Four square Jane
with all her senses alert for five minutes, till the sound of regular
breathing from the bed reassured her. Then she slipped forward to the
dressing-table. Here, her task was easy. No less than a dozen little
velvet and leather cases lay strewn on the silk cover. She opened them
noiselessly one by one, and put their glittering contents into her
pocket, leaving the cases as they had been.
As she was handling the last of the jewels a thought struck her, and
she peered more closely at the sleeping figure. A thin pretty woman,
it seemed in the half-light. So this was the businesslike Lady
Ovingham. She left the room as noiselessly as she had entered it, and
more quickly, and tried the next door in the passage.
This one had not been locked.
It was Mrs. Lewinstein’s own room, but she was not sleeping quietly.
The door had been left open for her lord, who had made a promise to
see his wife to make arrangements for the morrow. This promise he had
quite forgotten in his perturbation. There was a little safe let into
the wall, and the keys were hanging in the lock; for Mr. Lewinstein,
who, being a prudent, careful man, was in the habit of depositing his
diamond studs every night.
The girl’s fingers went into the interior of the safe, and presently
she found what she wanted. Mrs. Lewinstein stopped breathing heavily,
grunted, and turned, and the girl stood stock-still. Presently the
snoring recommenced, and she stole out into the corridor.
As she closed each door she stopped only long enough to press a small
label against the surface of the handle before she passed on to the
next room.
Downstairs in the library, Mr. Lewinstein heard the soft purr of a
motor car, and rose with a sigh of relief. Only his butler had been
let into the secret, and that sleepy retainer, who was dozing in one
of the hall chairs, heard the sound with as great relief as his
employer. He opened the big front door.
Outside was a motor-ambulance from which two men had descended. They
pulled out a stretcher and a bundle of blankets, and made their way
into the hall.
“I will show you the way,” said Mr. Lewinstein. “You will make as
little noise as possible, please.”
He led the procession up the carpeted stairs, and came at last to the
girl’s room.
“Oh, here you are,” said the doctor, yawning. “Set the stretcher by
the side of the bed. You had better stand away some distance, Mr.
Lewinstein,” he said, and that gentleman obeyed with alacrity.
Presently the door opened and the stretcher came out, bearing the
blanket-enveloped figure of the girl, her face just visible, and she
favoured Mr. Lewinstein with a pathetic smile as she passed.
The stairs were negotiated without any difficulty by the attendants,
and carefully the stretcher was pushed into the interior of the
ambulance.
“That’s all right,” said the doctor; “if I were you I would have that
bedroom locked up and fumigated to-morrow.”
“I’m awfully obliged to you, doctor. If you will give me your address
I would like to send you a cheque.”
“Oh, rubbish,” said the other cheerfully, “I am only too happy to
serve you. I will go into the village to pick up my car and get back
to town myself.”
“Where will you take this young woman?” asked Mr. Lewinstein.
“To the County Fever Hospital,” replied the other carelessly. “That’s
where you’re taking her, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir,” said one of the attendants.
Mr. Lewinstein waited on the steps until the red lights of the car had
disappeared, then stepped inside with the sense of having managed a
very difficult situation rather well.
“That will do for the night,” he said to the butler. “Thank you for
waiting up.”
He found himself walking, with a little smile on his lips, along the
corridor to his own room.
As he was passing his wife’s door he stumbled over something.
Stooping, he picked up a case. There was an electric switch close by,
and he flooded the corridor with light.
“Jumping Moses!” he gasped, for the thing he held in his hand was his
wife’s jewel case.
He made a run for her door, and was just gripping the handle, when the
label there caught his eye, and he stared in hopeless bewilderment at
the sign of Four Square Jane.
* * * * *
An ambulance stopped at a cross-road, where a big car was waiting, and
the patient, who had long since thrown off her blankets, came out. She
pulled after her a heavy bag, which one of the two attendants lifted
for her and placed in the car. The doctor was sitting at the wheel.
“I was afraid I was going to keep you waiting,” he said. “I only just
got here in time.”
He turned to the attendant.
“I shall see you to-morrow, Jack.”
“Yes, doctor,” replied the other.
He touched his hat to Four Square Jane, and walked back to the
ambulance, waiting only to change the number plates before he drove
away in the opposite direction to London.
“Are you ready?” asked the doctor.
“Quite ready,” said the girl, dropping in by his side. “You were late,
Jim. I nearly pulled a real fit when I heard they’d sent for the local
sawbones.”
“You needn’t have worried,” said the man at the wheel, as he started
the car forward. “I got a pal to wire calling him to London. Did you
get the stuff?”
“Yards of it,” said Four Square Jane laconically. “There will be some
sad hearts in Lewinstein’s house to-morrow.”
He smiled.
“By the way,” she said, “that lady detective Ross sent, how far did
she get?”
“As far as the station,” said the doctor, “which reminds me that I
forgot to let her out of the garage where I locked her.”
“Let her stay,” said Four Square Jane. “I hate the idea of
she-detectives, anyway--it’s so unwomanly.”
II
The chairman of the Bloxley Road Hospital for Women took his seat at
the head of the table, with a grim nod of recognition for his
colleagues, and a more respectful inclination of his head for that
eminent surgeon, Sir John Denham, who was attending this momentous
meeting of the Governors by special invitation.
