Sir Thomas went to the dressing-table, and unlocked a small drawer.

"Twenty, you said? Five, ten, fifteen—here you are, my boy."

Lord Dreever muttered his thanks. Sir Thomas accepted the guttural acknowledgment with a friendly pat on the shoulder.

"I like a little touch like that," he said.

His lordship looked startled.

"I wouldn't have touched you," he began, "if it hadn't been—"

"A little touch like that letter-writing," Sir Thomas went on. "It shows a warm heart. She is a warm-hearted girl, Spennie. A charming, warm-hearted girl! You're uncommonly lucky, my boy."

His lordship, crackling the four bank-notes, silently agreed with him.

"But, come, I must be dressing. Dear me, it is very late. We shall have to hurry. By the way, my boy, I shall take the opportunity of making a public announcement of the engagement tonight. It will be a capital occasion for it. I think, perhaps, at the conclusion of the theatricals, a little speech—something quite impromptu and informal, just asking them to wish you happiness, and so on. I like the idea. There is an old-world air about it that appeals to me. Yes."

He turned to the dressing-table, and removed his collar.

"Well, run along, my boy," he said. "You must not be late." His lordship tottered from the room.

He did quite an unprecedented amount of thinking as he hurried into his evening clothes; but the thought occurring most frequently was that, whatever happened, all was well in one way, at any rate. He had the twenty pounds. There would be something colossal in the shape of disturbances when his uncle learned the truth. It would be the biggest thing since the San Francisco earthquake. But what of it? He had the money.

He slipped it into his waistcoat-pocket. He would take it down with him, and pay Hargate directly after dinner.

He left the room. The flutter of a skirt caught his eye as he reached the landing. A girl was coming down the corridor on the other side. He waited at the head of the stairs to let her go down before him. As she came on to the landing, he saw that it was Molly.

For a moment, there was an awkward pause.

"Er—I got your note," said his lordship.

She looked at him, and then burst out laughing.

"You know, you don't mind the least little bit," she said; "not a scrap. Now, do you?"

"Well, you see—"

"Don't make excuses! Do you?"

"Well, it's like this, you see, I—"

He caught her eye. Next moment, they were laughing together.

"No, but look here, you know," said his lordship. "What I mean is, it isn't that I don't—I mean, look here, there's no reason why we shouldn't be the best of pals."

"Why, of course, there isn't."

"No, really, I say? That's ripping. Shake hands on it."

They clasped hands; and it was in this affecting attitude that Sir Thomas Blunt, bustling downstairs, discovered them.

"Aha!" he cried, archly. "Well, well, well! But don't mind me, don't mind me!"

Molly flushed uncomfortably; partly, because she disliked Sir Thomas even when he was not arch, and hated him when he was; partly, because she felt foolish; and, principally, because she was bewildered. She had not looked forward to meeting Sir Thomas that night. It was always unpleasant to meet him, but it would be more unpleasant than usual after she had upset the scheme for which he had worked so earnestly. She had wondered whether he would be cold and distant, or voluble and heated. In her pessimistic moments, she had anticipated a long and painful scene. That he should be behaving like this was not very much short of a miracle. She could not understand it.

A glance at Lord Dreever enlightened her. That miserable creature was wearing the air of a timid child about to pull a large cracker. He seemed to be bracing himself up for an explosion.

She pitied him sincerely. So, he had not told his uncle the news, yet! Of course, he had scarcely had time. Saunders must have given him the note as he was going up to dress.

There was, however, no use in prolonging the agony. Sir Thomas must be told, sooner or later. She was glad of the chance to tell him herself. She would be able to explain that it was all her doing.

"I'm afraid there's a mistake," she said.

"Eh?" said Sir Thomas.

"I've been thinking it over, and I came to the conclusion that we weren't—well, I broke off the engagement!"

Sir Thomas' always prominent eyes protruded still further. The color of his florid face deepened. Suddenly, he chuckled.

Molly looked at him, amazed. Sir Thomas was indeed behaving unexpectedly to-night.

"I see it," he wheezed. "You're having a joke with me! So this is what you were hatching as I came downstairs! Don't tell me! If you had really thrown him over, you wouldn't have been laughing together like that. It's no good, my dear. I might have been taken in, if I had not seen you, but I did."

"No, no," cried Molly. "You're wrong. You're quite wrong. When you saw us, we were just agreeing that we should be very good friends. That was all. I broke off the engagement before that. I—"

She was aware that his lordship had emitted a hollow croak, but she took it as his method of endorsing her statement, not as a warning.

"I wrote Lord Dreever a note this evening," she went on, "telling him that I couldn't possibly—"

She broke off in alarm. With the beginning of her last speech, Sir Thomas had begun to swell, until now he looked as if he were in imminent danger of bursting. His face was purple. To Molly's lively imagination, his eyes appeared to move slowly out of his head, like a snail's. From the back of his throat came strange noises.

"S-s-so—" he stammered.

He gulped, and tried again.

"So this," he said, "so this—! So that was what was in that letter, eh?"

Lord Dreever, a limp bundle against the banisters, smiled weakly.

"Eh?" yelled Sir Thomas.

His lordship started convulsively.

"Er, yes," he said, "yes, yes! That was it, don't you know!"

Sir Thomas eyed his nephew with a baleful stare. Molly looked from one to the other in bewilderment.

There was a pause, during which Sir Thomas seemed partially to recover command of himself. Doubts as to the propriety of a family row in mid-stairs appeared to occur to him. He moved forward.

"Come with me," he said, with awful curtness.

His lordship followed, bonelessly. Molly watched them go, and wondered more than ever. There was something behind this. It was not merely the breaking-off of the engagement that had roused Sir Thomas. He was not a just man, but he was just enough to be able to see that the blame was not Lord Dreever's. There had been something more. She was puzzled.

In the hall, Saunders was standing, weapon in hand, about to beat the gong.

"Not yet," snapped Sir Thomas. "Wait!"

Dinner had been ordered especially early that night because of the theatricals. The necessity for strict punctuality had been straitly enjoined upon Saunders. At some inconvenience, he had ensured strict punctuality. And now—But we all have our cross to bear in this world. Saunders bowed with dignified resignation.

Sir Thomas led the way into his study.

"Be so good as to close the door," he said.

His lordship was so good.

Sir Thomas backed to the mantelpiece, and stood there in the attitude which for generations has been sacred to the elderly Briton, feet well apart, hands clasped beneath his coat-tails. His stare raked Lord Dreever like a searchlight.

"Now, sir!" he said.

His lordship wilted before the gaze.

"The fact is, uncle—"

"Never mind the facts. I know them! What I require is an explanation."

He spread his feet further apart. The years had rolled back, and he was plain Thomas Blunt again, of Blunt's Stores, dealing with an erring employee.

"You know what I mean," he went on. "I am not referring to the breaking-off of the engagement. What I insist upon learning is your reason for failing to inform me earlier of the contents of that letter."

His lordship said that somehow, don't you know, there didn't seem to be a chance, you know. He had several times been on the point—but—well, some-how—well, that's how it was.

"No chance?" cried Sir Thomas. "Indeed! Why did you require that money I gave you?"

"Oh, er—I wanted it for something."

"Very possibly. For what?"

"I—the fact is, I owed it to a fellow."

"Ha! How did you come to owe it?"

His lordship shuffled.

"You have been gambling," boomed Sit Thomas "Am I right?"

"No, no. I say, no, no. It wasn't gambling. It was a game of skill. We were playing picquet."

"Kindly refrain from quibbling. You lost this money at cards, then, as I supposed. Just so."

He widened the space between his feet. He intensified his glare. He might have been posing to an illustrator of "Pilgrim's Progress" for a picture of "Apollyon straddling right across the way."

"So," he said, "you deliberately concealed from me the contents of that letter in order that you might extract money from me under false pretenses? Don't speak!" His lordship had gurgled, "You did! Your behavior was that of a—of a—"

There was a very fair selection of evil-doers in all branches of business from which to choose. He gave the preference to the race-track.

"—of a common welsher," he concluded. "But I won't put up with it. No, not for an instant! I insist upon your returning that money to me here and now. If you have not got it with you, go and fetch it."

His lordship's face betrayed the deepest consternation. He had been prepared for much, but not for this. That he would have to undergo what in his school-days he would have called "a jaw" was inevitable, and he had been ready to go through with it. It might hurt his feelings, possibly, but it would leave his purse intact. A ghastly development of this kind he had not foreseen.

"But, I say, uncle!" he bleated.

Sir Thomas silenced him with a grand gesture.

Ruefully, his lordship produced his little all. Sir Thomas took it with a snort, and went to the door.

Saunders was still brooding statuesquely over the gong.

"Sound it!" said Sir Thomas.

Saunders obeyed him, with the air of an unleashed hound.

"And now," said Sir Thomas, "go to my dressing-room, and place these notes in the small drawer of the table."

The butler's calm, expressionless, yet withal observant eye took in at a glance the signs of trouble. Neither the inflated air of Sir Thomas nor the punctured-balloon bearing of Lord Dreever escaped him.

"Something h'up," he said to his immortal soul, as he moved upstairs. "Been a fair old, rare old row, seems to me!"

He reserved his more polished periods for use in public. In conversation with his immortal soul, he was wont to unbend somewhat.



