ANNESLEY REMEMBERS
There was great excitement for the next few days at Valley House and
throughout the neighbourhood, for the Annesley-Setons made no secret of
the robbery, and the affair got into the papers, not only the local ones,
but the London dailies.
Two of the latter sent representatives, to whom Lord Annesley-Seton
granted interviews. Something he said attracted the reporters' attention
to Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith, who had been dining at Valley House on the
evening when the theft was discovered, and Knight was begged for an
interview.
He was asked if he had formed an opinion as to the disappearance of the
three heirlooms, and whether he knew personally Mr. Paul Van Vreck, the
American collector and retired head of the famous firm of jewellers, who
had wished to buy the vanished treasures.
Having spent most of his life in America, Knight had the theory that
unless you wished to be misrepresented, the only safe thing was to let
yourself be interviewed. He was accordingly so good-natured and
interesting that the reporters were delighted with him. If he had been
wishing for a wide advertisement of his personality, his possessions, and
his plans, he could not have chosen a surer way of getting it.
The two newspapers which had undertaken to boom the "Valley House
Heirloom Theft" had almost limitless circulations. One of them possessed
a Continental edition, and the other was immensely popular because of its
topical illustrations.
Snapshots, not so unflattering as usual, were obtained of the young
Anglo-American millionaire and his bride, as they started away from the
Knowle Hotel in their motor, or as they walked in the garden. Though
Knight had disclaimed any personal acquaintance with the great Paul Van
Vreck, he was able to state that Mr. Van Vreck had been convalescing
at Palm Beach, in Florida, at the time of the robbery. He had had an
attack of pneumonia in the autumn, and instead of travelling in his yacht
to Egypt, as he generally did travel early in the winter, he had been
ordered by his doctors to be satisfied with a "place in the sun" nearer
home.
Everyone in America knew this, Knight explained, and everyone in England
might know it also, unless it had been forgotten. If Mr. Van Vreck were
well enough to take an interest in the papers, he was sure to be amused
by the coincidence that the things stolen from Valley House were among
those he had wanted to buy.
Knight thought, however, that even if the clever thief or thieves had
heard of Van Vreck's whim, no attempt would be made to dispose of the
spoil to him. The elderly millionaire, though one of the most eccentric
men living, was known as the soul of honour.
The relationship between young Mrs. Nelson Smith and Lord Annesley-Seton
was touched upon in the papers; and though it was irrelevant to the
subject in hand, mention was made of the Nelson Smiths' plan to live in
London.
This gave Constance her chance. At an impromptu luncheon at the Knowle
Hotel, before the intended dinner party at Valley House, she referred
to the interest Society would begin to take in this "romantic couple."
"Everybody will have fallen in love with you already," she said, "from
those snapshots in the _Looking Glass_. They make you both look such
darlings--though they don't flatter either of you. All the people we know
will be clamouring to meet you, so you must hurry and find a nice house,
in the right part of town, before some other sensation comes up and
you're forgotten. How would it be if you took _our_ house for a couple
of months, while you're looking round? Naturally, if you _liked_ it, you
could keep it on. We'd be delighted, for we have to let it when we can,
and it would be a pleasure to think of you in it."
"If we're in it, you must both come and stay, and not only 'think' of us,
but be with us: mustn't they, Anita?" Knight proposed. Of course Annesley
said yes, and meant yes. Not that she really wanted her duet with Knight
to be broken up into a chorus, but she longed to succeed as a woman of
the world, since that was what he wanted her to be; and she realized that
Lady Annesley-Seton's help would be invaluable.
So, through the theft at Valley House and the developments therefrom,
the hidden desires of Nelson Smith and the daughter of the deposed
Sugar King accomplished themselves, Connie still believing that she had
engineered the affair with diplomatic skill, and Knight laughing silently
at the way she had played into his hands.
Detectives were set to work by the two insurance companies, who hoped to
trace the thief and discover the stolen Fragonards and the jade Buddha;
but their efforts failed; and at the dinner party given in honour of the
new cousins, Lord and Lady Annesley-Seton rejoiced openly in their good
luck.
"All the same," Constance said, "I _should_ like to know how the things
were spirited out of the house, and where they are. It is the first
mystery that has ever come into our lives. I wish I were a clairvoyante.
It would be fun!"
"Did you ever hear of the Countess de Santiago, when you lived in
America?" asked Knight in his calm voice. He did not glance toward
Annesley, who sat at the other end of the table, but he must have guessed
that she would turn with a start of surprise on hearing the Countess's
name in this connection.
