"Pshaw!--so am I; that comes of being thought a rich man when you"re as poor as a parson. I"m quite a poor man, you know, Sutton."
I listened to him patiently, and in the end persuaded him to buy Watts an exquisite set of jeweled links. These had a fine diamond in each of them, but their greatest ornament was the superb enameling, worthy of Jean Toutin or Pet.i.tot, with which all the gold was covered. I asked one hundred and fifty pounds for these remarkable ornaments; and the old man, struck, like the artist he was, with the perfection of the workmanship, fixed his greedy eyes upon them, and was persuaded. He protested that they were too good, far too good, for such a worthless ingrate as his nephew, and that he ought to keep them in his own collection; but at last he ordered me to send them, with his card, to Lord Varnley"s town house, and went away chafing at his own generosity, and, as he avowed, at his stupidity.
I saw no more of him for a week. The wedding had been celebrated, and Master Bertie Watts had conveyed away quietly to Folkestone as pretty an English girl as ever flourished in the glare of the West. Lord and Lady Varnley shut up their house during the week after the marriage, having sent the very numerous wedding presents to their bankers; and society would have forgotten the whole business if it had not paused to discuss the important question--How were the young couple to exist in the future on the paltry income of four or five hundred pounds a year? One half of the world may not know how the other half lives, but that is not for lack of effort on its part to find out. It was a matter of club-room news that old Lord Harningham had not relented--and, beyond what his nephew called "those twopenny-half-penny sleeve links," had not given him a penny. How then, said this same charitable world, will these silly children keep up their position in town when they return from the second-rate hotel they are now staying in at Folkestone?
Curiously enough, I was able myself to answer that question in three days" time--though at the moment I was as ignorant as any of them. The matter came about in this way. On the very morning that Lord Varnley went to Paris, it was known through the daily papers that there had been a robbery at his house in Cork Street, of a green velvet case, containing a crescent of pearls, turquoises, and diamonds. This was a present from one of the Emba.s.sies to his daughter, and must, said the reports, have been abstracted from the house during the press and the confusion of the reception. Later in the afternoon I received an advice from Scotland Yard cautioning me against the purchase of such a gem, and inviting immediate communication if it were offered to me. The theft of wedding presents is so common that I gave little heed to the matter; and was already immersed in other business when Lord Harningham was announced. He seemed rather fidgety in his manner, I thought, and hummed and hawed considerably before he would explain his mission.
"It"s about those links I gave my nephew," he said at last. "They"re far too good for him, Sutton--and they"re too pretty. I never saw better work in my life, and must have been a fool when I let them go out of my possession--d"ye see?"
"Well, but you can"t get them back now?" I remarked with a smile.
He took snuff vigorously at my reply, and then said,--
"Man, you"re wrong, I"ve got them in my pocket."
I must have expressed my astonishment in my look, for he went on quickly,--
"Yes, here in the green case as you sold them. Do I surprise you, eh?
Well, I"m going to give Master Bertie a bit of a check and to keep these things; but one of the stones is off color--I noticed it at the wedding--and I must have a new one in, d"ye see?"
"I thought that you had already handed them over," I interrupted, quite disregarding his last request.
"So I did, so I did; but a man can take his own back again, can"t he?
Well, when I saw them at the house, I concluded it was ridiculous to give a boy like that such treasures, and so----"
"You spoke to him?"
"Hem--that is, of course, man. Pshaw! You"re too inquisitive for a jeweler: you ought to have been a lady"s maid."
"Have you brought them with you now?"
"What should I be here for if I hadn"t?"
He laid upon my table a green velvet case, of the exact size, color, and shape of that which had contained the links; but when I opened it I gave a start, and put it down quickly. The case held a crescent of pearls, turquoises, and diamonds, which answered exactly to the description of the one stolen from Lord Varnley"s house on the day of his daughter"s wedding.
"There"s some mistake here," said I, "you"ve evidently left the links at home," with which remark I put the jewels under his very nose for him to see. He looked at them for a moment, the whole of his flabby face wrinkling and reddening; then he seemed almost to choke, and the veins in his forehead swelled until they were as blue threads upon an ashen and colorless countenance.
"Good G.o.d!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "I"ve taken the wrong case."
"Your nephew gave it you, no doubt, but he must have forgotten it, for he"s advertised the loss of this crescent at Scotland Yard, and there are detectives now trying to find it. I am cautioned not to purchase it," I said with a laugh.
The effect of these words upon him was so curious that for some moments I thought he had spasm of the heart. Starting up in the chair, with wild eyes, and hands clutching at the arms to rest upon them, he made several attempts to speak, but not a word came from his lips. I endeavored to help him with his difficulty, but it was to little purpose.
"It seems to me, Lord Harningham," I suggested, "that you have only to write a line of explanation to your nephew--and there"s an end of the matter."
"You think so?" he cried eagerly.
"Why not," said I, "since he returned the jewels to you?"
"But he didn"t," he interrupted, cringing in the chair at this confession of a lie; "he didn"t; and he"d prosecute me; he hates me, and this is his opportunity, d"ye see?"
"Do you mean to say," I exclaimed, beginning to understand the situation, "that you took the case without his permission?"
