As a key grated in the lock of the outside door he glanced round the place to which he had penetrated for the first time. It was of the same size as the shop overhead, but the walls were of stone, green with slime and feathery with a kind of ghastly white fungus. Overhead, from the wooden roof, which formed the floor of the shop, hung innumerable spider"s webs thick with dust. The floor was of large flags cracked in many places, and between the c.h.i.n.ks in moist corners sprouted spa.r.s.e, colorless gra.s.s. In the centre was a deal table, scored with queer marks and splotched with ink. Over this flared two gas-jets, which whistled shrilly. Against the wall, which was below the street, were three green painted safes fast locked: but the opposite wall had in it the narrow door aforesaid, and a wide grated window, the bars of which were rusty, though strong. The atmosphere of the place was cold and musty and suggestive of a charnel house. Certainly a strange place in which to transact business, but everything about Aaron Norman was strange.
And he looked strange himself as he stepped in at the open door. Beyond, Paul could see the shallow flight of damp steps leading to the yard and the pa.s.sage which gave admission from the street. Norman locked the door and came forward. He was as white as a sheet, and his face was thickly beaded with perspiration. His mouth twitched more than usual, and his hands moved nervously. Twice as he advanced towards Paul, who rose to receive him, did he cast the odd look over his shoulder. Beecot fancifully saw in him a man who had committed some crime and was fearful lest it should be discovered, or lest the avenger should suddenly appear. Deborah"s confidential talk had not been without its effects on the young man, and Paul beheld in Aaron a being of mystery. How such a man came to have such a daughter as Sylvia, Paul could not guess.
"Here you are, Mr. Beecot," said Aaron, rubbing his hands as though the cold of the cellar struck to his bones. "Well?"
"I want to p.a.w.n a brooch," said Beecot, slipping his hand into his breast pocket.
"Wait," said Norman, throwing up his lean hand. "Let me tell you that I have taken a fancy to you, and I have watched you all the many times you have been here. Didn"t you guess?"
"No," said Paul, wondering if he was about to speak of Sylvia, and concluding that he guessed what was in the wind.
"Well then, I have," said the p.a.w.nbroker, "and I think it"s a pity a young man should p.a.w.n anything. Have you no money?" he asked.
Paul reddened. "Very little," he said.
"Little as it may be, live on that and don"t p.a.w.n," said Aaron. "I speak against my own interests, but I like you, and perhaps I can lend you a few shillings."
"I take money from no one, thank you all the same," said Beecot, throwing back his head, "but if you can lend me something on this brooch," and he pulled out the case from his pocket. "A friend of mine would have bought it, but as it belongs to my mother I prefer to p.a.w.n it so that I may get it again when I am rich."
"Well, well," said Aaron, abruptly, and resuming his downcast looks, "I shall do what I can. Let me see it."
He stretched out his hand and took the case. Slowly opening it under the gas, he inspected its contents. Suddenly he gave a cry of alarm, and the case fell to the floor. "The Opal Serpent!--The Opal Serpent!" he cried, growing purple in the face, "keep off!--keep off!" He beat the air with his lean hands. "Oh--the Opal!" and he fell face downward on the slimy floor in a fit or a faint, but certainly unconscious.
CHAPTER III
DULCINEA OF GWYNNE STREET
Near the Temple Station of the Metropolitan Railway is a small garden which contains a certain number of fairly-sized trees, a round band-stand, and a few flower-beds intersected by asphalt paths. Here those who are engaged in various offices round about come to enjoy _rus in urbes_, to listen to the gay music, and, in many cases, to eat a scanty mid-day meal. Old women come to sun themselves, loafers sit on the seats to rest, workmen smoke and children play. On a bright day the place is pretty, and those who frequent it feel as though they were enjoying a country holiday though but a stone"s throw from the Thames.
And lovers meet here also, so it was quite in keeping that Paul Beecot should wait by the bronze statues of the Herculaneum wrestlers for the coming of Sylvia.
On the previous day he had departed hastily, after committing the old man to Deborah"s care. At first he had lingered to see Aaron revive, but when the unconscious man came to his senses and opened his eyes he fainted again when his gaze fell on Paul. Deborah, therefore, in her rough, practical way, suggested that as Beecot was "upsetting him" he had better go. It was in a state of perplexity that Paul had gone away, but he was cheered on his homeward way by a hasty a.s.surance given by Miss Junk that Sylvia would meet him in the gardens, "near them n.i.g.g.e.rs without clothes," said Deborah.
It was strange that the sight of the brooch should have produced such an effect on Aaron, and his fainting confirmed Paul"s suspicions that the old man had not a clean conscience. But what the serpent brooch had to do with the matter Beecot could not conjecture. It was certainly an odd piece of jewellery, and not particularly pretty, but that the merest glimpse of it should make Norman faint was puzzling in the extreme.
"Apparently it is a.s.sociated with something disagreeable in the man"s mind," soliloquised Paul, pacing the pavement and keeping a sharp look-out for Sylvia, "perhaps with death, else the effect would scarcely have been so powerful as to produce a fainting fit. Yet Aaron can"t know my mother. Hum! I wonder what it means."
