Beasts and Super-Beasts
“It’s hardly fair to say that _I’ve_ made a fuss about it,” said Vera;
“this is the first time I’ve mentioned the matter, but there’s been no
end of trouble and mystery and newspaper speculation about it. It’s
rather amusing to think of the columns of conjecture in the Press and the
police and detectives hunting about everywhere at home and abroad, and
all the while that innocent-looking little cottage has held the secret.”
“You don’t mean to say it’s the Louvre picture, La Something or other,
the woman with the smile, that disappeared about two years ago?”
exclaimed the aunt with rising excitement.
“Oh no, not that,” said Vera, “but something quite as important and just
as mysterious—if anything, rather more scandalous.”
“Not the Dublin—?”
Vera nodded.
“The whole jolly lot of them.”
“In Betsy’s cottage? Incredible!”
“Of course Betsy hasn’t an idea as to what they are,” said Vera; “she
just knows that they are something valuable and that she must keep quiet
about them. I found out quite by accident what they were and how they
came to be there. You see, the people who had them were at their wits’
end to know where to stow them away for safe keeping, and some one who
was motoring through the village was struck by the snug loneliness of the
cottage and thought it would be just the thing. Mrs. Lamper arranged the
matter with Betsy and smuggled the things in.”
“Mrs. Lamper?”
“Yes; she does a lot of district visiting, you know.”
“I am quite aware that she takes soup and flannel and improving
literature to the poorer cottagers,” said Mrs. Bebberly Cumble, “but that
is hardly the same sort of thing as disposing of stolen goods, and she
must have known something about their history; anyone who reads the
papers, even casually, must have been aware of the theft, and I should
think the things were not hard to recognise. Mrs. Lamper has always had
the reputation of being a very conscientious woman.”
“Of course she was screening some one else,” said Vera. “A remarkable
feature of the affair is the extraordinary number of quite respectable
people who have involved themselves in its meshes by trying to shield
others. You would be really astonished if you knew some of the names of
the individuals mixed up in it, and I don’t suppose a tithe of them know
who the original culprits were; and now I’ve got you entangled in the
mess by letting you into the secret of the cottage.”
“You most certainly have not entangled me,” said Mrs. Bebberly Cumble
indignantly. “I have no intention of shielding anybody. The police must
know about it at once; a theft is a theft, whoever is involved. If
respectable people choose to turn themselves into receivers and disposers
of stolen goods, well, they’ve ceased to be respectable, that’s all. I
shall telephone immediately—”
“Oh, aunt,” said Vera reproachfully, “it would break the poor Canon’s
heart if Cuthbert were to be involved in a scandal of this sort. You
know it would.”
“Cuthbert involved! How can you say such things when you know how much
we all think of him?”
“Of course I know you think a lot of him, and that he’s engaged to marry
Beatrice, and that it will be a frightfully good match, and that he’s
your ideal of what a son-in-law ought to be. All the same, it was
Cuthbert’s idea to stow the things away in the cottage, and it was his
motor that brought them. He was only doing it to help his friend
Pegginson, you know—the Quaker man, who is always agitating for a smaller
Navy. I forget how he got involved in it. I warned you that there were
lots of quite respectable people mixed up in it, didn’t I? That’s what I
meant when I said it would be impossible for old Betsy to leave the
cottage; the things take up a good bit of room, and she couldn’t go
carrying them about with her other goods and chattels without attracting
notice. Of course if she were to fall ill and die it would be equally
unfortunate. Her mother lived to be over ninety, she tells me, so with
due care and an absence of worry she ought to last for another dozen
years at least. By that time perhaps some other arrangements will have
been made for disposing of the wretched things.”
“I shall speak to Cuthbert about it—after the wedding,” said Mrs.
Bebberly Cumble.
“The wedding isn’t till next year,” said Vera, in recounting the story to
her best girl friend, “and meanwhile old Betsy is living rent free, with
soup twice a week and my aunt’s doctor to see her whenever she has a
finger ache.”
“But how on earth did you get to know about it all?” asked her friend, in
admiring wonder.
“It was a mystery—” said Vera.
“Of course it was a mystery, a mystery that baffled everybody. What
beats me is how you found out—”
“Oh, about the jewels? I invented that part,” explained Vera; “I mean
the mystery was where old Betsy’s arrears of rent were to come from; and
she would have hated leaving that jolly quince tree.”
THE FORBIDDEN BUZZARDS
“Is matchmaking at all in your line?”
Hugo Peterby asked the question with a certain amount of personal
interest.
“I don’t specialise in it,” said Clovis; “it’s all right while you’re
doing it, but the after-effects are sometimes so disconcerting—the mute
reproachful looks of the people you’ve aided and abetted in matrimonial
experiments. It’s as bad as selling a man a horse with half a dozen
latent vices and watching him discover them piecemeal in the course of
the hunting season. I suppose you’re thinking of the Coulterneb girl.
She’s certainly jolly, and quite all right as far as looks go, and I
believe a certain amount of money adheres to her. What I don’t see is
how you will ever manage to propose to her. In all the time I’ve known
her I don’t remember her to have stopped talking for three consecutive
minutes. You’ll have to race her six times round the grass paddock for a
bet, and then blurt your proposal out before she’s got her wind back.
