The crimson circle
He could not contemplate being a witness of the girl’s humiliation. It
was monstrous. It was beastly of Parr, he said to Yale when they were
alone.
“The girl would not commit so mean a theft, the stupid, blundering
fool! I wish to heaven I had never called his attention to her.”
“It was he who saw her first,” said Yale, and dropped his hand upon
the young man’s shoulder. “Jack, you’re a little unstrung, I think.
Why are you so interested in Miss Drummond? Of course,” he said
suddenly, “you must have seen a lot of her when you were at home.
Froyant’s estate joins yours, doesn’t it?”
Jack nodded.
“If he would give as much attention to the running down of the Crimson
Circle as he gives to the hounding of that poor girl,” he said
bitterly, “my poor father would be alive to-day.”
Derrick Yale did his best to soothe him. He took him back to his
office and tried to bring his thoughts to a more pleasant channel.
They had been there a quarter of an hour when the telephone bell rang.
It was Parr who spoke.
“Well?” asked Yale.
“I’ve arrested Thalia Drummond, and I am charging her in the morning,”
was the laconic message.
Yale put down the receiver gently and turned to the young man.
“She’s arrested?” Jack guessed before he spoke.
Yale nodded.
Jack Beardmore’s face was very white.
“You see, Jack,” said Yale gently, “you have probably been as much
deceived as Froyant. The girl is a thief.”
“If she were a thief and murderess,” said Jack doggedly, “I love her.”
Chapter VIII.
The Charge
Mr. Parr’s interview with Harvey Froyant was a short one. At the
sight of the detective, that thin man blanched. He knew him by sight
and had met him in connection with the Beardmore tragedy.
“Well, well,” he asked tremulously. “What is wrong? Have these
infernal people started a new campaign?”
“Nothing so bad as that, sir,” said Parr. “I came to ask you a few
questions. How long have you had Thalia Drummond in your house?”
“She has been my secretary for three months,” said Froyant
suspiciously. “Why?”
“What wages do you pay her?” asked Parr.
Mr. Froyant mentioned a sum grossly inadequate, and even he was
apologetic for its inefficiency.
“I give her her food, you know, and she has evenings off,” he said,
feeling that the starvation wage must be justified.
“Has she been short of money lately?”
Mr. Froyant stared at him.
“Why--yes. She asked me if I could advance her five pounds yesterday,”
he said. “She said she had a call upon her purse which she could not
meet. Of course, I didn’t advance the money. I do not approve of
advancing money for work which is not performed,” said Froyant
virtuously. “It tends to pauperise----”
“You have a large number of antiques, I understand, Mr. Froyant, some
of them very valuable. Have you missed any lately?”
Froyant jumped to his feet. The very hint that he might have been
robbed was sufficient to set his mind in a panic. Without a word he
rushed from the room. He was gone three minutes and when he came back
his eyes were almost bulging from his head.
“My Buddha!” he gasped. “It is worth a hundred pounds. It was there
this morning----”
“Send for Miss Drummond,” said the detective briefly.
Thalia came, a cool, self-possessed girl, who stood by her employer’s
desk, her hands clasped behind her, scarcely looking at the detective.
The interview was short, and for Mr. Froyant, painful. Upon the girl
it had no apparent effect whatever. And yet she must have known, from
the steely glare in Froyant’s eyes, that her theft had been detected.
For a little time the man found a difficulty in framing a coherent
sentence.
“You--you have stolen something of mine,” he blurted out. His voice
was almost a squeak. The accusing hand trembled in the intensity of
his emotion. “You--you are a thief!”
“I asked you for the money,” said the girl coolly. “If you hadn’t been
such a wicked old skinflint, you’d have let me have it.”
“You--you----” spluttered Froyant, and then with a gasp--“I charge
her, inspector. I charge her with theft. You shall go to prison for
this. Mark my words, young woman. Wait--wait,” he raised his hand. “I
will see if anything else is missing.”
“You can save yourself the trouble,” said the girl, as he was leaving
the room. “The Buddha was the only thing I took, and it was an ugly
little beast, anyway.”
“Give me your keys,” stormed the enraged man. “To think that I’ve
allowed you to open my business letters!”
“I’ve opened one which will not be pleasant for you, Mr. Froyant,” she
said quietly, and then he saw what she was holding in her hand.
She passed the envelope across to him, and with staring eyes he saw
the Crimson Circle, but the words written within the hoop were blurred
and indistinct. He dropped the card and collapsed into a chair.
Chapter IX.
Thalia in the Police Court
The magistrate was a kind-hearted man and seemed uncomfortable. He
looked from the unemotional Mr. Parr who stood on the witness-stand,
to the girl in the steel pen, and she was almost as cool and as
self-controlled as the police witness. Her face was one which would
have attracted attention in any circumstances, but in the drab setting
of the police court, her beauty was emphasised and enhanced.
The magistrate glanced down at the charge-sheet before him. Her age
was described as twenty-one, her occupation as secretary.
The man of law, who had had many shocks in his lifetime, and had
steeled himself to the most unusual and improbable happenings, could
only shake his head in despair.
“Is anything known against this woman?” he asked, and felt it was
absurd even to refer to the slim, girlish prisoner as a “woman.”
