THE RARE COLLECTION
Marjorie Meagh sat at breakfast with her uncle.
Sir Ralph was in an unusually irritable mood. Breakfast was never a
pleasant meal for him, but his fault-finding was generally concentrated
upon the domestic shortcomings of his wife and the quality of the food.
Now they took a wider range. He put down his paper suddenly and
savagely.
“I wish to heaven Vera wouldn’t go dashing off to town,” he said.
Although he was a domestic tyrant of a common type, he stood in some
little awe of his young wife. On three occasions in their lives she
had startled him by the vehemence of her rebellion, and with every
explosion he had grown less self-confident and less satisfied with his
own capacity for commanding the situation.
Marjorie looked up from her letters.
“Vera is making a serious study of the drama,” she said. “You
must remember, Uncle, that if by any chance she does succeed as a
play-wright, it will mean an immense income to her.”
She was very tactful. She knew that monetary considerations influenced
her uncle. It was Vera’s career, which she had discovered two years
before, when a little play, written for a charitable entertainment, had
met with recognition at the hands of the critics.
Though it had pleasantly surprised her husband to the possibility of
his having discovered a self-supporting wife, it had been also a source
of constant irritation to him. It meant expense, constant visits to the
Metropolis, the cost of seats at a theatre, though this latter expense
had happily been spared him of late by the discovery of a relation
engaged in newspaper work, who had provided complimentary tickets.
But it meant opening the flat in town; it meant the detachment of a
servant from a household where the domestic arrangements, as planned by
Sir Ralph, were so devised as to fully occupy every moment of the time
of every person engaged.
Sir Ralph took up the paper only to put it down again a moment later.
“That scoundrel, Mansingham, has appealed,” he said. “It is monstrous.”
The institution of the Court of Criminal Appeal was a sore point with
Sir Ralph. He felt that its creation had been expressly designed for
the purpose of annoying him. He had written letters to _The Times_
about it, and had expressed himself, at such public functions as gave
him opportunity, in no gentle terms. It was remarkable, under the
circumstances, that the Court of Appeal continued to sit.
“It is monstrous,” he said again. “It is a slight upon the men who are
engaged in carrying out the work of administering criminal law.”
His anger came in little spasms. He had a fresh grievance every few
moments. Again his paper came down after an interval.
“That young man, Gallinford, did not arrive last night, Marjorie,” he
said severely. “The young men of to-day seem to be lamentably deficient
in good manners.”
“He wired, Uncle,” protested the girl. “He said that he was detained in
town.”
“Bah!” snapped her uncle. “That isn’t good enough. I am a man of the
world, Marjorie. These flimsy excuses do not suffice for me, and I
advise you, if you desire to be happy--and the only way to be happy,”
he said parenthetically, “is to be without illusions--to view these
unsupported excuses with suspicion. He is a young man,” he went on,
elaborating his grievance, “newly arrived in England after a long
absence in a barbarous country----”
“In Italy, Uncle,” she murmured. “It isn’t exactly barbarous, is it?”
“Barbarous?” he said explosively. “Why, here are two Italian murders in
one day!”
He flourished the paper in support of his contention.
“Of course it is barbarous! And he comes back to civilization after
a long absence, to a beautiful girl, and I admit that you are that,
Marjorie,” he said comfortably, with an air of one who was partly
responsible for her beauty, “and instead of rushing, as he should, and
as young men did in my day, to his fiancée, he breaks his journey in
town! It is perfectly inexcusable!”
She did not defend her lover. She knew how valueless such arguments
were with her uncle. He was entirely without inclination to reason--at
breakfast time, at any rate.
For the rest of the meal he grumbled spasmodically behind the paper.
He reminded her irresistibly of a dog with a bone. From time to
time he fired little sentences at her--sentences which had neither
beginning nor end, and were generally associated with the government’s
shortcomings.
Suddenly she heard the grind of carriage wheels coming up the carriage
drive, and jumped from the table. She gave one glance through the
window and, without a word to her uncle, flew from the room.
He glared after her in astonishment. In a few minutes she came back,
with a delicate flush on her face and laughter in her eyes, leading a
tall, broad-shouldered young man, brown of face and smiling a little
uneasily, for he did not contemplate the coming interview with any
great sense of joy.
“This is Mr. Gallinford, Uncle,” said the girl. “You have met him
before, haven’t you?”
Sir Ralph not only had met him before, but did not wish to meet him
then. He was in no mood for introductions to strange people. He had,
moreover, a grievance against this young man who had so slighted his
hospitality. He greeted Frank Gallinford with a grunt in which he
expressed in his bluff, hearty English way, as he imagined it, at once
his welcome and a fore-taste of the reprimand which was coming.
“I am glad to meet you, sir,” said Frank.
He held out a big, hearty hand and shook Sir Ralph’s.
