ABDUL HAMID'S JEWELS
Rudolph Rayne, though the ruler of aristocratic Crookdom, was
sometimes most sympathetic and generous towards lovers.
The following well illustrates his strange abnormal personality and
complex nature:
One night I chanced to enter his bedroom at Half Moon Street, when I
found him looking critically through a quantity of the most
magnificent sparkling gems my eyes had ever seen. Some were set as
pendants, brooches, and earrings, while others--great rubies and
emeralds of immense value--were uncut.
As I entered he put his hands over them in distinct annoyance. Then, a
few seconds later, removed them, saying with a queer laugh:
"A nice little lot this, eh? One of the very finest collections I've
seen."
On the table lay a pair of jewelers' tweezers and a magnifying glass,
therefore it was apparent that, as a connoisseur of gems, he had been
estimating their value.
"By Jove!" I exclaimed. "They certainly are magnificent! Whose are
they?"
"They once belonged to the dead Sultan Abdul Hamid of Turkey," he
replied; "but at present they belong to me!" He laughed grimly.
Inwardly I wondered by what means the priceless gems had fallen into
his hands. He read my thoughts at once, for he said:
"You are curious, of course, as to how I became possessed of them.
Naturally. Well, Hargreave, it's a very funny story and concerns a
real good fellow and, incidentally, a very pretty girl. Take a cigar,
sit down, and I'll tell you frankly all about it--only, of course, not
a word of the facts will ever pass your lips--not to Lola, or to
anybody else. Your lips are sealed."
"I promise," I said, selecting one of his choice cigars and lighting
it, my curiosity aroused.
"Then listen," he said, "and I'll tell you the whole facts, as far as
I've been able to gather them."
What he recounted was certainly romantic, though a little involved,
for he was not a very good _raconteur_. However, in setting down this
curious story--a story which shows that he was not altogether bad, and
was a sportsman after all--I have rearranged his words in narrative
form, so that readers of these curious adventures may fully
understand.
* * * * *
"How horribly glum you are to-night, dear! What's the matter? Are you
sad that we should meet here--in Paris?" asked a pretty girl.
"Glum!" echoed the smooth-haired young man in the perfectly fitting
dinner-jacket and black tie. "I really didn't know that I looked
glum," and then, straightening himself, he looked across the _table a
deux_ in the gay Restaurant Volnay at the handsome, dark-haired,
exquisitely dressed girl who sat before him with her elbows on the
table.
"Yes, you really are jolly glum, my dear Old Thing. You looked a
moment ago as serious as though you were going to a funeral," declared
the girl. "The war is over, you are prospering immensely--so what on
earth causes you to worry?"
"I'm not worrying, dearest, I assure you," he replied with a forced
smile, but her keen woman's intuition told her that her lover was not
himself, and that his mind was full of some very keen anxiety.
Charles Otley had taken her to a most amusing play at the
Palais-Royal, a comedy which had kept the house in roars of laughter
all the evening, and now, as they sat at supper, she saw that his
spirits had fallen to a very low ebb. This puzzled her greatly.
Peggy Urquhart, daughter of Sir Polworth Urquhart, of the Colonial
Service, who until the Armistice had held a high official appointment
at Hong Kong, was one of the smartest and prettiest young women in
London Society. She was twenty-two, a thorough-going out-of-door girl
who looked slightly older than she really was. Her father had retired
as soon as war was over, and they had come to England. By reason of
her mother being the daughter of the Earl of Carringford, she had
soon found herself a popular figure in a mad, go-ahead post-war set.
She had known Charlie Otley soon after she had left Roedene--long
before they had gone out to Hong Kong--and now they were back they
were lovers in secret.
Charlie, who had been a motor engineer before he "joined up" in the
war and got his D.S.O. and his rank as captain, had done splendidly.
On being demobilized he had returned to his old profession, taking the
managership of a very well-known Bond Street firm.
The directors, finding in Otley a man who knew his business, whose
persuasive powers induced many persons to purchase cars, and whose
fearless tests at Brooklands were paragraphed in the daily newspapers,
treated him most generously and left everything, even many of their
financial affairs, in his hands.
Lady Urquhart was, however, an ambitious woman. She inherited all the
exclusiveness of the Carringfords, and she was actively scheming to
marry Peggy to Cis Eastwood, the heir to the estates of old Lord
Drumone. It was the old story of the ambitious mother. Peggy knew
this, and, smiling within herself, had pledged her love to Charlie.