CHAPTER XXIV

THE TREASURE SEEKER

Gloom wrapped his lordship about, during dinner, as with a garment. He owed twenty pounds. His assets amounted to seven shillings and four-pence. He thought, and thought again. Quite an intellectual pallor began to appear on his normally pink cheeks. Saunders, silently sympathetic—he hated Sir Thomas as an interloper, and entertained for his lordship, under whose father also he had served, a sort of paternal fondness—was ever at his elbow with the magic bottle; and to Spennie, emptying and re-emptying his glass almost mechanically, wine, the healer, brought an idea. To obtain twenty pounds from any one person of his acquaintance was impossible. To divide the twenty by four, and persuade a generous quartette to contribute five pounds apiece was more feasible.

Hope began to stir within him again.

Immediately after dinner, he began to flit about the castle like a family specter of active habits. The first person he met was Charteris.

"Hullo, Spennie," said Charteris, "I wanted to see you. It is currently reported that you are in love. At dinner, you looked as if you had influenza. What's your trouble? For goodness' sake, bear up till the show's over. Don't go swooning on the stage, or anything. Do you know your lines?"

"The fact is," said his lordship eagerly, "it's this way. I happen to want—Can you lend me a fiver?"

"All I have in the world at this moment," said Charteris, "is eleven shillings and a postage-stamp. If the stamp would be of any use to you as a start—? No? You know, it's from small beginnings like that that great fortunes are amassed. However—"

Two minutes later, Lord Dreever had resumed his hunt.

The path of the borrower is a thorny one, especially if, like Spennie, his reputation as a payer-back is not of the best.

Spennie, in his time, had extracted small loans from most of his male acquaintances, rarely repaying the same. He had a tendency to forget that he had borrowed half-a-crown here to pay a cab and ten shillings there to settle up for a dinner; and his memory was not much more retentive of larger sums. This made his friends somewhat wary. The consequence was that the great treasure-hunt was a failure from start to finish. He got friendly smiles. He got honeyed apologies. He got earnest assurances of good-will. But he got no money, except from Jimmy Pitt.

He had approached Jimmy in the early stages of the hunt; and Jimmy, being in the mood when he would have loaned anything to anybody, yielded the required five pounds without a murmur.

But what was five pounds? The garment of gloom and the intellectual pallor were once more prominent when his lordship repaired to his room to don the loud tweeds which, as Lord Herbert, he was to wear in the first act.

There is a good deal to be said against stealing, as a habit; but it cannot be denied that, in certain circumstances, it offers an admirable solution of a financial difficulty, and, if the penalties were not so exceedingly unpleasant, it is probable that it would become far more fashionable than it is.

His lordship's mind did not turn immediately to this outlet from his embarrassment. He had never stolen before, and it did not occur to him directly to do so now. There is a conservative strain in all of us. But, gradually, as it was borne in upon him that it was the only course possible, unless he were to grovel before Hargate on the morrow and ask for time to pay—an unthinkable alternative—he found himself contemplating the possibility of having to secure the money by unlawful means. By the time he had finished his theatrical toilet, he had definitely decided that this was the only thing to be done.

His plan was simple. He knew where the money was, in the dressing-table in Sir Thomas's room. He had heard Saunders instructed to put it there. What could be easier than to go and get it? Everything was in his favor. Sir Thomas would be downstairs, receiving his guests. The coast would be clear. Why, it was like finding the money.

Besides, he reflected, as he worked his way through the bottle of Mumm's which he had had the forethought to abstract from the supper-table as a nerve-steadier, it wasn't really stealing. Dash it all, the man had given him the money! It was his own! He had half a mind—he poured himself out another glass of the elixir—to give Sir Thomas a jolly good talking-to into the bargain. Yes, dash it all!

He shot his cuffs fiercely. The British Lion was roused.

A man's first crime is, as a rule, a shockingly amateurish affair. Now and then, it is true, we find beginners forging with the accuracy of old hands, or breaking into houses with the finish of experts. But these are isolated cases. The average tyro lacks generalship altogether. Spennie Dreever may be cited as a typical novice. It did not strike him that inquiries might be instituted by Sir Thomas, when he found the money gone, and that suspicion might conceivably fall upon himself. Courage may be born of champagne, but rarely prudence.

The theatricals began at half-past eight with a duologue. The audience had been hustled into their seats, happier than is usual in such circumstances, owing to the rumor which had been circulated that the proceedings were to terminate with an informal dance. The castle was singularly well constructed for such a purpose. There was plenty of room, and a sufficiency of retreat for those who sat out, in addition to a conservatory large enough to have married off half the couples in the county.

Spennie's idea had been to establish an alibi by mingling with the throng for a few minutes, and then to get through his burglarious specialty during the duologue, when his absence would not be noticed. It might be that, if he disappeared later in the evening, people would wonder what had become of him.

He lurked about until the last of the audience had taken their seats. As he was moving off through the hall, a hand fell upon his shoulder. Conscience makes cowards of us all. Spennie bit his tongue and leaped three inches into the air.

"Hello, Charteris!" he said, gaspingly.

Charteris appeared to be in a somewhat overwrought condition. Rehearsals had turned him into a pessimist, and, now that the actual moment of production had arrived, his nerves were in a thoroughly jumpy condition, especially as the duologue was to begin in two minutes and the obliging person who had undertaken to prompt had disappeared.

"Spennie," said Charteris, "where are you off to?"

"What—what do you mean? I was just going upstairs."

"No, you don't. You've got to come and prompt. That devil Blake has vanished. I'll wring his neck! Come along."

Spennie went, reluctantly. Half-way through the duologue, the official prompter returned with the remark that he had been having a bit of a smoke on the terrace, and that his watch had gone wrong. Leaving him to discuss the point with Charteris, Spennie slipped quietly away.

The delay, however, had had the effect of counteracting the uplifting effects of the Mumm's. The British Lion required a fresh fillip. He went to his room to administer it. By the time he emerged, he was feeling just right for the task in hand. A momentary doubt occurred to him as to whether it would not be a good thing to go down and pull Sir Thomas' nose as a preliminary to the proceedings; but he put the temptation aside. Business before pleasure.

With a jaunty, if somewhat unsteady, step, he climbed the stairs to the floor above, and made his way down the corridor to Sir Thomas's room. He switched on the light, and went to the dressing-table. The drawer was locked, but in his present mood Spennie, like Love, laughed at locksmiths. He grasped the handle, and threw his weight into a sudden tug. The drawer came out with a report like a pistol-shot.

"There!" said his lordship, wagging his head severely.

In the drawer lay the four bank-notes. The sight of them brought back his grievance with a rush. He would teach Sir Thomas to treat him like a kid! He would show him!

He was removing the notes, frowning fiercely the while, when he heard a cry of surprise from behind him.

He turned, to see Molly. She was still dressed in the evening gown she had worn at dinner; and her eyes were round with wonder. A few moments earlier, as she was seeking her room in order to change her costume for the theatricals, she had almost reached the end of the corridor that led to the landing, when she observed his lordship, flushed of face and moving like some restive charger, come curvetting out of his bedroom in a dazzling suit of tweeds, and make his way upstairs. Ever since their mutual encounter with Sir Thomas before dinner, she had been hoping for a chance of seeing Spennie alone. She had not failed to notice his depression during the meal, and her good little heart had been troubled by the thought that she must have been responsible for it. She knew that, for some reason, what she had said about the letter had brought his lordship into his uncle's bad books, and she wanted to find him and say she was sorry.

Accordingly, she had followed him. His lordship, still in the war-horse vein, had made the pace upstairs too hot, and had disappeared while she was still halfway up. She had arrived at the top just in time to see him turn down the passage into Sir Thomas's dressing-room. She could not think what his object might be. She knew that Sir Thomas was downstairs, so it could not be from the idea of a chat with him that Spennie was seeking the dressing-room.

Faint, yet pursuing, she followed on his trail, and arrived in the doorway just as the pistol-report of the burst lock rang out.

She stood looking at him blankly. He was holding a drawer in one hand. Why, she could not imagine.

"Lord Dreever!" she exclaimed.

The somber determination of his lordship's face melted into a twisted, but kindly smile.

"Good!" he said, perhaps a trifle thickly. "Good! Glad you've come. We're pals. You said so—on stairs—b'fore dinner. Very glad you've come. Won't you sit down?"

He waved the drawer benevolently, by way of making her free of the room. The movement disturbed one of the bank-notes, which fluttered in Molly's direction, and fell at her feet.

She stooped and picked it up. When she saw what it was, her bewilderment increased.

"But—but—" she said.

His lordship beamed—upon her with a pebble-beached smile of indescribable good-will.

"Sit down," he urged. "We're pals.—No quol with you. You're good friend. Quol—Uncle Thomas."

"But, Lord Dreever, what are you doing? What was that noise I heard?"

"Opening drawer," said his lordship, affably.

"But—" she looked again at what she had in her hand—"but this is a five-pound note."

"Five-pound note," said his lordship. "Quite right. Three more of them in here."

Still, she could not understand.

"But—were you—stealing them?"

His lordship drew himself up.

"No," he said, "no, not stealing, no!"

"Then—?"

