But after the second day of the action, just before it was adjourned, counsel on both sides were able to announce that their respective clients had come to an exceedingly satisfactory arrangement. All aspersions as to the honourability of the late Charles B. Tupper or of Lady Polchester would be publicly withdrawn and a notice to that effect would appear in all the leading newspapers of London, Paris and New York; and Lady Polchester would now remain in undisputed possession of the Ingres masterpiece, having paid its rightful owner the Duc de Rochechouart the sum of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds for it.
So both parties we may take it were completely satisfied; at one time it had looked as if the unfortunate duke would be done both out of his picture and out of the money, and another as if Lady Polchester would be so defrauded. But now all was well and the learned judge declared himself pleased with the agreement. Not so the public who were left to face a mystery which every one felt would never now be cleared up.
I for one felt completely at sea, so much so indeed that my thoughts instinctively flew to the curious creature in the blameless tea-shop who I felt sure would have a theory of his own which would account for what was puzzling us all.
And a day or two later I saw him, weaving a fantastic design of knots in a piece of string. He saw that I wished to hear his explanation of the mystery of the Ingres masterpiece, but he kept me on tenter-hooks for some time, wearing out my patience with his sharp, sarcastic comments.
"Do you admit," he asked me at one time, with his exasperating chuckle, "that the Ingres masterpiece could have been in two places at one and the same time?"
"No, of course," I replied, "I do not admit such nonsense."
"Very well, then," he resumed, "what is the logical conclusion?"
"That there were two pictures," I said coldly.
"Of course there were two pictures. And as the great Mr. Ingres did not presumably paint his masterpiece in duplicate, we must take it that one picture was the original and the other the copy."
Now it was my turn to grow sarcastic and I retorted drily:
"Having done that, we are no nearer a solution of the mystery than we were before."
"Are we not?" he rejoined with a cackle like an old hen. "Now it seems to me that when we have admitted that one of the pictures was a copy of the other, and when we know that the picture which Mr. Charles B. Tupper bought was the original, because that was the one that was produced in court, we must come to the conclusion that the one which was stolen from the château in France could only have been the copy."
"Why, yes," I admitted, "but then again we have been told that the grandfather of the present Duc de Rochechouart bought the picture from the artist himself, and that it has been in the uninterrupted possession of his family ever since."
"And I am willing to admit that the picture was in the uninterrupted possession of the Duc de Rochechouart until the present holder of the title or some one who had access to it in the same way as himself sold it to Mr. Charles B. Tupper in June, 1919."
"But you don't mean——"
"Surely," the funny creature went on with his dry cackle, "it was not such a very difficult little bit of dishonesty to perpetrate, seeing that Mme. la Duchesse was such an accomplished artist. Can you not imagine the lady being like many of us, very short of money, and then hearing of Mr. Charles B. Tupper, the American business man who was searching Europe through for a world-famous masterpiece; can you not see her during one of her husband's pleasure trips to Paris or elsewhere setting to work to make an exact replica of 'La Fiancée'? We know that it always hung in her studio until the day when it was moved to the dining-hall. Think how easy it was for her to substitute her own copy for the original. The only difficulty would be the conveying of the picture to Paris, but an artist knows how to take a canvas off its stretcher, to roll it up and re-strain it.
"Here I think that she must have had a confederate, probably some down-at-heel friend of her artistic days, a man whom she paid lavishly both for his help and his silence. Who that man was I suppose we shall never know. The so-called Matthieu Vignard and his 'blousey wife,' as Mr. Kleeberger picturesquely described her, have completely disappeared; no trace of them was ever found. They hired the studio at Montmartre for one month, paid the concierge the rent in advance, and at the end of that time they decamped and have never been heard of since, but unless I am much mistaken, they must at the present moment be carrying on a very lucrative little blackmailing business, because it must have been Vignard who conveyed the picture to Paris in the same way as we know it was he who first approached Charles B. Tupper and ultimately sold him the picture."
"But surely," I objected, for the funny creature had paused a moment, and I could not deny that his arguments were sound, "surely it would have been more practical to have sold the copy—which we suppose must have been perfect—to Mr. Tupper who was a layman and an outsider, and to have kept the original in the château, as the Duc was even then negotiating for its sale, and most of the art dealers were coming to have a look at it."
He did not reply immediately but remained for a while deeply absorbed in the contemplation of his beloved bit of string.
"That," he admitted with complacent condescension, "would be a sound argument if we admit at once that the Duchesse knew for a certainty that her husband intended to sell 'La Fiancée.' But my contention is that at the time that she sold the picture to Mr. Tupper she had no idea that the Duc had any such intentions. No doubt when she knew this for a fact, she must have been beside herself with horror; no doubt also that she had a hard fight with her own terror before she made a clean breast of her misdeed to her husband. Apparently she did not do this until the very last moment, until the day when the picture was actually taken out of her studio and placed upon an easel in the dining-hall for closer inspection. Then discovery was imminent and we must suppose that she made a full confession.
"The Duc, like a gallant gentleman, at once set his wits thinking how best to save his wife's reputation without endangering his own. To have admitted to Mr. Aaron Jacobs and to the other experts and art dealers who had come to see the masterpiece that a Duc de Rochechouart was trying to sell a spurious imitation whilst having already disposed of the original was, of course, unthinkable; and thus the idea presented itself to their Graces that the copy must be made to disappear effectually. A favourable circumstance for the success of this scheme was the garden fête which was to take place that afternoon, when the house would be full of guests, of strangers and of servants, when surveillance would be slack and the comings and goings of the master of the house would easily pass unperceived.
"The Duc, in my opinion, chose the one quarter of an hour when he was alone in the house to cut the picture out of its frame. He then hid the canvas sufficiently skilfully that it was never found. Probably he thought at the time that there the matter would end, but equally probably he never gave the future another thought. His own position was unassailable seeing he was not insured against loss, and it was the present alone that mattered: the fact that a Duc de Rochechouart was trying to sell a spurious picture for half a million dollars. To many French men and women ever since the war, America is a far country, and no doubt the Duc and Duchesse both hoped that the whole transaction, including the Ingres masterpiece, would soon lie buried somewhere at the bottom of the sea.
"Fate and Lady Polchester proved too strong for them; they ordained that 'La Fiancée' should be brought back to Europe, and that the whole of its exciting history be revived. But fate proved kind in the end, and I think that you will agree with me that two such daring and resourceful adventurers as their Graces deserve the extra half million dollars which, thanks to Lady Polchester's generosity and ostentation, they got so unexpected.
"Soon afterwards you will remember that the Duc and Duchesse de Rochechouart sold their château on the Oise together with the bulk of their collection of pictures and furniture.
"They now live in Sweden, I understand, where the Duchesse has many friends and relations and where the law of libel will not trouble you much if you publish my deductions in your valuable magazine.
"Think it all out," the Old Man in the Corner concluded glibly, "and from every point of view, and you will see that there is not a single flaw in my argument. I have given you the only possible solution of the mystery of the Ingres masterpiece."
"You may be right——" I murmured thoughtfully.
"I know I am," he answered dryly.
