit. In Marjorie's pure mind there spread a growing certitude that they were all of them guilty, all of them, and that each of them had the emerald in his pocket—yet were there not three emeralds but one emerald. At least, that was how it felt. But within the soul of the Home Secretary—if I might so call it—there was a strong sense of botheration and of wishing the beastly thing had never happened.
Under the keen inward light of Victoria Mosel's intelligence, standing apart, a fascinating problem was being discussed. She was delighted. It would occupy her for days. It was just what she liked.
In all that circle of heads, showing in different degrees—Victoria's least of all—the mood of the mind through some transfiguration of the face, each silent for the moment, only one head stood frankly stamped with a fierce joy. It was the head of the polar bear.
If he could have spoken he might—or he might not—have told them. It might have amused him more to keep them in suspense. His great red grinning open mouth and shining teeth were full of joy. His fierce glass eyes glared upon them mischievously. It was almost worth while being shot and skinned for such a revenge as this!He knew where the emerald was.... It was in his right ear.
They had taken him and shaken him with great indignity, but they had foolishly taken him up by the hind legs. One should never take a polar bear up in that way, especially when it is a bear who has been a prince in his own country of keen wind, low shining sun, and little dancing seas against the ice. They had shaken him, but they had shaken—oh, shame!—upside down, and the more they had shaken him, the more firmly had they wedged the emerald in his right ear, where it so snugly lay.
He could have told them, and I have hastened to tell you. Then where, you ask me, does the detective fun come in?
You shall see!
* * * * * * *
Far in the Eastern Wing where, mured in stoneArrived at by a passage cold that ranAlong the North o' the House, and barred with ironAs to its windows: also by a doorWhich leads from the considerable roomWherein are great receptions held at Paulings[An Antrum gaunt, abandoned, having onlyUpon its walls the Oils of dead de Bohuns(Pronounced Deboons) and sundry dusty sofas:The Room grandiloquently named the Ballroom],There stand the Servants' Quarters. It is there,That, ruled by their dread Queen, the Housekeeper,And by her Coadjutor King, the Butler,The serfs Boonesque repose. The Cook, the Chauffeur,The Kitchen Maids, the Footmen, and the Boy:And Lord! how many others! These that night—That winter night of doom—held high discourse,Upon the EMERALD. Samuel had heard(While bearing in the tray of drinks, himselfArrayed in livery) how its disappearanceHad flummoxed all the Toffs. "You bet your breeches!"Said he, to either sex, indifferentAnd indiscriminate. "You bet your breeches!Whoever's pinched it's got to cough it up!The Boss, he ain't Home Secretary, notFor nothing!" and with that his tongue was still.Then spake young Gwendoline, the Tweeny Maid,"I pity Him or 'Er as 'as it!" WordsWhich, when she had them spoken, froze their souls—Nor none more starkly than the Second Housemaid's,Unless it were the Boy's—and so to Bed.
Far in the Eastern Wing where, mured in stoneArrived at by a passage cold that ranAlong the North o' the House, and barred with ironAs to its windows: also by a doorWhich leads from the considerable roomWherein are great receptions held at Paulings[An Antrum gaunt, abandoned, having onlyUpon its walls the Oils of dead de Bohuns(Pronounced Deboons) and sundry dusty sofas:The Room grandiloquently named the Ballroom],There stand the Servants' Quarters. It is there,That, ruled by their dread Queen, the Housekeeper,And by her Coadjutor King, the Butler,The serfs Boonesque repose. The Cook, the Chauffeur,The Kitchen Maids, the Footmen, and the Boy:And Lord! how many others! These that night—That winter night of doom—held high discourse,Upon the EMERALD. Samuel had heard(While bearing in the tray of drinks, himselfArrayed in livery) how its disappearanceHad flummoxed all the Toffs. "You bet your breeches!"Said he, to either sex, indifferentAnd indiscriminate. "You bet your breeches!Whoever's pinched it's got to cough it up!The Boss, he ain't Home Secretary, notFor nothing!" and with that his tongue was still.Then spake young Gwendoline, the Tweeny Maid,"I pity Him or 'Er as 'as it!" WordsWhich, when she had them spoken, froze their souls—Nor none more starkly than the Second Housemaid's,Unless it were the Boy's—and so to Bed.
