LOCKED UP!
WHO could ever have anticipated this?
Who would have dreamt, a night or two ago, of where Miss Million, the
American Sausage-King's heiress, and her aristocratically connected
lady's-maid would have had to spend last night?
I can hardly believe it myself, even yet.
I sit on this perfectly ghastly little bed, narrow and hard as any stone
tomb in a church. I gaze round at the stone walls, and at the tiny
square window high up; at the tin basin, chained as if they were afraid
it might take flight somehow; at the door with the sliding panel; the
ominous-looking door that is locked upon me!
And I say to myself, "Vine Street police-station!"
That's where I am. I, Beatrice Lovelace, poor father's only daughter,
and Lady Anastasia's great-granddaughter! I've been taken up, arrested!
I'm a prisoner. I've slept--that is, I've not been able to sleep--in a
cell! I've been put in prison like a pickpocket, or a man who's been
drunk and disorderly, or a window-smashing suffragette!
Only, of course, the suffragette does her best to get into prison. She
doesn't mind. It's a glory to her. She comes out and "swanks" about in a
peculiarly hideous brooch that's been specially designed to show that
she's been sentenced to "one month," or whatever it was.
She's proud of it. Oh, how can she be? Proud of having spent so much
time in a revolting place like this! "I think," gazing round hopelessly
once more--"oh, I don't believe I shall ever be able to get the
disgusting, bleak, sordid look of it out of my mind, or the equally
sordid, bleak, disgusting smell of it out of my skirts and my hair!"
And I clasp my hands in my lap and close my eyes to shut out the look of
those awful walls and that fearful door.
I go over again the scene yesterday down at the "Refuge," when we were
arrested by that Scotland Yard man, and when I had just enough presence
of mind to ask him to allow us, before we went off with him, to leave
word with our friends.
A group of our friends were already gathered on the gravel path outside
the house under the lilacs. And there came running out at my call Miss
Vi Vassity, half a dozen of her Refugette girls, Miss Million's American
cousin, and--though I thought he must have taken his departure!--the
disgraced Mr. Burke.
In the kind of nightmare of explanations that ensued I remember most
clearly the high-pitched laugh of "London's Love" as she exclaimed,
"Charging them, are you, officer? I suppose that means I've got to come
round and bail them out in the morning, eh? Not the first time that Vi
has had that to do for a pal of hers? But, mind you, it's about the
first time that there's been all this smoke without any fire. Pinching
rubies? Go on. Go on home! Who says it? Rubies! Who's got it?" she
rattled on, while everybody stared at us.
The group looked like a big poster for some melodrama on at the Lyceum,
with three central figures and every other person in the play gaping in
the background.
"Oh, of course it's Miss Smith that collared Rats's old ruby," went on
Miss Vi Vassity encouragingly. "Sort of thing she would do. Brought it
down here to the other little gal, my friend, Miss Nellie Million, I
presume? And what am I cast for in this grand finale? Receiver of stolen
goods, eh? Bring out some more glasses, Emmie, will you?"--this to the
Acrobat Lady.
"What's yours, Sherlock Holmes?" to the detective. Then to Miss Million,
who was deathly pale and trembling: "A little drop of something short
will do you no harm, my girl. You shall have the car to 'go quietly' in,
in a minute or two----"
Here the American accent of Mr. Hiram P. Jessop broke in emphatically.
"There'll be no 'going' at all, Miss Vassity. I don't intend to have any
nonsense of this kind regarding a young lady who's my relative, and
another young lady who is a friend of hers--and mine. See here, officer.
The very idea of charging 'em--why, it's all poppycock! Miss Million is
my cousin.
"Steal rubies--why on earth should she steal rubies? Couldn't she buy up
all the rubies in little old London if she fancied 'em? Hasn't she the
means to wear a ruby as big as that of Mr. Rattenheimer's on every
finger of her little hands if she chose? See here, officer----"
Here the young American caught the Scotland Yard man by the upper arm,
and sought to draw him gently but firmly out of that Lyceum poster
group.
"See here. As you must have noticed at the Cecil, Mr. Julius
Rattenheimer's a friend of mine. I know him. I know him pretty well, I
guess. I'll go to him right now, and explain to him that it's absolutely
preposterous, the mere idea of sending down to arrest a pair of
delicately nurtured, sensitive, perfectly lovely young girls who'd as
soon think of thieving jewels as they would of--well, I can't say what.
Here's where words fail me. But I guess I'll have fixed up how to put it
when I get to Rats himself. I'll come along right now to him with you.
I've got my car here. I'll fix it up.
"Don't you worry----"
Here I seemed to detect a movement of Mr. Hiram P. Jessop's hand towards
his breast-pocket.
Was it? Yes! He drew out a pigskin leather pocketbook. Swiftly, but
quietly, he took out notes.... "Heavens!" This sincere and well-meaning
citizen of no mean country was making an unapologised-for attempt to
bribe Scotland Yard!
Their backs were towards me now; I do wish I had seen the detective's
face! "See here, officer----Ah, you're proud? Well, that's all right.