"Like this. Before dinner. Old boy friendly as you please—couldn't do enough for me. Touched him for twenty of the best, and got away with it. So far, all well. Then, met you on stairs. You let cat out of bag."

"But why—? Surely—!"

His lordship gave the drawer a dignified wave.

"Not blaming you," he said, magnanimously. "Not your fault; misfortune. You didn't know. About letter."

"About the letter?" said Molly. "Yes, what was the trouble about the letter? I knew something was wrong directly I had said that I wrote it."

"Trouble was," said his lordship, "that old boy thought it was love-letter. Didn't undeceive him."

"You didn't tell him? Why?"

His lordship raised his eyebrows.

"Wanted touch him twenty of the best," he explained, simply.

For the life of her, Molly could not help laughing.

"Don't laugh," protested his lordship, wounded. "No joke. Serious. Honor at stake."

He removed the three notes, and replaced the drawer.

"Honor of the Dreevers!" he added, pocketing the money.

Molly was horrified.

"But, Lord Dreever!" she cried. "You can't! You mustn't! You can't be going, really, to take that money! It's stealing! It isn't yours! You must put it back."

His lordship wagged a forefinger very solemnly at her.

"That," he said, "is where you make error! Mine! Old boy gave them to me."

"Gave them to you? Then, why did you break open the drawer?"

"Old boy took them back again—when he found out about letter."

"Then, they don't belong to you."

"Yes. Error! They do. Moral right."

Molly wrinkled her forehead in her agitation. Men of Lord Dreever's type appeal to the motherly instinct of women. As a man, his lordship was a negligible quantity. He did not count. But as a willful child, to be kept out of trouble, he had a claim on Molly.

She spoke soothingly.

"But, Lord Dreever,—" she began. "Call me Spennie," he urged. "We're pals. You said so—on stairs. Everybody calls me Spennie—even Uncle Thomas. I'm going to pull his nose," he broke off suddenly, as one recollecting a forgotten appointment.

"Spennie, then," said Molly. "You mustn't, Spennie. You mustn't, really. You—"

"You look rippin' in that dress," said his lordship, irrelevantly.

"Thank you, Spennie, dear. But listen." Molly spoke as if she were humoring a rebellious infant. "You really mustn't take that money. You must put it back. See, I'm putting this note back. Give me the others, and I'll put them in the drawer, too. Then, we'll shut the drawer, and nobody will know."

She took the notes from him, and replaced them in the drawer. He watched her thoughtfully, as if he were pondering the merits of her arguments.

"No," he said, suddenly, "no! Must have them! Moral right. Old boy—"

She pushed him gently away.

"Yes, yes, I know," she said. "I know. It's a shame that you can't have them. But you mustn't take them. Don't you see that he would suspect you the moment he found they were gone, and then you'd get into trouble?"

"Something in that," admitted his lordship.

"Of course there is, Spennie, dear. I'm so glad you see! There they all are, safe again in the drawer. Now, we can go downstairs again, and—"

She stopped. She had closed the door earlier in the proceedings, but her quick ear caught the sound of a footstep in the passage outside.

"Quick!" she whispered, taking his hand and darting to the electric-light switch. "Somebody's coming. We mustn't be caught here. They'd see the broken, drawer, and you'd get into awful trouble. Quick!"

She pushed him behind the curtain where the clothes hung, and switched off the light.

From behind the curtain came the muffled voice of his lordship.

"It's Uncle Thomas. I'm coming out. Pull his nose."

"Be quiet!"

She sprang to the curtain, and slipped noiselessly behind it.

"But, I say—!" began his lordship.

"Hush!" She gripped his arm. He subsided.

The footsteps had halted outside the door. Then, the handle turned softly. The door opened, and closed again with hardly a sound.

The footsteps passed on into the room.



CHAPTER XXV

EXPLANATIONS

Jimmy, like his lordship, had been trapped at the beginning of the duologue, and had not been able to get away till it was nearly over. He had been introduced by Lady Julia to an elderly and adhesive baronet, who had recently spent ten days in New York, and escape had not been won without a struggle. The baronet on his return to England had published a book, entitled, "Modern America and Its People," and it was with regard to the opinions expressed in this volume that he invited Jimmy's views. He had no wish to see the duologue, and it was only after the loss of much precious time that Jimmy was enabled to tear himself away on the plea of having to dress. He cursed the authority on "Modern America and Its People" freely, as he ran upstairs. While the duologue was in progress, there had been no chance of Sir Thomas taking it into his head to visit his dressing-room. He had been, as his valet-detective had observed to Mr. Galer, too busy jollying along the swells. It would be the work of a few moments only to restore the necklace to its place. But for the tenacity of the elderly baronet, the thing would have been done by this time. Now, however, there was no knowing what might not happen. Anybody might come along the passage, and see him. He had one point in his favor. There was no likelihood of the jewels being required by their owner till the conclusion of the theatricals. The part that Lady Julia had been persuaded by Charteris to play mercifully contained no scope for the display of gems.

Before going down to dinner, Jimmy had locked the necklace in a drawer. It was still there, Spike having been able apparently to resist the temptation of recapturing it. Jimmy took it, and went into the corridor. He looked up and down. There was nobody about. He shut his door, and walked quickly in the direction of the dressing-room.

He had provided himself with an electric pocket-torch, equipped with a reflector, which he was in the habit of carrying when on his travels. Once inside, having closed the door, he set this aglow, and looked about him.

Spike had given him minute directions as to the position of the jewel-box. He found it without difficulty. To his untrained eye, it seemed tolerably massive and impregnable, but Spike had evidently known how to open it without much difficulty. The lid was shut, but it came up without an effort when he tried to raise it, and he saw that the lock had been broken.

"Spike's coming on!" he said.

He was dangling the necklace over the box, preparatory to dropping it in, when there was a quick rustle at the other side of the room. The curtain was plucked aside, and Molly came out.

"Jimmy!" she cried.

Jimmy's nerves were always in pretty good order, but at the sight of this apparition he visibly jumped.

"Great Scott!" he said.

The curtain again became agitated by some unseen force, violently this time, and from its depths a plaintive voice made itself heard.

"Dash it all," said the voice, "I've stuck!"

There was another upheaval, and his lordship emerged, his yellow locks ruffled and upstanding, his face crimson.

"Caught my head in a coat or something," he explained at large. "Hullo, Pitt!"

Pressed rigidly against the wall, Molly had listened with growing astonishment to the movements on the other side of the curtain. Her mystification deepened every moment. It seemed to her that the room was still in darkness. She could hear the sound of breathing; and then the light of the torch caught her eye. Who could this be, and why had he not switched on the regular room lights?

She strained her ears to catch a sound. For a while, she heard nothing except the soft breathing. Then came a voice that she knew well; and, abandoning her hiding-place, she came out into the room, and found Jimmy standing, with the torch in his hand, over some dark object in the corner of the room.

It was a full minute after Jimmy's first exclamation of surprise before either of them spoke again. The light of the torch hurt Molly's eyes. She put up a hand, to shade them. It seemed to her that they had been standing like this for years.

Jimmy had not moved. There was something in his attitude that filled Molly with a vague fear. In the shadow behind the torch, he looked shapeless and inhuman.

"You're hurting my eyes," she said, at last.

"I'm sorry," said Jimmy. "I didn't think. Is that better?" He turned the light from her face. Something in his voice and the apologetic haste with which he moved the torch seemed to relax the strain of the situation. The feeling of stunned surprise began to leave her. She found herself thinking coherently again.

The relief was but momentary. Why was Jimmy in the room at that time? Why had he a torch? What had he been doing? The questions shot from her brain like sparks from an anvil.

The darkness began to tear at her nerves. She felt along the wall for the switch, and flooded the whole room with light.

Jimmy laid down the torch, and stood for a moment, undecided. He had concealed the necklace behind him. Now, he brought it forward, and dangled it silently before the eyes of Molly and his lordship. Excellent as were his motives for being in that room with the necklace in his hand, he could not help feeling, as he met Molly's startled gaze, quite as guilty as if his intentions had been altogether different.

His lordship, having by this time pulled himself together to some extent, was the first to speak.

"I say, you know, what ho!" he observed, not without emotion. "What?"

Molly drew back.

"Jimmy! You were—oh, you can't have been!"

"Looks jolly like it!" said his lordship, judicially.

"I wasn't," said Jimmy. "I was putting them back."

"Putting them back?"

"Pitt, old man," said his lordship solemnly, "that sounds a bit thin."

"Dreever, old man," said Jimmy. "I know it does. But it's the truth."

His lordship's manner became kindly.

"Now, look here, Pitt, old son," he said, "there's nothing to worry about. We're all pals here. You can pitch it straight to us. We won't give you away. We—"

"Be quiet!" cried Molly. "Jimmy!"

Her voice was strained. She spoke with an effort. She was suffering torments. The words her father had said to her on the terrace were pouring back into her mind. She seemed to hear his voice now, cool and confident, warning her against Jimmy, saying that he was crooked. There was a curious whirring in her head. Everything in the room was growing large and misty. She heard Lord Dreever begin to say something that sounded as if someone were speaking at the end of a telephone; and, then, she was aware that Jimmy was holding her in his arms, and calling to Lord Dreever to bring water.

