A NEW VIEW OF THE FLURSCHEIM ROBBERY
Time did not touch Mr. Hildebrand Flurscheim's sore with a healing
finger. A month after he had been robbed of his treasures the wound
was still open, though by that time he had been wise enough to conceal
it with a decent bandage from the curious eyes of the public. But
his friends and his enemies knew that it was there and condoled or
rejoiced, according to their several temperaments. Perhaps there were
more who rejoiced than of those who pitied him, for Flurscheim was not
a popular man. Even his friends were compelled to admit that he was
something of a curmudgeon, and were not quite so sorry as they would
have been had the loss fallen upon anyone else.
After the robbery he became more curmudgeonish than ever, and his
perpetual growlings at everything and everybody made him so undesirable
a companion that even his poor relations began to find that his company
was an infliction that was barely endurable, even when sweetened by
the prospect of figuring in his will. Yet as people shrank from him
he seemed anxious for society. Partly because he realised that if he
were cloistered with his own thoughts his broodings would terminate
in madness, and partly because he wished to make clear to the world
that his loss was a mere triviality to a man of his wealth, he sought
to entertain in a manner which was entirely foreign to his earlier
habit and his real desire. He had a wide acquaintance, and there were
many of the butterflies of fashion and rank who were attracted to his
dinner-table once by curiosity. If, after the experience, they decided
not to go a second time, it was too early for the connoisseur to have
discovered the fact. It was in pursuance of this campaign of detraction
that he had found himself at the opera when his stares had proved so
discomposing to Meriel Challys and--afterwards--to Guy. The latter,
had he known, need have taken no alarm. Flurscheim's scrutiny was not
directed towards him. Meriel's face alone had engaged his attention.
He had first caught sight of her as she had bent forward to drink in
the music, and he recognised that her features were familiar to him,
but where and when he had met her he could not for the moment remember.
It was not until after he had left the opera house that his memory
supplied the answer he sought. Then he remembered that one of the
stolen miniatures would have served as a portrait of the girl.
Immediately he began to weave a new theory concerning the burglary. He
had woven many theories before; avarice, spite, disappointed rivalry
had all supplied motives for them, but never had he considered the
possibility of a love motive for the robbery. Supposing that some
unfavoured suitor had seen the miniature, and, coveting it, had broken
in to steal it. No! Such a theory was too wild for even his own belief.
Yet the likeness was so extraordinary that he looked forward to meeting
the owner of the strangely attractive face again.
Fortune favoured him, for within a week he found himself at a garden
party at which Meriel was also a guest. He sought and obtained an
introduction from the hostess, and was quite oblivious to the chilly
character of his reception.
"I particularly wanted to meet you, Miss Challys. Indeed, I may say
that since I saw you at the opera a week ago your face has really
haunted me," said Flurscheim.
Meriel's eyebrows arched. She meditated flight.
"I'm afraid you must have thought me an awful bounder, staring at you
the other night," he continued, "but your face was so familiar to me,
and yet I could not recall where I had met you. It wasn't until after
the opera was over that I remembered that one of my stolen miniatures
was a most striking portrait of you; I hope that you will realise that
my rudeness was unintentional."
"I certainly did not think so at the time," replied Meriel.
"It was quite a relief when I placed my memory," said the connoisseur.
"D'you know that I'm one of those men that are made supremely
uncomfortable by a lapse of memory of that sort. I begin to think my
brain's failing if it doesn't respond at once to any call I make upon
it, and after my recent worry I really began to be anxious."
"Did the burglary worry you so much as all that?" replied Meriel.
Usually sympathetic to any story of trouble, she felt it difficult
to express any sympathy with the loss the wealthy connoisseur had
sustained.
"Worry me?" asked Flurscheim in an astonished tone.
"Worry me?" he repeated. "Worry isn't the name for
what I've gone through. I can see you don't understand
what a collector's treasures mean to him. My
dear young lady"--in his excitement an accent became audible which made
of the words "ma tear young lady,"--"my pictures are what I've lived
for. If I lose them my life is as empty--as empty"--he looked round for
an appropriate simile and found one handy--"as most of these people's
pockets."
