I thought for a second.
I saw that he was perfectly right.
It was just what would happen. Wherever I went to-morrow in search of that baffling mistress of mine I should have that Scotland Yard detective on my heels!
That sort of thing made me terribly nervous and uneasy! But I could imagine the ingenuous Million being forty times worse about it! If I did succeed in running her to earth at last, I could just imagine Million"s unconcealed and compromising horror at seeing me turn up with a companion who talked about "the necessary steps" and "the Law!"
Million would be so overwhelmed that she would look as if she had a whole mine full of stolen rubies sewn into the tops of her corsets. She has a wild and baseless horror of anything to do with the police. (I saw her once, at home, when a strange constable called to inquire about a lost dog. It was I who"d had to go to the door. Million had sat, shuddering, in the kitchen, her hand on her ap.r.o.n-bib, and her whole person suffering from what she calls "the palps.")
So this was going to be awkward, hideously awkward.
Yet I couldn"t go out in search of her!
I said, desperately: "What am I to do about it?"
"There is only one thing for it as far as I can see," said the young American thoughtfully; "you will have to let me go down with a suit-case full of lady"s wearing apparel. You will have to let me make all the inquiries in Lewes."
"You? Oh, no! That is quite impossible," I exclaimed firmly. "You could not."
"Why not? I tell you, Miss Smith, it seems to me just to meet the case,"
he said earnestly.
"Here"s this little cousin of mine, that I have never yet seen, that I"ve got to make friends with. I am to be allowed to make her acquaintance by doing her a service. Now, isn"t that the real, old-fashioned Anglo-Saxon chivalry? It would just appeal to me."
"I don"t think it would appeal to Miss Million," I said, "to have a perfectly strange young man suddenly making his appearance in the middle of--wherever she is, with a box full of all sorts of her things, and saying he is her cousin! No, I shall have to go," I said.
And then a sudden awful thought struck me. How far could I go on the money that was left to me? Three and sixpence!
"My goodness! What"s the railway fare from Victoria, or wherever you go to Lewes from? I don"t believe I have got it!" I turned to the young man with a resigned sigh of desperation. "I shall have to borrow from you,"
I said.
"With great pleasure," said the young American promptly. Then, with a twinkle, he added swiftly: "See here, Miss Smith. Cut out the railroad business altogether. Far better if you were to permit me to take you down by automobile. Will you let me do that, now? I can hire an automobile and tear off a hundred miles or so of peaceful English landscape before anybody has had time to say "How very extraordinary!"
which is the thing they always are saying in England when any remark is put forward about what they do in the States. Pack up my cousin"s contraptions to-night, will you? To-morrow morning, at nine or eight or seven if you like, we"ll buzz out of this little old town and play baseball with all the police traps between here and Brighton! Does this appeal to you?"
I could not help feeling that this did very considerably appeal to me.
If I went with this un-English, unconventional, but kind and helpful young man, I should at least not feel such a lone, lorn female, such a suspect in the eyes of the law! I could rise superior to the d.o.g.g.i.ng of detectives, just as I had risen superior to them this evening in the Embankment Gardens.
Suffragists and college-educated girls and enlightened persons of that sort may say what they choose on the subject of woman becoming daily more self-reliant and independent of man.
But I don"t care. The fact remains that to the average girl-in-a-sc.r.a.pe the presence of man, sympathetic and efficient, does still appear the one and only and ideal prop!
Bless Mr. Hiram P. Jessop, of Chicago! I was only too thankful to accept the offer of his escort--and of his car!
Before he left me I had arranged to meet him at a certain garage at nine o"clock in the morning.
"Bright and early, as we may want to have the whole day before us," said the American as he went out. "Till then, Miss Smith!"
CHAPTER XXIII
I START ON THE QUEST
AND now to set about sorting out some of these "clothes," after which my young mistress inquires so peremptorily! It won"t take me long, thanks to the apple-pie order in which I keep them all. (So much easier to be "tidy" with new and gorgeous garments than it is with a chest of drawers full of makeshifts!)
I shall take her dressing-bag with the crystal-and-ivory fittings. That ought to impress even the Fourcastles" menage, a.s.suming that Lord Fourcastles has carried her off to his people"s. I wonder whose dressing things and whose dress Miss Million made use of to-day? For, seriously, of course, she can"t have gone "prancing about" in "me cerise evenin"-one." She must have worn borrowed plumes for the day--plumes probably miles too long for the st.u.r.dy little barn-door chicken that Million is! I wonder, I wonder from whom those plumes were borrowed?
Please Heaven I shall know by this time to-morrow night!...
Here"s her week-end case packed up. The choice of two costumes; the blue cloth and the tobacco-brown taffeta; blouses; a complete set of luxurious undies. Even the slip petticoat was an "under-dress" according to the shops Miss Million patronised! Shoes; a hat; a motor-veil and wrap. Yes, that"s all.
That ought to do her--when we get the things to her!
But now to bed and to sleep the sleep of exhaustion after quite the most crowded day of my whole life.
To-morrow for Lewes--and more adventure!
We were shadowed on our Lewes journey, though scarcely in the way that I had antic.i.p.ated. However, to begin at the beginning.
At nine o"clock this morning, in spite of all difficulties, I did find myself free of the "Cecil" and away in a two-seater with my mistress"s luggage, sitting beside my mistress"s cousin and whirling through the dull and domesticated streets of South London.
It was a gorgeous June day, just the very day for a quick flight out into the country. In spite of my anxiety about my mistress my spirits rose and rose. I could have sung aloud for joy as we left grimy London behind us and found ourselves whirling nearer the green heart of the country.
"This is better than your first idea of the railroad trip, Miss Smith?"
said the young American at my side.
"Oh, far more enjoyable," I agreed so eagerly that he laughed.
"There is another thing about that," he said. "I suppose you haven"t thought of what they would do if they saw you going off by train anywhere?"
"What?" I asked, looking up at him with startled eyes.
"Why, they would wire to every station along the line to take notice where you got off before Lewes, and to follow up all your movements, you real, artful, detective-dodging little diamond thief you," declared my companion teasingly.
And I saw him simply shaking with laughter over the steering-wheel as he went on.
"The brilliant idea of Rats, and the manager, that you and my little cousin Nellie should have gotten hold of his old ruby!"
"You knew at once," I said, "that we hadn"t!"
And he laughed easily and said: "It didn"t take much guessing when he had seen me and knew that Nellie Million was a relative of his and a niece of the old man"s."
"Jewel thieves, not much!" he said in his quick, rea.s.suring accent.
I said: "Well! I hope you put in a good word for us with that odious little Jew man that lost the ruby."
"Not on your life! I just love to watch somebody who thinks they are too quick and clever to live go over-reaching themselves some," said the American good-humouredly.