The majestic poise of the Nordic blood is nowhere seen in greater perfection than in that crown of our civilization, a modest English Country House. Here is there no class consciousness, here is there no class war. Each is in his or her own place, and there is peace through order.
To consider only the servile portion of the establishment: the Butler has his own dignity, and the various other males—upon whose titles I am a little shaky—have theirs. So the Females of the species: the Cook cooks; the Kitchen Attendants attend the kitchen; the Nurse nurses. So with the external squad: the Groom grooms; the Gardener and all his Assistants garden. With regularity and zeal the Footmen footle. The mere Maids go maidenly about their tasks. Below these specialised functionaries, for which Our Race is famous, comes one who may be regarded indifferently as the foundation of the fabric or the last rung of the ladder, and who is known as the Boy. On him the petty, unorganised, lesser work devolves, for which his Superiors are indeed responsible, but the mere brute labour of which is his alone.
The Boy Ethelbert in Captivity.
The Boy Ethelbert in Captivity.
The Boy Ethelbert in Captivity.
Thus it is the Boy who blacks the boots, fills all the coal scuttles and carries them about, lays the fires and lights them, polishes the knives, the silver plate—the silver itself, when there is any—and the antique pewter; washes up the dishes of the supper below stairs, cleans the door knobs and bell handles; pulls up the blinds; pulls back the curtains of the ground floor. Notably it is he also who conveys to the Upper Servants—who then shall have risen from slumber—the numbers of the bells that have sounded. It is he who opens the windows when they should be shut, and shuts them when they should be open—so far at least as the early hours are concerned, for when the Great are about this function is performed by a young man in uniform. It is the Boy who lays out the morning post, sets the newspapers in order—therein discovering the odds—lets out the little dog—or dogs—and after some few other trifling tasks accomplished, brushes and carefully folds the clothes of the male guests and lays them out where stronger and older men shall carry them up, each parcel to its room, and for that service receive an ultimate reward. It is the Boy who carries up the boots themselves—for these are defiling to the fingers!—and it is the Boy—mark you: this is essential to the tale, you must not miss it—it is the Boy who picks up the rugs and shakes them, room after room, a ritual preparatory to the settling of great clouds of dust, which, shortly after, not the Boy but a Maid brings down to the rugs again with feathery instruments and devastating cloths.
Hence it was that the Boy—Ethelbert by his full baptismal name, but in the daily, Bert—before yet the wintry dawn was more than grey on that Saturday in January, whistling gaily at his task, was holding the polar bear up by itsforepawsand shaking it, as in duty bound.
His heart was gay, for he was redeemed.
Not so long since, this same Ethelbert had (alas!) in company with youths of his own age and a little more, not yet free from the trammels of elementary education, purloined from a shop certain fruits: two bananas.
The Deed might have appeared upon his record at Scotland Yard and dogged him through life, for he was already eight years of age and knew full well the wickedness of his act. He had been spared by the noble elasticity of the English Common Law. His sobbing widowed mother had seen, indeed, the shadow of the police across her threshold, and Ethelbert had stood in the Felons' Dock before the dud parliamentary lawyer who had got the local stipendiary job. But our Magistracy—especially that of the Stipendiary Sort—is famous throughout the whole world for its merciful wisdom. Young Bert had escaped imprisonment, as having been led away by his senior Charlie Gasket, who was nearly ten.