Doctor Parsons, the chairman, pushed aside a little brown paper parcel
which lay on his blotting pad, and which he saw, after a cursory
glance, was addressed to himself. Presumably this contained the new
vaccine tubes which he had ordered from the research laboratory. He
cast a swift glance from left to right, smiling a little bitterly at
the glum faces of the staff.
“Well, gentlemen,” he said, “Bloxley Road Hospital looks like
closing.”
“Is it as bad as that, sir?” asked one of the surgeons with a troubled
face, and Dr. Parsons nodded.
“I suppose you didn’t have any luck, Sir John?”
Sir John Denham shook his head.
“I have been to everybody in London who is likely to help. It is
little short of a crime that the hospital should have to close down,
and that’s just how it stands, doesn’t it, Parsons?”
The doctor nodded his head.
“I’ve already shut two wards out of four,” he said. “We ourselves have
had no salaries for a fortnight, but that, of course, does not matter.
And the devil of it is that women are clamouring to get into this
hospital--I’ve got a waiting list of nearly eighty.”
Sir John nodded gravely.
“It’s a terrible state of affairs,” he said. “Do you know Lewinstein?”
“Slightly,” said the doctor with a faint smile. “I know him well
enough to cadge from him; but it was no go. Mr. Lewinstein would get
no credit from having his name on our subscription list, and he is
rather out for credit. As a matter of fact, he did subscribe once
before. By the way, talking of Lewinstein reminds me that Lord
Claythorpe, a close friend of his, has bought his niece a £50,000
pearl necklace as a wedding present. It was in all the morning
papers.”
“I saw it,” said Sir John.
“Really, I sometimes feel that I would like to turn burglar,” said the
exasperated chairman, “and join the gang of that--what do you call the
lady?--the person who stole that Venetian armlet that is being
advertised for so industriously. She went down in the guise of a
detective to Lewinstein’s house. Apparently she cleared out all the
guests and bolted in the night, and amongst the things she took was an
armlet belonging to one of the Doges of Venice, worth a fortune. At
any rate, they are advertising for its return.”
“Whose is it?”
“Lord Claythorpe’s. His wife was wearing it. Like a fool she took it
down to Lewinstein’s place. Claythorpe is a bit of a connoisseur, and
they say he has been off his head since his wife came back and
reported the loss.”
At that moment the telephone bell rang, and the doctor pulled the
instrument towards him with a little frown.
“I told those people in the office not to put anybody through,” he
said and lifted the receiver.
“Who’s that?” he said sharply, and the soft pleasant voice of a girl
replied:
“Is that Dr. Parsons?”
“Yes, it is I,” said the doctor.
“Oh, I just wanted to tell you that I read your moving appeal for
funds in the _Morning Post_ to-day.”
The doctor’s face brightened. This little hospital was his life’s
work, and the very hint of a promise that help was coming, however
meagre that help might be, cheered him.
“I’m glad you were moved by it,” he said, half in humour and half in
earnest; “and I trust that you will be moved to some purpose. Am I
wrong in suspecting you to be a possible subscriber?”
There was a little laugh at the other end of the wire.
“You are appealing for £8,000 to carry on the hospital for another
six months,” said the girl.
“That’s right,” nodded the doctor.
“Well, I’ve sent you £10,000,” was the surprising reply, and the
doctor gasped.
“You’ve sent me £10,000!” he said hollowly. “You’re joking, I
suppose.”
“Well, I haven’t exactly sent you £10,000,” said the voice--“that is
to say, in money. I have sent you the money’s worth. I sent a parcel
to you last night. Have you got it?”
The doctor looked round.
“Yes,” he said, “there is a parcel here, posted at Clapham. Is that
from you?”
“That’s from me,” said the girl’s voice. “I am relieved to know that
you have found it.”
“What’s in it?” demanded the man curiously.
“A very interesting armlet which was, and probably is still, the
property of Lord Claythorpe.”
“What do you mean?” asked the doctor sharply.
“It is the armlet I stole from him,” said the voice; “and there is a
reward of £10,000 for its return. I want you to return it, and apply
the money to your hospital.”
“To whom am I speaking?” asked Dr. Parsons huskily.
“To Four Square Jane!” was the reply and there was a “click!” as the
receiver was hung up.
With trembling fingers the doctor tore the tape which bound the little
parcel, pulled the brown-paper cover aside, disclosing a small wooden
box with a sliding lid. This he pushed back, and there, in its bed of
cotton wool, glittered and flashed the famous Venetian Armlet.
It was a nine days’ wonder. The daily Press, which for the past weeks
had had to satisfy itself with extravagant weather reports and
uninteresting divorce cases, fell upon this latest sensation with
enthusiasm, and there was not a Sunday paper in the country that did
not “feature” it in the largest of black type. For it was the greatest
story that had been printed for years.
The securing of the reward was not to be so simple a matter as the
Press and Dr. Parsons imagined. A telephone message had acquainted
Lord Claythorpe with the recovery of his jewel, and the doctor himself
carried it to Belgrave Square. Lord Claythorpe was a thin little man,
bald of head, and yellow of face. He suffered from some sort of
chronic jaundice, which not only tinged his skin, but gave a certain
yellowy hue to his temper. He received the doctor in his beautiful
library, one wall of which, as Dr. Parsons noticed, was covered with
the doors of small safes which had been let into the wall itself. For