"The Countess de Santiago?" Connie echoed. "No. What about her? She
sounds interesting."
"She _is_ interesting. And beautiful." Everybody had stopped talking by
this time, to listen; and in the pause Knight appealed to his wife.
"That's not an exaggeration, is it, Anita?"
Annesley, wondering and somewhat startled, answered that the Countess de
Santiago was one of the most beautiful women she had seen.
This riveted the attention which Knight had caught. He had his audience,
and went on in a leisurely way.
"Come to think of it, she can't have been heard of in your part of the
world until you'd left for England," he told Constance. "She's the most
extraordinary clairvoyante I ever heard of. That's what made me speak of
her. Unfortunately she's not a professional, and won't do anything unless
she happens to feel like it. But I wonder if I could persuade her to look
in her crystal for you, Lady Annesley-Seton?
"She's an old acquaintance of mine," he went on, casually. "I met her
in Buenos Aires before her rich elderly husband died, about seven or
eight years ago. She was very young then. I came across her again in
California, when she was seeing the world as a free woman, after the old
fellow's death. Then I introduced her by letter to one or two people in
New York, and I believe she has been admired there, and at Newport.
"But I've only _heard_ all that," Knight hastened to explain. "I've been
too busy till lately to know at first hand what goes on in the 'smart' or
the artistic set. _My_ world doesn't take much interest in crystal-gazers
and palmists, amateur or professional, even when they happen to be
handsome women, like the Countess. But I ran against her again on board
the _Monarchic_ about a month ago, crossing to this side, and we picked
up threads of old acquaintance. She was staying at the Savoy when I left
London."
He paused a moment, and added:
"As a favour to me, she might set her accomplishments to work on this
business. Only she'd have to meet you both and see this house, for I've
heard her say she couldn't do anything without knowing the people
concerned, and 'getting the atmosphere.'"
"Oh, we _must_ have her!" cried Constance, and all the other women except
Annesley chimed in, begging their hostess to invite them if the Countess
came.
No one thought it odd that Mrs. Nelson Smith should be silent, for her
remark about the Countess de Santiago's beauty showed that she had met
the lady; but to any one who had turned a critical stare upon her then,
her expression must have seemed strange. She had an unseeing look, the
look of one who has become deaf and blind to everything outside some
scene conjured up by the brain.
What Annesley saw was a copy of the _Morning Post_. Knight's mention of
the Countess de Santiago's power of clairvoyance at the same time with
the liner _Monarchic_ printed before her eyes a paragraph which her
subconscious self had never forgotten.
For the moment only her body sat between a young hunting baronet and a
distinguished elderly general at her cousins' dinner table. Her soul had
gone back to London, to the ugly dining room at 22-A, Torrington Square,
and was reading aloud from a newspaper to a stout old woman in a tea
gown.
She was even able to recall what she had been thinking, as her lips
mechanically conveyed the news to Mrs. Ellsworth. She had been wondering
how much longer she could go on enduring the monotony, and what Mrs.
Ellsworth would do if her slave should stop reading, shriek, and throw
the _Morning Post_ in her face.
As she pictured to herself the old woman's amazement, followed by rage,
she had pronounced the words:
SENSATIONAL OCCURRENCE ON BOARD THE S.S. _MONARCHIC_
Even that exciting preface had not recalled her interest from her own
affairs. She could remember now the hollow, mechanical sound of her voice
in her own ears as she had half-heartedly gone on, tempted to turn the
picture of her wild revolt into reality.
The paragraph, seemingly forgotten but merely buried under other
memories, had told of the disappearance on board the _Monarchic_ of
certain pearls and diamonds which were being secretly brought from New
York to London by an agent of a great jewellery firm. He had been blamed
by the chief officer for not handing the valuables over to the purser.
The unfortunate man (who had not advertised the fact that he was an agent
for Van Vreck & Co. until he had had to complain of the theft) excused
this seeming carelessness by the statement that he had hoped his identity
might pass unsuspected. His theory was that safety lay in insignificance.
He had engaged a small, cheap cabin for himself alone, taking an assumed
name; had pretended to be a schoolmaster on holiday, and had worn the
pearls and other things always on his person in a money belt. Even at
night he had kept the belt on his body, a revolver under his pillow, and
the door of his cabin locked, with an extra patent adjustable lock of his
own, invented by a member of the firm he served. It had not seemed
probable that he would be recognized, or possible that he could be
robbed.
Yet one morning he had waked late, with a dull headache and sensation of
sickness, to find that his door, though closed, was unfastened, and that
all his most valuable possessions were missing from the belt.