He had, I say, been saved; but the memory of the peril had burnt into his soul. And now, though he was nearly fifteen years of age, the incident still stood out the sharpest of his memories. It was known to his lord the Butler—perhaps to his Master—but to no others. He had been taken into the Great House in spite of it all, because his father had worked upon the estate. Therefore, I say, did Ethelbert feel himself redeemed. But he trembled still at the apparatus of National Justice.
The Boy Ethelbert untouched byCivilisation.
The Boy Ethelbert untouched byCivilisation.
The Boy Ethelbert untouched byCivilisation.
In the innocence of youth he whistled gently to himself. His other work was done; this performed, he had but now to settle the last rug, the Polar Bear, and then to rouse his superiors in the hierarchy below stairs, to lay their breakfast out and to attend thereon as minister. So shook he perfunctorily the Arctic Ursine Fleece, the Hyperborean Candour, when he heard something fall sharply at his feet. He even caught a flash of it as it fell. He saw it issuing from that ear of Thule which would hear no more; he saw it sliding down the whiteness of the hair and gleaming dully in the candlelight upon the polished wood of the flooring.
There was no mistake. It wasIT. It was that pledge of respect and esteem which the ever-memorable Catherine, Empress of All the Russias, had bestowed three lives ago upon the stalwart Bones. It was the heirloom of that noble House of de Bohun which Ethelbert served. It was the Stone on which he had heard all the domestics of the house inflamed in the last hours of the previous evening.
There is an instinct planted in man by Mr. Darwin, which impels him to pick up a thing, anything dropped. That instinct Ethelbert obeyed. The act was half unconscious, immediate; he had slipped the Emerald into his pocket and was already off with a candle in one hand and the other in a side pocket, fondling the stone. He was off down the long stone corridor which led along the north of the house towards the offices; and as he went his mind was full of some vague intention to hand over the treasure-trove to those in authority—in good time.
But even as he thus went up by the dim candlelight in the cold dawn, along that prison-like perspective of iron-barred windows and whitewash, with stone flags ringing to his feet, a vision of judgment arose within him. His teeth chattered at the memory of the police.
Ethelbert, that product of no more than an elementary education, had received some general outline of the world from cinemas and from police reports, which that same education enabled him to read in the more widely circulated Sunday papers.
He could not have told you that society was organized to the advantage of circles to which he did not belong, and to the disadvantage of his own; but he did know that this piece of green glass in its leaden-coloured setting of hideous lines would sell for a sum that would free him from servitude for ever. He also knew that to be found possessed of it would involve a far worse servitude; a servitude not to the Gentry but to the Force, and lasting, one way or another, the whole of his life. He knew that such servitude was torture. The people of his world knew all those things. Therefore did not the emerald represent to Ethelbert immediate wealth so much as a vision of confinement alone in a small mechanical cell; upon release, a life-long chain binding him as an informer and spy over whom further imprisonment should hang at will; a crushing and overwhelming tyranny; and perhaps at last a secret and abominable death. Of all these things had young Bert's mind been full from very early years, for all these things still haunt the distorted fancy of the poor.
He saw himself presenting with trembling hand this Thing of Power, this Emerald, to his Emperor the Butler; he imagined a first awful and immediate trial at the hands of that Justiciar, and later an overwhelming sentence from the Master himself. He heard the key turning in the door of his room; he saw himself a gibbering prisoner therein; he heard the voices of the Inspector and his accompanying Sergeant; he felt the gyves upon his wrist.
All this in the few seconds between the West Room of Paulings and the offices built out of the extreme east.
So was Ethelbert's mind made up. For his good angel, failing to penetrate the first thick skin of stupidity and to suggest the simple delivery of the gem to his superiors, at any rate got through the second skin and suggested a second best.
He had the brushing of the clothes. He would put it into the pocket of some one of the guests, and then he could breathe freely.
Which guest should it be? No one was yet astir; he was free to choose. There was a minute or two before the clock would strike the half hour and bid him summon the earliest riser—after himself—the kitchen-maid. Her name, Kathleen Parkinson, I take the liberty of giving you, although she will appear no more in these pages.