"When a girl goes like that," said his lordship with an insufferable air of omniscience, "you want to cut her—"

"Come along!" said Jimmy. "Are you going to be a week getting that water?"

His lordship proceeded to soak a sponge without further parley; but, as he carried his dripping burden across the room, Molly recovered. She tried weakly to free herself.

Jimmy helped her to a chair. He had dropped the necklace on the floor, and Lord Dreever nearly trod on it.

"What ho!" observed his lordship, picking it up. "Go easy with the jewelry!"

Jimmy was bending over Molly. Neither of them seemed to be aware of his lordship's presence. Spennie was the sort of person whose existence is apt to be forgotten. Jimmy had had a flash of intuition. For the first time, it had occurred to him that Mr. McEachern might have hinted to Molly something of his own suspicions.

"Molly, dear," he said, "it isn't what you think. I can explain everything. Do you feel better now? Can you listen? I can explain everything."

"Pitt, old boy," protested his lordship, "you don't understand. We aren't going to give you away. We're all—"

Jimmy ignored him.

"Molly, listen," he said.

She sat up.

"Go on, Jimmy," she said.

"I wasn't stealing the necklace. I was putting it back. The man who came to the castle with me, Spike Mullins, took it this afternoon, and brought it to me."

Spike Mullins! Molly remembered the name.

"He thinks I am a crook, a sort of Raffles. It was my fault. I was a fool. It all began that night in New York, when we met at your house. I had been to the opening performance of a play called, 'Love, the Cracksman,' one of those burglar plays."

"Jolly good show," interpolated his lordship, chattily. "It was at the Circle over here. I went twice."

"A friend of mine, a man named Mifflin, had been playing the hero in it, and after the show, at the club, he started in talking about the art of burglary—he'd been studying it—and I said that anybody could burgle a house. And, in another minute, it somehow happened that I had made a bet that I would do it that night. Heaven knows whether I ever really meant to; but, that same night, this man Mullins broke into my flat, and I caught him. We got into conversation, and I worked off on him a lot of technical stuff I'd heard from this actor friend of mine, and he jumped to the conclusion that I was an expert. And, then, it suddenly occurred to me that it would be a good joke on Mifflin if I went out with Mullins, and did break into a house. I wasn't in the mood to think what a fool I was at the time. Well, anyway, we went out, and—well, that's how it all happened. And, then, I met Spike in London, down and out, and brought him here."

He looked at her anxiously. It did not need his lordship's owlish expression of doubt to tell him how weak his story must sound. He had felt it even as he was telling it. He was bound to admit that, if ever a story rang false in every sentence, it was this one.

"Pitt, old man," said his lordship, shaking his head, more in sorrow than in anger, "it won't do, old top. What's the point of putting up any old yarn like that? Don't you see, what I mean is, it's not as if we minded. Don't I keep telling you we're all pals here? I've often thought what a jolly good feller old Raffles was. Regular sportsman! I don't blame a chappie for doing the gentleman burglar touch. Seems to me it's a dashed sporting—"

Molly turned on him suddenly, cutting short his views on the ethics of gentlemanly theft in a blaze of indignation.

"What do you mean?" she cried. "Do you think I don't believe every word Jimmy has said?"

His lordship jumped.

"Well, don't you know, it seemed to me a bit thin. What I mean is—" He met Molly's eye. "Oh, well!" he concluded, lamely.

Molly turned to Jimmy.

"Jimmy, of course, I believe you. I believe every word."

"Molly!"

His lordship looked on, marveling. The thought crossed his mind that he had lost the ideal wife. A girl who would believe any old yarn a feller cared to—If it hadn't been for Katie! For a moment, he felt almost sad.

Jimmy and Molly were looking at each other in silence. From the expression on their faces, his lordship gathered that his existence had once more been forgotten. He saw her hold out her hands to Jimmy, and it seemed to him that the time had come to look away. It was embarrassing for a chap! He looked away.

The next moment, the door opened and closed again, and she had gone.

He looked at Jimmy. Jimmy was still apparently unconscious of his presence.

His lordship coughed.

"Pitt, old man—"

"Hullo!" said Jimmy, coming out of his thoughts with a start. "You still here? By the way—" he eyed Lord Dreever curiously—"I never thought of asking before—what on earth are you doing here? Why were you behind the curtain? Were you playing hide-and-seek?"

His lordship was not one of those who invent circumstantial stories easily on the spur of the moment. He searched rapidly for something that would pass muster, then abandoned the hopeless struggle. After all, why not be frank? He still believed Jimmy to be of the class of the hero of "Love, the Cracksman." There would be no harm in confiding in him. He was a good fellow, a kindred soul, and would sympathize.

"It's like this," he said. And, having prefaced his narrative with the sound remark that he had been a bit of an ass, he gave Jimmy a summary of recent events.

"What!" said Jimmy. "You taught Hargate picquet? Why, my dear man, he was playing picquet like a professor when you were in short frocks. He's a wonder at it."

His lordship started.

"How's that?" he said. "You don't know him, do you?"

"I met him in New York, at the Strollers' Club. A pal of mine, an actor, this fellow Mifflin I mentioned just now, put him up as a guest. He coined money at picquet. And there were some pretty useful players in the place, too. I don't wonder you found him a promising pupil."

"Then—then—why, dash it, then he's a bally sharper!"

"You're a genius at crisp description," said Jimmy. "You've got him summed up to rights first shot."

"I sha'n't pay him a bally penny!"

"Of course not. If he makes any objection, refer him to me."

His lordship's relief was extreme. The more overpowering effects of the elixir had passed away, and he saw now, what he had not seen in his more exuberant frame of mind, the cloud of suspicion that must have hung over him when the loss of the banknotes was discovered.

He wiped his forehead.

"By Jove!" he said. "That's something off my mind! By George, I feel like a two-year-old. I say, you're a dashed good sort, Pitt."

"You flatter me," said Jimmy. "I strive to please."

"I say, Pitt, that yarn you told us just now—the bet, and all that. Honestly, you don't mean to say that was true, was it? I mean—By Jove! I've got an idea."

"We live in stirring times!"

"Did you say your actor pal's name was Mifflin?" He broke off suddenly before Jimmy could answer. "Great Scott!" he whispered. "What's that! Good lord! Somebody's coming!"

He dived behind the curtain, like a rabbit. The drapery had only just ceased to shake when the door opened, and Sir Thomas Blunt walked in.



CHAPTER XXVI

STIRRING TIMES FOR SIR THOMAS

For a man whose intentions toward the jewels and their owner were so innocent, and even benevolent, Jimmy was in a singularly compromising position. It would have been difficult even under more favorable conditions to have explained to Sir Thomas's satisfaction his presence in the dressing-room. As things stood, it was even harder, for his lordship's last action before seeking cover had been to fling the necklace from him like a burning coal. For the second time in ten minutes, it had fallen to the carpet, and it was just as Jimmy straightened himself after picking it up that Sir Thomas got a full view of him.

The knight stood in the doorway, his face expressing the most lively astonishment. His bulging eyes were fixed upon the necklace in Jimmy's hand. Jimmy could see him struggling to find words to cope with so special a situation, and felt rather sorry for him. Excitement of this kind was bad for a short-necked man of Sir Thomas's type.

With kindly tact, he endeavored to help his host out.

"Good-evening," he said, pleasantly.

Sir Thomas stammered. He was gradually nearing speech.

"What—what—what—" he said.

"Out with it," said Jimmy.

"—what—"

"I knew a man once in South Dakota who stammered," said Jimmy. "He used to chew dog-biscuit while he was speaking. It cured him—besides being nutritious. Another good way is to count ten while you're thinking what to say, and then get it out quick."

"You—you blackguard!"

Jimmy placed the necklace carefully on the dressing-table. Then, he turned to Sir Thomas, with his hands thrust into his pockets. Over the knight's head, he could see the folds of the curtain quivering gently, as if stirred by some zephyr. Evidently, the drama of the situation was not lost on Hildebrand Spencer, twelfth Earl of Dreever.

Nor was it lost on Jimmy. This was precisely the sort of situation that appealed to him. He had his plan of action clearly mapped out. He knew that it would be useless to tell the knight the true facts of the case. Sir Thomas was as deficient in simple faith as in Norman blood. Though a Londoner by birth, he had one, at least, of the characteristic traits of the natives of Missouri.

To all appearances, this was a tight corner, but Jimmy fancied that he saw his way out of it. Meanwhile, the situation appealed to him. Curiously enough, it was almost identical with the big scene in act three of "Love, the Cracksman," in which Arthur Mifflin had made such a hit as the debonair burglar.

Jimmy proceeded to give his own idea of what the rendering of a debonair burglar should be. Arthur Mifflin had lighted a cigarette, and had shot out smoke-rings and repartee alternately. A cigarette would have been a great help here, but Jimmy prepared to do his best without properties.

"So—so, it's you, is it?" said Sir Thomas.

"Who told you?"

"Thief! Low thief!"

"Come, now," protested Jimmy. "Why low? Just because you don't know me over here, why scorn me? How do you know I haven't got a big American reputation? For all you can tell, I may be Boston Billie or Sacramento Sam, or someone. Let us preserve the decencies of debate."

