Anne Belinda (22 page)

It was not John Waveney's first visit to the shop. He had come in a week before to buy a cigarette case, and a day or two later had dropped in again and talked for half an hour to Mr. Levinski himself about old silver. He was received now with a beaming smile, and the candelabra were fetched from the window and displayed.

“From Mr. Herzheimer's collection,” said Mr. Levinski in a whisper. “Yes, indeed—
the
Mr. Herzheimer whose collections were so famous. I think myself lucky to have secured this pair. Look! They are fine—isn't it?”

Mr. Levinski was a short man, with a plump, sallow face, wistful dark eyes, and a distinctly Jewish nose. He spoke with as heavy an accent as if twenty-five years had not gone by since he first wrote himself an Englishman. What he did not know about precious stones and old silver was not worth knowing.

John encouraged him to talk about the candelabra and about Mr. Herzheimer.

“I tell you truly,” said Mr. Levinski, “Herzheimer had nothing bad in his collection. If you buy these you invest your money; you do not spend it—no, truly. It is an investment—yes, and better than Government stock. Pieces such as these, they have their value. It does not shoot up one day and drop the next like the franc—it is safe.”

“There is always the risk of having things stolen.”

Mr. Levinski shrugged his shoulders.

“The finer the piece, the less is the risk. There is so small a market; so many people who know; and the Customs, and the police, and Heaven knows what more. In the end, is it worth it? No, indeed.”

“I suppose jewels would be better worth while. Didn't you lose some pearls a while ago?”

Mr. Levinski spread out his hands.

“Pearls?
Ah! There!
Pearls—yes. You cut the string, and—pfft! Who is going to say, ‘This is mine; this is yours' unless there is something in the colour, or the shape, or the size—something distinctive?”

“You did have some pearls taken, didn't you? I remember seeing it in the paper. As a matter of fact, that's what brought me here. I saw the name and remembered it; and when I saw it again over your window I thought I'd come in. You got your pearls back, didn't you?”

“Yes, I got them back. I was lucky—all through I was lucky, except at the very beginning.”

“How on earth did they get away with them at all?”

“You may ask!” Mr. Levinski lifted his hands. “Yes, indeed, you may ask. See, I will tell you. I was here, myself, as I am with you. A couple, newly affianced, are with me. They looked at rings, and the lady, first she will have a ruby, and then a sapphire, and then again she thinks a diamond is better than all; so I am bringing out rings one after the other. And whilst I am bringing the rings I bring out a parcel I have just received—five strings of pearls, very fine, very well matched. I thought perhaps the fiancé would take an interest. For a wedding present there is nothing better than a string of pearls. So I lay them out. Whilst I am doing this I see there is a lady talking to my assistant. Afterwards he tells me she asks the price of something in the window. She is young and very chic, in a grey costume and a black hat. All at once I hear her say: ‘What lovely pearls! May I look at them?' and my assistant comes over to me, and I give him the parcel of pearls. I look down the counter and I see the lady slip off her gloves. I think to myself ‘She is a lover of pearls—she will only touch them with her hand.' You see that—isn't it? One does not touch the thing that one loves with a glove on the hand—no? I see she has on a very valuable ring; and that gives me the idea that perhaps she will not only look and touch, she will buy. I see that, and then I cannot see any more, because I am attending to the ring of my fiancés. They buy the best of my diamond rings, a very fine stone—not the largest, you understand, but the finest stone. I am pleased that they have such good taste, and I am busy because there is to be an inscription in the ring. And by the time I have finished with all that the young lady in the grey costume is gone.”

Mr. Levinski paused.