The Old Man in the Corner had a very curious theory about that mysterious affair of the pearl necklace, and though it all occurred a few years ago, I am tempted to put his deductions down on record, because, as far as I know, neither the police of this or any other country, nor the public, have ever found a satisfactory solution for what was undoubtedly a strange and mystifying adventure.
I remembered the case quite well when first he spoke to me about it one afternoon in what had become my favourite tea-haunt in Fleet Street; the only thing I was not quite certain of was the identity of the august personage to whom the pearl necklace was to be presented. I did know, of course, that she belonged to one of the reigning families of Europe and that she had been an active and somewhat hotheaded and bitter opponent of the Communist movement in her own country, in consequence of which both she and her exalted husband had been the object of more than one murderous attack by the other side.
It was on the occasion of the august lady's almost miraculous escape from a peculiarly well-planned and brutal assault that a number of ladies in England subscribed the sum of fifteen thousand pounds for the purchase of an exquisite pearl necklace to be presented to her as a congratulatory gift.
Rightly or wrongly, the donors of this princely gift feared that a certain well-known political organisation on the Continent would strive by every means in its power, fair or foul, to prevent this token of English good-will from reaching the recipient, and also, as it chanced to happen, there had been during the past few months a large number of thefts of valuables on Continental railways, and it became a question who should be entrusted by the committee of subscribers with the perilous risk of taking the necklace over for presentation; the trouble being further enhanced by the fact that in those days the Insurance Companies barred one or two European countries from their comprehensive policies against theft and petty larceny, and that it was to one of those countries thus barred that the bearer of the fifteen thousand pound necklace would have to journey.
Imagine the excitement, the anxiety, which reigned in the hearts of the thousands of middle-class English women who had subscribed their mite to the gift! Their committee sat behind closed doors discussing the claims of various volunteers who were ready to undertake the journey: these worthy folk were quite convinced that certain well-known leaders of anarchical organisations would be on the lookout for the booty and would have special facilities for the theft of it at the frontier during the course of those endless customs and passport formalities for which that particular country was ever famous.
Finally the committee's choice fell upon a certain Captain Arthur Saunders, nephew of Sir Montague Bowden, who was chairman of the ladies' committee. Captain Saunders had, it seems, travelled abroad a great deal, and his wife was foreign—Swedish so it was understood; it was thought that if he went abroad now in the company of his wife, the object of their journey might be thought to be a visit to Mrs. Saunders's relations, and the conveying of the pearl necklace to its destination might thus remain more or less a secret.
The choice was approved of by all the subscribers, and it was decided that Captain and Mrs. Saunders. should start by the ten a.m. train for Paris on the sixteenth of March. Captain Saunders was to call the previous afternoon at a certain bank in Charing Cross, where the necklace was deposited, and there receive it as an almost sacred trust from the hands of the manager. Further, it was arranged that Mrs. Saunders should, immediately on arrival in Paris, send a wire to Mrs. Berners, a great friend of hers who was the secretary of the committee, and in fact that she should keep the committee informed of Captain Saunders's well-being at all the more important points of their journey.
And thus they started.
But no news came from Paris on the sixteenth. At first no anxiety was felt on that score, every one being ready to surmise that the Calais-Paris train had been late in, and that the Saunderses had perhaps only barely time to clear their luggage at the customs and catch the train de luxe which would take them on, via Cologne, without a chance of sending the promised telegram. But soon after midday of the seventeenth, Sir Montague Bowden had a wire from Mrs. Saunders from Paris saying: "Arthur disappeared since last night. Desperately anxious. Please come at once. Have booked room for you here. Mary. Hotel Majestic."
The news was terrifying; however, Sir Montague Bowden, with commendable zeal, at once wired to Mary announcing his immediate departure for Paris, and as it was then too late for him to catch the afternoon Continental train, he started by the evening one, travelling all night and arriving at the Hotel Majestic in the early morning.
As soon as he had had a bath and some breakfast he went in search of information. He found that the French police already had the "affaire" in hand, but that they had not so far the slightest clue to the mysterious disappearance of le Capitaine Saunders. He found the management of the Majestic in a state of offended dignity, and Mrs. Saunders, in one that verged on hysteria, but fortunately, he also found at the hotel a Mr. Haasberg, brother of Mrs. Saunders, a Swedish business man of remarkable coolness and clearness of judgment, who promptly put himau faitwith what had occurred.
It seems that Mr. Haasberg was settled in business in Paris, and that he had hoped to catch a glimpse of his sister and brother-in-law on the evening of the sixteenth at the Gare du Nord on their way through to the East, but that on that very morning he had received a telegram from Mary asking him to book a couple of rooms—a bedroom and a sitting-room—for one night for them at the Hotel Majestic. This Mr. Haasberg did, glad enough that he would see something more of his sister than he had been led to hope.
On the afternoon of the sixteenth he was kept late at business, and was unable to meet the Saunderses at the station, but towards nine o'clock he walked round to the Majestic, hoping to find them in. Their room was on the third floor. Mr. Haasberg went up in the lift, and as soon as he reached No. 301 he became aware of a buzz of conversation coming from within, which, however, ceased as soon as he had pushed open the door.
On entering the room he saw that Captain Saunders had a visitor, a tall, thick-set man, who wore an old-fashioned, heavy moustache and large, gold-rimmed spectacles. At sight of Mr. Haasberg the man clapped his hat—a bowler—on his head, pulled his coat-collar over his ears, and with a hasty: "Well, s'long, old man. I'll wait till to-morrow!" spoken with a strong foreign accent, he walked rapidly out of the room and down the corridor.
Haasberg stood for a moment in the doorway to watch the disappearing personage, but he did this without any ulterior motive or thought of suspicion; then he turned back into the room and greeted his brother-in-law.
Saunders seemed to Haasberg to be nervous and ill-at-ease; in response to the latter's inquiry after Mary, he explained that she had remained in her room as he had a man to see on business. Haasberg made some casual remark about this visitor, and then Mary Saunders came in. She, too, appeared troubled and agitated, and as soon as she had greeted her brother, she turned to her husband and asked very eagerly:
"Well, has he gone?"
Saunders, giving a significant glance in Haasberg's direction, replied with an obvious effort at indifference:
"Yes, yes, he's gone. But he said he would be back to-morrow."
At which Mary seemed to give a sigh of relief.
Scenting some uncomfortable mystery, Haasberg questioned her, and also Saunders, about their visitor, but could not elicit any satisfactory explanation.
"Oh, there is nothing mysterious about old Pasquier," was all that either of them would say.
"He is an old pal of Arthur's," Mary added lightly, "but he is such an awful bore that I got Arthur to say that I was out, so that he might get rid of him more quickly."
Somehow Haasberg felt that these explanations were very lame. He could not get it out of his head, that there was something mysterious about the visitor, and knowing the purpose of the Saunderses' journey, he thought it as well to give them a very serious word of warning about Continental hotels generally, and to suggest that they should, after this stay in Paris, go straight through in the train de luxe and never halt again until the fifteen thousand pound necklace was safely in the hands of the august lady for whom it was intended. But both Arthur and Mary laughed at these words of warning.
