The Secret of Chimneys
“No,” said Anthony regretfully. “I don’t suppose there’ll be anything
difficult about that. But shall I tell you, James, where I propose to
go with my £250?”
“South America?”
“No, my lad, Herzoslovakia. I shall stand in with the Republic, I
think. Very probably I shall end up as President.”
“Why not announce yourself as the principal Obolovitch and be a King
whilst you’re about it?”
“No, Jimmy. Kings are for life. Presidents only take on the job for
four years or so. It would quite amuse me to govern a kingdom like
Herzoslovakia for four years.”
“The average for Kings is even less, I should say,” interpolated Jimmy.
“It will probably be a serious temptation to me to embezzle your share
of the thousand pounds. You won’t want it, you know, when you get back
weighed down with nuggets. I’ll invest it for you in Herzoslovakian oil
shares. You know, James, the more I think of it, the more pleased I am
with this idea of yours. I should never have thought of Herzoslovakia
if you hadn’t mentioned it. I shall spend one day in London, collecting
the booty, and then away by the Balkan express!”
“You won’t get off quite as fast as that. I didn’t mention it before,
but I’ve got another little commission for you.”
Anthony sank into a chair and eyed him severely.
“I knew all along that you were keeping something dark. This is where
the catch comes in.”
“Not a bit. It’s just something that’s got to be done to help a lady.”
“Once and for all, James, I refuse to be mixed up in your beastly love
affairs.”
“It’s not a love affair. I’ve never seen the woman. I’ll tell you the
whole story.”
“If I’ve got to listen to more of your long, rambling stories, I shall
have to have another drink.”
His host complied hospitably with this demand, then began the tale.
“It was when I was up in Uganda. There was a Dago there whose life I
had saved——”
“If I were you, Jimmy, I should write a short book entitled ‘Lives I
have Saved.’ This is the second I’ve heard of this evening.”
“Oh, well, I didn’t really do anything this time. Just pulled the Dago
out of the river. Like all Dagos, he couldn’t swim.”
“Wait a minute, has this story anything to do with the other business?”
“Nothing whatever, though, oddly enough, now I remember it, the man was
a Herzoslovakian. We always called him Dutch Pedro though.”
Anthony nodded indifferently.
“Any name’s good enough for a Dago,” he remarked. “Get on with the good
work, James.”
“Well, the fellow was sort of grateful about it. Hung around like a
dog. About six months later he died of fever. I was with him. Last
thing, just as he was pegging out, he beckoned me and whispered some
excited jargon about a secret—a gold mine, I thought he said. Shoved
an oilskin packet into my hand which he’d always worn next his skin.
Well, I didn’t think much of it at the time. It wasn’t until a week
afterwards that I opened the packet. Then I was curious, I must
confess. I shouldn’t have thought that Dutch Pedro would have had the
sense to know a gold mine when he saw it—but there’s no accounting for
luck——”
“And at the mere thought of gold, your heart beat pitter-pat as
always,” interrupted Anthony.
“I was never so disgusted in my life. Gold mine, indeed! I daresay it
may have been a gold mine to him, the dirty dog. Do you know what it
was? A woman’s letters—yes, a woman’s letters, and an Englishwoman at
that. The skunk had been blackmailing her—and he had the impudence to
pass on his dirty bag of tricks to me.”
“I like to see your righteous heat, James, but let me point out to
you that Dagos will be Dagos. He meant well. You had saved his life,
he bequeathed to you a profitable source of raising money—your
high-minded British ideals did not enter his horizon.”
“Well, what the hell was I to do with the things? Burn ’em, that’s what
I thought at first. And then it occurred to me that there would be that
poor dame, not knowing they’d be destroyed, and always living in a
quake and a dread lest that Dago should turn up again one day.”
“You’ve more imagination than I gave you credit for, Jimmy,” observed
Anthony, lighting a cigarette. “I admit that the case presented more
difficulties than were at first apparent. What about just sending them
to her by post?”
“Like all women, she’d put no date and no address on most of the
letters. There was a kind of address on one—just one word. Chimneys.”
Anthony paused in the act of blowing out his match, and he dropped it
with a quick jerk of the wrist as it burned his finger.
“Chimneys?” he said. “That’s rather extraordinary.”
“Why, do you know it?”
“It’s one of the stately homes of England, my dear James. A place
where Kings and Queens go for weekends, and diplomatists forgather and
diplome.”
“That’s one of the reasons why I’m so glad that you’re going to England
instead of me. You know all these things,” said Jimmy simply. “A josser
like myself from the backwoods of Canada would be making all sorts of
bloomers. But some one like you who’s been to Eton and Harrow——”
“Only one of them,” said Anthony modestly.
“Will be able to carry it through. Why didn’t I send them to her, you
say? Well, it seemed to me dangerous. From what I could make out, she
seemed to have a jealous husband. Suppose he opened the letter by
mistake. Where would the poor dame be then? Or she might be dead—the
letters looked as though they’d been written some time. As I figured it
out, the only thing was for some one to take them to England and put
them into her own hands.”
Anthony threw away his cigarette, and coming across to his friend
clapped him affectionately on the back.
“You’re a real knight-errant, Jimmy,” he said. “And the backwoods of
Canada should be proud of you. I shan’t do the job half as prettily as
you would.”
“You’ll take it on then?”
“Of course.”