"Yes, yes," he mumbled, "they were so beautiful, such work! You know what work they were. I saw them at the wedding, and was sure that I should not have parted with them. I meant to send him a check against them--and when no one was looking I put what I thought was the case into my pocket, but it was the wrong one. G.o.d help me, Sutton what shall I do?"
Now it seemed to me that this was one of the most delightful comedies I had ever a.s.sisted at. Technically, Lord Harningham was a thief, and undoubtedly Bertie Watts could have prosecuted him had he chosen, though the probability of his getting a conviction was small. But it was very evident to me that here was the boy"s opportunity, and that in the interest of his pretty wife I should make the best of it. With this intent, I played my first card with necessary boldness.
"Undoubtedly the case is very serious for you," said I, apparently with sympathy, "and it is made the more serious from the strange relations existing between your nephew and yourself. You know the law, I doubt not, as well as I do; and that once a prosecution has been initiated at Scotland Yard it is impossible to withdraw without a trial. Mr. Watts might get into serious trouble for compounding a felony; and I might suffer with him as one in the conspiracy. But I tell you what I will do; I"ll write to him to-night and sound him. Meanwhile, let me advise you to keep out of the way, for I can"t disguise the fact that you might be arrested."
He gave a great scream at this, and the perspiration rolled from him, falling in great drops upon the carpet. "Oh, Lord!" he kept muttering, "oh, that I should have been such a consummate fool!--oh, Heaven help me! To think of it--and what it will cost, I could cry, Sutton--cry like a child."
I calmed him with difficulty, and led him down the back stairs to a cab with a positive a.s.surance that I would not communicate with Scotland Yard. Then I wrote to Folkestone a letter, the precise contents of which are immaterial, but the response to which was in the form of a telegram worded as follows:--
"Am inexpressibly shocked and pained, but the law must take its course."
I put this into my pocket without any delay and went over to Harningham"s house in Park Lane. He had been up all night, they told me, and the doctor had just left him; but I found him suffering only from an enervating fear, and white as the cloth on the breakfast table before him.
"Well," he said, "what is it, what does he say? Will he prosecute me?"
I handed him the telegram for answer, and I thought he would have swooned. He did not know that I had in my pocket another letter from his nephew, in which Master Bertie informed me that I was the "best chap in the world," and I saw no reason to mention this. Indeed, I listened with infinite gravity when the old man told me that he was irretrievably ruined, and that his name would stand in all the clubs as that of a common thief. Jewel-hunger plainly accounted for everything he had done; but it was not to my end to console him, and I said in a severe and sufficiently melancholy voice,--
"Lord Harningham, there is only one thing to do, and for your sake I will make myself a criminal partic.i.p.ator in the conspiracy. You must go to Folkestone with me this afternoon, and take your check book with you."
The groan he gave at this would have moved a man of iron. I saw tears standing in his eyes, and his hand shook when I left him so that he could scarce put it into mine. Yet he came to the station to meet me in the afternoon, and by six o"clock we were in Folkestone at a shabby second-rate hotel, called "The c.o.c.k and Lobster," inquiring for the bride and bridegroom. Mr. and Mrs. Watts, they said, were out on the parade; but we went to look for them, and surprised them coming from the Lees, as handsome a couple as you could look upon. She, a pretty, brown-haired English girl, her tresses tossed over her large eyes by the sharp wind that swept in from the sea, was close under the arm of her husband, who, at that stage, fearing to lose her touch, seemed engaged in the impossible attempt to cover her entirely with one of his arms.
And in this pursuit privacy came to his aid, for the breeze was fresh from the Channel at the beginning of night, banishing all loiterers but those loitering in love; and the lamps flickered and went low in the gusts as though fearing to illumine the roses upon the cheeks of a bride.
When Master Bertie saw us he became as sedate as a Methodist minister, and, commanding a solemn tone acted the part to perfection.
"Uncle," he said, "I would never have believed it of you. But this is too serious a matter to mention here; let us go to the hotel."
We returned in silence, but directly we were in the hall the young man called for his bill, and speaking almost in a boisterous tone, cried:--
"We"re going to change our quarters, uncle, and will begin by moving to the best hotel in the place. That poor girl is moped to death here, and now you"re going to pay for our honeymoon--cost doesn"t matter, does it, old man?"
The old man concerned started at this, his mouth wide open with the surprise of it.
"What"s that?" he muttered. "What"re you going to do?" But I whispered to him to be silent, and in an hour we were sitting down to a superb dinner--which he did not touch, by the bye--in the great saloon of the biggest hotel in the place. During the meal the bride, who scarce seemed able to do anything else than look at her husband, made few remarks, but Watts and I talked freely, quite ignoring the old man; and it was not until we were in the private room that the negotiations began.
There is no need to describe them. They lasted until midnight, at which hour the nephew of Lord Harningham had five hundred pounds in his pocket, and an allowance of five hundred a year. From the moment of a.s.senting to these conditions until we entered the train next morning the old man never opened his lips, but he kissed the bride at the door of the hotel, and color came again to his cheeks at the warmth of her lips. When at last we were alone in the carriage he gave a great sigh of relief and said,----
"Sutton, thank G.o.d that"s over!"
"Nearly over, my lord," I replied with emphasis.
"What do you mean?" he cried. "Do you think that any one will get to hear of it? Why, man, what have I half-ruined myself for?"
"To keep your nephew quiet," I suggested pleasantly.