"My dear fellow," Arthur said, seemingly rather in a huff, "we are not such mugs as you think us. Mary and I have travelled on the Continent at least as much as you have, and are fully alive to the dangers attendant upon our mission. As a matter of fact, the moment we arrived, I gave the necklace in its own padlocked tin box, just as I brought it over from England, in charge of the hotel management, who immediately locked it up in their strong-room, so even if good old Pasquier had designs on it—which I can assure you he has not—he would stand no chance of getting hold of it. And now, sit down, there's a good chap, and talk of something else."
Only half reassured, Haasberg sat down and had a chat. But he did not stay long. Mary was obviously tired, and soon said good-night. Arthur offered to accompany his brother-in-law to the latter's lodgings in the Rue de Moncigny.
"I would like a walk," he said, "before going to bed."
So the two men walked out together, and Haasberg finally said good-night to Arthur just outside his own lodgings. It was then close upon ten o'clock. The little party had agreed to spend the next day together, as the train de luxe did not go until the evening, and Haasberg had promised to take a holiday from business. Before going to bed he attended to some urgent correspondence, and had just finished a letter when his telephone bell rang. To his horror he heard his sister's voice speaking.
"Don't keep Arthur up so late, Herman," she said. "I am dog tired, and can't go to sleep until he returns."
"Arthur?" he replied. "But Arthur left me at my door two hours ago!"
"He has not returned," she insisted, "and I am getting anxious."
"Of course you are, but he can't be long now. He must have turned into a café and forgot the time. Do ring me up as soon as he comes in."
Unable to rest, however, and once more vaguely anxious, Haasberg went hastily back to the Majestic. He found Mary nearly distracted with anxiety, and as he himself felt anything but reassured, he did not know how to comfort her.
At one time he went down into the hall to ascertain whether anything was known on the hotel about Saunders's movements earlier in the evening; but at this hour of the night there were only the night porter and the watchman about, and they knew nothing of what had occurred before they came on duty.
There was nothing for it but to await the morning as calmly as possible. This was difficult enough, as Mary Saunders was evidently in a terrible state of agitation. She was quite certain that something tragic had happened to her husband, but Haasberg tried in vain to get her to speak of the mysterious visitor who had from the first aroused his own suspicions. Mary persisted in asserting that the visitor was just an old pal of Arthur's and that no suspicion of any kind could possibly rest upon him.
In the early morning Haasberg went off to the nearest commissariat of police. They took the matter in hand without delay, and within the hour had obtained some valuable information from the personnel of the hotel. To begin with, it was established that at about ten minutes past ten the previous evening, that is to say a quarter of an hour or so after Haasberg had parted from Arthur Saunders outside his own lodgings, the latter had returned to the Majestic, and at once asked for the tin box which he had deposited in the bureau. There was some difficulty in acceding to his request, because the clerk who was in charge of the keys of the strong-room could not at once be found. However, M. le Capitaine was so insistent that search was made for the clerk, who presently appeared with the keys, and after the usual formalities, handed over the tin box to Saunders, who signed a receipt for it in the book. Haasberg had since then identified the signature which was quite clear and incontestable.
Saunders then went upstairs, refusing to take the lift, and five minutes later he came down again, nodded to the hall porter, and went out of the hotel. No one had seen him since, but during the course of the morning, the valet on the fourth floor had found an empty tin box in the gentlemen's cloakroom. This box was produced, and to her unutterable horror Mary Saunders recognised it as the one which had held the pearl necklace.
The whole of this evidence as it gradually came to light was a staggering blow both to Mary and to Haasberg himself, because until this moment neither of them had thought that the necklace was in jeopardy: they both believed that it was safely locked up in the strong-room of the hotel.
Haasberg now feared the worst. He blamed himself terribly for not having made more certain of the mysterious visitor's identity. He had not yet come to the point of accusing his brother-in-law in his mind of a conspiracy to steal the necklace, but frankly, at this stage, he did not know what to think. Saunders's conduct had—to say the least—been throughout extremely puzzling. Why had he elected to spend the night in Paris, when all arrangements had been made for him and his wife to travel straight through? Who was the mysterious visitor with the walrus moustache, vaguely referred to by both Arthur and Mary as "old Pasquier"? And above all why had Arthur withdrawn the necklace from the hotel strong-room where it was quite safe, and, with it in his pocket, walked about the streets of Paris at that hour of the night?
Haasberg was quite convinced that "old Pasquier" knew something about the whole affair, but, strangely enough, Mary persisted in asserting that he was quite harmless and an old friend of Arthur's who was beyond suspicion. When further pressed with questions, she declared that she had no idea where the man lodged, and that, in fact, she believed that he had left Paris the self-same eveningen routefor Brussels, where he was settled in business.
Enquiry amongst the personnel of the hotel revealed the fact that Captain Saunders's visitor had been seen by the hall porter when he came soon after half-past eight, and asked whether le Capitaine Saunders had finished dinner; his question being answered in the affirmative, he went upstairs, refusing to take the lift. Half an hour or so later he was seen by one of the waiters in the lounge hurriedly crossing the hall, and finally by the two boys in attendance at the swing doors when he went out of the hotel. All agreed that the man was very tall and thick-set, that he wore a heavy moustache and a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles. He had on a bowler hat and an overcoat with the collar pulled right up to his ears. The hall porter, who himself spoke English fairly well, was under the impression that the man was not English, although he made his enquiries in that language.
In addition to all these investigations, the commissaire de police, on his second visit to the hotel, was able to assure Haasberg that all the commissariats in and around Paris had been communicated with by telephone so as to ascertain whether any man answering to Saunders's description had been injured during the night in a street accident, and taken in somewhere for shelter; also that a description of the necklace had already been sent round to all the Monts-de-Piété throughout the country. The police were also sharply on the lookout for the man with the walrus moustache, but so far without success.
And Mary Saunders obstinately persisted in her denial of any knowledge about him. "Arthur," she said, "sometimes saw 'old Pasquier' in London"; but she did not know anything about him, neither what his nationality was, nor where he lodged. She did not know when he had left London, nor where he could be found in Paris. All that she knew, so she said, was that his name was Pasquier, and that he was in business in Brussels; she therefore concluded that he was Belgian.
Even to her own brother she would not say more, although he succeeded in making her understand how strange her attitude must appear both to the police and to her friends, and what harm she was doing to her husband, but at this she burst into floods of tears and swore that she knew nothing about Pasquier's whereabouts, and that she believed him to be innocent of any attempt to steal the necklace or to injure Arthur.
There was nothing more to be said for the present and Haasberg sent the telegram in his sister's name to Sir Montague Bowden because he felt that some one less busy than himself should look after the affair and be a comfort to Mary, whose mental condition appeared pitiable in the extreme.
In this first interview he was able to assure Sir Montague that everything had been done to trace the whereabouts of Arthur Saunders, and also of the necklace of which the unfortunate man had been the custodian; and it was actually while the two men were talking the whole case over that Haasberg received an intimation from the police that they believed the missing man had been found: at any rate would Monsieur give himself the trouble to come round to the commissariat at once.
This, of course, Haasberg did, accompanied by Sir Montague, and at the commissariat to their horror they found the unfortunate Saunders in a terrible condition. Briefly the commissaire explained to them that about a quarter past ten last night anagent de police, making his rounds, saw a man crouching in the angle of a narrow blind alley that leads out of the Rue de Moncigny. On being shaken up by the agent the man struggled to his feet, but he appeared quite dazed and unable to reply to any questions that were put to him. He was then conveyed to the nearest commissariat, where he spent the night.
