House in Charlton Crescent (5 page)

Dorothy Fyvert was sitting lower down the table on the same side as Cardyn. But it was noticeable that Daventry did not seem to have any glances to spare for her. Constantly his eyes wandered in the direction of his newly-found cousin, Margaret Balmaine. Miss Balmaine was opposite—all her attention apparently given to the man who sat next her and who had come with Lady Barminster.

Next to Lady Anne on one side was Monsieur Melange. Bruce Cardyn could hear him discussing miniatures with her and old Lady Barminster, Maureen was next to Cardyn himself. Quite evidently he had incurred her severe displeasure. He could see little but one hunched-up shoulder and the bright bobbed hair that was so like her sister's.

For a long time there was a perfect babel of conversation in which it was difficult to distinguish any one voice, but at last one clear young voice rang out above the others:

“Lady Anne, after lunch will you show us your pearls? Lady Barminster was telling us yesterday what magnificent jewels you had, amongst others a wonderful rope of pearls, that your father and mother gave you on your birthdays.”

Lady Anne looked rather surprised.

“I do not often show my jewels. I do not often look at them myself,” she said, slowly. “My jewel-wearing days are over. My pearls seldom see the light. They were given to me one by one by my parents. They began, I believe, on my very first birthday of all, and afterwards every Christmas and New Year as well as birthdays and other joyful occasions found my chain added to. My husband liked the idea and helped to carry it out. The old diamond and enamel clasp that fastens it was one of his wedding gifts to me. So, as you may imagine, my necklace is a fairly long one. But—”

There arose quite a chorus of exclamations. Everyone seemed to be talking at once, and all united at last in beseeching Lady Anne to show her pearls.

In some moods, the very outcry would have made Lady Anne determined to refuse, but to-day, it may be that the very peril in which she stood had moved her.

“We will go up to my sitting-room after lunch and I will show them to you,” she promised.

“But you don't mean to say that you keep them in the house, Lady Anne?” old Lord Barminster remonstrated. “Damned dangerous thing to do. Ours are all at the Bank, and if my lady wants to make herself smart unexpectedly she has to put up with paste!” He ended with a chuckle that broke into a burst of coughing.

Lady Anne smiled serenely, but the curl of her upper lip betrayed the fact that the Barminster jewels had never been high in her estimation.

Bruce Cardyn alone sat silent. The mention of the pearls gave him new ground for thought. It did not seem that their presence in the house could have anything to do with the mystery he was there to investigate. They would certainly provide a motive for robbery or burglary, but secret poisoning was in a different category altogether. Yet, for all this conviction of his, he had a certain presentiment that the clue to the maze in which he was wandering had been placed in his hands, though at present he did not see how to make use of it. His eyes strayed to Monsieur Melange's mildly bored face; only miniatures appeared to interest that gentleman, and he was obviously waiting his opportunity to turn again to Lady Anne with his mild prattle of Coros and Lavellettos.

Cardyn himself was thinking over the problem of the jewels when an hour later he realized, from the merry chatter in Lady Anne's room, that her guests were keeping her to her word. Monsieur Melange had departed pleading another engagement immediately after lunch. Lord and Lady Barminster with certain of their guests had gone on their way wishing to make the most of the daylight, so that only John Daventry and a couple of girls the Barminsters had brought with them remained.

Cardyn had purposely left the communicating door ajar and presently he heard Lady Anne call out:

“You there, Mr. Cardyn? I am going to turn all these noisy young people in to you while I get my pearls out. I don't care that the secret that guards them should be known to every one. People may be all right by themselves, but their associates may be burglars or the Lord knows who!”

“My dear Aunt Anne, what a lurid imagination you have, or have you been taking a course of detective novels?” John Daventry laughed as he held the door open for the girls.

They all came across to the table where Cardyn had been working and began to admire the miniatures.

John Daventry did not pretend to be much interested.

“We have drawers full of them at the Keep,” he said. “But I would almost as soon have a lot of old photographs. If you don't know the people, what good are they?”

“What a Goth you are, John!” Dorothy laughed as she bent over the tray. “It must be most absorbing work, Mr. Cardyn.”

