The Lock and Key Library: Classic Mystery and Detective Stories: Modern English
to a quiet cigar among the tree ferns and orchids. Leta must and should be
obeyed, I swore, nevertheless, even if I were driven to lock the door in
the fearless old fashion of a bygone day, and declare I'd shoot any man
who left while a drop remained in the bottles.
The ladies were rising. The lady at the head of the line smirked and
nodded her pink plumes coquettishly at Tom, while her hawk's eyes roved
keen and predatory over us all. She stopped suddenly, creating a block and
confusion.
"Ah, the dear bishop! _You_ there, and I never saw you! You must come and
have a nice long chat presently. By-by--!" She shook her fan at him over
my shoulder and tripped off. Leta, passing me last, gave me a look of
profound despair.
"Lady Carwitchet!" somebody exclaimed. "I couldn't believe my eyes."
"Thought she was dead or in penal servitude. Never should have expected
to see her _here_," said some one else behind me confidentially.
"What Carwitchet? Not the mother of the Carwitchet who--"
"Just so. The Carwitchet who--" Tom assented with a shrug. "We needn't go
farther, as she's my guest. Just my luck. I met them at Buxton, thought
them uncommonly good company--in fact, Carwitchet laid me under a great
obligation about a horse I was nearly let in for buying--and gave them a
general invitation here, as one does, you know. Never expected her to turn
up with her luggage this afternoon just before dinner, to stay a week, or
a fortnight if Carwitchet can join her." A groan of sympathy ran round the
table. "It can't be helped. I've told you this just to show that I
shouldn't have asked you here to meet this sort of people of my own free
will; but, as it is, please say no more about them." The subject was not
dropped by any means, and I took care that it should not be. At our end of
the table one story after another went buzzing round--_sotto voce_, out of
deference to Tom--but perfectly audible.
"Carwitchet? Ah, yes. Mixed up in that Rawlings divorce case, wasn't he? A
bad lot. Turned out of the Dragoon Guards for cheating at cards, or
picking pockets, or something--remember the row at the Cerulean Club?
Scandalous exposure--and that forged letter business--oh, that was the
mother--prosecution hushed up somehow. Ought to be serving her fourteen
years--and that business of poor Farrars, the banker--got hold of some of
his secrets and blackmailed him till he blew his brains out--"
It was so exciting that I clean forgot the bishop, till a low gasp at my
elbow startled me. He was lying back in his chair, his mighty shaven jowl
a ghastly white, his fierce imperious eyebrows drooping limp over his
fishlike eyes, his splendid figure shrunk and contracted. He was trying
with a shaken hand to pour out wine. The decanter clattered against the
glass and the wine spilled on the cloth.
"I'm afraid you find the room too warm. Shall we go into the library?"
He rose hastily and followed me like a lamb.
He recovered himself once we got into the hall, and affably rejected all
my proffers of brandy and soda--medical advice--everything else my limited
experience could suggest. He only demanded his carriage "directly" and
that Miss Panton should be summoned forthwith.
I made the best use I could of the time left me.
"I'm uncommonly sorry you do not feel equal to staying a little longer, my
lord. I counted on showing you my few trifles of precious stones, the
salvage from the wreck of my possessions. Nothing in comparison with your
own collection."
The bishop clasped his hand over his heart. His breath came short and
quick.
"A return of that dizziness," he explained with a faint smile. "You are
thinking of the Valdez sapphire, are you not? Some day," he went on with
forced composure, "I may have the pleasure of showing it to you. It is at
my banker's just now."
Miss Panton's steps were heard in the hall. "You are well known as a
connoisseur, Mr. Acton," he went on hurriedly. "Is your collection
valuable? If so, _keep it safe; don't trust a ring off your hand, or the
key of your jewel case out of your pocket till the house is clear again_."
The words rushed from his lips in an impetuous whisper, he gave me a
meaning glance, and departed with his daughter. I went back to the
drawing-room, my head swimming with bewilderment.
"What! The dear bishop gone!" screamed Lady Carwitchet from the central
ottoman where she sat, surrounded by most of the gentlemen, all apparently
well entertained by her conversation. "And I wanted to talk over old times
with him so badly. His poor wife was my greatest friend. Mira Montanaro,
daughter of the great banker, you know. It's not possible that that
miserable little prig is my poor Mira's girl. The heiress of all the
Montanaros in a black lace gown worth twopence! When I think of her
mother's beauty and her toilets! Does she ever wear the sapphires? Has
anyone ever seen her in them? Eleven large stones in a lovely antique
setting, and the great Valdez sapphire--worth thousands and thousands--for
the pendant." No one replied. "I wanted to get a rise out of the bishop
to-night. It used to make him so mad when I wore this."
She fumbled among the laces at her throat, and clawed out a pendant that
hung to a velvet band around her neck. I fairly gasped when she removed
her hand. A sapphire of irregular shape flashed out its blue lightning on
us. Such a stone! A true, rich, cornflower blue even by that wretched
artificial light, with soft velvety depths of color and dazzling clearness
of tint in its lights and shades--a stone to remember! I stretched out my
hand involuntarily, but Lady Carwitchet drew back with a coquettish
squeal. "No! no! You mustn't look any closer. Tell me what you think of it
now. Isn't it pretty?"