“I owe you an apology for not having come last night.”
Sir Ralph inclined his head. There was no doubt whatever about the
apology being due.
“I had a little adventure,” Frank went on, and proceeded to relate the
chief events of the previous evening.
In spite of the fact that he had made up his mind to accept no
explanation as being adequate, Sir Ralph found himself listening with
keen interest. The girl’s face showed her concern.
“Oh, Frank,” she said, in a shocked voice, “how terrible! Was he
killed?”
Frank nodded.
“I had an interview with the famous detective--what is his name?”
“Tillizini?” said Sir Ralph.
“Yes,” said Frank, “that was his name. A remarkable chap. Of course, I
handed the locket over to the police, and Tillizini has it now.”
“It’s very extraordinary,” said Sir Ralph, with a puzzled frown. “Your
description of the locket sounds very much like one I have in my
collection.”
A sudden panic of fear passed over him. What if this was the famous
locket? What if it had been abstracted without his noticing it?
“Excuse me,” he said.
Half-way to the door he turned. “Will you come along with me?--perhaps
your description of the medallion may be useful. I have got a fear----”
He shook his head.
“You don’t think it’s yours?” said the girl.
“I don’t know,” said Sir Ralph. He was obviously agitated. They
followed him from the room to his study--a handsome combination between
that and the library. From a steel drawer in his desk he took a key and
led the way again upstairs.
Sir Ralph was more than an amateur collector. Whatever his judgments
might be on the bench, there were few who could dispute his knowledge
of those articles of virtu which it was his delight to collect. The
Morte-Mannery collection, though a small one, was famous. It was Sir
Ralph’s pleasure, from time to time during the year, to show his
treasures to the great connoisseurs of Europe.
The joy of possessing something which nobody else had, or if they had,
only in a minor degree and in a less valuable form; and, moreover,
to hold these wonders of dead craftsmen which were coveted by less
fortunate people, which is the basis of every true collector’s pride,
was the great passion of Sir Ralph Morte-Mannery’s life.
He had devoted forty years to securing and arranging the hundred and
fifty lockets which formed his collection. The room in which they
lay had been specially constructed with a view to resisting fire and
burglars.
It was an open secret that, in rebuilding Highlawn after he had
acquired it, the whole scheme of renovation had circled about the
collection room. It was more like a prison than a museum, thought
Frank, as he followed his conductor through the narrow entrance guarded
with steel doors faced with rosewood.
It was lighted by a large window, heavily barred, the glass itself
being set with strong steel network. Burglar alarms of the most
ingenious character rendered entrance without detection almost
impossible. Floors, wall, and roof were of reinforced concrete. One
long case ran the length of the room, a strip of carpet on each side
forming the only attempt that had been made at comfort. The cases
themselves were under heavy wooden shutters, and these Sir Ralph
unlocked.
It was a disappointing display to the average man. Row after row of
medallions, dull gold, silver, jewels, enamels. There was nothing to
excite the enthusiasm of any other than a connoisseur.
Very quickly, one by one, Sir Ralph unshuttered the cases, his anxious
eyes running over the neatly ticketed rows.
“No,” he said, after a survey, “nothing has gone. I thought from your
description that my Leonard----”
The fire of the enthusiast came to his eyes. With hands that shook a
little he unlocked one case, and lifted out a small gold medallion.
“Why!” exclaimed Frank in astonishment as he took it in his hand. “This
is the very locket which the man gave me!”
Sir Ralph smiled.
“That is impossible,” he said. “Impossible! Only two such lockets were
known, and one has been irretrievably lost.” He held the little jewel
in his hand gingerly. “This and its fellow were made by the greatest
artist that the world has ever known, Leonardo da Vinci. The date is
probably 1387, and the design is Leonardo’s own. It expresses something
of the master’s genius. As you know, he was a man who was not satisfied
with painting pictures; there was no branch of art, from sculpture to
the very mixing of paint, in which he did not interest himself. He was
a doctor and a chemist of no mean qualities, and it was after the great
plague in Milan in 1386 that he made the two lockets, of which this is
the only one extant.
“One he gave to his patron, Il Moro, the usurper of the Duchy, and
the other he gave a year or two subsequently to Cæsar Borgia. They
were both commemorations of his patron’s escape from the plague. You
will observe on the back”--he turned the jewel over gently--“there
is an allegorical representation. You see the picture of the little
fiend?”--he pointed it out with his little finger. “That represents the
sickness which visited the whole of Italy. You see the angel?--That
must represent his ‘unconquerable patrons.’ What the other signs
are”--he smiled, and this cheerless room saw all the smiles that Sir
Ralph was prepared to bestow upon the world--“are incomprehensible to
me. Probably Leonardo was a Futurist.”