"I had my suspicions of you. I had my suspicions from the first, when I heard that my idiot of a nephew had made a casual friend in London. So, this was what you were! A thief, who—"

"I don't mind, personally," interrupted Jimmy, "but I hope, if ever you mix with cracksmen, you won't go calling them thieves. They are frightfully sensitive. You see! There's a world of difference between the two branches of the profession and a good deal of snobbish caste-prejudice. Let us suppose that you were an actor-manager. How would you enjoy being called a super? You see the idea, don't you? You'd hurt their feelings. Now, an ordinary thief would probably use violence in a case like this. But violence, except in extreme cases—I hope this won't be one of them—is contrary, I understand, to cracksman's etiquette. On the other hand, Sir Thomas, candor compels me to add that I have you covered."

There was a pipe in the pocket of his coat. He thrust the stem earnestly against the lining. Sir Thomas eyed the protuberance apprehensively, and turned a little pale. Jimmy was scowling ferociously. Arthur Mifflin's scowl in act three had been much admired.

"My gun," said Jimmy, "is, as you see, in my pocket. I always shoot from the pocket, in spite of the tailor's bills. The little fellow is loaded and cocked. He's pointing straight at your diamond solitaire. That fatal spot! No one has ever been hit in the diamond solitaire, and survived. My finger is on the trigger. So, I should recommend you not to touch that bell you are looking at. There are other reasons why you shouldn't, but those I will go into presently."

Sir Thomas's hand wavered.

"Do if you like, of course," said Jimmy, agreeably. "It's your own house. But I shouldn't. I am a dead shot at a yard and a half. You wouldn't believe the number of sitting haystacks I've picked off at that distance. I just can't miss. On second thoughts, I sha'n't fire to kill you. Let us be humane on this joyful occasion. I shall just smash your knees. Painful, but not fatal."

He waggled the pipe suggestively. Sir Thomas blenched. His hand fell to his side.

"Great!" said Jimmy. "After all, why should you be in a hurry to break up this very pleasant little meeting. I'm sure I'm not. Let us chat. How are the theatricals going? Was the duologue a success? Wait till you see our show. Three of us knew our lines at the dress-rehearsal."

Sir Thomas had backed away from the bell, but the retreat was merely for the convenience of the moment. He understood that it might be injudicious to press the button just then; but he had recovered his composure by this time, and he saw that ultimately the game must be his. His face resumed its normal hue. Automatically, his hands began to move toward his coat-tails, his feet to spread themselves. Jimmy noted with a smile these signs of restored complacency. He hoped ere long to upset that complacency somewhat.

Sir Thomas addressed himself to making Jimmy's position clear to him.

"How, may I ask," he said, "do you propose to leave the castle?"

"Won't you let me have the automobile?" said Jimmy. "But I guess I sha'n't be leaving just yet."

Sir Thomas laughed shortly.

"No," he said—"no! I fancy not. I am with you there!"

"Great minds," said Jimmy. "I shouldn't be surprised if we thought alike on all sorts of subjects. Just think how you came round to my views on ringing bells. But what made you fancy that I intended to leave the castle?"

"I should hardly have supposed that you would be anxious to stay."

"On the contrary! It's the one place I have been in, in the last two years, that I have felt really satisfied with. Usually, I want to move on after a week. But I could stop here forever."

"I am afraid, Mr. Pitt—By the way, an alias, of course?"

Jimmy shook his head.

"I fear not," he said. "If I had chosen an alias, it would have been Tressilyan, or Trevelyan, or something. I call Pitt a poor thing in names. I once knew a man called Ronald Cheylesmore. Lucky devil!"

Sir Thomas returned to the point on which he had been about to touch.

"I am afraid, Mr. Pitt," he said, "that you hardly realize your position."

"No?" said Jimmy, interested.

"I find you in the act of stealing my wife's necklace—"

"Would there be any use in telling you that I was not stealing it, but putting it back?"

Sir Thomas raised his eyebrows in silence.

"No?" said Jimmy. "I was afraid not. You were saying—?"

"I find you in the act of stealing my wife's necklace," proceeded Sir Thomas, "and, because for the moment you succeed in postponing arrest by threatening me with a revolver—"

An agitated look came into Jimmy's face.

"Great Scott!" he cried. He felt hastily in his pocket.

"Yes," he said; "as I had begun to fear. I owe you an apology, Sir Thomas," he went on with manly dignity, producing the briar, "I am entirely to blame. How the mistake arose I cannot imagine, but I find it isn't a revolver after all."

Sir Thomas' cheeks took on a richer tint of purple. He glared dumbly at the pipe.

"In the excitement of the moment, I guess—" began Jimmy.

Sir Thomas interrupted. The recollection of his needless panic rankled within him.

"You—you—you—"

"Count ten!"

"You—what you propose to gain by this buffoonery, I am at a loss—"

"How can you say such savage things!" protested Jimmy. "Not buffoonery! Wit! Esprit! Flow of soul such as circulates daily in the best society."

Sir Thomas almost leaped toward the bell. With his finger on it, he turned to deliver a final speech.

"I believe you're insane," he cried, "but I'll have no more of it. I have endured this foolery long enough. I'll-"

"Just one moment," said Jimmy. "I said just now that there were reasons besides the revol—well, pipe—why you should not ring that bell. One of them is that all the servants will be in their places in the audience, so that there won't be anyone to answer it. But that's not the most convincing reason. Will you listen to one more before getting busy?"

"I see your game. Don't imagine for a moment that you can trick me."

"Nothing could be further—"

"You fancy you can gain time by talking, and find some way to escape—"

"But I don't want to escape. Don't you realize that in about ten minutes I am due to play an important part in a great drama on the stage?"

"I'll keep you here, I tell you. You'll leave this room," said Sir Thomas, grandly, "over my body."

"Steeple-chasing in the home," murmured Jimmy. "No more dull evenings. But listen. Do listen! I won't keep you a minute, and, if you want to—push that bell after I'm through, you may push it six inches into the wall if you like."

"Well," said Sir Thomas, shortly.

"Would you like me to lead gently up to what I want to say, gradually preparing you for the reception of the news, or shall I—?"

The knight took out his watch.

"I shall give you one minute," he said.

"Heavens, I must hustle! How many seconds have I got now?"

"If you have anything to say, say it."

"Very well, then," said Jimmy. "It's only this: That necklace is a fraud. The diamonds aren't diamonds at all. They're paste!"



CHAPTER XXVII

A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

If Jimmy had entertained any doubts concerning the effectiveness of this disclosure, they would have vanished at the sight of the other's face. Just as the rich hues of a sunset pale slowly into an almost imperceptible green, so did the purple of Sir Thomas's cheeks become, in stages, first a dull red, then pink, and finally take on a uniform pallor. His mouth hung open. His attitude of righteous defiance had crumpled. Unsuspected creases appeared in his clothes. He had the appearance of one who has been caught in the machinery.

Jimmy was a little puzzled. He had expected to check the enemy, to bring him to reason, but not to demolish him in this way. There was something in this which he did not understand. When Spike had handed him the stones, and his trained eye, after a moment's searching examination, had made him suspicious, and when, finally, a simple test had proved his suspicions correct, he was comfortably aware that, though found with the necklace on his person, he had knowledge, which, communicated to Sir Thomas, would serve him well. He knew that Lady Julia was not the sort of lady who would bear calmly the announcement that her treasured rope of diamonds was a fraud. He knew enough of her to know that she would demand another necklace, and see that she got it; and that Sir Thomas was not one of those generous and expansive natures which think nothing of an expenditure of twenty thousand pounds.

This was the line of thought that had kept him cheerful during what might otherwise have been a trying interview. He was aware from the first that Sir Thomas would not believe in the purity of his motives; but he was convinced that the knight would be satisfied to secure his silence on the subject of the paste necklace at any price. He had looked forward to baffled rage, furious denunciation, and a dozen other expressions of emotion, but certainly not to collapse of this kind.

The other had begun to make strange, gurgling noises.

"Mind you," said Jimmy, "it's a very good imitation. I'll say that for it. I didn't suspect it till I had the thing in my hands. Looking at it—even quite close—I was taken in for a moment."

Sir Thomas swallowed nervously.

"How did you know?" he muttered.

Again, Jimmy was surprised. He had expected indignant denials and demands for proof, excited reiteration of the statement that the stones had cost twenty thousand pounds.

"How did I know?" he repeated. "If you mean what first made me suspect, I couldn't tell you. It might have been one of a score of things. A jeweler can't say exactly how he gets on the track of fake stones. He can feel them. He can almost smell them. I worked with a jeweler once. That's how I got my knowledge of jewels. But, if you mean, can I prove what I say about this necklace, that's easy. There's no deception. It's simple. See here. These stones are supposed to be diamonds. Well, the diamond is the hardest stone in existence. Nothing will scratch it. Now, I've got a little ruby, out of a college pin, which I know is genuine. By rights, then, that ruby ought not to have scratched these stones. You follow that? But it did. It scratched two of them, the only two I tried. If you like, I can continue the experiment. But there's no need. I can tell you right now what these stones are, I said they were paste, but that wasn't quite accurate. They're a stuff called white jargoon. It's a stuff that's very easily faked. You work it with the flame of a blow-pipe. You don't want a full description, I suppose? Anyway, what happens is that the blow-pipe sets it up like a tonic. Gives it increased specific gravity and a healthy complexion and all sorts of great things of that kind. Two minutes in the flame of a blow-pipe is like a week at the seashore to a bit of white jargoon. Are you satisfied? If it comes to that, I guess you can hardly be expected to be. Convinced is a better word. Are you convinced, or do you hanker after tests like polarized light and refracting liquids?"