While he was trying to solve the mystery a light touch on his arm made him wheel round, and he beheld Sylvia smiling at him. While he was looking along the Embankment for her coming she had slipped down Norfolk Street and through the gardens, to where the wrestlers clutched at empty air. In her low voice, which was the sweetest of all sounds to Paul, she explained this, looking into his dark eyes meanwhile. "But I can"t stay long," finished Sylvia. "My father is still ill, and he wants me to return and nurse him."
"Has he explained why he fainted?" asked Paul, anxiously.
"No; he refuses to speak on the matter. Why did he faint, Paul?"
The young man looked puzzled. "Upon my word I don"t know," he said.
"Just as I was showing him a brooch I wished to p.a.w.n he went off."
"What kind of a brooch?" asked the girl, also perplexed.
Paul took the case out of his breast pocket, where it had been since the previous day. "My mother sent it to me," he explained; "you see she guesses that I am hard up, and, thanks to my father, she can"t send me money. This piece of jewellery she has had for many years, but as it is rather old-fashioned she never wears it. So she sent it to me, hoping that I might get ten pounds or so on it. A friend of mine wished to buy it, but I was anxious to get it back again, so that I might return it to my mother. Therefore I thought your father might lend me money on it."
Sylvia examined the brooch with great attention. It was evidently of Indian workmanship, delicately chased, and thickly set with jewels. The serpent, which was apparently wriggling across the stout gold pin of the brooch, had its broad back studded with opals, large in the centre of the body and small at head and tail. These were set round with tiny diamonds, and the head was of chased gold with a ruby tongue. Sylvia admired the workmanship and the jewels, and turned the brooch over. On the flat smooth gold underneath she found the initial "R" scratched with a pin. This she showed to Paul. "I expect your mother made this mark to identify the brooch," she said.
"My mother"s name is Anne," replied Paul, looking more puzzled than ever, "Anne Beecot. Why should she mark this with an initial which has nothing to do with her name?"
"Perhaps it is a present," suggested Sylvia.
Paul snapped the case to, and replaced it in his pocket. "Perhaps it is," he said. "However, when I next write to my mother I"ll ask her where she got the brooch. She has had it for many years," he added musingly, "for I remember playing with it when a small boy."
"Don"t tell your mother that my father fainted."
"Why not? Does it matter?"
Sylvia folded her slender hands and looked straight in front of her.
For some time they had been seated on a bench in a retired part of the gardens, and the laughter of playing children, the music of the band playing the merriest airs from the last musical comedy, came faintly to their ears. "I think it does matter," said the girl, seriously; "for some reason my father wants to keep himself as quiet as possible. He talks of going away."
"Going away. Oh, Sylvia, and you never told me."
"He only spoke of going away when I came to see how he was this morning," she replied. "I wonder if his fainting has anything to do with this determination. He never talked of going away before."
Paul wondered also. It seemed strange that after so unusual an event the old man should turn restless and wish to leave a place where he had lived for over twenty years. "I"ll come and have an explanation," said Paul, after a pause.
"I think that will be best, dear. Father said that he would like to see you again, and told Bart to bring you in if he saw you."
"I"ll call to-day--this afternoon, and perhaps your father will explain.
And now, Sylvia, that is enough about other people and other things. Let us talk of ourselves."
Sylvia turned her face with a fond smile. She was a delicate and dainty little lady, with large grey eyes and soft brown hair. Her complexion was transparent, and she had little color in her cheeks. With her oval face, her thin nose and charming mouth she looked very pretty and sweet.
But it was her expression that Paul loved. That was a trifle sad, but when she smiled her looks changed as an overcast sky changes when the sun bursts through the clouds. Her figure was perfect, her hands and feet showed marks of breeding, and although her grey dress was as demure as any worn by a Quakeress, she looked bright and merry in the sunshine of her lover"s presence. Everything about Sylvia was dainty and neat and exquisitely clean: but she was hopelessly out of the fashion.
It was this odd independence in her dress which const.i.tuted another charm in Paul"s eyes.
The place was too public to indulge in love-making, and it was very tantalising to sit near this vision of beauty without gaining the delight of a kiss. Paul feasted his eyes, and held Sylvia"s grey-gloved hand under cover of her dress. Further he could not go.
"But if you put up your sunshade," he suggested artfully.
"Paul!" That was all Sylvia said, but it suggested a whole volume of rebuke. Brought up in seclusion, like the princess in an enchanted castle, the girl was exceedingly shy. Paul"s ardent looks and eager wooing startled her at times, and he thought disconsolately that his chivalrous love-making was coa.r.s.e and common when he gazed on the delicate, dainty, shrinking maid he adored.
"You should not have stepped out of your missal, Sylvia," he said sadly.
"Whatever do you mean, dearest?"
"I mean that you are a saint--an angel--a thing to be adored and worshipped. You are exactly like one of those lovely creations one sees in ma.s.s-books of the Middle Ages. I fear, Sylvia," Paul sighed, "that you are too dainty and holy for this work-a-day world."
"What nonsense, Paul! I"m a poor girl without position or friends, living in a poor street. You are the first person who ever thought me pretty."
"You are not pretty," said the ardent Beecot, "you are divine--you are Beatrice--you are Elizabeth of Thuringia--you are everything that is lovely and adorable."