THE DEVIL'S ROSARY
Ruthven Smith summoned courage to ask for a few words alone with Knight
that Easter morning, in order to explain as well as apologize for the
"seeming liberty he had taken." By dint of stammering, and punctuating
his sentences with short, dry coughs, he made "a clean breast," as he
called it, of the "whole business."
He had come to Valley House, he confessed, because of an anonymous
letter, written apparently by a person of education, to inform him that
the Malindore diamond had come into the possession of the Nelson Smiths.
Whether they were aware of its identity, the writer was not sure; but in
any case their ownership of the jewel was kept secret.
Having got so far in his story, Ruthven Smith decided that the easiest
way of finishing it would be to produce the letter. He did so (a
typewritten sheet of plain creamy paper, in an envelope post-marked
"West Hampstead"), and simplified things for himself by pointing to the
last sentence.
Mrs. Nelson Smith always wears a thin gold chain round her neck, which
she lets drop to her shoulders for evening dress. What precious thing
which has to be hidden hangs on that chain? Mr. Ruthven Smith is
advised to find out.
"I see now," the unfortunate man excused himself, "that someone has been
taking advantage of my anxiety about the losses of my firm to play a
cruel practical joke on me. I can't help thinking, at the same time,
that the person must have had a grudge against you and your wife also."
"Or else a desire to make mischief between you and us," was Knight's calm
suggestion.
Ruthven Smith caught it up, eagerly. "Ah, that possibility hadn't
occurred to me."
"I suppose we all have enemies." Knight pursued the subject without
excitement. "The writer probably wished to put the idea in your head that
I had deliberately bought an historic diamond which I knew to be stolen."
"But that would have been ridiculous!" exclaimed the jewel expert, and
felt sincere in making his protest.
Nevertheless, he had glanced at Annesley's face while talking of the
Malindore diamond to Lady Cartwright. It had been on the edge of his mind
that, if she looked self-conscious, it would be a point against her and
her husband. Also he had determined to make his daring attempt at
discovery before she had time to get rid of the diamond if she were
hiding it. Now, however, in the light of her shining innocence, he had
almost forgotten that he had suspected an underhand design on her part.
He asked Nelson Smith if he could think of any one, man or woman, among
his acquaintances capable of writing the anonymous letter. Nelson Smith
replied that his brain was a blank, and that he hardly thought it worth
while to follow the matter up, unless Ruthven Smith wished to do so. In
that case they might put the affair in the hands of the police.
But the elder man was of the younger's opinion. He had made a fool of
himself, and was ashamed that he had attached importance to an unsigned
communication. All he desired was to let the unpleasant business drop.
This being settled, Knight, in whose hand was the typewritten letter,
tossed the thing into the fireplace of the library, where the two had
been talking. When he and Ruthven Smith had shaken hands and agreed to
forget the whole incident the latter was glad to escape from the
interview. He went to his room and lay down, to soothe his nerves and
think of an excuse to return to London early on Monday morning.
As soon as his meagre back was turned Knight stooped and retrieved the
letter in its envelope, unscorched, from the fireplace. There was nothing
about it--not even a tell-tale perfume--to give any clue to the writer.
Nevertheless, Knight considered it of value. He intended to use it as a
bluff to frighten the Countess de Santiago, for only through her own fear
could he prove her treachery.
Most of the guests at Valley House went to church, to give thanks for
the fairy-like Easter eggs they had received. Annesley had a headache,
however, and no one was surprised that her husband should choose to stop
at home to look after her.
His adoring devotion for the girl was no secret. People laughed at it,
but admired it, too, and some women envied Annesley. They imagined him
spending the morning with his wife, but as a matter of fact he did not
go near her. He feared to speak lest she might change her decision and
refuse to travel to America with him.
His one hope--a desperate hope--lay in her going. He decided not to see
her alone again until Monday evening, after the arrival of the cable from
America.
In order to insure the coming of this message, and to make it realistic,
he motored into Torquay and sent a long telegram, partly in cipher.
Returning, he had a conversation with Charrington, the butler, and Char,
the chauffeur, a conversation which left the brothers grave and subdued.
Later Char went off in the car again, though it poured with rain, and was
gone until late at night.
Between twelve and one o'clock Knight, strolling toward the garage, heard
the automobile return, and stopped in the blaze of the acetylene for the
motor to slow down.
"Is it all right?" he inquired.
"It's all right," Char answered, somewhat sullenly, yet with a certain
reluctant respect. "Nothing will happen here Monday night."
"Good!" his master answered, and smiled at the thought of Madalena's
malicious prophecy which would not be fulfilled. It was not a pleasant
smile, yet, as he had said to Annesley, he planned no revenge against
the tigress--the woman whose claws had ripped his heart open.
Tigress or no, she was a woman, and he knew that, as far as she was
capable of caring, she had cared for him.