Sir Thomas had staggered to a chair.

"So, that was how you knew!" he said.

"That was—" began Jimmy, when a sudden suspicion flashed across his mind. He scrutinized Sir Thomas' pallid face keenly.

"Did you know?" he asked.

He wondered that the possibility had not occurred to him earlier. This would account for much that had puzzled him in the other's reception of the news. He had supposed, vaguely, without troubling to go far into the probabilities of such a thing, that the necklace which Spike had brought to him had been substituted for the genuine diamonds by a thief. Such things happened frequently, he knew. But, remembering what Molly had told him of the care which Sir Thomas took of this particular necklace, and the frequency with which Lady Julia wore it, he did not see how such a substitution could have been effected. There had been no chance of anybody's obtaining access to these stones for the necessary length of time.

"By George, I believe you did!" he cried. "You must have! So, that's how it happened, is it? I don't wonder it was a shock when I said I knew about the necklace."

"Mr. Pitt!"

"Well?"

"I have something to say to you."

"I'm listening."

Sir Thomas tried to rally. There was a touch of the old pomposity in his manner when he spoke.

"Mr. Pitt, I find you in an unpleasant position—"

Jimmy interrupted.

"Don't you worry about my unpleasant position," he said. "Fix your attention exclusively upon your own. Let us be frank with one another. You're in the cart. What do you propose to do about it?"

Sir Thomas rallied again, with the desperation of one fighting a lost cause.

"I do not understand you—" he began.

"No?" said Jimmy. "I'll try and make my meaning clear. Correct me from time to time, if I am wrong. The way I size the thing up is as follows: When you married Lady Julia, I gather that it was, so to speak, up to you to some extent. People knew you were a millionaire, and they expected something special in the way of gifts from the bridegroom to the bride. Now, you, being of a prudent and economical nature, began to wonder if there wasn't some way of getting a reputation for lavishness without actually unbelting to any great extent. Am I right?"

Sir Thomas did not answer.

"I am," said Jimmy. "Well, it occurred to you, naturally enough, that a properly-selected gift of jewelry might work the trick. It only needed a little nerve. When you give a present of diamonds to a lady, she is not likely to call for polarized light and refracting liquids and the rest of the circus. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, she will take the things on trust. Very well. You trotted off to a jeweler, and put the thing to him confidentially. I guess you suggested paste. But, being a wily person, he pointed out that paste has a habit of not wearing well. It is pretty enough when it's new, but quite a small amount of ordinary wear and tear destroys the polish of the surface and the sharpness of the cutting. It gets scratched easily. Having heard this, and reflecting that Lady Julia was not likely to keep the necklace under a glass case, you rejected paste as too risky. The genial jeweler then suggested white jargoon, mentioning, as I have done, that, after an application or so of the blow-pipe, it's own mother wouldn't know it. If he was a bit of an antiquary, he probably added that, in the eighteenth century, jargoon stones were supposed to be actually an inferior sort of diamond. What could be more suitable? 'Make it jargoon, dear heart,' you cried joyfully, and all was well. Am I right? I notice that you have not corrected me so far."

Whether or not Sir Thomas would have replied in the affirmative is uncertain. He was opening his mouth to speak, when the curtain at the end of the room heaved, and Lord Dreever burst out like a cannon-ball in tweeds.

The apparition effectually checked any speech that Sir Thomas might have been intending to make. Lying back in his chair, he goggled silently at the new arrival. Even Jimmy, though knowing that his lordship had been in hiding, was taken aback. His attention had become so concentrated on his duel with the knight that he had almost forgotten they had an audience.

His lordship broke the silence.

"Great Scott!" he cried.

Neither Jimmy nor Sir Thomas seemed to consider the observation unsound or inadequate. They permitted it to pass without comment.

"You old scoundrel!" added his lordship, addressing Sir Thomas. "And you're the man who called me a welsher!" There were signs of a flicker of spirit in the knight's prominent eyes, but they died away. He made no reply.

"Great Scott!" moaned his lordship, in a fervor of self-pity. "Here have I been all these years letting you give me Hades in every shape and form, when all the while—My goodness, if I'd only known earlier!"

He turned to Jimmy.

"Pitt, old man," he said warmly, "I—dash it! I don't know what to say. If it hadn't been for you—I always did like Americans. I always thought it bally rot that that fuss happened in—in—whenever it was. If it hadn't been for fellows like you," he continued, addressing Sir Thomas once more, "there wouldn't have been any of that frightful Declaration of Independence business. Would there, Pitt, old man?"

These were deep problems, too spacious for casual examination. Jimmy shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, I guess Sir Thomas might not have got along with George Washington, anyway," he said.

"Of course not. Well"—Spennie moved toward the door—"I'm off downstairs to see what Aunt Julia has to say about it all."

A shudder, as if from some electric shock, shook Sir Thomas. He leaped to his feet.

"Spencer," he cried, "I forbid you to say a word to your aunt."

"Oh!" said his lordship. "You do, do you?"

Sir Thomas shivered.

"She would never let me hear the last of it."

"I bet she wouldn't. I'll go and see."

"Stop!"

"Well?"

Sir Thomas dabbed at his forehead with his handkerchief. He dared not face the vision of Lady Julia in possession of the truth. At one time, the fear lest she might discover the harmless little deception he had practised had kept him awake at night, but gradually, as the days went by and the excellence of the imitation stones had continued to impose upon her and upon everyone else who saw them, the fear had diminished. But it had always been at the back of his mind. Even in her calmer moments, his wife was a source of mild terror to him. His imagination reeled at the thought of what depths of aristocratic scorn and indignation she would plumb in a ease like this.

"Spencer," he said, "I insist that you shall not inform your aunt of this!"

"What? You want me to keep my mouth shut? You want me to become an accomplice in this beastly, low-down deception? I like that!"

"The point," said Jimmy, "is well taken. Noblesse oblige, and all that sort of thing. The blood of the Dreevers boils furiously at the idea. Listen! You can hear it sizzling."

Lord Dreever moved a step nearer the door.

"Stop!" cried Sir Thomas again. "Spencer!"

"Well?"

"Spencer, my boy, it occurs to me that perhaps I have not always treated you very well—"

"'Perhaps!' 'Not always!' Great Scott, I'll have a fiver each way on both those. Considering you've treated me like a frightful kid practically ever since you've known me, I call that pretty rich! Why, what about this very night, when I asked you for a few pounds?"

"It was only the thought that you had been gambling—"

"Gambling! How about palming off faked diamonds on Aunt Julia for a gamble?"

"A game of skill, surely?" murmured Jimmy.

"I have been thinking the matter over," said Sir Thomas, "and, if you really need the—was it not fifty pounds?"

"It was twenty," said his lordship. "And I don't need it. Keep it. You'll want all you can save for a new necklace."

His fingers closed on the door-handle.

"Spencer, stop!"

"Well?"

"We must talk this over. We must not be hasty."

Sir Thomas passed the handkerchief over his forehead.

"In the past, perhaps," he resumed, "our relations have not been quite—the fault was mine. I have always endeavored to do my duty. It is a difficult task to look after a young man of your age—"

His lordship's sense of his grievance made him eloquent.

"Dash it all!" he cried. "That's just what I jolly well complain of. Who the dickens wanted you to look after me? Hang it, you've kept your eye on me all these years like a frightful policeman! You cut off my allowance right in the middle of my time at college, just when I needed it most, and I had to come and beg for money whenever I wanted to buy a cigarette. I looked a fearful ass, I can tell you! Men who knew me used to be dashed funny about it. I'm sick of the whole bally business. You've given me a jolly thin time all this while, and now I'm going to get a bit of my own back. Wouldn't you, Pitt, old man?"

Jimmy, thus suddenly appealed to, admitted that, in his lordship's place, he might have experienced a momentary temptation to do something of the kind.

"Of course," said his lordship; "any fellow would."

"But, Spencer, let met—"

"You've soured my life," said his lordship, frowning a tense, Byronic frown. "That's what you've done—soured my whole bally life. I've had a rotten time. I've had to go about touching my friends for money to keep me going. Why, I owe you a fiver, don't I, Pitt, old man?"

It was a tenner, to be finnickingly accurate about details, but Jimmy did not say so. He concluded, rightly, that the memory of the original five pounds which he had lent Lord Dreever at the Savoy Hotel had faded from the other's mind.

"Don't mention it," he said.

"But I do mention it," protested his lordship, shrilly. "It just proves what I say. If I had had a decent allowance, it wouldn't have happened. And you wouldn't give me enough to set me going in the diplomatic service. That's another thing. Why wouldn't you do that?"

Sir Thomas pulled himself together.