He was obviously suffering from loss of memory, and could give no account of himself, nor were any papers of identification found upon him, not even a visiting card, but close behind him, on the pavement where he was crouching, theagenthad picked up a handkerchief which was saturated with chloroform. The handkerchief bore the initials A.S. The man, of course, was Arthur Saunders. What had happened to him it was impossible to ascertain. He certainly did not appear to be physically hurt, although from time to time when Mr. Haasberg or Sir Montague tried to question him, he passed his hand across the back of his head, and an expression of pathetic puzzlement came into his eyes.
His two friends, after the usual formalities of identification, were allowed to take him back to the Hotel Majestic where he was restored to the arms of his anxious wife; the English doctor, hastily summoned, could not find any trace of injury about the body, only the head appeared rather tender when touched. The doctor's theory was that Saunders had probably been sandbagged first, and then rendered more completely insensible by means of the chloroformed handkerchief, and that excitement, anxiety and the blow on the head had caused temporary loss of memory which quietude and good nursing would soon put right.
In the meanwhile, of the fifteen thousand pound necklace there was not the slightest trace.
Unfortunately the disappearance of so valuable a piece of jewellery was one of those cases that could not be kept from public knowledge. The matter was of course in the hands of the French police and they had put themselves in communication with their English confrères, and the consternation—not to say the indignation—amongst the good ladies who had subscribed the money for the gift to the august lady was unbounded.
Everybody was blaming everybody else; the choice of Captain Saunders as the accredited messenger was now severely criticised; pointed questions were asked as to his antecedents, as to his wife's foreign relations, and it was soon found that very little was known about either.
Of course everybody knew that he was Sir Montague Bowden's nephew, and that, thanks to his uncle's influence, he had obtained a remunerative and rather important post in the office of one of the big Insurance Companies. But what his career had been before that no one knew. Some people said that he had fought in South Africa and later on had been correspondent for one of the great dailies during the Russo-Japanese war; altogether there seemed no doubt that he had been something of a rolling stone.
Rather tardily the committee was taken severely to task for having entrusted so important a mission to a man who was either a coward or a thief, or both, for at first no one doubted that Saunders had met a confederate in Paris and had handed over the necklace to him, whilst he himself enacted a farce of being waylaid, chloroformed and robbed, and subsequently of losing his memory.
But presently another version of the mystery was started by some amateur detective, and it found credence with quite a good many people. This was that Sir Montague Bowden had connived at the theft with Mrs. Saunders's relations; that the man with the walrus moustache did not exist at all or was in very truth a harmless old friend of Captain Saunders, and that it was Haasberg who had induced his brother-in-law to withdraw the necklace from the hotel strong-room and to bring it to the Rue de Moncigny; that in fact it was that same perfidious Swede who had waylaid the credulous Englishman, chloroformed and robbed him of the precious necklace.
In the meanwhile the police in England had, of course, been communicated with by their French confrères, but before they could move in the matter or enjoin discretion on all concerned, an enterprising young man on the staff of theExpress Posthad interviewed Miss Elizabeth Spicer, who was the parlour-maid at the Saunderses' flat in Sloane Street.
That young lady, it seems, had something to say about a gentleman named Pasquier, who was not an infrequent visitor at the flat. She described him as a fine, tall gentleman, who wore large gold-rimmed spectacles, and a full military moustache. It seems that the last time Miss Elizabeth saw him was two days before her master and mistress's departure for abroad. Mr. Pasquier called late that evening and stayed till past ten o'clock. When Elizabeth was rung for in order to show him out, he was saying good-bye to the captain in the hall, and she heard him say, "in his funny foreign way," as she put it:
"Well, I shall be in Paris as soon as you. Tink it over, my friend."
And on the top of that came a story told by Henry Tidy, Sir Montague Bowden's butler. According to him Captain Saunders called at Sir Montague Bowden's house in Lowndes Street on the afternoon of the fifteenth. The two gentlemen remained closeted together in the library for nearly an hour, when Tidy was summoned to show the visitor out. Sir Montague, it seems, went to the front door with his nephew, and as the latter finally wished him good-bye, Sir Montague said to him:
"My dear boy, you can take it from me that there's nothing to worry about, and in any case I am afraid that it is too late to make any fresh arrangements."
"It's because of Mary," the captain rejoined. "She has made herself quite ill over it."
"The journey will do her good," Sir Montague went on pleasantly, "but if I were you I would have a good talk with your brother-in-law. He must know his Paris well. Take my advice and spend the night at the Majestic. You can always get rooms there."
This conversation Tidy heard quite distinctly, and he related the whole incident both to the journalist and to the police. After that the amateur investigators of crime were divided into two camps: there were those who persisted in thinking that Pasquier and Saunders, and probably Mrs. Saunders also, had conspired together to steal the necklace, and that Saunders had acted the farce of being waylaid and robbed, and losing his memory; they based their deductions on Elizabeth Spicer's evidence and on Mary Saunders's extraordinary persistence in trying to shield the mysterious Pasquier.
But other people, getting hold of Henry Tidy's story, deduced from it that it was indeed Sir Montague Bowden who had planned the whole thing in conjunction with Haasberg, since it was he who had persuaded Saunders to spend the night in Paris, thus giving his accomplice the opportunity of assaulting Saunders and stealing the necklace. To these wise-acres "old Pasquier" was indeed a harmless old pal of Arthur's, whose presence that evening at the Majestic was either a fable invented by Haasberg, or one quite innocent in purpose. In vain did Sir Montague try to explain away Tidy's evidence. Arthur, he said, had certainly called upon him that last afternoon, but what he seemed worried about was his wife's health; he feared that she would not be strong enough to undertake the long journey without a break, so Sir Montague advised him to spend the night in Paris and in any case to talk the matter over with Mary's brother.
The conversation overheard by Tidy could certainly admit of this explanation, but it did not satisfy the many amateur detectives who preferred to see a criminal in the chairman of the committee rather than a harmless old gentleman, as eager as themselves to find a solution to the mystery. And while people argued and wrangled there was no news of the necklace, and none of the man with the walrus moustache. No doubt that worthy had by now shaved off his hirsute adornment and grown a beard. He had certainly succeeded in evading the police; whether he had gone to Brussels or succeeded in crossing the German frontier no one could say, his disappearance certainly bore out the theory of his being the guilty party with the connivance of Saunders, as against the Bowden-Haasberg theory.
As for the necklace it had probably been already taken to pieces and the pearls would presently be disposed of one by one to some unscrupulous Continental dealers, when the first hue and cry after them had died away.
Captain Saunders was said to be slowly recovering from his loss of memory and subsequent breakdown. Every one at home was waiting to hear what explanation he would give of his amazing conduct in taking the necklace out of the hotel strong-room late that night and sallying forth with it into the streets of Paris at that hour. The explanation came after about a fortnight of suspense in a letter from Mary to her friend Mrs. Berners.