“It is rather,” Bruce assented, his brows contracting as he noticed how John Daventry's eyes followed every movement of Margaret Balmaine, and how his voice softened as he spoke to her. Was Dorothy Fyvert to be slighted for this girl? And yet—Cardyn himself had hardly realized until he met her again how the memory of Dorothy Fyvert had haunted his dreams since that night, two years ago, when he brought her out of the burning house in his arms—how often he had recalled her sweet brown eyes, with their long up-curling lashes, her pretty hair, bobbed then, now attempting to grow again and curling at its own sweet will all over her small head.

But of what use was it for a poor detective to dream of Lady Anne Daventry's niece? He gave himself a shake, called himself a blockhead, and, disregarding John Daventry's black looks, went over to Miss Balmaine who was standing by the window looking into the garden. She welcomed him with a bright smile. A man is always a man to a woman of Margaret Balmaine's type.

Bruce Cardyn smiled too. He was anxious just at the present to get on friendly terms with Margaret Balmaine, to have a little private conversation with her, and hitherto he had not been able to find an opportunity. He did not see how Dorothy Fyvert's eyes followed him, a wistful look in their brown depths. Was he, too, to fall a victim to this strange girl's fascination?

“Any more encounters with Maureen, Miss Balmaine?” he questioned lightly.

The girl shook her head.

“Not yet, I am glad to say. I have not your command of language, you see!” she said demurely.

“It might be acquired,” he suggested.

“Fancy Lady Anne's wrath if it were.” Miss Balmaine laughed. “Seriously, though, I find Maureen a most disturbing element in the house. She is not really obedient to Dorothy. And she is always racing about with one of the housemaids, as I told you, and I don't think it improves her.”

“I don't suppose it does,” Cardyn acquiesced. “Still, I dare say a little running wild won't hurt the child. She has such high spirits that she must find being cooped up in school very trying.”

“And other people find it very trying when she isn't,” Miss Balmaine said petulantly.

“I dare say they do,” Bruce agreed. “I hear you come from Sydney, Miss Balmaine.”

The girl did not look pleased at the sudden change of subject.

“Not from Sydney,” she said shortly. “My home was many miles away.”

“You must have had a very interesting life out there,” Cardyn went on. “I have often meant to go out to Australia. I have even thought of settling down there, but something has always stood in the way.”

“You have never been there?” the girl questioned.

He hesitated a moment.

“Well, I have. As a matter of fact I was born there, but I was brought home when I was too young to have properly appreciated my birthplace. Still, I suppose—” he shrugged his shoulders—“it may be because it is my birthplace that it appeals to me.”

Margaret Balmaine's face altered indefinably.

“Where were you born?”

“In Melbourne, I believe,” Bruce lied. “But my parents moved up-country and took a sheep farm there. They did not make it pay—in fact, lost all their money. Still, Miss Balmaine—”

He was interrupted by a sharp cry from the sitting-room.

“Mr. Cardyn! Mr. Cardyn! Come!”

It was Lady Anne's voice.

Hardly knowing what he feared, Bruce sprang to the intervening door and flung it open. Lady Anne was standing before her escritoire as if she had pulled herself up in her agitation. Her face was towards them, and it was white; the fear in her eyes that Bruce had seen on his first visit had deepened. Her left hand with the great diamond flashing over her wedding ring was grasping the top of the escritoire, and shaking as it clasped, so that in the momentary silence that followed her cry the two who were first in the room, Bruce Cardyn and John Daventry, could hear the rattling of the various objects that always stood before Lady Anne on the writing flap.

“My pearls! John! Mr. Cardyn!” she cried, as the two men caught her arms and helped her back to her chair. “My pearls have gone!”

“Impossible!” John Daventry began. “You must have put them somewhere else.”

“When did you see them last?” Bruce Cardyn's voice cut across the other's, cool and incisive.

“About a month ago.” Lady Anne's voice was firm and as controlled as ever now. She sat up and put John Daventry's arm from her. “I am not a fool to make a mistake about a thing of that kind. I remember exactly when I saw them and remember thinking that the clasp was loose and must be seen to.”