"I hardly thought you qualified, my dear boy—"

His lordship did not actually foam at the mouth, but he looked as if he might do so at any moment. Excitement and the memory of his wrongs, lubricated, as it were, by the champagne he had consumed both at and after dinner, had produced in him a frame of mind far removed from the normal. His manners no longer had that repose which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere. He waved his hands:

"I know, I know!" he shouted. "I know you didn't. You thought me a fearful fool. I tell you, I'm sick of it. And always trying to make me marry money! Dashed humiliating! If she hadn't been a jolly sensible girl, you'd have spoiled Miss McEachern's life as well as mine. You came very near it. I tell you, I've had enough of it. I'm in love. I'm in love with the rippingest girl in England. You've seen her, Pitt, old top. Isn't she a ripper?"

Jimmy stamped the absent lady with the seal of his approval.

"I tell you, if she'll have me, I'm going to marry her."

The dismay written on every inch of Sir Thomas's countenance became intensified at these terrific words. Great as had been his contempt for the actual holder of the title, considered simply as a young man, he had always been filled with a supreme respect for the Dreever name.

"But, Spencer," he almost howled, "consider your position! You cannot—"

"Can't I, by Jove! If she'll have me! And damn my position! What's my position got to do with it? Katie's the daughter of a general, if it comes to that. Her brother was at college with me. If I'd had a penny to call my own, I'd have asked her to marry me ages ago. Don't you worry about my position!"

Sir Thomas croaked feebly.

"Now, look here," said his lordship, with determination. "Here's the whole thing in a jolly old nutshell. If you want me to forget about this little flutter in fake diamonds of yours, you've got to pull up your socks, and start in to do things. You've got to get me attached to some embassy for a beginning. It won't be difficult. There's dozens of old boys in London, who knew the governor when he was alive, who will jump at the chance of doing me a good turn. I know I'm a bit of an ass in some ways, but that's expected of you in the diplomatic service. They only want you to wear evening clothes as if you were used to them, and be a bit of a flyer at dancing, and I can fill the bill all right as far as that goes. And you've got to give your jolly old blessing to Katie and me—if she'll have me. That's about all I can think of for the moment. How do we go? Are you on?"

"It's preposterous," began Sir Thomas.

Lord Dreever gave the door-handle a rattle.

"It's a hold-up all right," said Jimmy, soothingly. "I don't want to butt in on a family conclave, but my advice, if asked, would be to unbelt before the shooting begins. You've got something worse than a pipe pointing at you, now. As regards my position in the business, don't worry. My silence is presented gratis. Give me a loving smile, and my lips are sealed."

Sir Thomas turned on the speaker.

"As for you—" he cried.

"Never mind about Pitt," said his lordship. "He's a dashed good fellow, Pitt. I wish there were more like him. And he wasn't pinching the stuff, either. If you had only listened when he tried to tell you, you mightn't be in such a frightful hole. He was putting the things back, as he said. I know all about it. Well, what's the answer?"

For a moment, Sir Thomas seemed on the point of refusal. But, just as he was about to speak, his lordship opened the door, and at the movement he collapsed again.

"I will," he cried. "I will!"

"Good," said his lordship with satisfaction. "That's a bargain. Coming downstairs, Pitt, old man? We shall be wanted on the stage in about half a minute."

"As an antidote to stage fright," said Jimmy, as they went along the corridor, "little discussions of that kind may be highly recommended. I shouldn't mind betting that you feel fit for anything?"

"I feel like a two-year-old," assented his lordship, enthusiastically. "I've forgotten all my part, but I don't care. I'll just go on and talk to them."

"That," said Jimmy, "is the right spirit. Charteris will get heart-disease, but it's the right spirit. A little more of that sort of thing, and amateur theatricals would be worth listening to. Step lively, Roscius; the stage waits."



CHAPTER XXVIII

SPENNIE'S HOUR OF CLEAR VISION

Mr. McEachern sat in the billiard-room, smoking. He was alone. From where he sat, he could hear distant strains of music. The more rigorous portion of the evening's entertainment, the theatricals, was over, and the nobility and gentry, having done their duty by sitting through the performance, were now enjoying themselves in the ballroom. Everybody was happy. The play had been quite as successful as the usual amateur performance. The prompter had made himself a great favorite from the start, his series of duets with Spennie having been especially admired; and Jimmy, as became an old professional, had played his part with great finish and certainty of touch, though, like the bloodhounds in "Uncle Tom's Cabin" on the road, he had had poor support. But the audience bore no malice. No collection of individuals is less vindictive than an audience at amateur theatricals. It was all over now. Charteris had literally gibbered in the presence of eye-witnesses at one point in the second act, when Spennie, by giving a wrong cue, had jerked the play abruptly into act three, where his colleagues, dimly suspecting something wrong, but not knowing what it was, had kept it for two minutes, to the mystification of the audience. But, now Charteris had begun to forget. As he two-stepped down the room, the lines of agony on his face were softened. He even smiled.

As for Spennie, the brilliance of his happy grin dazzled all beholders.

He was still wearing it when he invaded the solitude of Mr. McEachern. In every dance, however greatly he may be enjoying it, there comes a time when a man needs a meditative cigarette apart from the throng. It came to Spennie after the seventh item on the program. The billiard-room struck him as admirably suitable in every way. It was not likely to be used as a sitting-out place, and it was near enough to the ball-room to enable him to hear when the music of item number nine should begin.

Mr. McEachern welcomed his visitor. In the turmoil following the theatricals, he had been unable to get a word with any of the persons with whom he most wished to speak. He had been surprised that no announcement of the engagement had been made at the end of the performance. Spennie would be able to supply him with information as to when the announcement might be expected.

Spennie hesitated for an instant when he saw who was in the room. He was not over-anxious for a tete-a-tete with Molly's father just then. But, re-fleeting that, after all, he was not to blame for any disappointment that might be troubling the other, he switched on his grin again, and walked in.

"Came in for a smoke," he explained, by way of opening the conversation. "Not dancing the next."

"Come in, my boy, come in," said Mr. McEachern. "I was waiting to see you."

Spennie regretted his entrance. He had supposed that the other had heard the news of the breaking-off of the engagement. Evidently, however, McEachern had not. This was a nuisance. The idea of flight came to Spennie, but he dismissed it. As nominal host that night, he had to dance many duty-dances. This would be his only chance of a smoke for hours, and the billiard-room was the best place for it.

He sat down, and lighted a cigarette, casting about the while for an innocuous topic of conversation.

"Like the show?" he inquired.

"Fine," said Mr. McEachern. "By the way—"

Spennie groaned inwardly. He had forgotten that a determined man can change the conversation to any subject he pleases by means of those three words.

"By the way," said Mr. McEachern, "I thought Sir Thomas—wasn't your uncle intending to announce—?"

"Well, yes, he was," said Spennie.

"Going to do it during the dancing, maybe?"

"Well—er—no. The fact is, he's not going to do it at all, don't you know." Spennie inspected the red end of his cigarette closely. "As a matter of fact, it's kind of broken off."

The other's exclamation jarred on him. Rotten, having to talk about this sort of thing!

"Broken off?"

Spennie nodded.

"Miss McEachern thought it over, don't you know," he said, "and came to the conclusion that it wasn't good enough."

Now that it was said, he felt easier. It had merely been the awkwardness of having to touch on the thing that had troubled him. That his news might be a blow to McEachern did not cross his mind. He was a singularly modest youth, and, though he realized vaguely that his title had a certain value in some persons' eyes, he could not understand anyone mourning over the loss of him as a son-in-law. Katie's father, the old general, thought him a fool, and once, during an attack of gout, had said so. Spennie was wont to accept this as the view which a prospective father-in-law might be expected to entertain regarding himself.

Oblivious, therefore, to the storm raging a yard away from him, he smoked on with great contentment, till suddenly it struck him that, for a presumably devout lover, jilted that very night, he was displaying too little emotion. He debated swiftly within himself whether or not he should have a dash at manly grief, but came to the conclusion that it could not be done. Melancholy on this maddest, merriest day of all the glad New Year, the day on which he had utterly routed the powers of evil, as represented by Sir Thomas, was impossible. He decided, rather, on a let-us-be-reasonable attitude.

"It wouldn't have done, don't you know," he said. "We weren't suited. What I mean to say is, I'm a bit of a dashed sort of silly ass in some ways, if you know what I mean. A girl like Miss McEachern couldn't have been happy with me. She wants one of these capable, energetic fellers."

This struck him as a good beginning—modest, but not groveling. He continued, tapping quite a respectably deep vein of philosophy as he spoke.

"You see, dear old top—I mean, sir, you see, it's like this. As far as women are concerned, fellers are divided into two classes. There's the masterful, capable Johnnies, and the—er—the other sort. Now, I'm the other sort. My idea of the happy married life is to be—well, not exactly downtrodden, but—you know what I mean—kind of second fiddle. I want a wife—" his voice grew soft and dreamy—"who'll pet me a good deal, don't you know, stroke my hair a lot, and all that. I haven't it in me to do the master-in-my-own-house business. For me, the silent-devotion touch. Sleeping on the mat outside her door, don't you know, when she wasn't feeling well, and being found there in the morning and being rather cosseted for my thoughtfulness. That's the sort of idea. Hard to put it quite O. K., but you know the sort of thing I mean. A feller's got to realize his jolly old limitations if he wants to be happy though married, what? Now, suppose Miss McEachern was to marry me! Great Scott, she'd be bored to death in a week. Honest! She couldn't help herself. She wants a chap with the same amount of go in him that she's got."