There lay the three little piles of clothes, to be carefully brushed and folded up by himself, within the next half hour, and among them how could a youth of romantic genius hesitate? Did not every novelette, every Sunday paper, every cinema, point with unerring finger to the lord? Are not lords and jewels made one for the other, like love and laughter, or politics and stocks and shares? The lord could not but be the recipient of the emerald, and when he should have received it, who fitter than he to deal with such trifles? Bert could see him in his mind's eye, and hear him in his mind's ear, strolling up to the Master of the House and saying, in that airy accent which had always so astonished him in the wealthy:
"Oh, I say, Humph, I found the bloody thing this morning and picked it up—what?"
Now into which pocket of Lord Galton's quiet blue suit should it go? Into the right-hand trousers pocket; for therein, as Bert knew by fruitful search, his lordship carried loose change. From the waistcoat it might fall out. In the coat pockets it might lurk for long without being found; in Lord Galton's right-hand trousers pocket, therefore, did the emerald go, to the full depth thereof. The garment was folded again very neatly. And all was well.
* * * * * * *
In the fulness of time, the sun being already risen—yes, for an hour or more—one of those older young domestics of whom I have spoken bore up a parcel of clothes and a can of hot water to Lord Galton's door. All the ritual of these palaces was gone through. The socks were turned inside out, the shirt laid out like a corpse in its shroud, the pile of brushed and folded clothes set upon a chair, the fire lit—as though the room were not already stifling with a hot-air machine; the window opened wider, as though the piercing air had not already started a draught which had fought with the hot air all night long. The under-upper servant glided away, and Lord Galton got out of bed and shaved and washed and dressed; considering in his mind what all others woke to consider in that same house on that same morning, but especially the Fated Three: the Emerald.
He looked at his watch; it was a quarter past nine. He stood gazing out of the window at the frosty mist on the damp gaunt trees of the park, and tried to estimate how he really stood in the minds of those about him.
Who would believe that he knew nothing of the stone? Which of them had heard—several of them, he knew—which of thembelievedthat story about Attaboy? Certainly his host, almost certainly Vic—she knew everything. He was not quite certain that she had not meant to rag him about it in something she had said during the day before. She would not misunderstand, but she knew about it.
Did that damned greasy fellow the journalist know? He doubted it; they never did know the things that counted. And as for the Don, he might as well have suspected the first imbecile in the County Asylum.
Marjorie did not know; he was pretty sure of that by her way to him. But still ... it was known enough; it was known to two.... After all, what was pulling a horse, and what had it to do with pinching emeralds, anyhow? ... Yet ... yet ... he could not leave Paulings till it was cleared up.... If the damned thing turned up in town in some receiver's shop they might connect it with him.... He was glad he hadn't brought a man.... No, he must stay till it was cleared up. It was a damned nuisance. They were getting up a party on Sunday night at the Posts. There was to be a rich young fool from Ireland whom they would all play with. Those occasions were not so common nowadays. But he must sacrifice it. He must stay on.
He made his decision; he slowly picked up the small change off his dressing table and shuffled it into his trousers pocket. Then he mechanically followed it with his hand, and found something that was not a coin....
At first he had the grotesque idea that he was handling a pebble, though how it could have got there he could not conceive. Then a matchbox, for it was smooth and cold.... When he pulled it out and saw what it was, his whole mind went through a violent shock of revulsion.
He was so sickened, strong as he was, that he had to sit down and recover himself. And as he so sat, he fixed the dreadful thing with his eye, holding it there between the fingers of his right hand, unmoving.
Now indeed was a resolution to be taken!
At first his mind would not work. A man possessed of a thing, no matter what he does with it, carries his communications about with him, leaves traces about of his possession. If he threw it out of the window, it would be found within the radius of such a throw. There was nowhere in the room where he would dare to hide it. If he dropped it as he went downstairs, a servant might pass and find it within a minute, connecting him with what was so found.