Hence, with the latitude allowed to a girl nowadays, she went about a
good deal with him in London--to the Embassy, the Grafton, the
Diplomats, and several of the smartest dance-clubs, of which both were
members.
Though Otley was often at her house in Mount Street, and frequently
met Lord Drumone's fair-haired and rather effeminate son there,
Peggy's mother never dreamed they were in love. Both were extremely
careful to conceal it, and in their efforts they had been successful.
The orchestra was at the moment playing that plaintive Hungarian gypsy
air, Bela's _Valse Banffy_, that sweet, weird song of the Tziganes
which one hears everywhere along the Danube from Vienna to Belgrade.
"Look here, Charlie," said the girl, much perturbed at what she had
recognized in his handsome countenance. "Tell me, Old Thing, what's
the matter?"
"Matter--why, nothing!" he replied, laughing. "I was only thinking."
And he looked around upon the smart crowd of Parisians who were
laughing and chatting.
"Of what?"
He hesitated for a second. In that hesitation the girl who loved him
so fondly, and who preferred him to old Drumone's son and a title,
realized that he had some heavy weight upon his mind, and quickly she
resolved to learn it, and try to bear the burden with him.
Since her return from China, with all its Asiatic mysteries, its
amusements, and its quaint Eastern life, she had had what she declared
to be a "topping" time in London. Her beauty was remarked everywhere
and her sweet charm of manner appealed to all. Her mother, who had
returned from her exile in the Far East, went everywhere, while her
father, a hard, austere Colonial official who had browsed upon
reports, and regarded all natives of any nationality or culture as
mere "blacks," was one of those men who had never been able to
assimilate his own views with those of the nation to which he had been
sent as British representative. He was a hide-bound official, a man
who despised any colored race, and treated all natives with stern and
unrelenting hand. Indeed, the Colonial Office had discovered him to be
a square peg in a round hole, and at Whitehall they were relieved when
he went into honorable retirement.
"Do tell me what's the matter, dear," whispered the girl across the
table, hoping that the pair seated near them did not know English.
"The matter! Why, nothing," again laughed the handsome young man.
"Have a liqueur," and he ordered two from the waiter. "I can't think
what you've got into your head to-night regarding me, Peggy. I was
only reflecting for a few seconds--on some business."
"Grave business--it seems."
"Not at all. But we men who have to earn our living by business have
to think overnight what we are to do on the morrow," he said airily,
as he handed his cigarette-case to her and then lit the one she took.
"But Charlie--I'm certain there's something--something you are
concealing from me."
"I conceal nothing from you, dearest," he answered, looking across the
little table straight into her fine dark eyes. Then again he bent
towards her and whispered very seriously: "Do you really love me,
Peggy?"
In his glance was a tense eager expression, yet upon his face was
written a mystery she could not fathom.
"Why do you ask, dear?" she said. "Have I not told you so a hundred
times. What I have said, I mean."
"You really mean--you really mean that you love me--eh?" he whispered
in deep earnestness as he still bent to her over the table, his eyes
fixed on hers. And he drew a long breath.
"Yes," she answered. "But why do you ask the question in that tone?
How tragic you seem!"
"Because," and he sighed, "because your answer lifts a great weight
from my mind." Then, after a pause, he added: "Yet--yet, I wonder----"
"Wonder what?"
"Nothing," he answered. "I was only wondering."
"But you really are tantalizing to-night, my dear boy," she said. "I
don't understand you at all."
"Ah! you will before long. Let's go out into the lounge," he
suggested. "It's growing late."
So, having drained their two glasses of triple sec, they passed out
into the big palm-lounge, which is so popular with the Parisians after
the play.
Peggy and her parents had come to Paris in mid-December to do some
shopping. Before she had been exiled to China, Lady Urquhart's habit
was to go to Paris twice each year to buy her hats and gowns, for she
was always elegantly dressed, and she took care that her daughter
should dress equally well.
Indeed, the gown worn by Peggy that night was one of Worth's latest
creations, and her cloak was an expensive one of the newest _mode_.
They were staying at the Continental when Charlie, who had some
business in Paris on behalf of his firm, had run over for three days
really to meet in secret the girl he loved. That night Peggy had
excused herself to her mother, saying that she was going out to
Neuilly to dine with an old schoolfellow--a little matter she had
arranged with the latter--but instead, she had met Charlie at
Voisin's, and they had been to the theater together.