The paddock is laid up for hay, but if you’re really in love with her you
won’t let a consideration of that sort stop you, especially as it’s not
your hay.”
“I think I could manage the proposing part right enough,” said Hugo, “if
I could count on being left alone with her for four or five hours. The
trouble is that I’m not likely to get anything like that amount of grace.
That fellow Lanner is showing signs of interesting himself in the same
quarter. He’s quite heartbreakingly rich and is rather a swell in his
way; in fact, our hostess is obviously a bit flattered at having him
here. If she gets wind of the fact that he’s inclined to be attracted by
Betty Coulterneb she’ll think it a splendid match and throw them into
each other’s arms all day long, and then where will my opportunities come
in? My one anxiety is to keep him out of the girl’s way as much as
possible, and if you could help me—”
“If you want me to trot Lanner round the countryside, inspecting alleged
Roman remains and studying local methods of bee culture and crop raising,
I’m afraid I can’t oblige you,” said Clovis. “You see, he’s taken
something like an aversion to me since the other night in the
smoking-room.”
“What happened in the smoking-room?”
“He trotted out some well-worn chestnut as the latest thing in good
stories, and I remarked, quite innocently, that I never could remember
whether it was George II. or James II. who was so fond of that particular
story, and now he regards me with politely-draped dislike. I’ll do my
best for you, if the opportunity arises, but it will have to be in a
roundabout, impersonal manner.”
* * * * *
“It’s so nice having Mr. Lanner here,” confided Mrs. Olston to Clovis the
next afternoon; “he’s always been engaged when I’ve asked him before.
Such a nice man; he really ought to be married to some nice girl.
Between you and me, I have an idea that he came down here for a certain
reason.”
“I’ve had much the same idea,” said Clovis, lowering his voice; “in fact,
I’m almost certain of it.”
“You mean he’s attracted by—” began Mrs. Olston eagerly.
“I mean he’s here for what he can get,” said Clovis.
“For what he can _get_?” said the hostess with a touch of indignation in
her voice; “what do you mean? He’s a very rich man. What should he want
to get here?”
“He has one ruling passion,” said Clovis, “and there’s something he can
get here that is not to be had for love nor for money anywhere else in
the country, as far as I know.”
“But what? Whatever do you mean? What is his ruling passion?”
“Egg-collecting,” said Clovis. “He has agents all over the world getting
rare eggs for him, and his collection is one of the finest in Europe; but
his great ambition is to collect his treasures personally. He stops at
no expense nor trouble to achieve that end.”
“Good heavens! The buzzards, the rough-legged buzzards!” exclaimed Mrs.
Olston; “you don’t think he’s going to raid their nest?”
“What do you think yourself?” asked Clovis; “the only pair of
rough-legged buzzards known to breed in this country are nesting in your
woods. Very few people know about them, but as a member of the league
for protecting rare birds that information would be at his disposal. I
came down in the train with him, and I noticed that a bulky volume of
Dresser’s ‘Birds of Europe’ was one of the requisites that he had packed
in his travelling-kit. It was the volume dealing with short-winged hawks
and buzzards.”
Clovis believed that if a lie was worth telling it was worth telling
well.
“This is appalling,” said Mrs. Olston; “my husband would never forgive me
if anything happened to those birds. They’ve been seen about the woods
for the last year or two, but this is the first time they’ve nested. As
you say, they are almost the only pair known to be breeding in the whole
of Great Britain; and now their nest is going to be harried by a guest
staying under my roof. I must do something to stop it. Do you think if
I appealed to him—”
Clovis laughed.
“There is a story going about, which I fancy is true in most of its
details, of something that happened not long ago somewhere on the coast
of the Sea of Marmora, in which our friend had a hand. A Syrian
nightjar, or some such bird, was known to be breeding in the olive
gardens of a rich Armenian, who for some reason or other wouldn’t allow
Lanner to go in and take the eggs, though he offered cash down for the
permission. The Armenian was found beaten nearly to death a day or two
later, and his fences levelled. It was assumed to be a case of Mussulman
aggression, and noted as such in all the Consular reports, but the eggs
are in the Lanner collection. No, I don’t think I should appeal to his
better feelings if I were you.”
“I must do something,” said Mrs. Olston tearfully; “my husband’s parting
words when he went off to Norway were an injunction to see that those
birds were not disturbed, and he’s asked about them every time he’s
written. Do suggest something.”
“I was going to suggest picketing,” said Clovis.
“Picketing! You mean setting guards round the birds?”
“No; round Lanner. He can’t find his way through those woods by night,
and you could arrange that you or Evelyn or Jack or the German governess
should be by his side in relays all day long. A fellow guest he could
get rid of, but he couldn’t very well shake off members of the household,
and even the most determined collector would hardly go climbing after
forbidden buzzards’ eggs with a German governess hanging round his neck,
so to speak.”
Lanner, who had been lazily watching for an opportunity for prosecuting
his courtship of the Coulterneb girl, found presently that his chances of
getting her to himself for ten minutes even were non-existent. If the