"Yes, I have met James Finny--I beg pardon--Mr. Birket Rivers," said the detective drily.
"Mr. Rivers has explained the mystery very satisfactorily, Marvell,"
said Lord Ancoats. "The box should be restored without delay. Will you do this, please?"
Mr. Marvell tried to look pleased, but signally failed in the attempt.
"Certainly, my lord," he replied.
There was a knock at the door, and a clerk appeared with a card in his hand.
"I must leave you now," said the Minister. "Rivers, next week, remember.
I am much obliged for your a.s.sistance, Mr. Marvell."
With this the Secretary for Foreign Affairs left the room.
The detective took up the box.
"How on earth did you come into this matter, Mr. Marvell?" asked Rivers.
"Very simply, sir. When Lord Ancoats got the box he telephoned to Scotland Yard, and I was sent for at once. As a matter of fact, I opened the box for his lordship. You"re sure you wouldn"t like to restore it yourself? The Vizier is ill in bed, and it won"t be wanted till to-morrow."
"Sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Marvell," Rivers laughed; "but I"m sure it"s safer in your hands."
Mr. Marvell nodded grimly. "Sooner or later, sir. Sooner or later," he said, as he walked to the door; "but don"t try to be a footman next time."
With these enigmatical remarks the interview terminated.
On the following day the invest.i.ture of the Lion and the Sun took place at Windsor. After the ceremony Prince Ali Azim and the Vizier had a private interview with the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. It was noted at the time that the Persians emerged looking singularly subdued.
That evening, in reply to a friendly question addressed by the Leader of the Opposition, Lord Ancoats took the opportunity to a.s.sure the House that the paramount influence of England in the Persian Gulf would be maintained at any cost, and a month later the Union Jack floated by the side of the Arab Sultan"s flag on the castle towers of Muscat.
This was the answer given to the Russian intrigue. That it was so effective and complete was owing to the action of Mr. Birket Rivers, sometime a cadet member of the Burglars" Club.
IX.
THE HORSESHOE AND THE PEPPERCORN.
THE President rose and read: ""March 29th is the anniversary of the Battle of Towton. For valour on that desperate field John de Mallaby received from Edward IV. the Barony of Tadcaster, and an appropriate grant of land in Yorkshire, at a yearly rental of a peppercorn and a golden horseshoe. That rent is still paid by the Barons--now Earls--of Tadcaster. His late lordship used to bring his annual acknowledgment to town in a state coach with outriders, but the present peer takes it to his Sovereign by motor-car, attended only by a chauffeur."
"In this paragraph, my lords and gentlemen," continued the Duke, "we see indicated the quest of our distinguished fellow member Captain Prescott Cunningham, whose subscription is now due."
"What is the quest, Mr. President?" inquired Cunningham. "Am I to capture the peer or the motor-car?"
"Neither, sir," replied his Grace of Dorchester. "You will kindly produce the horseshoe and the peppercorn intended for the King on the 29th. Our meeting is arranged for the 28th, so that we may return the trophies in question, and enable his lordship of Tadcaster to continue in possession of his remarkably low-rented estate."
The Right Honourable John de Mallaby, D.L., F.R.S., M.A., Eighteenth Baron and Seventh Earl of Tadcaster, lived chiefly at his Westmorland seat, Kirkdale Castle, which an ancestress in the time of George the First had obligingly brought into the family in addition to her own good looks.
A certain Mr. Shaw arrived one day of March last at the Golden Lion Inn, Kirkdale, and there spent a few days, talking much with the landlord and frequenters of the inn, and taking walks in the neighbourhood of the Castle. On the latter occasions he might have been seen gazing somewhat disconsolately at the battlemented walls which had several times defied an army.
Once when he was so occupied, a thin, grizzly, stooping gentleman had pa.s.sed, and with him a handsome dark-eyed girl. He learnt that this was the Earl himself, a scientific and somewhat eccentric widower, and his only child Eva, a _debutante_ of last season.
Prescott Cunningham--for so was this Mr. Shaw designated in the more accurate books of the Registrar-General--soon gave up any idea of entering the Castle in his quest of the peppercorn and horseshoe. The task of finding them there was too big. He had learnt that on these annual occasions Lord Tadcaster, accompanied by his chauffeur, left the castle in his motor-car four days before the King received him. He also learnt full particulars of the route followed and of the halting places, and it was his final plan of campaign to waylay his lordship on the road, and, unashamed, to rob him of the articles desired.
Having spent three days in coming to this conclusion, Cunningham moved on to Bolton Abbey, through which village he knew that his lordship would pa.s.s on his way to Harrogate, where he would spend the night of the 25th.
At five o"clock on the day in question, the Tadcaster Panhard drew up at the Devonshire Arms at Bolton Abbey, and Cunningham saw to his amazement that, instead of the Earl and his chauffeur, it contained his lordship and a lady--his daughter.
Cunningham groaned in spirit. To tackle two men single-handed might be counted sporting, but a woman--hang it all!
Mine host hurried to the door to a.s.sist his guests.
"Has your lordship lost Mr. Ackill?" he asked.
"I hope not," replied the Earl. "Achille hurt his hand with a backfire this morning, and I sent him on by train to Harrogate to have it attended to. You got my note? Dinner at six?"
"To the minute, my lord."
The intervening time was chiefly spent by the Earl in confidential communion with his motor, through the intermediary of a spanner and an oil can.
While he was so engaged, and Cunningham was lounging near the door, reflecting on his bad luck, another car drove up, and two loudly-dressed men emerged from their wraps. They entered the hotel, drank thirstily, and talked without restraint.
Lady Eva de Mallaby pa.s.sed through the hall soon afterwards. Struck by her beauty, one of the motorists, with the comradeship of one sportsman to another, addressed some remark to her, with a generous smile and a casual hat-lift.
Lady Eva, showing a trace of surprise, stared icily at the man and pa.s.sed on.
"Hoity, toity," said the motorist, without any sign of shame. "But I"d like to have the breaking-in of you, Miss. Wouldn"t you, Sammy?"
addressing his companion.
"Too expensive," said Sammy. "Give me a four-year-old, like I bought to-day from Sir William, an" I"m "appy."
"You"re a bloomin" materialist, that"s what you are, Sammy," retorted the other--"a bloomin" materialist." He lingered lovingly over the rounded phrase, and drained his gla.s.s again.
Twenty minutes later the sound of a gramophone percolated the house.
Lord Tadcaster was at dinner.
It was his daily custom to dine to the accompaniment of music. When at home his private band officiated; when he was on his travels a musical-box or gramophone supplied the necessary melody.
This was an eccentricity of the peer, who had decided, after long and recondite diagnosis, that music a.s.sists the digestion, and that certain music is more suited to a particular food than another. Therefore he swallowed his soup to a dreamy prelude, his fish to a fugue. The _entree_ was expedited by Beethoven, the joint disappeared to a triumphal march. Sweets demanded a waltz, cheese nothing more than a negro melody; but with wine and dessert were combined all the possibilities of Grand Opera.
Cunningham had learnt particulars of all this when at Kirkdale, and now he listened to the programme emanating from the private dining-room. No doubt owing to the absence of Achille, the music occasionally gave out, but by the intermittent tunes Cunningham was still able to gauge the progress of the meal. The omission of a sonata denoted limitation of the repast, and when the strains of "Lucia di Lammermoor" throbbed on the air Cunningham mounted his motor-cycle, and took the road that led through Blubber-houses.