Peggy, amid the exuberant atmosphere of Paris with its lights,
movement and gaiety--the old Paris just as it was before the
war--naturally expected her lover to be gay and irresponsible as she
herself felt. Instead, he seemed gloomy and apprehensive. Therefore
the girl was disappointed. She thought a good deal, but said little.
Though the distance between the Volnay and the Rue de Rivoli was not
great, Charlie ordered a taxi, and on the way she sat locked in his
strong arms, her lips smothered with his hot, passionate kisses, until
they parted.
Little did she dream, however, the bitterness in her lover's heart.
Next morning at eleven o'clock, as Peggy was coming up the Avenue de
l'Opera, she passed the Brasserie de la Paix, that popular cafe on the
left-hand side of the broad thoroughfare, the place where the Parisian
gets such exquisite dishes at fair prices. Charlie was seated in the
window, as they had arranged, and on seeing her, he dashed out and
joined her.
"Well?" she asked. "How are you to-day? Not so awfully gloomy, I
hope."
"Not at all, dearest," he laughed, for his old nonchalance had
returned to him. "I've been full of business since nine o'clock. I
have an appointment out at La Muette at two, and I'll have to get back
to London to-night."
"To-night!" she echoed disappointedly. "We don't return till next
Tuesday."
"I have to be back to see my people about some cars that can't be
delivered for another six weeks. There's a beastly hitch about
delivery."
"Well," said the girl, as they walked side by side in the cold, bright
morning. The winter mornings are always bright and clearer in Paris
than in London. "Well, I have some news for you, dear."
"What news?" he asked.
"Lady Teesdale has asked us up to Hawstead, her place in Yorkshire. In
her letter to mother this morning she mentions that she is also asking
you."
"Me?"
"Yes. And, of course, you'll accept. Won't it be ripping? The
Teesdales have a lovely old place--oak-paneled, ghost-haunted, and all
that sort of thing. We've been there twice. The Teesdales'
shooting-parties are famed for their fun and merriment."
"I know Lady Teesdale," Otley said. "But I wonder why she has asked
me?"
"Don't wonder, dear boy--but accept and come. We'll have a real jolly
time."
And then they turned into the Boulevard des Italiens and idled before
some of the shops.
At noon she was compelled to leave him and return to her mother. He
put her into a taxi outside the Grand Hotel, and then they parted.
Before doing so, the girl said:
"What about next Wednesday? Shall we meet?"
"Yes," he replied.
"Very well," she exclaimed. "Wednesday at six--eh? I'll come up to
your rooms. We can talk there. I don't like to see you so worried,
dear. There's something you're concealing from me, I'm sure of it."
Then he bent over her hand in a fashion more courtly than the
"Cheerio!" of to-day, and standing on the curb watched the taxi speed
down the Rue de la Paix.
"Ah!" he murmured aloud, drawing a deep sigh. "Ah! If she only
knew!--_if she only knew!_"
He strode along the boulevard caring nothing where his footsteps led
him. The gay, elegant, careless crowd of Paris passed, but he had no
eyes for it all.
"Shall I tell her?" he went on aloud to himself. "Or shall I fade out,
and let her learn the worst after I'm gone? Yet would not that be a
coward's action? And I'm no coward. I went through the war--that hell
at Vimy, and I did my best for King and Country. Now, when love
happens and all that life means to a man is just within my grasp, I
have to retire to ignominy or death. I prefer the latter."
Next morning he stepped from the train at Victoria and drove to his
rooms in Bennett Street, St. James's. He was still obsessed by those
same thoughts which had prevented him from sleeping for the past week.
His man, Sanford, who had been his batman in France, met him with a
cheery smile, and after a bath and a shave he went round to his
business in Bond Street.
He was of good birth and had graduated at Brasenose. His father had
been a well-known official at the Foreign Office in the days of King
Edward and had died after a short retirement. In his life Charlie had
done his best, and had distinguished himself not only in his Army
career, but in that of the world of motoring, where his name was as
well known as any of the fearless drivers at Brooklands.
Otley was, indeed, a real good fellow, whose personality dominated
those with whom he did business, and the many cars, from Fords to
Rolls, which he sold for the profit of his directors paid tribute to
his easy-going merriment and his slim, well-set-up appearance. Those
who met him in that showroom in Bond Street never dreamed of the alert
leather-coated and helmeted figure who tore round the rough track at
Brooklands testing cars, and so often rising up that steep cemented
slope, the test of great speed.
At six o'clock on the Wednesday evening he stood in his cosy room in
Bennett Street awaiting Peggy. At last there was a ring at the outer
door, and Sanford showed her in.