He chuckled at his own harmless jest, and the girl listened to him
wonderingly, for he was a different man in this atmosphere. She had
never seen him so before; he was human and tender and keen.
“The other medallion,” Sir Ralph went on, “was stolen from the Dublin
Museum. The thief was traced, after a great deal of trouble, to a
cross-Channel boat; he was seen to go on the boat to cross from Harwich
to the Hook of Holland. There must have been some of his confederates
on board, for in the night a great outcry was heard in one of the
cabins, and the detective who watched him saw him fleeing along the
deck pursued by two foreigners. Before they could either arrest the men
who were following or capture the man himself, he had leaped overboard,
and with him, it was presumed, had passed the second medallion.”
“What was the meaning of it all?” asked Frank.
Sir Ralph shook his head.
“We don’t know. It was supposed at the time that he was endeavouring
to give the jewel to some of his confederates, and that in the act of
doing so he was seen. The men who were chasing him that night on the
ship gave a plausible explanation; they said they thought he was mad
and endeavouring to commit suicide, and they were trying to prevent
him.”
He turned the jewel over again and looked at it lovingly before he
replaced it in its case.
“Whatever it was your unfortunate man had,” he said, “it was not the
fellow to this.”
Outside, he was himself again, cold, hard, commonplace, but that little
glimpse of his true character revealed much to Marjorie. She understood
now the ferocity of the sentence he had passed upon Mansingham. His
collection was more than wife or child, more precious than ambition;
his passion was strong enough to override his sense of justice.
He looked at his watch with a frown. He had remembered one of the
unpleasant facts of life.
“Vera has not returned. I thought she would have come down by the same
train as you.”
“I was the only passenger for Burboro’, as far as I can remember,” said
Frank.
Sir Ralph looked at his watch again.
“There’s another train in by now,” he said, “she ought to be here.”
He had hardly spoken the words when Vera’s voice was heard in the hall
below, making inquiries of the servants.
“Oh, there you are,” she cried.
She looked up as the party descended the broad stairway into the hall.
For a moment a look of wonder came into her eyes at the sight of Frank.
“You have never met Mr. Gallinford, have you?” asked Marjorie, as she
introduced them.
“I am very glad to meet you now, at any rate,” said Vera cheerfully.
She was glad, too, that there was some other interest to temper her
husband’s annoyance. That he should be annoyed she took for granted. It
was the atmosphere which invariably met her on her return from town.
He looked again at his watch, and then at her, and she understood the
significance of the examination.
“I am so sorry,” she said carelessly. “I lost the fast train and had
to take the slow one. It was very annoying. I think my watch must have
been wrong.”
Vera had a very beautiful voice, low and rich, and full of beautiful
qualities.
“You’ve been seeing our wonderful collection?” she said.
Sir Ralph snorted. He hated any claim to partnership in respect to his
medallions, and Vera knew it. It was her oblique reply to his unspoken
attack.
“You haven’t seen the best of them; you ought to see the belts,” she
said.
“That is a collection which is not sufficiently complete,” interrupted
Sir Ralph stiffly, “to be examined. Really, Vera, I wish you would not
embarrass me by these references.”
He strode off to the library, leaving them alone.
She laughed softly.
“He’s a great trial sometimes,” she said, half to herself.
Then she turned to the girl, and Marjorie noticed with pleasure that
the moodiness and depression of yesterday was entirely dissipated. She
was at her brightest; her ready smile came and went.
In a few moments she was chatting with Frank Gallinford about Italy as
though she had known him all her life.
“It must be a quaint country,” she said. “You know, I’ve a peculiar
affection for the land. I am half Italian myself.”
“Are you really?” It was Marjorie who asked the question with girlish
delight. “Oh, I say, how romantic! Don’t you ever want to stab Uncle
with a stiletto or something?”
She laughed, but Frank’s smile was a trifle grim. He had too vivid a
recollection of somebody striking at him with a stiletto to derive the
full amount of amusement out of the question. That was part of the
story which he had not deemed it necessary to tell.
“Oh, no,” drawled Vera, “I never feel sufficiently bloodthirsty.”
Suddenly Frank’s face went drawn and gray. He stepped back with a
little cry.
“What is the matter?” asked Marjorie, in alarm.
He passed his hand over his eyes.
“But really--aren’t you ill?”
He shook his head.
“No, it’s a little passing giddiness,” he muttered. He was seized with
an overpowering anxiety to get away.
“I forgot,” said the girl sympathetically, “you’ve had such a trying
night. I’ll see if your room is ready; perhaps if you were to lie down
for an hour or two you would be better.”
He nodded, and, raising his head, met Vera’s curious eyes.
“If you will forgive the impertinence,” he said slowly, “that is a
curious ring of yours.”
She turned white and put her hands quickly behind her back; but too
late--he had seen the square black opal--for the second time in
twenty-four hours.