Give it back himself he dared not. That would mean, "Poor Tommy! He gave way, but he did the honest thing in the end." He would be branded for life. Attaboy was enough, without that.
At first the easiest course lured him; to say nothing; to keep it upon his person until everything had blown over; then to take it up with him to town.... Then? ... He could not help remembering how Alfred had told him about his uncle and the cutting establishment in Amsterdam. It was all mixed up with the committee for inquiring into the Meldon business when there was that trouble in Parliament a few years before.... It seemed that one could have a stone cut and get it back unrecognisable.... Then he thrust the thought out of his mind and shuddered a little at the danger.
Lord Galton discovers the Emerald.
Lord Galton discovers the Emerald.
Lord Galton discovers the Emerald.
But if he kept it, where should he put it? Where could he put it so as to be certain during the night—to beabsolutelycertain—that no one could find it with him or near him? What if he should fall faint or ill? What if ... No, there was only one thing to be done. He must pass it on. No matter what tale he told—even if he told the truth—to appear with it in his possession and to make an explanation was to damn himself finally, and that just at the moment his half-damnation on the turf was beginning to be forgotten.... He must pass it on.... He must pass it on.
There was one obvious repository; an aged fool of that profession whose incompetence is stamped upon them; a native dupe. It should go into the pocket of his distinguished cousin, the Professor; it should pass into the unwitting possession of the expert on dodekahedral crystals. His mind thus decided, he was half at peace.
Lord Galton went down to breakfast. He found his host already at the table. The others came in gradually, and no one talked of the stone; nor upon anything else to speak of—for of the stone everyone was thinking.
It was, naturally, the learned cousin, the Professor, who first put in the word that should not have been spoken. He did it somewhere about the jam, and when the Home Secretary was already feeling the need for a pipe. Perhaps food had strengthened him. He piped up in his quavering voice:
"Ah! Any news about the emerald, Humphrey? Any news this morning about the emerald? About the emerald? ... the emerald? ... the emerald?"
There is a natural sequence in fools, as in all others of God's creatures. Aunt Amelia came in a good second.
"Oh, yes, Humphrey," she bleated, in that woolly-mutton voice which fitted her as does sodden mist a marshy formless hill. "Is there any news about the emerald?"
"There is hardly likely to be, Amelia," said her brother, as tartly as he could be got to say anything, for long years of suave politician's make-believe had untartled his tongue.
"I thought," said Aunt Amelia in self-defense, "that some servant might have found it and told you."
"Well, they have not," said her brother, shortly; and there was silence.
The journalist opened his mouth—which he should not have done—and began rather too loudly, and in too high a pitch:
"What I think, you know ..." and then stopped suddenly—which put him in no better case.
What Victoria Mosel would have said nobody knew, for she took her breakfast in bed—always. But Marjorie had come down in the midst of this, and spoke sharply. She had slept little and her temper was on edge.
"Oh, that's enough about the emerald!" she said. "What's the good of talking of itnow?" Then she gave one sweeping look around, like a searchlight trying to spot a boat, and betook herself to the jam.
The one who said nothing was the young racing man with the emerald in his trousers pocket. He was not sure of it—he touched its pin point two or three times furtively to make certain the gem had not dropped out; and then he began, by way of clearing the air, to talk to the learned Professor about indifferent things.
But these indifferent things had a purport in them. For first he talked of the University, then of that degraded College, St. Filbert's, and so worked things round to the infamous B. Leader, and that fairly started his companion off—as Lord Galton had intended he should be started.
The old Don was still at it when they got up from the breakfast table. He was shepherded—though he did not know that he was being shepherded—by the younger man, out into the hall, helped into his rusty overcoat, led out through the glass doors into the park, and there did Lord Galton patiently listen to his academic victim for something over a quarter of an hour, as they walked side by side up the swept gravel to the very far end of the avenue, and then turned back again towards the house.