Arthur, she said, had told her that on the fateful evening, after he parted from Mr. Haasberg in the Rue de Moncigny, he had felt restless and anxious about what the latter had told him on the subject of foreign hotels, and he was suddenly seized with the idea that the necklace was not safe in the care of the management of the Majestic, because there would come a moment when he would have to claim the tin box, and this would probably be handed over to him when the hall of the hotel was crowded, and the eyes of expert thieves would then follow his every movement. Therefore he went back to the hotel, claimed the tin box, and as the latter was large and cumbersome he got rid of it in one of the cloak-rooms of the hotel, slipped the necklace, in its velvet case, in the pocket of his overcoat, and went out with the intention of asking Haasberg to take care of it for him, and only to hand it back to him when on the following evening the train de luxe was on the point of starting. He had been in sight of Haasberg's lodgings when, without the slightest warning, a dull blow on the back of his head, coming he knew not whence, robbed him of consciousness.
This explanation, however, was voted almost unanimously to be very lame, and it was, on the whole, as well that the Saunderses had decided to remain abroad for a time. The ladies especially—and above all those who had put their money together for the necklace—were very bitter against him. On the other hand Sir Montague Bowden was having a very rough time of it; he had already had one or two very unpleasant word-tussles with some outspoken friends of his, and there was talk of a slander action that would certainly be acause célèbrewhen it came on.
Thus the arguments went on in endless succession until one day—well do I remember the excitement that spread throughout the town as soon as the incident became known—there was a terrible row in one of the big clubs in Piccadilly. Sir Montague Bowden was insulted by one of his fellow members: he was called a thief, and asked what share he was getting out of the sale of the necklace. Of course the man who spoke in this unwarranted fashion was drunk at the time, but nevertheless it was a terrible position for Sir Montague, because as his opponent grew more and more abusive and he himself more and more indignant, he realised that he had practically no friends who would stand by him in the dispute. Some of the members tried to stop the row, and others appeared indifferent, but no one sided with him, or returned abuse for abuse on his behalf.
It was in the very midst of this most unedifying scene—one perhaps unparalleled in the annals of London club life—that a club servant entered the room, and handed a telegram to Sir Montague Bowden.
Even the most sceptical there, and those whose brains were almost fuddled with the wrangling and the noise, declared afterwards that a mysterious Providence had ordained that the telegram should arrive at that precise moment. It had been sent to Sir Montague's private house in Lowndes Street; his secretary had opened it and sent it on to the club. As soon as Sir Montague had mastered its contents he communicated them to the members of the club, and it seems that there never had been such excitement displayed in any assembly of sober Englishmen as was shown in that club room on this momentous occasion.
The telegram had come all the way from the other end of Europe, and had been sent by the august lady in whose hands the priceless necklace, about which there was so much pother in England and France, had just been safely placed. It ran thus:
"Deeply touched by exquisite present just received through kind offices of Captain Saunders, from English ladies. Kind thoughts and beautiful necklace equally precious. Kindly convey my grateful thanks to all subscribers."
Having read out the telegram, Sir Montague Bowden demanded an apology from those who had impugned his honour, and I understand that he got an unqualified one. After that, male tongues were let loose; the wildest conjectures flew about as to the probable solution of what appeared a more curious mystery than ever. By evening the papers had got hold of the incident, and all those who were interested in the affair shook their heads and looked portentously wise.
But the hero of the hour was certainly Captain Saunders. From having been voted either a knave or a fool, or both, he was declared all at once to be possessed of all the qualities which had made England great: prudence, astuteness, and tenacity. However, as a matter of fact, nobody knew what had actually happened; the august lady had the necklace and Captain Saunders was returning to England without a stain on his character, but as to how these two eminently satisfactory results had come about not even the wise-acres could say. Captain and Mrs. Saunders arrived in England a few days later; every one was agog with curiosity, and the poor things had hardly stepped out of the train before they were besieged by newspaper men and pressed with questions.
The next morning theExpress Postand theDaily Thunderercame out with exclusive interviews with Captain Saunders, who had made no secret of the extraordinary adventure which had once more placed him in possession of the necklace. It seems that he and his wife on coming out of the Madeleine Church on Easter Sunday were hustled at the top of the steps by a man whose face they did not see, and who pushed past them very hastily and roughly. Arthur Saunders at once thought of his pockets, and looked to see if his notecase had not disappeared. To his boundless astonishment his hand came in contact with a long, hard parcel in the outside pocket of his overcoat, and this parcel proved to be the velvet case containing the missing necklace.
Both he and his wife were flabbergasted at this discovery, and, scarcely believing in this amazing piece of good luck, they managed with the help of Mr. Haasberg, despite its being Easter Sunday, to obtain an interview with one of the great jewellers in the Rue de la Paix, who, well knowing the history of the missing necklace, was able to assure them that they had indeed been lucky enough to regain possession of their treasure. That same evening they left by the train de luxe, having been fortunate enough to secure seats; needless to say that the necklace was safely stowed away inside Captain Saunders's breast pocket.
All was indeed well that ended so well. But the history of the disappearance and reappearance of the pearl necklace has remained a baffling mystery to this day. Neither the Saunderses nor Mr. Haasberg ever departed one iota from the circumstantial story which they had originally told, and no one ever heard another word about the man with the walrus moustache and the gold-rimmed spectacles: the French police are still after him in connection with the assault on le Capitaine Saunders, but no trace of him was ever found.
To some people this was a conclusive proof of guilt, but then, having stolen the necklace, why should he have restored it? Though the pearls were very beautiful and there were a great number of them beautifully matched, there was nothing abnormal about them either in size or colour; there never could be any difficulty for an expert thief to dispose of the pearls to Continental dealers. The same argument would of course apply to Mr. Haasberg, whom some wiseacres still persisted in accusing. If he stole the necklace why should he have restored it? Nothing could be easier than for a business man who travelled a great deal on the Continent to sell a parcel of pearls. And there always remained the unanswered question: Why did Saunders take the pearls out of the strong-room, and where was he taking them to when he was assaulted and robbed?
Did the man with the walrus moustache really call at the Majestic that night? And if he was innocent, why did he disappear? Why, why, why?
The case had very much interested me at the time, but the mystery was a nine days' wonder as far as I was concerned, and soon far more important matters than the temporary disappearance of a few rows of pearls occupied public attention.
It was really only last year when I renewed my acquaintance with the Old Man in the Corner, that I bethought myself once more of the mystery of the pearl necklace, and I felt the desire to hear what the spook-like creature's theory was upon the subject.
"The pearl necklace?" he said with a cackle. "Ah, yes, it caused a good bit of stir in its day. But people talked such a lot of irresponsible nonsense that thinking minds had not a chance of arriving at a sensible conclusion."
"No," I rejoined amiably. "But you did."
"Yes, you are right there," he replied, "I knew well enough where the puzzle lay, but it was not my business to put the police on the right track. And if I had I should have been the cause of making two innocent and clever people suffer more severely than the guilty party."
"Will you condescend to explain?" I asked, with an indulgent smile.
"Why should I not?" he retorted, and once again his thin fingers started to work on the inevitable piece of string. "It all lies in a nutshell, and is easily understandable if we realise that 'old Pasquier,' the man with the walrus moustache, was not the friend of the Saunderses, but their enemy."
I frowned. "Their enemy?"