“She has been under observation for some time, your worship,” was the
reply, “but she has not been in the hands of the police before.”
The magistrate looked over his glasses at the girl.
“I cannot understand how you got yourself into this terrible
position,” he said. “A girl who has evidently had the education of a
lady, you have been charged with a theft of a few pounds, for although
the article you stole was worth a large sum, that was all that your
dishonesty realised. Your act was probably due to some great
temptation. I suppose the need for the money was very urgent; yet that
does not excuse your act. I shall bind you over to come up for
judgment when called upon, treating you as a first offender, and I do
most earnestly appeal to you to live honestly and avoid a repetition
of this unpleasant experience.”
The girl bowed slightly and left the box for the police office, and
the next case was called.
Harvey Froyant rose at the same time and made his way out of the
court. He was a rich man to whom money represented the goal and object
of life. He was the type of man who counted the contents of his pocket
every night before he went to bed, and he would have had his own
mother arrested in similar circumstances. Thalia Drummond’s offence
was made more heinous in his eyes because her last act of service had
been to hand to him the warning of the Crimson Circle, from the shock
of which he had not yet recovered.
He was a large, thin man with a permanent stoop. His attitude towards
the world was one of acute suspicion; for the moment it was one of
resentment, for he held the strongest views on the sacredness of
property.
To Parr, who followed him out of the court, he expressed his
disappointment that the girl had not been sent to prison.
“A woman like that is a danger to society,” he complained in his
high-pitched, peevish voice. “How do I know that she isn’t in league
with these blackguards who are threatening me? Forty thousand they ask
for! Forty thousand!” He wailed the last words. “It is your duty to
see that I come to no harm! Understand that--it is your duty!”
“I heard you!” said Inspector Parr wearily. “And as to the girl, I
don’t suppose she ever heard of the Crimson Circle. She’s very young.”
“Young!” snarled the lean man. “That’s the time to punish them, isn’t
it? Catch them young and punish them young, and you may turn them into
respectable citizens!”
“I dare say you’re right,” agreed the stout Mr. Parr with a sigh, and
then inconsequently, “Children are a great responsibility.”
Froyant muttered something under his breath, and without so much as a
nod of farewell, walked rapidly through the court, into the motor-car
which was waiting for him at the entrance to the court-house.
The inspector watched him depart with a slow smile, and, looking
round, caught the eye of a young man who was waiting by the clerk’s
door.
“Good morning, Mr. Beardmore,” he said. “Are you waiting to see the
young lady?”
“Yes. How long will they keep her?” asked Jack nervously.
Mr. Parr gazed at him with expressionless eyes, and sniffed.
“If you don’t mind my saying so, Mr. Beardmore,” he said quietly, “you
are probably taking a greater interest in Miss Drummond than is good
for you.”
“What do you mean?” asked Jack quickly. “The whole thing was a plot.
That beast Froyant----”
The inspector shook his head.
“Miss Drummond admitted that she took the statuette,” he said, “and,
besides, we saw her coming out of Isaacs’. There isn’t any doubt about
it.”
“She only made the admission for some reason best known to herself,”
said Jack violently. “Do you think a girl like that would steal? Why
should she? I would have given her anything she wanted”--he checked
himself suddenly. “There is something behind this,” he went on more
quietly, “something which I do not understand, and probably you do not
understand either, inspector.”
The door opened at that moment and the girl came out. She stopped at
the sight of Jack and a faint flush crept into her pale face.
“Were you in court?” she asked quickly.
He nodded, and she shook her head.
“You shouldn’t have come,” she said almost vehemently. “How did you
know? Who told you?” She seemed oblivious to the presence of the
inspector, but for the first time since her arrest she showed some
sign of her pent emotion. The colour came and went, and her voice
shook a little as she continued: “I am sorry you knew anything about
it, Mr. Beardmore, and am desperately sorry you came,” she said.
“But it isn’t true,” he interrupted. “You can tell me that, Thalia? It
was a plot, wasn’t it? A plot intended to ruin you?” His voice was
almost pleading, but she shook her head.
“There was no plot,” she said quietly. “I stole from Mr. Froyant.”
“But why, why?” he asked despairingly. “Why did you----”
“I am afraid I can’t tell you why,” she said with the ghost of a smile
on her lips, “except that I needed the money, and that is good and
sufficient reason, isn’t it?”
“I’ll never believe it.” Jack’s face was set and his grey eyes
regarded her steadily. “You are not the kind who would indulge in
petty pilfering.”
She looked at him for a long time, and then turned her eyes to the
inspector.
“You may be able to undeceive Mr. Beardmore,” she said. “I am afraid I
cannot.”
“Where are you going?” he asked as, with a little nod, she was passing
on.
“I am going home,” she replied. “Please don’t come with me, Mr.
Beardmore.”
“But you have no home.”
“I have a lodging,” she said with a hint of impatience.
“Then I am going with you,” he said doggedly.
She did not make any remonstrance, and they passed from the court
together into the busy street. No word was spoken until they reached
the entrance of a tube station.
“Now I must go home,” she said more gently than before.
“But what are you going to do?” he demanded. “How are you going to get
your living with this terrible charge against you?”
“Is it so terrible?” she asked coolly. She was walking into the
station entrance when he took her arm and swung her round with almost
savage violence.