Long before they thus faced about, the learned cousin's mind was a thousand miles away from reality. The harangue which poured forth against the infamous B. Leader needed but little sympathetic jogging—a word here and there—from his companion. His soul was not in his body. You might have stuck a pin into him, and he would not have felt it; and Lord Galton, who knew men nearly as well as he knew horses—at least on the side of their weaknesses—felt secure that the moment had come. And as he leaned forward, sympathetically close to the left side of his companion, he gently dropped into the loose, wrinkled side pocket of the rusty overcoat that perilous gem, and felt as though he had cast off a garment of lead.
The expert in dodekahedral crystals still poured out unceasingly and shrilly his grievance, with many a "Would you believe it?" and "If you please!" and "Then he actually wrote to the Society at Berne," and so on; and Lord Galton, almost grateful in the new lightness of his heart, applauded heartily and loudly marvelled that the Society at Berne did not drum Leader out of their ranks with every mark of infamy.
"So," he thought, as they came into the house again—the quavering voice of the Crystallographer still more emphatic within four walls—"salvation comes with a little intelligence, a little decision, and a little opportunity."
He helped the old fool out of his overcoat; hung it up for him on a peg, and saw its owner go shambling off to his books.
Lord Galton was pleased with himself; he saw his way fairly straight before him, but he would do nothing hastily ... which might flurry the head of the house.... It would be a wise and a small risk, to bide his time. He would bide it till the noon post had come in, until his host had looked at his letters. Then only would he take the next step in his programme. He sauntered out again into the Park, where he would feel the strain of waiting less, with a walk to occupy him. He looked back over his shoulder when he had got round towards the lodge, and saw for one moment through the window of the library his aged relative pottering among the shelves. He was safe till lunch. And Lord Galton, though all alone, smiled.
* * * * * * *
The young man walked briskly for a couple of miles, thinking clearly and concisely. He came back to Paulings through the mill gate, up by the stables, walking strongly and well. He knew exactly what he had to do.
He met one of the servants, and asked where Mr. de Bohun might be, and was told he was in the garage; sought him there, and found him giving orders about a repair, and trying—unsuccessfully—to understand whether the proud chauffeur were lying or no.
He went straight up to his cousin, who turned round at hearing his step, and said in a very low voice, and quickly:
"Let me see you in your study alone for a moment. It is urgent!"
And the Home Secretary, glancing up hurriedly with a half-frightened look, said, "Yes? Certainly! Come."
Lord Galton stood by the Home Secretary in his study, looked round suddenly, and said, "May I lock the door?" locked it without leave and then came back and began talking.
The young fellow talked as impressively as ever he had talked when he was giving instructions to a jockey, or rather, to the go-between who took the risk. He knew how to talk, as do most men who are successful in giving instructions to jockeys. His sentences came, weighty, short, decisive, and each had its effect. Men said he would have done well in the House of Commons, but the men who have said that do not know the House of Commons. Yes, he would have done well in the House of Commons: not by oratory, but by what I may call the Attaboy side of his character. He began:
"Humphrey, I'm going to tell you about the emerald. I think I know where it is."
The Home Secretary looked up, startled; but he did not interrupt.
"I want to begin by saying that I know I am myself under suspicion."
"Oh, my dear Tommy," began his unfortunate host. But the younger man put up a hand like a slab of stone.
"No," he said. "There's no time to be wasted, and we must have things absolutely clear. One of us three must have got that brooch. No doubt we are all under suspicion—but I know why I am under suspicion. People say I pulled a horse." Again the Home Secretary would have interrupted, but the heavy hand made an impatient gesture, and again he checked himself. "Marjorie mayn't believe it, and of course that old fool of a Cousin Bill hasn't heard of it; and as for that journalist fellow McTibbert, or whatever his name is, he may or may not have; I don't care. But anyhow, you know it.You'veheard all about it!"