She entered merrily, bringing with her a whiff of the latest Paris
perfume, and grasping his hand, cried:
"Well, are you feeling any happier?"
"Happier!" he echoed. "Why, of course!"
"And have you had Lady Teesdale's letter?"
"Yes. And I've accepted."
"Good. We'll have a real good time. But the worst of it is Cis has
been asked too!"
"I suppose your mother engineered that?"
"I don't think so. You see, he's Lady Teesdale's nephew. And it's a
big family party. Old Mr. Bainbridge, the steel king of Sheffield, and
his wife are to be there. She is a fat, rather coarse woman who has
wonderful jewels. They say that old Bainbridge gave eighty thousand
pounds for a unique string of stones, emeralds, diamonds, rubies and
sapphires which belonged to the old Sultan of Turkey, Abdul Hamid, and
which were sold in Paris six months ago."
"Yes. I've always heard that the old fellow has money to burn. Wish I
had!"
"So do I, Charlie. But, after all, money isn't everything. What shall
we do to-night?"
"Let's dance later on--shall we?" he suggested, and she consented
readily.
They sat by the fire together for half an hour chatting, while she
told him of her doings in Paris after he had left. Then she rose and
made an inspection of his bachelor room, examining his photographs, as
was her habit. Ten years ago a girl would hesitate to go to a
bachelor's room, but not so to-day when women can venture wherever men
can go.
On that same afternoon Sir Polworth Urquhart, returning home to Mount
Street at six o'clock, found among his letters on the study table a
thin one which bore a Hong Kong stamp. The superscription was, he saw,
in a native hand. He hated the sly Chinese and all their ways.
On tearing it open he found within a slip of rice-paper on which some
Chinese characters had been traced. He looked at them for a few
seconds and then translated them aloud to himself:
"Tai-K'an has not forgotten the great English mandarin!"
"Curse Tai-K'an!" growled Sir Polworth under his breath. "After ten
years I thought he had forgotten. But those Orientals are slim folk. I
hope his memory is a pleasant one," he added grimly as he rose and
placed the envelope and the paper in the fire.
"A very curious message," he reflected as he passed back to his
writing-table. "It's a threat--because of that last sign. I remember
seeing that sign before and being told that it was the sign of
vengeance of the Tchan-Yan, the secret society of the Yellow Riband.
But, bah! what need I care? I'm not in China now--thank Heaven!"
As he seated himself to answer his correspondence, however, a curious
drama rose before his eyes. One day, ten years ago, while acting as
Deputy-Governor, he had had before him a criminal case in which a
young Chinese girl was alleged to have caused her lover's death by
poison. The girl was the daughter of a small merchant named Tai-K'an,
who sold all his possessions in order to pay for the girl's defense.
The case was a flimsy one from the start, but in the native court
where it was heard there was much bribery by the friends of the dead
lover. Notwithstanding the fact that Tai-K'an devoted the whole of his
possessions to his daughter's defense, and that strong proof of guilt
fell upon a young Chinaman who was jealous of the dead man, the poor
girl was convicted of murder.
Sir Polworth remembered all the circumstances well. At the time he did
not believe in the girl's guilt, but the court had decided it so,
therefore why should he worry his official mind over the affairs of
mere natives? The day came--he recollected it well--when the sentence
of death was put before him for confirmation. Tai-K'an himself, a
youngish man, came to his house to beg the clemency of the great
British mandarin. With him was his wife and the brother of the
murdered man. All three begged upon their knees that the girl should
be released because she was innocent. But he only shook his head, and
with callous heartlessness signed the death-sentence and ordered them
to be shown out.
The girl's father then drew himself up and, with the fire of hatred in
his slant black eyes, exclaimed in very good English:
"You have sent my daughter to her death though she is innocent! You
have a daughter, Sir Polworth Urquhart. The vengeance of Tai-K'an will
fall upon her. Remember my words! May the Great Meng place his curse
upon you and yours for ever!" And the trio left the Deputy-Governor's
room.
That was nearly ten years ago.
He paced the room, for his reflections even now were uneasy ones. He
remembered how the facts were placed before the Colonial Office and
how the sentence of death was commuted to one of imprisonment. For
five years she remained in jail, until the real assassin committed
suicide after writing a confession.
Yet like all Chinese, Tai-K'an evidently nursed his grievance, and
time had not dulled the bitterness of his hatred.
But the offensive Chinaman was in Hong Kong--therefore what mattered,
Sir Polworth thought. So he seated himself and wrote his letters.