Meriel smiled at the racial revelation. Flurscheim thought she smiled
at the simile itself. "Fortunately it was only one of my pictures that
was taken," he continued, "but"--he could not resist the wail--"it was
the best of the lot. I would rather have lost any two of the others."
Meriel began to be interested in the man. He was manifestly honest in
his confession. She even managed to infuse a little sympathy into her
enquiry as to whether the police had obtained no clue to the thief. By
so asking she struck another chord in the keyboard of the Flurscheim
emotions.
"The police! Fools! Dolts! Idiots!" he exclaimed. "Of what use are
the police but to strut about and direct the traffic? When it comes
to catching thieves they are just about as useful as the pigeons in
the parks. Some of them call themselves detectives," he continued
with virulent scorn. "There's one of them called Kenly, an inspector
with a reputation of being one of the smartest men at Scotland Yard!
Got it, I should think, the same way as an owl gets a reputation for
wisdom. Cocks his ears, opens his eyes wide, and keeps his mouth shut.
For nearly six weeks he has been doing nothing else but investigate
my robbery. And what has he found out? Nothing, absolutely nothing.
Detectives, bah!" He pulled himself up with an effort. "I've
promised myself I wouldn't talk about the matter to anyone, Miss
Challys. I can't do so without losing my temper, and it will give you a
very bad opinion of me if I have to apologise to you twice in one day."
"You seem to lose it pretty easily, Mr. Flurscheim," she answered.
"Can't help it, Miss Challys. So I'll apologise straight away for doing
so and for staring at you the other night, for I know you were annoyed.
It never struck me that you might be annoyed, you know. Most girls
to-day take it as a compliment when a man looks 'em over."
Meriel stiffened and, looking away, met Guy's eyes. She had known
that he expected to be present, and at the recognition her whole face
brightened. Guy had already recognised Flurscheim, and though the fact
that he was apparently engaged in earnest conversation with Meriel gave
him a twinge of apprehension, he did not hesitate to come forward.
Flurscheim looked upon the young man disapprovingly as Meriel put her
hand in his. He saw that his existence was momentarily obliterated from
the girl's mind. But he did not move from her side, and when, still
forgetful, she strolled away with Guy across the lawn without even
turning her head in his direction, he muttered a curse in which Guy was
included amongst things in general, but from which Meriel herself was
just as certainly excluded.
No sooner were they out of hearing than Guy gave expression to the
curiosity which the sight of Flurscheim in conversation with Meriel had
excited in him.
"However did that bounder Flurscheim manage to corner you, Miss
Challys?" he asked.
Meriel glanced round. "Oh! I had quite forgotten him,"
she said laughing, "although I was wondering how I should manage to
escape him when I saw you."
"After staring at you the other night in so impertinent a manner I
wonder he had the cheek to face you," continued Guy irritably.
"Oh! he explained all that," replied Meriel. "He sought me out
to-day in order to apologise." She told how the connoisseur had been
puzzled to account for his familiarity with her face and his ultimate
recognition of her as the autotype of one of his missing miniatures.
Guy smiled at the explanation. He realised with an exceptional
degree of pleasure that the miniature was now in his own possession.
He had long ago carefully removed the picture from the lid of the
snuff-box in which it had been set and had reset it himself in a
simple gold frame with a circlet of brilliants. It was his by right of
possession, and he determined that it should remain his. Incidentally
the information Meriel had given him that she had been the object of
Flurscheim's scrutiny came as a relief. It was proof that he himself
was in no way suspected. At the same time it seemed to Guy an added
impertinence on the part of the connoisseur that he should have sought
to make Meriel's acquaintance. It gave him pleasure to think that he
had despoiled the Jew of his treasures. He would have liked to have
confided his thoughts to the girl at his side. He was almost on the
point of doing so when his common sense bade him pause. She would not
understand. She was not tutored in the doctrine of the rights of the
individual to possess everything upon which he may lay his hand. But
he could not resist the opportunity which seemed to offer to open
her eyes to some of his own beliefs. If he presented them
delicately they might not offend. Crudely expressed, he knew that she
would not listen.