Some were left, as though the thief had fastidiously made his selection,
scorning to trouble himself with anything but the best. The mystery of
the affair was increased by the fact that, though the man (Annesley
vaguely recalled some odd name, like Jekyll or Jedkill) felt certain he
had fastened the door, there was no sign that it had been forced open.
His patent detachable lock, however, had disappeared, like the jewels.
And despite the sensation of sickness, and pain in the head, there were
no symptoms of drugging by chloroform, or any odour of chloroform or
other anæsthetic in the room.
It struck Annesley as strange, almost terrifying, that these details of
the _Monarchic_ "sensation" should come back to her now; but she could
not doubt that she had actually read them, and the rest of the story
continued to reprint itself on her brain, as the unrolling of a film
might bring back to one of the actors poses of his own which he had let
slip into oblivion.
She remembered how some of the more important passengers had suggested
that everybody on board should be searched, even to the ship's officers,
sailors, and employés of all sorts; that the search had been made and
nothing found, but that a lady supposed to possess clairvoyant powers had
offered Mr. Jekyll or Jedkill to _consult her crystal_ for his benefit.
She had done so, and had seen wireless messages passing between someone
on the _Monarchic_ and someone on another ship, with whom the former
person appeared to be in collusion. She had seen a small, fair man,
dressed as a woman, hypnotizing the jewellers' agent into the belief that
he was locking his door when instead he was leaving it unlocked.
Then she had seen this man who, she asserted firmly, was dressed like
a woman, walk into his victim's cabin, hypnotize him into still deeper
unconsciousness, and take from his belt three long strings of pearls and
several magnificent diamonds, set and unset. These things she saw made
up into a bundle, wrapped in waterproof cloth, attached to a faintly
illuminated life-preserver, and thrown overboard.
Almost immediately after, she said, the life preserver was picked up by a
man in a small motor-launch let down from a steam yacht. The launch
quickly returned to the yacht, was taken up, and the yacht made off in
the darkness.
No life belt was missing from the _Monarchic_ and even if suspicion could
be entertained against any "small, fair man" (which was not the case,
apparently), there was no justification for a search. Therefore, although
a good many people believed in the seeress's vision, it proved nothing,
and the sensational affair remained as deep a mystery as ever when the
_Monarchic_ docked.
"The Countess de Santiago was the woman who looked in the crystal!"
Annesley said to herself. She wondered why, if Knight had been vexed with
the Countess for speaking of their friendship and of the _Monarchic_, as
he had once seemed to be, he should refer to it before these strangers.
She looked down the table, past the other faces to his face, and the
thought that came to her mind was, how simple and almost meaningless the
rest were compared to his. Among the fourteen guests--seven women and
seven men--though some had charm or distinction, his face alone was
complex, mysterious, and baffling.
Yet she loved it. Now, more than ever, she loved and admired it!
The dinner ended with a discussion between Knight and Constance as to how
the Countess de Santiago could be induced to pay a visit to Valley House,
despite the fact that she had never met Lord and Lady Annesley-Seton.
Like most women who had lived in Spanish countries, the Countess was
rather a "stickler for etiquette," her friend Nelson Smith announced.
Besides, her experience as an "amateur clairvoyante" made her quick to
resent anything which had the air of patronage. One must go delicately to
work to think out a scheme, if Lady Annesley-Seton were really in "dead
earnest" about wanting her to come.
At this point Knight reflected for a minute, while everyone hung upon his
silence; and at last he had an inspiration:
"I'll tell you what we can do!" he exclaimed. "My wife and I--you're
willing, aren't you, Anita?--can ask her to stay over this week-end with
us. I think she'll come if she isn't engaged; and we can invite you to
meet her at dinner."
"Oh, you must invite us _all_!" pleaded a pretty woman sitting next to
Knight.
"All of you who care to come, certainly," he agreed. "Won't we, Anita?"
"Oh, of course. It will be splendid if everybody will dine with us!"
Annesley backed him up with one of the girlish blushes that made her seem
so young and ingenuously attractive. "We can--send a telegram to the
Countess."
She did her best to speak enthusiastically, and succeeded. No one save
Knight and Constance guessed it was an effort.
Knight saw, and was grateful. Constance saw also, and smiled to herself
at what she fancied was the girl's jealousy of an old friend of the new
husband--an old friend who was "one of the most beautiful women" the girl
had seen. Annesley's hesitation inclined Constance to be more interested
than ever in the Countess de Santiago.