"An old pal shall we say?" he retorted, "who knew something in the past history of one or the other of them that they did not wish their newest friends to know: really a blackmailer who, under the guise of comradeship, sat not infrequently at their fireside, watching an opportunity for extorting a heavy price for his silence and his good-will. Thus he could worm himself into their confidence; he knew their private life; he heard about the necklace, and decided that here was the long sought for opportunity at last.
"Think it all over and you will see how well the pieces of that jig-saw puzzle fit together and make a perfect picture. Pasquier calls on the Saunderses a day or two before their departure and springs his infamous proposal upon them then. For the time being Arthur succeeds in giving him the slip, his journey is not yet ... the necklace is not yet in his possession ... but he knows the true quality of the blackmailer now, and he is on the alert.
"He begins by going to Sir Montague Bowden and begging him to entrust the mission to somebody else. Judging by the butler's evidence, he even makes a clean breast of his troubles to Sir Montague who, however, makes light of them and advises consultation with Mr. Haasberg, who perhaps would undertake the journey. In any case it is too late to make fresh arrangements at this hour. Very reluctantly now, and hoping for the best, the Saunderses make a start. But the blackmailer, too, is on the alert, he has succeeded in spying upon them and in tracing them to the Majestic in Paris. The situation now has become terribly serious, for the blackmailer has thrown off the mask and demands the necklace under threats which apparently the Saunderses did not dare defy.
"But they are both clever and resourceful, and as soon as Haasberg's arrival rids them temporarily their tormentor, they put their heads together and invent a plot which was destined to free them for ever from the threats of Pasquier and at the same time would enable them to honour the trust which had been placed in them by the committee. In any case, they had until the morrow to make up their minds. Remember the words which Mr. Haasberg overheard on the part of Pasquier: 'S'long, old man. I'll wait till to-morrow!' Anyway, Pasquier must have gone off that evening confident that he had Captain Saunders entirely in his power, and that the wretched man would on the morrow hand over the necklace without demur.
"Whether Arthur Saunders confided in Haasberg or not is doubtful. Personally I think not. I believe that he and Mary did the whole thing between them. Arthur having parted from his brother-in-law went back to the hotel, took the necklace out of the strong-room and then left it in Mary's charge. He threw the tin box away, there where it would surely be found again. Then he went as far as the Rue de Moncigny and crouched, seemingly unconscious, in the blind alley, having previously taken the precaution of saturating his handkerchief with chloroform.
"Thus the two clever conspirators cut the ground from under the blackmailer's feet, for the latter now had the police after him for an assault, which he might find very difficult to disprove, even if he cleared himself of the charge of having stolen the necklace. Anyway he would remain a discredited man, and his threats would in the future be defied, because if he dared come out in the open after that, public feeling would be so bitter against him for a crime which he had not committed that he would never be listened to if he tried to do Captain Saunders an injury. And it was with a view of keeping public indignation at boiling pitch against the supposed thief that the Saunderses kept up the comedy for so long. To my mind that was a very clever move. Then they came out with the story of the restoration of the necklace and became the heroes of the hour.
"Think it over," the funny creature went on, as he finally stuffed his bit of string back into his pocket and rose from the table, "think it over and you will realise at once that everything happened just as I have related, and that it is the only theory that fits in with the facts that are known; you'll also agree with me, I think, that Captain and Mrs. Saunders chose the one way of ridding themselves effectually of a dangerous blackmailer. The police were after him for a long time, as they still believed that he had something to do with the theft of the necklace and with the assault on M. le Capitaine Saunders. But presently 1914 came along and what became of the man with the walrus moustache no one ever knew. What his nationality was was never stated at the time, but whatever it was, it would, I imagine, be a bar against his obtaining a visa on his passport for the purpose of visiting England and blackmailing Arthur Saunders.
"But it was a curious case."
There had been a great deal of talk about that time, in newspapers and amongst the public, of the difficulty an inexperienced criminal finds in disposing of the evidences of his crime—notably of course of the body of his victim. In no case perhaps was this difficulty so completely overcome—at any rate as far as was publicly known—as in that of the murder of the individual known as Prince Orsoff. I am thus qualifying his title because as a matter of fact the larger public never believed that he was a genuine Prince—Russian or otherwise—and that even if he had not come by such a violent and tragic death the Smithsons would never have seen either their ten thousand pounds again or poor Louisa's aristocratic bridegroom.
I had been thinking a great deal about this mysterious affair, indeed it had been discussed at most of the literary and journalistic clubs as a possible subject for a romance or drama, and it was with deliberate intent that I walked over to Fleet Street one afternoon, in order to catch the Old Man in the Corner in his accustomed teashop, and get him to give me his views on the subject of the mystery that to this very day surrounds the murder of the Russian Prince.
"Let me just put the whole case before you," the funny creature began as soon as I had led him to talk upon the subject, "as far as it was known to the general public. It all occurred in Folkestone, you remember, where the wedding of Louisa Smithson, the daughter of a late retired grocer, to a Russian Prince whom she had met abroad, was the talk of the town.
"It was on a lovely day in May, and the wedding ceremony was to take place at Holy Trinity Church. The Smithsons—mother and daughter—especially since they had come into a fortune, were very well known in Folkestone, and there was a large crowd of relatives and friends inside the church and another out in the street to watch the arrival of guests and to see the bride. There were camera men and newspaper men, and hundreds of idlers and visitors, and the police had much ado to keep the crowd in order.
"Mrs. Smithson had already arrived looking gorgeous in what I understand is known as amethyst crêpe-de-chine, and there was a marvellous array of Bond Street gowns and gorgeous headgears, all of which kept the lookers-on fully occupied during the traditional quarter of an hour's grace usually accorded to the bride.
"But presently those fifteen minutes became twenty, the clergy had long since arrived, the guests had all assembled, the bridesmaids were waiting in the porch: but there was no bridegroom. Neither he nor his best man had arrived; and now it was half an hour after the time appointed for the ceremony, and, oh, horror! the bride's car was in sight. The bride in church waiting for the bridegroom!—such an outrage had not been witnessed in Folkestone within the memory of the oldest inhabitants.
"One of the guests went at once to break the news to the elderly relative who had arranged to give the bride away, and who was with her in the car, whilst another, a Mr. Sutherland Ford, jumped into the first available taxi, having volunteered to go to the station in order to ascertain whether there had been any breakdown on the line, as the bridegroom was coming down by train from London with his best man.
"The bride, hastily apprised of the extraordinary contretemps, remained in the car, with the blinds pulled down, well concealed from the prying eyes of the crowd, whilst the fashionable guests, relatives and friends had perforce to possess their soul in patience.
"And presently the news fell like a bombshell in the midst of this lively throng. A taxi drove up, and from it alighted first Mr. Sutherland Ford, who had volunteered to go to the station for information, and then John and Henry Carter, the two latter beautifully got up in frock-coats, striped trousers, top hats, and flowers in their buttonholes, looking obviously like belated wedding guests. But still no bridegroom, and no best man.
"The three gentlemen, paying no heed to the shower of questions that assailed them, as soon as they had jumped out of the taxi ran straight into the church, leaving every one's curiosity unsatisfied and public excitement at fever pitch.
"'It was John and Henry Carter,' the ladies whispered agitatedly; 'fancy their being asked to the wedding!'