"But, my dear Tommy," broke in the Home Secretary, lying eagerly and almost with affection, "I don't believe it. Believe me, I don't believe it. Do you suppose," he added with beautiful tact, "that if I believed it I'd have you here at Paulings?"
Lord Galton just showed at the muscles of the mouth what a fool he thought the man. He went on undisturbed.
"It's nothing to do with the value of the lie—they haven't turned me out of the Posts, for that matter; nor warned me off. But the point is, the story has gone the rounds. A man that would cheat would steal. Also you know I'm on the rocks, and therefore I'm under suspicion. Now we're all three under suspicion, as I say. That old ass, Cousin Bill, got mixed up with the Mullingar Diamond years ago—too much of a fool to pinch it for selling; wanted to look at it through one of his contraptions. Anyhow, he can't keep his hands off crystals. And an emerald's a crystal."
"Is it?" asked the Head of the Family with great interest.
"I think so—I don't know," said Galton impatiently. "Anyhow, it's a jewel, a precious stone—what?"
"Oh, yes! It's a jewel, yes, a precious stone. Oh, yes," admitted Humphrey de Bohun.
"Well then, so's a diamond. A man who'll take diamonds'll take emeralds—what? ... Then there's that journalist fellow—he's under suspicion because he's a journalist; they're all on their uppers, and you told me yourself about the one who stole the spoons when you were at the Board of Works."
A faint smile appeared for a moment on the face of his host. It was his favourite funny story—all about a journalist who once stole some government spoons. He had told it on every occasion. He told it to journalists. But then he was never really featured by the Press.
"Now of those three," went on Lord Galton, rather more slowly, and separating his words, "the man who has got it is our miserable old family goat, Cousin Bill...."
The Home Secretary started.
Lord Galton explains to the Home Secretary histheory—or rather, certitude—upon thewhereabouts of the Great Emerald.
Lord Galton explains to the Home Secretary histheory—or rather, certitude—upon thewhereabouts of the Great Emerald.
Lord Galton explains to the Home Secretary histheory—or rather, certitude—upon thewhereabouts of the Great Emerald.
"Yes, I know what you'll say ... he got the fright of his life over the Mullingar Diamond. You'd say he'd never dream of doing it in the house of the head of the family." (A dignified look passed over the features of the Chieftain of the de Bohuns.) "Then he's such a clumsy old ass that you can't imagine him doing it so quickly. After all, it took him half an hour to fish the Mullingar Diamond out of an open drawer, and even then he left things topsy-turvy. You'll say all that, and if I were just guessing I'd half agree with you. But I'm not guessing. And I tell youhe's got it. I don't pretend to do any of this private detective work, and I've never read one of their rotten mystery stories in my life. That's how I've kept my common sense clear—men who are blown upon need their wits about them. I know Bill's got it for a very simple reason—I've seen it in his hand with my own eyes. Some one told the old goat that the place to hide anything was where it would be most obvious and simple. He's got it in the left-hand pocket of that damned smelly overcoat he wears; but he's such a nervous old balmy that he can't help fingering it the whole time; and when he thinks no one's looking he pulls it half out and looks at it furtively out of the corner of his eye. Dons are always as mad as hatters. He did it three separate times while we were out walking just now. He couldn't help himself. He's too much shut up inside his own addled head to notice other people. And I'll tell you something else, which is also common sense. He won't take it out of that pocket till he's left the house. An overcoat's the only thing they don't brush or fold up, in this house; you're old-fashioned, with these things on pegs and not on marble tables. He knows that. It'll hang there on the peg till he goes away. That's the whole point of leaving it in such a place....And it's there now. You look for it there, and you'll find it."
The Home Secretary put on his expression of gravity in the third degree—the expression with which he would meet a deputation for saving an innocent man from the gallows and gratify them with a majestic refusal.