He lighted another cigarette. He was feeling pleased with himself. Never before had ideas marshaled themselves in his mind in such long and well-ordered ranks. He felt that he could go on talking like this all night. He was getting brainier every minute. He remembered reading in some book somewhere of a girl (or chappie) who had had her (or his) "hour of clear vision." This was precisely what had happened now. Whether it was owing to the excitement of what had taken place that night, or because he had been keying up his thinking powers with excellent dry champagne, he did not know. All he knew was that he felt on top of his subject. He wished he had had a larger audience.

"A girl like Miss McEachern doesn't want any of that hair-stroking business. She'd simply laugh at a feller if he asked for it. She needs a chappie of the get-on-or-get-out type, somebody in the six cylinder class. And, as a matter of fact, between ourselves, I rather think she's found him."

"What!"

Mr. McEachern half rose from his chair. All his old fears had come surging back.

"What do you mean?"

"Fact," said his lordship, nodding. "Mind you, I don't know for certain. As the girl says in the song, I don't know, but I guess. What I mean to say is, they seemed jolly friendly, and all that; calling each other by their first names, and so on."

"Who—?"

"Pitt," said his lordship. He was leaning back, blowing a smoke-ring at the moment, so he did not see the look on the other's face and the sudden grip of the fingers on the arms of the chair. He went on with some enthusiasm.

"Jimmy Pitt!" he said. "Now, there's a feller! Full of oats to the brim, and fairly bursting with go and energy. A girl wouldn't have a dull moment with a chap like that. You know," he proceeded confidently, "there's a lot in this idea of affinities. Take my word for it, dear old—sir. There's a girl up in London, for instance. Now, she and I hit it off most amazingly. There's hardly a thing we don't think alike about. For instance, 'The Merry Widow' didn't make a bit of a hit with her. Nor did it with me. Yet, look at the millions of people who raved about it. And neither of us likes oysters. We're affinities—that's why. You see the same sort of thing all over the place. It's a jolly queer business. Sometimes, makes me believe in re-in-what's-it's-name. You know what I mean. All that in the poem, you know. How does it go? 'When you were a tiddley-om-pom, and I was a thingummajig.' Dashed brainy bit of work. I was reading it only the other day. Well, what I mean to say is, it's my belief that Jimmy Pitt and Miss McEachern are by way of being something in that line. Doesn't it strike you that they are just the sort to get on together? You can see it with half an eye. You can't help liking a feller like Jimmy Pitt. He's a sport! I wish I could tell you some of the things he's done, but I can't, for reasons. But you can take it from me, he's a sport. You ought to cultivate him. You'd like him ... Oh, dash it, there's the music. I must be off. Got to dance this one."

He rose from his chair, and dropped his cigarette into the ash-tray.

"So long," he said, with a friendly nod. "Wish I could stop, but it's no go. That's the last let-up I shall have to-night."

He went out, leaving Mr. McEachern a prey to many and varied emotions.



CHAPTER XXIX

THE LAST ROUND

He had only been gone a few minutes when Mr. McEachern's meditations were again interrupted. This time, the visitor was a stranger to him, a dark-faced, clean-shaven man. He did not wear evening clothes, so could not be one of the guests; and Mr. McEachern could not place him immediately. Then, he remembered. He had seen him in Sir Thomas Blunt's dressing-room. This was Sir Thomas's valet.

"Might I have a word with you, sir?"

"What is it?" asked McEachern, staring heavily. His mind had not recovered from the effect of Lord Dreever's philosophical remarks. There was something of a cloud on his brain. To judge from his lordship's words, things had been happening behind his back; and the idea of Molly's deceiving him was too strange to be assimilated in an instant. He looked at the valet dully.

"What is it?" he asked again.

"I must apologize for intruding, but I thought it best to approach you before making my report to Sir Thomas."

"Your report?"

"I am employed by a private inquiry agency."

"What!"

"Yes, sir. Wragge's. You may have heard of us. In Holborn Bars. Very old established. Divorce a specialty. You will have seen the advertisements. Sir Thomas wrote asking for a man, and the governor sent me down. I have been with the house some years. My job, I gathered, was to keep my eyes open generally. Sir Thomas, it seemed, had no suspicions of any definite person. I was to be on the spot just in case, in a manner of speaking. And it's precious lucky I was, or her ladyship's jewels would have been gone. I've done a fair cop this very night."

He paused, and eyed the ex-policeman keenly. McEachern was obviously excited. Could Jimmy have made an attempt on the jewels during the dance? or Spike?

"Say," he said, "was it a red-headed—?"

The detective was watching him with a curious smile.

"No, he wasn't red-headed. You seem interested, sir. I thought you would be. I will tell you all about it. I had had my suspicions of this party ever since he arrived. And I may say that it struck me at the time that there was something mighty fishy about the way he got into the castle."

McEachern started. So, he had not been the only one to suspect Jimmy's motives in attaching himself to Lord Dreever.

"Go on," he said.

"I suspected that there was some game on, and it struck me that this would be the day for the attempt, the house being upside down, in a manner of speaking, on account of the theatricals. And I was right. I kept near those jewels on and off all day, and, presently, just as I had thought, along comes this fellow. He'd hardly got to the door when I was on him."

"Good boy! You're no rube."

"We fought for a while, but, being a bit to the good in strength, and knowing something about the game, I had the irons on him pretty quick, and took him off, and locked him in the cellar. That's how it was, sir."

Mr. McEachern's relief was overwhelming. If Lord Dreever's statement was correct and Jimmy had really succeeded in winning Molly's affection, this would indeed be a rescue at the eleventh hour. It was with a Nunc-Dimittis air that he felt for his cigar-case, and extended it toward the detective. A cigar from his own private case was with him a mark of supreme favor and good-will, a sort of accolade which he bestowed only upon the really meritorious few.

Usually, it was received with becoming deference; but on this occasion there was a somewhat startling deviation from routine; for, just as he was opening the case, something cold and hard pressed against each of his wrists, there was a snap and a click, and, looking up, dazed, he saw that the detective had sprung back, and was contemplating him with a grim smile over the barrel of an ugly-looking little revolver.

Guilty or innocent, the first thing a man does when, he finds handcuffs on his wrists is to try to get them off. The action is automatic. Mr. McEachern strained at the steel chain till the veins stood out on his forehead. His great body shook with rage.

The detective eyed these efforts with some satisfaction. The picture presented by the other as he heaved and tugged was that of a guilty man trapped.

"It's no good, my friend," he said.

The voice brought McEachern back to his senses. In the first shock of the thing, the primitive man in him had led him beyond the confines of self-restraint. He had simply struggled unthinkingly. Now, he came to himself again.

He shook his manacled hands furiously.

"What does this mean?" he shouted. "What the—?"

"Less noise," said the detective, sharply. "Get back!" he snapped, as the other took a step forward.

"Do you know who I am?" thundered McEachern.

"No," said the detective. "And that's just why you're wearing those bracelets. Come, now, don't be a fool. The game's up. Can't you see that?"

McEachern leaned helplessly against the billiard-table. He felt weak. Everything was unreal. Had he gone mad? he wondered.

"That's right," said the detective. "Stay there. You can't do any harm there. It was a pretty little game, I'll admit. You worked it well. Meeting your old friend from New York and all, and having him invited to the castle. Very pretty. New York, indeed! Seen about as much of New York as I have of Timbuctoo. I saw through him."

Some inkling of the truth began to penetrate McEachern's consciousness. He had become obsessed with the idea that, as the captive was not Spike, it must be Jimmy. The possibility of Mr. Galer's being the subject of discussion only dawned upon him now.

"What do you mean?" he cried. "Who is it that you have arrested?"

"Blest if I know. You can tell me that, I should think, seeing he's an old Timbuctoo friend of yours. Galer's the name he goes by here."

"Galer!"

"That's the man. And do you know what he had the impudence, the gall, to tell me? That he was in my own line of business. A detective! He said you had sent for him to come here!"

The detective laughed amusedly at the recollection.

"And so he is, you fool. So I did."

"Oh, you did, did you? And what business had you bringing detectives into other people's houses?"

Mr. McEachern started to answer, but checked himself. Never before had he appreciated to the full the depth and truth of the proverb relating to the frying-pan and the fire. To clear himself, he must mention his suspicions of Jimmy, and also his reasons for those suspicions. And to do that would mean revealing his past. It was Scylla and Charybdis.

A drop of perspiration trickled down his temple.

"What's the good?" said the detective. "Mighty ingenious idea, that, only you hadn't allowed for there being a real detective in the house. It was that chap pitching me that yarn that made me suspicious of you. I put two and two together. 'Partners,' I said to myself. I'd heard all about you, scraping acquaintance with Sir Thomas and all. Mighty ingenious. You become the old family friend, and then you let in your pal. He gets the stuff, and hands it over to you. Nobody dreams of suspecting you, and there you are. Honestly, now, wasn't that the game?"

"It's all a mistake—" McEachern was beginning, when the door-handle turned.

The detective looked over his shoulder. McEachern glared dumbly. This was the crowning blow, that there should be spectators of his predicament.