“Where did you keep them?” Cardyn questioned.

For answer Lady Anne pointed to the escritoire. The door in the middle stood open and Cardyn saw that the back was a sliding panel after the fashion of those beloved of the Florentine makers. Behind it was an aperture, large, comparing it with the size of the escritoire; inside were several cases—one lay in front of Lady Anne on the flap. It was open and empty.

“You see,” said Lady Anne. “The last time I had that case out the pearls were there. Now they are gone in spite of all my precautions. And—”

She paused. Cardyn and Daventry peered into the open cavity. The girls stood in the doorway huddled together in a frightened fashion.

“Oh, Aunt Anne! It can't be true! But I don't believe they can have been stolen—your lovely pearls! You must have put them somewhere else,” Dorothy cried, while Margaret Balmaine looked on in horrified dismay.

“Put them somewhere else, indeed,” Lady Anne said with a snort of contempt. “Are you a fool, child, or do you take me for one? I tell you, I put the pearls in there myself a month ago with all the usual precautions, and they have been taken away. Not by a burglar or a thief. No lock or spring has been broken. All have been unfastened and fastened again without any sign that a strange hand has touched them. Some one has learned the secret of the safe and used it, and has also got hold of my keys.”

“Did absolutely no one know this secret but yourself, Lady Anne?” Bruce Cardyn questioned in an authoritative tone that made John Daventry look at him in surprise.

“Absolutely no one,” Lady Anne cried emphatically.

“Your maid?”

“Knows no more than anyone else,” Lady Anne answered, her eyes glancing from the detective to John Daventry, from him again to the group of girls in the doorway.

“Carry your memory back, Lady Anne, and see if you can recall any incident, however slight, that might have given anyone an inkling of the secret spring,” Cardyn said again. “Sometimes a word is dropped that might be interpreted by some one on the look-out, or a letter—”

“Neither written nor spoken word has been dropped by me,” Lady Anne declared with decision. “Still, I suppose there are burglars clever enough to set any precautions at naught.” And as she spoke her keen eyes were watching, searching all the faces around.

“It would be a clever burglar who found the pearls in their hiding-place without help, and took them away without leaving any trace,” Cardyn said quickly. “The other cases in the escritoire, Lady Anne. Have you looked whether their contents are safe?”

“No.” Lady Anne leaned forward and opened one. “This is all right. I expect they all are. There is nothing of any value there—there has been nothing but the pearls for some months. Fortunately I moved my diamonds and all my rings, except the one always wear some time ago, to the Bank—rings are out of place on crippled hands and knuckles swollen by arthritis. So they are all safe and the thieves have not had so big a haul as they expected.”

“Nevertheless, my dear aunt, in spite of that they have had a remarkably good haul in taking several thousand pounds' worth of pearls.” John Daventry looked at Cardyn who was searching the hiding-place in the escritoire as though he thought the young man was taking too much upon himself. “Scotland Yard must be called in at once,” he went on. “It is quite useless for amateurs to make suggestions.”

“Quite!” Lady Anne agreed in her clear, crisp tones. “Do not trouble, John, I shall consult the police as soon as possible. Mercy on us! What is this?”

“This” was a loud wail that was set up from the doorway. Some one appeared to be going into hysterics.

“It is Pirnie, Lady Anne,” said Margaret Balmaine. The girl looked frightened to death, her make-up standing out in ghastly contrast with the pallor of her face. “She was going by and I told her your pearls were missing.”

Lady Anne could not suppress an expression of impatience.

“I wish you had held your tongue, Margaret. Don't be an hysterical fool, Pirnie!” she said, raising her voice. “If I do not weep and lament surely you need not.”

“Oh, my lady, my lady! I can't get over it,” the woman wailed as she pushed herself in front of Dorothy Fyvert.

Bruce Cardyn looked at her curiously. She was the one member of the household of whom he had hitherto seen the least. She was a tall, rather affected-looking woman evidently verging on middle-age, while clinging with both hands to the last vestige of youth. She still retained the remains of early good looks.