"What you say, Tommy," he began, slowly, "is very serious. Very serious indeed. In my judgment ..."
"Oh, look here," said Lord Galton impatiently, "cut out all that! He's not in the hall. He went off to the library, and when he gets there he strikes root. There'll be no one about—they're laying the table. Come with me, and I'll prove it."
"I hesitate ..." began the Home Secretary. His powerful young relative, by way of reply, hooked him by the arm, unlocked the door, and marched him straight out into the hall. The ghost of what might well have been an ancestor—for we all have such things—must have mourned, if, as such things do, it had taken up its kennel in a suit of armour standing by the side of the fireplace in the hall: it would have mourned to see the head of the de Bohuns stand by while the deed was done.
Lord Galton went smartly up to the bunch of coats, plunged his hand into the left-hand pocket of that one wretched old garment, and turned it sharply inside out, so that the damning evidence should fall before his cousin's eyes. There fell out no small amount of gathered dirt, some paper torn into minute fragments, and a stub of pencil; also a rather repulsive handkerchief—nothing more. Nothing rang upon the hall floor. There was no Emerald.
Lord Galton for once did a weak thing—or a superstitious one. As though not trusting his senses, he picked the repulsive handkerchief up and shook it. But there was no emerald. Indeed, one could see and hear by the way it had fallen that there was no emerald within its large but unattractive folds. He knew that well enough before he touched the rag—but it was a forlorn hope.
It was the older man who hastily picked up these evidences, not of the Professor's dishonour, but his own, and rapidly put them back where they belonged; darting a glance over his left shoulder and sighing with relief to find that there was still no one about, not the sound of a distant footfall, not the glide of a serf. His companion's face was darker and flushed.
"I could have sworn ..." he opened. Then he added, murmuring, "He must have taken it away."
"I wish we hadn't ..." began the Home Secretary, and then switched off to, "You're quite sure you saw it with your own eyes, Tommy?"
"Absolutely certain," said the young man, with a fearless steady gaze, and proud to be telling one truth at least.
The Home Secretary held his chin in his hand, stood silent for a good quarter of a minute, and then said something characteristic of his profession as a statesman. He said, "Humm!"
* * * * * * *
What had happened?
Dear—or, if that is too familiar a term—charming reader, this is not one of the detective stories of commerce. You shall know all about it beforehand, as you have already known all about it, step by step. You shall be subjected to no torture of suspense. We will leave that to the people of our story. They were born for it.
What had happened was simple enough. The Professor had gone off to the library. He wanted to make certain of the Society at Berne in theAlmanac de Gotha. With men such as he, an obsession having cropped up has a horrid fascination for the mind and holds it. He was worrying about the exact title: whether it was Crystallographique, or Crystallographische, or de Crystallographic. He was determined to get it right.
He kept on talking to himself, as was his learned habit, repeating with a hideous smile the words, "Crystals ... ah! yes ... crystals.... Crystals, eh? Crystals ... yes.... Crystallograph ... something, eh? Now then, it'll be among the books of reference, eh? Crystals.... Oh, what a dirty trick that was of Leader to play!" His left hand was fumbling in the left-hand pocket, where he always kept those indispensable instruments of research, his large tortoise-shell spectacles. His hand groped. He muttered the word "Berne" three times in less and less confident tones. Then the message so tardily conveyed reached his erudite brain. "Oh! ... I've lost my spectacles!"
He never got used to the shock of losing his spectacles, though he suffered from it a dozen times a day. Each time he lost them it was all up with him; each time he went through a crisis. Here he was in the depths of the country and without eyes! There was a touch of agony in his muttering now, as came louder the words, "My spectacles, oh, ah! my spectacles ... now where could I ..." He bent his powerful will to the control of his, if possible, less powerful memory; he traced events back one after the other for a good three minutes, and then he remembered that he had gone out in his overcoat and had left it hanging in the hall.