Perhaps it had been partly his fault. She was handsome, and had been
years younger when he had met her first. She was married then to an old
man, jealous and suspicious, knowing that his money had won the beautiful
wild creature for him. It was at Buenos Aires, and the husband had found
Madalena out in an intrigue; partly political, partly mercenary, and
partly passionate. He had turned her from his house without a penny, and
Knight--not personally concerned in the intrigue, but interested--had
been flush enough at the time to lend her a thousand dollars, enough to
go away with. It had been called a loan, but he had not expected to get
the money back, and never did get it.
In California she had set herself up as a palmist and had become
successful, a success she duplicated in New York; and she had gladly made
herself useful in many ways to "Don" and those with whom he "worked."
One way was to find out the number and worth of her rich clients' jewels,
and where they were kept. Through her crystal gazing she was able to
conjure women's secrets without their realizing that they, not she, gave
them to the light. And aboard the _Monarchic_ was not by any means the
first time that Madalena had been invaluable in diverting suspicion
by throwing it upon the wrong track.
Knight had consulted her, praised her, and flattered her from time to
time. Now he told himself that he was paying for his thoughtlessness.
He had taken Madalena for granted, regarding her as a machine rather
than a woman; and though he owed to her the loss of his happiness, that
happiness had been undeserved and, as he expressed it to himself, walking
the wet paths at midnight, he had "stood to lose it anyhow."
He would frighten Madalena so that she would never dare to try her tricks
again, and he would let her understand that because of what she had done
their partnership had come to an end once and forever. Otherwise she
should feel herself safe from him.
Bad he might be, and was, as he knew; but he didn't think it was in his
make-up, somehow, to strike a woman.
He did not go back to the house, after his short talk with Char, until
after he had heard the stable clock strike four. It was easier to think
and see things clearly out of doors than in his room adjoining
Annesley's--that closed room, forbidden to him now, where she was perhaps
crying, and surely hating him. As for the long nightmare day he had lived
through, it had been too full for much deliberate thinking; and he wanted
to plan for the future: how to begin again, and how to keep the woman who
had come to mean more for him than anything else had ever meant--more, he
knew, than anything else could mean.
He was not sure whether the love in his heart was a punishment or a
blessing, but there it was. It had come to stay.
"This woman to this man!"
He found himself repeating the words he remembered best in the marriage
service, not bitterly as he had repeated them to Annesley, but
yearningly, clingingly, groping after some promise of hope in them.
"She gave herself to me. I'm the same man she loved, after all, though
she says I'm not," he told himself. "God! What's the good of being a man
at all, if I can't get her back?"
As he wandered through one winter-saddened garden after another--the
Italian garden, the Dutch garden, the rose garden--he searched his soul,
asking it how much more he should have to tell the girl about his past.
In a kind of desperate resignation he persuaded himself that there was
nothing he would not be willing to tell her now, if it were for her good,
and if she wished to hear.
But something within him said that she would wish to hear no more. She
would deign to put no questions to him, even if she felt curiosity. She
would doubtless refuse to listen if he volunteered a further confession.
He was instinctively sure of his ground there; and in his bitterness of
spirit there was a faint gleam of comfort; certain details of his
degradation (she would think it that) might be kept decently hidden.
For instance, he would not have to tell her how, as a boy in Chicago, he
had learned to make strange use of those clever, nervous hands of his,
which she had lovingly praised as "sensitive and artistic." He could
almost see the girl shudder and grow pale at hearing how proud he had
been at sixteen of being admitted to friendship with a "swell mobsman"
fascinating as any "Raffles" of fiction; how it had amused the fellow to
teach him a deft and delicate touch, beginning his lessons with the game
of jack-straws, in which he was given prizes if he could separate the
whole stack, one straw from another, without disturbing the balance of
the pile.
It would gain him no credit in Annesley's eyes if he should assure her
that, though he knew how to pick pockets--none better--he had somehow
never cared to put his skill in practice, but had always preferred,
leaving that part of the industry to others. No excuse could help him
with her, and he was glad she need not know all the ways in which he had
served the eccentric friend and employer with whose interests he had been
associated more or less since his twenty-fifth year.
How disgusting would seem to Anita the inside history of the _Monarchic_
episode, upon which he had rather prided himself until love for her had
begun making subtle changes in his view of life. He and old Paul Van
Vreck had laughed together at the patent lock on which the agent
depended--a lock invented by the retired member of the firm himself,
and followed by a second invention, even more clever: a little instrument
designed to open a door in spite of it.
There had been the drug, too, which leaving no odour behind, had the same
effect as chloroform, and "took" even more quickly. Paul Van Vreck had
read of certain experiments made by a professor of chemistry in Tours,
had gone to France to see the man, had bought the formula, which had not
yet proved itself entirely successful; had added an ingredient on his own
account, and triumphed.
These parts of the complicated and well-fitting scheme had seemed
deliciously amusing to Knight in those days; that Van Vreck should use
his secret skill against his own brothers and nephews in the business
he had made; that the great expert should add to his fortune by stealing
from his own firm, or rather, from the great insurance company who would
repay their losses; that in such ways, with such money, he could add
treasures to his famous collection, practically at no expense to himself,
and have besides the exquisite pleasure of laughing in his sleeve at the
world.