"Superb!" was all I could ejaculate, staring at the azure splendor of that
miraculous jewel in a sort of trance.
She gave a shrill cackling laugh of mockery.
"The great Mr. Acton taken in by a bit of Palais Royal gimcrackery! What
an advertisement for Bogaerts et Cie! They are perfect artists in frauds.
Don't you remember their stand at the first Paris Exhibition? They had
imitation there of every celebrated stone; but I never expected anything
made by man could delude Mr. Acton, never!" And she went off into another
mocking cackle, and all the idiots round her haw-hawed knowingly, as if
they had seen the joke all along. I was too bewildered to reply, which was
on the whole lucky. "I suppose I mustn't tell why I came to give quite a
big sum in francs for this?" she went on, tapping her closed lips with her
closed fan, and cocking her eye at us all like a parrot wanting to be
coaxed to talk. "It's a queer story."
I didn't want to hear her anecdote, especially as I saw she wanted to tell
it. What I _did_ want was to see that pendant again. She had thrust it
back among her laces, only the loop which held it to the velvet being
visible. It was set with three small sapphires, and even from a distance I
clearly made them out to be imitations, and poor ones. I felt a queer
thrill of self-mistrust. Was the large stone no better? Could I, even for
an instant, have been dazzled by a sham, and a sham of that quality? The
events of the evening had flurried and confused me. I wished to think them
over in quiet. I would go to bed.
My rooms at the Manor are the best in the house. Leta will have it so. I
must explain their position for a reason to be understood later. My
bedroom is in the southeast angle of the house; it opens on one side into
a sitting-room in the east corridor, the rest of which is taken up by the
suite of rooms occupied by Tom and Leta; and on the other side into my
bathroom, the first room in the south corridor, where the principal guest
chambers are, to one of which it was originally the dressing-room. Passing
this room I noticed a couple of housemaids preparing it for the night, and
discovered with a shiver that Lady Carwitchet was to be my next-door
neighbor. It gave me a turn.
The bishop's strange warning must have unnerved me. I was perfectly safe
from her ladyship. The disused door into her room was locked, and the key
safe on the housekeeper's bunch. It was also undiscoverable on her side,
the recess in which it stood being completely filled by a large wardrobe.
On my side hung a thick sound-proof _portière_. Nevertheless, I resolved
not to use that room while she inhabited the next one. I removed my
possessions, fastened the door of communication with my bedroom, and
dragged a heavy ottoman across it.
Then I stowed away my emerald in my strong-box. It is built into the wall
of my sitting-room, and masked by the lower part of an old carved oak
bureau. I put away even the rings I wore habitually, keeping out only an
inferior cat's-eye for workaday wear. I had just made all safe when Leta
tapped at the door and came in to wish me good night. She looked flushed
and harassed and ready to cry. "Uncle Paul," she began, "I want you to go
up to town at once, and stay away till I send for you."
"My dear--!" I was too amazed to expostulate.
"We've got a--a pestilence among us," she declared, her foot tapping the
ground angrily, "and the least we can do is to go into quarantine. Oh, I'm
so sorry and so ashamed! The poor bishop! I'll take good care that no one
else shall meet that woman here. You did your best for me, Uncle Paul, and
managed admirably, but it was all no use. I hoped against hope that what
between the dusk of the drawing-room before dinner, and being put at
opposite ends of the table, we might get through without a meeting--"
"But, my dear, explain. Why shouldn't the bishop and Lady Carwitchet meet?
Why is it worse for him than anyone else?"
"Why? I thought everybody had heard of that dreadful wife of his who
nearly broke his heart. If he married her for her money it served him
right, but Lady Landor says she was very handsome and really in love with
him at first. Then Lady Carwitchet got hold of her and led her into all
sorts of mischief. She left her husband--he was only a rector with a
country living in those days--and went to live in town, got into a horrid
fast set, and made herself notorious. You _must_ have heard of her."
"I heard of her sapphires, my dear. But I was in Brazil at the time."
"I wish you had been at home. You might have found her out. She was
furious because her husband refused to let her wear the great Valdez
sapphire. It had been in the Montanaro family for some generations, and
her father settled it first on her and then on her little girl--the bishop
being trustee. He felt obliged to take away the little girl, and send her
off to be brought up by some old aunts in the country, and he locked up
the sapphire. Lady Carwitchet tells as a splendid joke how they got the
copy made in Paris, and it did just as well for the people to stare at. No
wonder the bishop hates the very name of the stone."
"How long will she stay here?" I asked dismally.
"Till Lord Carwitchet can come and escort her to Paris to visit some
American friends. Goodness knows when that will be! Do go up to town,
Uncle Paul!"
I refused indignantly. The very least I could do was to stand by my poor
young relatives in their troubles and help them through. I did so. I wore
that inferior cat's eye for six weeks!
It is a time I cannot think of even now without a shudder. The more I saw
of that terrible old woman the more I detested her, and we saw a very
great deal of her. Leta kept her word, and neither accepted nor gave
invitations all that time. We were cut off from all society but that of
old General Fairford, who would go anywhere and meet anyone to get a
rubber after dinner; the doctor, a sporting widower; and the Duberlys, a
giddy, rather rackety young, couple who had taken the Dower House for a