I've got my car here, I say. You and I'll buzz up to Mr. Rattenheimer's,
I guess. We'll leave these young ladies here with Miss Vassity----"
"Very sorry, sir, but that's quite impossible," declared the even,
expressionless voice of the Scotland Yard man. "These ladies have to
return to London at once with me."
"But I tell you it's prepos----"
"Those are my orders, sir. Very sorry. If the car is ready"--turning to
Miss Vi Vassity--"I'll drive her, I'll take these ladies now."
"All alone, with you? Faith, and that you won't," declared the
Honourable Jim Burke, stepping forward from where he had been standing,
hastily finishing the drink that had been poured out for him by the
handsome white hands of Marmora, the Breathing Statue. "I'll go up with
you, and see where you're taking the ladies----"
"And I'll accompany you, if you'll permit me," from Mr. Hiram P. Jessop.
"Room in the car for six. Pity I can't leave Maudie, or I'd come. But
young Olive must get her night's rest to-night, so I'm doing nurse and
attending to the midget ventriloquist myself," declared the cheerful
voice of England's Premier Comedienne.
"See you to-morrow in court, girls. Don't look like that, Nellie! You've
got a face on you like a blessed bridegroom; there's nothing to get
scared about. Lor'! No need to fret like that if you'd just been given
ten years!... Got plenty o' rugs, Miss Smith? I'd lend one of you my
best air-cushion to sleep on, full of the sighs of me first love. But if
I did they'd only pinch it at the station. I know their tricks at that
hole. So long, Ah-Sayn Lupang!" Again to the detective: "You ought to
be at the top of your profession, you ought; got such an eye for
character. Cheery-Ho!"
And we were off; the detective, the two arrested criminals (ourselves),
the cousin of one of the "criminals" and the Honourable Jim Burke. In
what character this young man was supposed to be travelling with us I'm
sure I don't know.
I only know that but for him that motor drive through Sussex up to the
London police court would have been a nightmare. It was the Honourable
Jim who managed to turn it into something of a joke.
For all the way along the gleaming white roads, with our headlights
casting brilliant moving moons upon the hedges, the persuasive, mocking
Irish voice of the Honourable Jim laughed and talked to the detective
who was driving us to our fate. And the conversation of the Honourable
Jim ran incessantly upon just one theme. The mistakes that have been
made by the police in tracking down those suspected of some breach of
the law!
As thus. "Were you in that celebrated case, officer, of the Downshire
diamonds? Another jewel robbery, Miss Smith! Curious how history repeats
itself. They'd got every bit of circumstantial evidence to show that the
tiara had been stolen and broken up by a young maid-servant in the
house. The 'tecs were hanging themselves all over with whatever's their
equivalent for the D.S.O., for having got her, when the butler owned up
and showed where he'd put the thing, untouched and wrapped up in a
workman's red handkerchief, in an old dhry well in the grounds. Mustn't
it make a man feel he ought to sing very small when he's been caught
out in a little thing like that?"
"That's so," said Mr. Hiram P. Jessop, with a tone in his voice of
positive gratitude. Gratitude, to the man whom he'd been blackening and
showing up, this very afternoon! Together they seemed to be making
common cause against the detective, who was rushing Miss Million up to
town and to durance vile!
The detective said less than any man with whom I've ever spent the same
length of time.
But I believe he took it all in!
"Then there were the Ballycool murders, when they were as near as dash
it to hanging the wrong man," pursued Mr. James Burke. "Of course, that
was when my grandfather was a boy. So that particular show-up would be
before your time, officer, possibly."
"Eighteen Sixty-Two, sir," said the detective briefly.
"Ah, yes, I remember," mused the Honourable Jim, who, I suppose, must
have been born about Eighteen Hundred and Eighty-Seven himself. "Ah,
yes; but then, some aspects of life, and love, and law don't seem to
alter much, do they?"
"That's correct, Mr. Burke," said Mr. Hiram P. Jessop again in his most
empressé American.
"Then," pursued the ineffable Irish voice as we whizzed along, "there's
that case of the Indian tray that was missing from that wealthy
bachelor's rooms--but I misremember the exact end of that story.
"Plenty of them on record in this country as well as America. I daresay
you agree with me, Jessop?"
Mr. Jessop, sitting there in the hurrying car, seemed to be agreeing
with everything that Mr. Burke chose to say.
The young American, from what glimpses I caught of his firm, short,
Dana-Gibson-like profile against the blue night sky, was full of the
tenderest and most rueful concern for the little cousin who was involved
in this pretty kettle of fish.
His broad, though padded, form was sitting very close to the minute,
dejected figure of Miss Million, who had gradually ceased to shudder and
to whimper "Oh, lor'! Oh, my! Oh, whatever is going to happen to us
now!" as she had done at the beginning of the journey.
She was, I realised, a little cheered and encouraged now. From a
movement that I had noticed under Miss Vi Vassity's sable motor-rug I
guessed that Mr. Jessop had taken his cousin's hand, and that he was
holding it as we drove.
Well, after all, why shouldn't he? They are cousins.
Also it's quite on the cards that she may accept him yet (if we ever get
out of this atrocious muddle about the stolen ruby) as her husband!