It had all added zest to the work. And Knight had been pleased with some
small inventions of his own, praised by Van Vreck: a smart hiding-place
in the heel of a boot, almost impossible to detect, and another equally
convenient and invisible in the jet standard of Madalena de Santiago's
famous crystal. He had enjoyed the excitement when he and Madalena and
their two assistants, among the other passengers on board ship, had
consented to be searched for the missing jewels. And he had laughed
sneeringly at the credulity of those who believed in Madalena's
trumped-up vision "of the small fair man," the lighted life-preserver
dropped into the sea at night, and the yacht which sent out a boat to
pick it up.
For that other vision her crystal had supplied after the robbery in
Portman Square he was not responsible; but it was he who had suggested
the "pictures" for her to see on shipboard.
He hated the recollection now. Even Annesley could not think it more
contemptible than he did.
Still worse was the remembrance of Mrs. Ellsworth's latchkey, the keeping
of which had been accidental at first. Afterward he had gaily regarded
its possession as a gift from Providence. The way to Ruthven Smith's
house was made clear by it; and better still, through it the dragon could
be punished for years of cruelty to the captive princess. "Char" had been
the man to whom fell the honour of bestowing the punishment, and leaving
a missive from the princess's rescuer.
Knight writhed in spirit as he wondered whether the princess guessed the
fate of the key.
He wondered also if she asked herself what part he had had in the
disappearance of the Valley House heirlooms. She would loathe him more
intensely, if possible, could she know how her presence with him on that
public "show day" had helped to cloak with respectability his secret
mission. How mean he had been in distracting her attention from the two
Fragonards and from the cabinets containing the miniatures and the carved
Chinese gods of jade while he "marked" the prizes for the eyes of his two
assistants. How unsuspicious and happy the girl had been, trusting him
utterly, while behind her back he manipulated the diamond--the useful
diamond--he always carried for such purposes!
Even then he had the grace to be ashamed of himself for disloyalty,
though not for dishonesty, as deftly the diamond cut the glass faces of
the cabinets directly opposite the miniatures and the Buddha meant to
enrich Paul Van Vreck's secret collection. He had been glad to hurry his
wife away, and let the eager pair of "tourists" crowding on his heels
finish the work he had begun.
It seemed to Knight, as his thoughts travelled heavily along the past,
that no other woman but Annesley Grayle, this fragile white rose that
had freely given its sweetness, could have turned him from the vow of
vengeance for his parents' fate which as a boy he had sworn against the
world. Day by day, week by week, month by month, the fragrance of the
white rose had so changed him that looking back at himself, he saw a
stranger.
Had it not been for certain engagements made with Paul Van Vreck and
others--engagements which had to be kept because there is honour among
thieves--that "den" of his in Portman Square would long ago have been
shut to his "at home" day visitors. No more "business" would have been
done on those or any premises; this party of Easter guests would not have
been invited to Valley House; and the Malindore diamond, sleeping away
its secret on Annesley's breast, would still be guarding his secret, too.
While the others were at church she had sent him the diamond by
Parker--the blue diamond, and the rose sapphire; her engagement ring
also; the pearls he had given her the day before their marriage, and all
his other gifts (except the wedding ring), which had not been stolen on
the night when the Annesley-Setons' silver went.
It had been a blow to open the box brought to his room by the maid
without a word of explanation--no lighter because it was deserved. It was
only less severe than had the wedding ring been with the rest.
And perhaps, Knight reflected, it would have been there had Annesley
known of another trick played upon her: those cleverly "reconstructed"
pearls, gleaming ropes of them, and paste diamonds added to her
collection only for the purpose of disappearing in the "burglary." A
hateful trick, but he had believed it necessary at the time, while
despising it.
Well, he was punished for everything at last--everything vile he had done
and thought in his whole life; even those things the White Rose did not
know!
He was young still, but he felt old--old in sin and old in hopelessness;
for youth cannot exist in a heart deprived of hope. It seemed to Knight
that his heart had been deprived of hope for years, yet suddenly he
recalled the fact that a few moments before--up to the time when he had
begun counting his sins one by one, like the devil's rosary--he had been
thinking with something akin to hope of the future.
"What if, after all----" he began to ask himself.
But stumbling unseeingly from avenue to path, and path to lawn, he had
wandered near the house.
By what seemed to him a strange coincidence he had come to a standstill
almost on the spot where he had stood last night when Annesley, at her
window, called him in.
She had loved him then! She had called him in to be forgiven. But her
forgiveness, divine as it was, white and wide-winged as the flight of a
dove--had not been wide enough to cover his guilt.
What a ghastly difference between last night and this! It was right that
the face of the moon, so bright then, should be veiled with ragged black
clouds. And yet, what if----
The man's eyes strained through the darkness of that dark hour before the
dawn.
"If her window is uncurtained, I'll take it as a good omen," he said.
Noiselessly his feet trod the short, wet grass, going nearer to the
shadowed loggia to make sure....
The curtains were drawn closely, and the window was shut.