"And those who were in the know whispered to those who were less favoured that young Henry had at one time been engaged to Louisa Smithson, before she met her Russian Prince, and that when she threw him over he was in such dire despair that his friends thought he would commit suicide.
"A moment or two later Mrs. Smithson was seen hurriedly coming out of church, her face pale and drawn, and her beautiful hat all awry. She made straight for the bride's car, stepped into it, and the car immediately drove off, whilst the wedding guests trooped out of the church, and the terrible news spread like wildfire through the crowd, and was presently all over the town.
"It seems that when the midday train, London to Folkestone, stopped at Swanley Junction, two passengers who were about to enter a first-class compartment in one of the corridor carriages were horrified to find it in a terrible state of disorder. They hastily called the guard, and on examination the carriage looked indeed as if it had been the scene of a violent struggle: the door on the off side was unlatched, two of the window straps were wrenched off, the anti-macassars were torn off the cushions, one of the luggage racks was broken, and the net hung down in strips, and over some of the cushions were marks unmistakably made by a blood-stained hand.
"The guard immediately locked the compartment and sent for the local police. No one was allowed in or out of the station until every passenger on the train had satisfied the police as to his or her identity. Thus the train was held up for over two hours whilst preliminary investigations were going on.
"There appeared no doubt that a terrible murder had been committed, and telephonic communication all along the line presently established the fact that it must have been done somewhere in the neighbourhood of Sydenham Hill, because a group of men who were at work on the 'up' side of the line at Penge, when the down train came out of the tunnel noticed that the door of one of the first-class carriages was open. It swung to again just before the train steamed through the station.
"A preliminary search was at once made in and about the tunnel; it revealed on the platform of Sydenham Hill station a first-class single ticket of that day's issue, London to Folkestone, crushed and stained with blood, and on the permanent way, close to the entrance of the tunnel on the Penge side, a soft black hat, and a broken pair of pince-nez. But as to the identity of the victim there was for the moment no clue.
"After a couple of wearisome and anxious hours the passengers were allowed to proceed on their journey. Among these passengers, it appears, were John and Henry Carter, who were on their way to the Smithson wedding. Until they arrived in Folkestone they had no more idea than the police who the victim of the mysterious train murder was: but in the station they caught side of Mr. Sutherland Ford, whom they knew slightly. Mr. Ford was making agitated enquiries as to any possible accident on the line. The Carters put himau faitof what had occurred, and as there was no sign of the Russian Prince amongst the passengers who had just arrived, all three men came to the horrifying conclusion that it was indeed the bridegroom elect who had been murdered.
"They communicated at once with the police, and there were more investigations and telephonic messages up and down the line before the Carters and Mr. Ford were at last allowed to proceed to the church and break the awful news to those most directly concerned.
"And in this tragic fashion did Louisa Smithson's wedding-day draw to its end; nor, as far as the public was concerned, was the mystery of that terrible murder ever satisfactorily cleared up. The local police worked very hard and very systematically, but, though presently they also had the help of one of the ablest detectives from Scotland Yard, nothing was seen or found that gave the slightest clue either as to the means which the murderer or murderers adopted for removing the body of their victim, or in what manner they made good their escape. The body of the Russian Prince was never found, and, as far as the public knows, the murderer is still at large; and although, as time went on, many strange facts came to light, they only helped to plunge that extraordinary crime into darker mystery."
"The facts in themselves were curious enough, you will admit," the Old Man in the Corner went on after a while. "Many of these were never known to the public, whilst others found their way into the columns of the halfpenny Press, who battened on the 'Mystery of the Russian Prince' for weeks on end, and, as far as the unfortunate Smithsons were concerned, there was not a reader of theExpress Postand kindred newspapers who did not know the whole of their family history.
"It seems that Louisa Smithson is the daughter of a grocer in Folkestone, who had retired from business just before the War, and with his wife and his only child led a meagre and obscure existence in a tiny house in Warren Avenue somewhere near the tram road. They were always supposed to be very poor, but suddenly old Smithson died and it turned out that he had been a miser, for he left the handsome little fortune of fifteen thousand pounds to be equally divided between his daughter and his widow.
"At once Mrs. Smithson and Louisa found themselves the centre of an admiring throng of friends and relatives all eager to help them spend their money for their especial benefit; but Mrs. Smithson was shrewd enough not to allow herself to be exploited by those who in the past had never condescended to more than a bowing acquaintance with her. She turned her back on most of those sycophants, but at the same time she was determined to do the best for herself and for Louisa, and to this end she admitted into her councils her sister, Margaret Penny, who was saleswoman at a fashionable shop in London, and who immediately advised a journey up to town so that the question of clothes might at once be satisfactorily settled.
"In addition to valuable advice on that score, this Miss Penny seems to have succeeded in completely turning her sister's head. Certain it is that Mrs. Smithson left Folkestone a quiet, sensible, motherly woman, and that she returned, six weeks later, an arrogant, ill-mannered parvenue, who seemed to think that the possession of a few thousand pounds entitled her to ride rough-shod over the feelings and sentiments of those who had less money than herself.
"She began by taking a suite of rooms at the Splendide Hotel for herself, her daughter, and her maid. Then she sold her house in Warren Avenue, bought a car, and, though she and Louisa were of course in deep mourning, they were to be seen everywhere in wonderful Bond Street dresses and marvellous feathered hats. Finally, they announced their intention of spending the coming winter on the Riviera, probably Monte Carlo.
"All this extravagant behaviour made some people smile, others shrugged their shoulders and predicted disaster: but there was one who suffered acutely through this change in the fortune of the Smithsons. This was Henry Carter, a young clerk employed in an insurance office in London. He and his brother were Folkestone men, sons of a local tailor in a very small way of business, who had been one of old Smithson's rare friends. The elder Carter boy had long since cut his stick and was said to be earning a living in London by free-lance journalism. The younger one, Henry, remained to help his father with the tailoring. He was a constant visitor in the little house in Warren Avenue, and presently became engaged to Louisa. There could be no question of an immediate marriage, of course, as Henry had neither money nor prospects. However, presently old Carter died, the tailoring business was sold for a couple of hundred pounds, and Henry went up to London to join his brother and to seek his fortune. Presently he obtained a post in an insurance office, but his engagement to Louisa subsisted: the young people were known to be deeply in love with one another, and Henry spent most weekends and all his holidays in Folkestone in order to be near his girl.
"Then came the change in the fortune of the Smithsons, and an immediate coolness in Louisa's manner toward young Henry. It was all very well in the past to be engaged to the son of a jobbing tailor, while one was poor oneself, and one had neither wit nor good looks, but now...!
"In fact already when they were in London Mrs. Smithson had intimated to Henry Carter that his visits were none too welcome, and when he appealed to Louisa she put him off with a few curt words. The young man was in despair, and, indeed, his brother actually feared at one time that he would commit suicide.
"It was soon after Christmas of that same year that the curtain was rung up on the first act of the mysterious tragedy which was destined to throw a blight for ever after upon the life of Louisa Smithson. It began with the departure of herself and her mother for the Continent, where they intended to remain until the end of March. For the first few weeks their friends had no news of them, but presently Miss Margaret Penny, who had kept up a desultory correspondence with a pal of hers in Folkestone, started to give glowing accounts of the Smithsons' doings in Monte Carlo.