“I go to take back the pearls, and I say to my assistant, ‘She did not buy, then?' and he shakes his head. And I say: ‘Will she perhaps come again?' And he says: ‘I do not know.' And then I take the pearls, folded over in their cotton wool and I see the middle of one string hanging out—no more than two pearls, but it is enough for me. I open the parcel, and I say, ‘What is this—what is this—what is this?' And there is my assistant as white as paper. And there are four strings of pearls, and a string of pearl beads such as may be bought for thirty shillings. I run out into the street. I say: ‘Which way did she go?' I look everywhere. I run into Bond Street. I look up and down. There is no grey costume; there is no chic young lady thief. I come back, and I telephone to the police, and I tell my assistant just what sort of a head he has to let beads be changed for pearls just there under his nose. I lose my temper, and he weeps. And the police say what I know already, that there is very little hope. There has been much snatching of pearls for two, three months past—the papers are full of it—and no one has yet the luck to get anything back.”

“But you got yours back, didn't you?” said John. He was fingering the base of the nearest candelabrum.

“Yes—I have the luck. It is beyond belief what luck I have. Next day I go out to the front of the shop to take a look at the window, and there goes past a taxi; and there looks out of the taxi that young lady thief, in her grey costume and her black hat. The taxi goes quick round the corner into Bond Street. I run. I see it before me. I fling myself into a taxi that sets down a lady at a lace shop. I say: ‘Do not lose them! I am Levinski—I have been robbed! You shall have five pounds if I catch her!' We follow. I see them in a block a hundred yards ahead. I jump out—I run. In a minute I see the grey costume—she has also jumped out—she runs. I call out. She turns the corner—I turn the corner. I cry, ‘Stop thief!' and a policeman catches her by the arm. We go to the police-station. My pearls are in her bag. She does not say anything—she does not even weep. At her trial she says her name is Annie Jones, and she pleads guilty, and she gets a year's imprisonment because there have been so many of these robberies.”

“Well,” said John, “you were very fortunate. She had a nerve—hadn't she? What was she like?”

“Very chic—that was what I noticed in the shop.”

“On the films,” said John, “ladies who steal pearls always have dark hair and flashing eyes. Was she like that?”

Mr. Levinski smiled.

“Her hair was dark, but I do not think that her eyes should flash much when she is standing in the dock—isn't it?”

“Well, I suppose not. But in the shop, when you first saw her—you might have noticed her hair and her eyes then.”

Mr. Levinski's shoulders rose to the level of his ears.

“As for that, in the shop I see only a pretty, chic young lady. I do not think about her hair or her eyes. I see her chic grey costume, and I see that she has a ring with a stone in it that I would gladly buy.”

“What sort of stone?”

“It was an emerald,” said Mr. Levinski—“and of the finest. If it had a flaw, I could not see one. I should have liked to see it close. Emeralds like that are rare. Afterwards I wonder from whom she has it stolen, and where she has it hidden—for it was not any more upon her hand when I catch her next day. The pearls are in her bag, but the emerald ring is not anywhere at all.”

“Then in the shop you didn't see whether she was dark?”

Mr. Levinski suddenly fixed his wistful gaze on John.

“Have you then an interest in this young lady, sir?” he said.

“The story interested me—yes.”

“And the hair of the young lady—that interests also?”

“I think you didn't notice it at all in the shop—only afterwards. Isn't that so?”

Mr. Leviniski nodded.

“Yes, that is so.”

“I'll take the candelabra,” said John. “How many ounces did you say they were?”

CHAPTER XXIX

Anne took out her prettiest dress next day. She felt as if she would like to burn the grey coat and skirt—but a penniless parlour-maid has to restrain this sort of feeling.

It was a day of soft wind, racing cloud, and brilliant fitful sunshine. She put on the thin crepe frock, with its blue ground that matched the blue of her eyes, and its pattern of green and blue, which she had always loved because it reminded her of bluebells in a green spring wood. The dress was rather thin, and she slipped a blue coat over it. She did wish she had a new hat. Mrs. Jones had put in one of those little hats which roll up. It was rather faded, its blues and greens a little dim; but it was still becoming.

“Well, dear, you do look gay!” said Mrs. Brownling. “He's going to meet you, I suppose. I had an aunt who always said you could tell whether a young lady was going to meet a gentleman friend by the time she took to dress—and anything over half an hour means business, is what she said. She'd been fairly larky in her day, though very well married at the time I'm speaking of—something high up in the Navy her husband was, and they'd a lovely house in Plymouth. My father's sister she was, and of course that inclined her, to the Navy, as you may say. I told you, didn't I, dear, what a handsome watch my father had given to him by the other officers on his last voyage. Chimed the quarters something lovely, and had his initials on the back in diamonds. Well, so long, dear—and have a good time.”