McGrath rose, and going across to a drawer took out a bundle of letters
and threw them on the table.
“Here you are. You’d better have a look at them.”
“Is it necessary? On the whole, I’d rather not.”
“Well, from what you say about this Chimneys place, she may have been
staying there only. We’d better look through the letters and see if
there’s any clue as to where she really hangs out.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
They went through the letters carefully, but without finding what they
had hoped to find. Anthony gathered them up again thoughtfully.
“Poor little devil,” he remarked. “She was scared stiff.”
Jimmy nodded.
“Do you think you’ll be able to find her all right?” he asked
anxiously.
“I won’t leave England till I have. You’re very concerned about this
unknown lady, James?”
Jimmy ran his finger thoughtfully over the signature.
“It’s a pretty name,” he said apologetically. “_Virginia Revel._”
3
Anxiety in High Places
“Quite so, my dear fellow, quite so,” said Lord Caterham.
He had used the same words three times already, each time in the hope
that they would end the interview and permit him to escape. He disliked
very much being forced to stand on the steps of the exclusive London
club to which he belonged and listen to the interminable eloquence of
the Hon. George Lomax.
Clement Edward Alistair Brent, ninth Marquis of Caterham, was a small
gentleman, shabbily dressed, and entirely unlike the popular conception
of a Marquis. He had faded blue eyes, a thin melancholy nose, and a
vague but courteous manner.
The principal misfortune of Lord Caterham’s life was to have succeeded
his brother, the eighth Marquis, four years ago. For the previous Lord
Caterham had been a man of mark, a household word all over England. At
one time Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, he had always bulked
largely in the counsels of the Empire, and his country seat, Chimneys,
was famous for its hospitality. Ably seconded by his wife, a daughter
of the Duke of Perth, history had been made and unmade at informal
week-end parties at Chimneys, and there was hardly anyone of note in
England—or indeed in Europe—who had not, at one time or another,
stayed there.
That was all very well. The ninth Marquis of Caterham had the utmost
respect and esteem for the memory of his brother. Henry had done that
kind of thing magnificently. What Lord Caterham objected to was the
assumption that he was bound to follow in his brother’s footsteps,
and that Chimneys was a National possession rather than a private
country house. There was nothing that bored Lord Caterham more than
politics—unless it was politicians. Hence his impatience under the
continued eloquence of George Lomax. A robust man, George Lomax,
inclined to _embonpoint_, with a red face and protuberant eyes, and an
immense sense of his own importance.
“You see the point, Caterham? We can’t—we simply can’t afford a
scandal of any kind just now. The position is one of the utmost
delicacy.”
“It always is,” said Lord Caterham, with a flavour of irony.
“My dear fellow, I’m in a position to _know_!”
“Oh, quite so, quite so,” said Lord Caterham, falling back upon his
previous line of defence.
“One slip over this Herzoslovakian business and we’re done. It is most
important that the Oil concessions should be granted to a British
company. You must see that?”
“Of course, of course.”
“Prince Michael Obolovitch arrives the end of the week, and the whole
thing can be carried through at Chimneys under the guise of a shooting
party.”
“I was thinking of going abroad this week,” said Lord Caterham.
“Nonsense, my dear Caterham, no one goes abroad in early October.”
“My doctor seems to think I’m in rather a bad way,” said Lord Caterham,
eyeing a taxi that was crawling past with longing eyes.
He was quite unable to make a dash for liberty, however, since Lomax
had the unpleasant habit of retaining a hold upon a person with whom
he was engaged in serious conversation—doubtless the result of long
experience. In this case, he had a firm grip of the lapel of Lord
Caterham’s coat.
“My dear man, I put it to you imperially. In a moment of national
crisis, such as is fast approaching——”
Lord Caterham wriggled uneasily. He felt suddenly that he would rather
give any number of house parties than listen to George Lomax quoting
from one of his own speeches. He knew by experience that Lomax was
quite capable of going on for twenty minutes without a stop.
“All right,” he said hastily, “I’ll do it. You’ll arrange the whole
thing, I suppose.”
“My dear fellow, there’s nothing to arrange. Chimneys, quite apart
from its historic associations, is ideally situated. I shall be at the
Abbey, less than seven miles away. It wouldn’t do, of course, for me to
be actually a member of the house party.”
“Of course not,” agreed Lord Caterham, who had no idea why it would not
do, and was not interested to learn.
“Perhaps you wouldn’t mind having Bill Eversleigh, though. He’d be
useful to run messages.”
“Delighted,” said Lord Caterham, with a shade more animation. “Bill’s
quite a decent shot, and Bundle likes him.”
“The shooting, of course, is not really important. It’s only the
pretext, as it were.”
Lord Caterham looked depressed again.
“That will be all, then. The Prince, his suite, Bill Eversleigh, Herman
Isaacstein——”
“Who?”
“Herman Isaacstein. The representative of the syndicate I spoke to you
about.”
“The all British syndicate?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Nothing—nothing—I only wondered, that’s all. Curious names these
people have.”
“Then, of course, there ought to be one or two outsiders—just to
give the thing a _bona fide_ appearance. Lady Eileen could see to
that—young people, uncritical, and with no idea of politics.”
“Bundle would attend to that all right, I’m sure.”
“I wonder now.” Lomax seemed struck by an idea.
“You remember the matter I was speaking about just now?”