These two facts make all the difference....
And I should have said so to the Honourable Jim had we been alone.
It didn't really surprise me that he, in his turn, attempted to hold a
girl's hand under that rug.
Men always seem to do what they notice some other man doing first. That
must have been it. Except, of course, that it wasn't Miss Million's hand
that Mr. Burke tried to take. It was the hand of Miss Million's maid.
I was determined that he shouldn't. Firmly I drew my hand out of his
clasp--it was a warm and strong and comforting clasp enough, very
magnetic; but what of that?
Then I clasped my own hands tightly together, as I am doing now, and
left them on my lap, outside the rug.
The Honourable Jim seemed to tire, at last, of "batting" the detective
who was driving us. He leant back and began to sing, in a sort of
musical whisper.... Really, it's unfair that a man who has the gift of
such a speaking voice should have been granted the gift of song into the
bargain. They were just little snatches that he crooned, the sort of
scraps of verse with which he'd woken me up on the cliff that same
afternoon--bits of an Irish song called "The Snowy-breasted Pearl," that
begins:
"Oh, she is not like the rose
That proud in beauty blows----"
And goes on something about:
"And if 'tis heaven's decree
That mine she may not be----"
So sweet, so tuneful, so utterly tender and touching that--well, I know
how I should have felt about him had I been Miss Million, who three days
ago considered herself truly in love with the owner of this calling,
calling tenor voice!
Had I been Miss Million, I could not have sat there with my hand firmly
and affectionately clasped in the hand of another man, ignoring my first
attraction. No; if I had been my mistress instead of just myself, I
could not have remained so stolidly pointing out to the Honourable Jim
that all was indeed over.
I could not have refused him a glance, a turn of the head in the
direction of the voice that crooned so sweetly through the purring rush
of the car.
However, this was all--as Million herself would say--neither here nor
there. Apart from this Scotland Yard complication, she was Miss Million,
the heiress, drifting slowly but surely in the direction of an eligible
love affair with her American cousin.
I had nothing whatever to do with her rejected admirer, or how he was
treated.
I was merely Miss Million's maid, Beatrice Lovelace, alias Smith, with
an eligible love affair of her own on hand. How I wished my Mr. Reginald
Brace could have been anywhere get-at-able! He would have been so
splendid, so reliable!
He would have--well, I don't know what he could have done, exactly. I
suppose that even he could scarcely have interfered with the carrying
out of the law! Still, I felt that it would have been a great comfort to
have had him there in that car.
And, as I am going to be engaged to him, there would have been nothing
incorrect in allowing him to hold my hand. In fact, I should have done
so. I hadn't got any gloves with me, and the night air was now chill.
"Why, your little hands are as cold as ice, Miss Smith," murmured Mr.
James Burke to me as the car stopped at last outside what are called the
grim portals of justice. (Plenty of grimness about the portals, anyway!)
"You ought to have kept----"
Even at that awful moment he made me wonder if he were really going to
say, boldly out before the detective and everybody: "You ought to have
kept your hands in mine as I wanted you to!"
But no. He had the grace to conclude smoothly and conventionally: "You
ought to have kept the rug up about you!"
Then came "Good-nights"--rather a mockery under the circumstances--and
the departure of the two young men, with a great many parting protests
from Mr. Hiram P. Jessop about the "prepassterousness" of the whole
procedure. Then we arrested "prisoners" were taken down a loathsome
stone corridor and handed over to a----
Words fail me, as they failed Mr. Hiram P. Jessop. I can't think of
words unpleasant enough to describe the odiousness of that particular
wardress into whose charge we were given.
The only excuse for her was that she imagined--why, I don't know, for
surely she could have seen that there was nothing of that type about
either Miss Million or Miss Smith--she imagined that we were militant
Suffragettes!
And she certainly did make herself disagreeable to us.
The one mercy about this was that it braced Miss Million up to abstain
from shedding tears--which she seemed inclined to do when we were
separated.
Words didn't fail her! I heard the ex-maid-servant's clearest kitchen
accent announcing exactly what she thought of "that" wardress and "that"
detective, and "that there old Rattenheimer" until stone walls and heavy
doors shut her from earshot....
I only hope that her rage has kept up all night, that it's prevented her
from relapsing into the misery and terror in which she started away from
the shelter of Vi Vassity's wing at the "Refuge"! For then, I know, she
was perfectly convinced that what we were setting out for was, at the
very least, ten years' penal servitude! Evidently Miss Million hasn't
the slightest touch of faith in the ultimate triumph of all Innocence.
To her, because that Rattenheimer ruby is stolen, and she and her maid
are suspected of being the thieves, it means that it's impossible for us
to be cleared!
I don't feel that; but I do feel the humiliation and the discomfort of
having been put in prison!
How many nights like the last, I wonder dismally, am I to spend in this
horrible little cell?
Well! I suppose this morning will show us.
This morning, in about an hour's time, I suppose we are to go before the
magistrate of this court, and to answer the "serious charge" that has
been brought against us by Mr. Julius Rattenheimer.