Anne walked down Ossington Road making good resolutions. After to-day she wouldn't let John come and call for her any more. This resolution so satisfied her conscience that she was prepared to enjoy the dangerous indulgence of “just once more” to the full.

John seemed very pleased to see her.

“We're going to Wisley,” he said. “I say, that's a topping dress! Did it come out of the box?”

Anne nodded.

“Where's Wisley?”

“It's the Horticultural Society's gardens. Mrs. Courtney was talking about them; she said the azaleas were a dream, and anyone who hadn't seen them ought to go and boil their heads, or words to that effect. And she said I could have her ticket any day I liked; so I went and fetched it this morning. Do you like azaleas?”

“They sound lovely. I haven't seen any flowers since I don't know when.”

“Not in Spain?” He rapped out the question, and looked at her sideways with a malicious gleam in his eye.

Next moment he was penetrated with remorse, for Anne drew a quick, pained breath and said, with a forced steadiness of voice:

“I think you know very well that I never was in Spain.”

“Why should I know, when you've never told me?”

Anne did not speak. Jenny had told him she had been in Spain. And it was quite evident that he had not believed what Jenny said. How much did he know? What did he think? What did it matter what he thought? To-day would pass; to-morrow would come. And when to-morrow came she would have shut the door on John Waveney for good and all. Meanwhile, why not enjoy to-day? What a fool she was to let any skeleton come out of its cupboard, clanking and posturing between her and this one last day of pleasure!

She turned to John, suddenly gay and brilliant.

“Let's pretend!” she cried, with a laughing catch in her voice.

“What shall we pretend?”

“Oh, anything! That we haven't a care in the world; that I'm not Annie Jones; that I'm just all the things that I can't ever be again. Are you good at pretending, John?”

They left the car under the pine-trees and came into the gardens. The rock plants in the little sunk garden before the house were still gay with rose- and rust- and primrose-coloured rock roses; there were blue water-lilies coming into flower on a little square pond. They went down some steps, past a row of glass-houses, then down again by a damp and winding path that brought them out into the wild garden in the valley bottom.

A sheet of blue irises moved in the breeze like deep blue water just flecked with foam. A little farther on the large plum and white and purple Japanese irises were coming out one by one with their feet in the stream where pale moon-yellow water-lilies floated amongst smooth, flat leaves. A towering bush of double mauve rhododendron looked down on the water, the lilies, and the irises. It stood on the far bank, a sheeted mass of lilac bloom; behind it the steep rock slope rose up a hundred feet, hung with a brilliant arras of orange and scarlet, carmine, violet, blush, and burning blue. Everywhere between the brightness of the colours there were infinite shades of living green, from bronzy black to the colour, which has no name, that is like a flame burning in still air.

“Topping, isn't it?” said John.

Anne stood looking at the flowers. She did not speak, and she was pale. When John slipped his hand inside her arm she let it stay there. She felt as if she had escaped into a very beautiful, very fragile dream, an enchantment which would fade if she so much as breathed.

She was still standing like that when someone spoke her name.

“Anne! Good gracious! Anne!”

Anne came out of her dream with a startled leap of every pulse. As John's hand fell from her arm, she turned from her vision of enchanting loveliness and found herself face to face with Aurora Fairlie, very large, very red in the face, very hot in her thick rough tweeds. She wore a deer-stalker hat pushed well back on her head. And she was not alone. A middle-aged man with a lined, clever face; a thin, elderly woman, very limp, in grey georgette and ostrich feathers; and a golden-haired flapper, bare-headed, in the smallest possible quantity of blue organdie. These, grouped around Aurora and obviously of her party, all looked at Anne—and looked with recognition.

John saw Anne's hand close tightly upon itself. Then she smiled at Miss Fairlie and said:

“Hullo, Aurora!”