"They were staying at the Hotel de Paris, paying two hundred francs a day for their rooms alone. They were lunching and dining out every day of the week. They had been introduced to one or two of the august personages who usually graced the Riviera with their presence at this time of year, and they had met a number of interesting people. According to Miss Penny's account, Louisa Smithson was being greatly admired, and, in fact, several titled gentlemen of various nationalities had professed themselves deeply enamoured of her.
"All this Miss Penny recounted in her letters to her friends with a wealth of detail and a marvellous profusion of adjectives, and finally in one of her letters there was mention of a certain Russian grandee—Prince Orsoff by name—who was paying Louisa marked attention. He, also, was staying at the Paris, appeared very wealthy, and was obviously of very high rank for he never mixed with the crowd which was more than usually brilliant this year in Monte Carlo. This exclusiveness on his part was all the more flattering to the Smithsons, and, when he apprised them of his intention to spend the season in London, they had asked him to come and visit them in Folkestone, where Mrs. Smithson intended to take a house presently and there to entertain lavishly during the summer.
"After this preliminary announcement from Miss Penny, Louisa herself wrote a letter to Henry Carter. It was quite a pleasant chatty letter, telling him of their marvellous doings abroad and of her own social successes. It did not do more, however, than vaguely hint at the Russian prince, his distinguished appearance and obvious wealth. Nevertheless it plunged the unfortunate young man into the utmost depths of despair, and according to his brother John's subsequent account, the latter had a terrible time with young Henry that winter. John himself was very busy with journalistic work which kept him away sometimes for days and weeks on end from the little home in London which the two brothers had set up for themselves with the money derived from the sale of the tailoring business. And Henry's state of mind did at times seriously alarm his brother, for he would either threaten to do away with himself, or vow that he would be even with that accursed foreigner.
"At the end of March, the Smithsons returned to England. During the interval Mrs. Smithson had made all arrangements for taking The Towers, a magnificently furnished house facing the Leas at Folkestone, and here she and Louisa installed themselves preparatory to launching their invitations for the various tea and tennis parties, dinners and dances which they proposed to give during the summer.
"One might really quite truthfully say that the eyes of all Folkestone were fixed upon the two ladies. Their Paris dresses, their hats, their jewellery, was the chief subject of conversation at tea-tables, and of course every one was talking about the Russian Prince, who—Mrs. Smithson had confided this to a bosom friend—was coming over to England for the express purpose of proposing to Louisa.
"There was quite a flutter of excitement on a memorable Friday afternoon when it was rumoured that Henry Carter had come down for a week-end, and had put up at a small hotel down by the harbour. Of course, he had come to see Louisa Smithson; every one knew that, and no doubt he wished to make a final appeal to her love for him which could not be entirely dead yet.
"Within twenty-four hours, however, it was common gossip that young Henry had presented himself at The Towers and been refused admittance. The ladies were out, the butler said, and he did not know when they would be home. This was on the Saturday. On the Sunday Henry walked about on the Leas all the morning, in the hope of seeing Louisa or her mother, and as he failed to do so he called again in the early part of the afternoon: he was told the ladies were resting. Later he came again, and the ladies had gone out, and on the Monday, as presumably business called him back to town, he left by the early-morning train without having seen his former fiancée. Indeed people from that moment took it for granted that young Henry had formally been given his congé.
"Toward the middle of April Prince Orsoff arrived in London. Within two days he telephoned to Mrs. Smithson to ask her when he might come to pay his respects. A day was fixed, and he came to The Towers to lunch. He came again, and at his third visit he formally proposed to Miss Louisa Smithson, and was accepted. The wedding was to take place almost immediately, and the very next day the exciting announcement had gone the round of the Smithsons' large circle of friends—not only in Folkestone but also in London.
"The effect of the news appears to have been staggering as far as the unfortunate Henry Carter was concerned. In the picturesque language of Mrs. Hicks, the middle-aged charlady who 'did' for the two brothers in their little home in Chelsea, ''e carried on something awful.' She even went so far as to say that she feared he might 'put 'is 'ead in the gas oven,' and that, as Mr. John was away at the time, she took the precaution every day when she left to turn the gas off at the meter.
"The following week-end Henry came down to Folkestone and again took up his quarters in the small hotel by the harbour. On the Saturday afternoon he called at The Towers, and refused to take 'no' for an answer when he asked to see Miss Smithson. Indeed, he seems literally to have pushed his way into the drawing-room where the ladies were having tea. According to statements made subsequently by the butler, there ensued a terrible scene between Henry and his former fiancée, at the very height of which, as luck would have it, who should walk in but Prince Orsoff.
"That elegant gentleman, however, seems to have behaved on that trying occasion with perfect dignity and tact, making it his chief business to reassure the ladies, and paying no heed to Henry's recriminations, which presently degenerated into vulgar abuse and ended in violent threats. At last, with the aid of the majestic butler, the young man was thrust out of the house, but even on the doorstep he turned and raised a menacing fist in the direction of Prince Orsoff and said loudly enough for more than one person to hear:
"'Wait! I'll be even with that —— foreigner yet!'
"It must indeed have been a terrifying scene for two sensitive and refined ladies like Mrs. and Miss Smithson to witness. Later on, after the Prince himself had taken his leave, the butler was rung for by Mrs. Smithson who told him that under no circumstances was Mr. Henry Carter ever to be admitted inside The Towers.
"However, a Sunday or two afterwards, Mr. John Carter called and Mrs. Smithson saw him. He said that he had come down expressly from London in order to apologise for his brother's conduct. Harry, he said, was deeply contrite that he should thus have lost control over himself, his broken heart was his only excuse. After all, he had been and still was deeply in love with Louisa, and no man, worth his salt, could see the girl he loved turning her back on him without losing some of that equanimity which should of course be the characteristic of every gentleman.
"In fact, Mr. John Carter spoke so well and so persuasively that Mrs. Smithson and Louisa, who were at bottom quite a worthy pair of women, agreed to let bygones be bygones, and said that, if Henry would only behave himself in the future, there was no reason why he should not remain their friend.
"This appeared a quite satisfactory state of things, and over in the little house in Chelsea Mrs. Hicks gladly noted that 'Mr. 'Enry seemed more like 'isself, afterwards.' The very next week-end the two brothers went down to Folkestone together, and they called at The Towers so that Henry might offer his apologies in person. The two gentlemen on that occasion were actually asked to stay to tea.
"Indeed, it seems as if Henry had entirely turned over a new leaf, and when presently the gracious invitation came for both brothers to come to the wedding, they equally graciously accepted.
"The day fixed for the happy event was now approaching. The large circle of acquaintances, friends, and hangers-on which the Smithsons had gathered around them were all agog with excitement, wedding presents were pouring in by every post. A kind of network of romance had been woven around the personalities of the future bride, her mother, and the Russian Prince. The wealth of the Smithsons had been magnified an hundredfold, and Prince Orsoff was reputed to be a brother of the late Czar who had made good his escape out of Russia, bringing away with him most of the Crown jewels, which he would presently bestow upon his wife. And so on,ad infinitum.