"Flurscheim is hardly the sort of person who deserves to possess
beautiful things," he hazarded.
"There seems something incongruous in the idea," she said smiling her
reply. "But there can be no doubt but that he has a very real love for
them."
"Can't believe it," said Guy emphatically. "The capacity to acquire
beautiful things and the capacity to see their beauties rarely go
together."
"I should think that your argument would rather apply to the burglar
who stole Mr. Flurscheim's valuables than to Mr. Flurscheim," replied
Meriel merrily.
"Not necessarily," answered Guy. "It might be that the person in whose
possession they are now is far more capable of appreciating the Greuze
or of the miniature which he declares is so like yourself, than he is,
and if such should happen to be the case hasn't the present possessor
as much right as Flurscheim to the enjoyment of them?"
He spoke lightly and Meriel replied in the same tone.
"Isn't that an argument which might apply to anything of the nature of
personal possessions?" she asked.
"Certainly," he responded quickly. "Is the man or woman, who wants
a thing, to go without it when somebody else has more of the same
article than he knows what to do with? Look at that fat old woman over
there"--the disrespectful allusion referred to the maternal relative
of the latest American addition by marriage to the list of British
peeresses--"she's so loaded up with jewels that she absolutely clanks
as she walks. She has enough on her to satisfy the aspirations of a
hundred ordinary women. Why should she have all those pretty stones and
trinkets and lots of other women go without?"
"She certainly is wearing far too much jewellery for a garden party,"
replied Meriel, her eyes twinkling.
"Yet if any other woman were to relieve her of even the smallest of her
extraneous adornments the mere possession of which would probably give
her far more pleasure than it does to the present possessor, there's
not a man or woman here who would not cry 'to gaol with the thief,'"
said Guy.
Despite his intention, Guy had warmed to the argument, and he awoke a
corresponding earnestness in his companion.
"I don't think I should," she said quietly. "I should pity her too
much."
"But why?" he asked. "She would merely have shown herself to have the
courage of her desires."
Meriel shook her head. "I always pity people who cannot control their
desires, particularly when those desires are for things that don't
belong to them."
"But," urged Guy, "everyone is born with the right to enjoy. That
fat old woman has long ago ceased to find enjoyment in many of her
trinkets. Why pity anyone who would at one stroke relieve her of her
burden and at the same time provide themselves with a new pleasure?"
Meriel knitted her brows. "I'm no good at an ethical argument, Mr.
Hora," she said. "And I am quite sure you only want to get me to agree
with you so that you may laugh at me afterwards."
"No," he answered. "I've no _arrière pensée_ of the sort
you imagine. I know you would think it wrong, the majority think it
wrong for anyone to help themselves to other people's things. I want to
know why."
Meriel looked at him archly. "Suppose I were to slip behind that
comfortable old lady and snip off that little watch all studded with
diamonds from her chatelaine, what would you think of me?"
"I wish to Heaven you would," he answered.
Meriel laughed. "I should never have thought that you could be so
strongly provoked by mere ostentation."
"I was not thinking of the old woman," he answered. "My admiration
would be entirely attributable to your pluck in defying the
conventions."
"But afterwards?" she objected. "You could never have the slightest
respect for me."
"On the contrary----" he began.
She interrupted him. "No," she said. "You would no more respect me than
I could you, if, for instance, you had stolen poor Mr. Flurscheim's
picture."
He was taken aback by the apposite allusion. For a second, and for a
second only, he imagined that there was intention in her selection of
the simile. But a glance into the smiling eyes which met his so frankly
disabused his mind of the idea. Clearly, the girl never thought that
he could possibly have engaged in such an adventure. She had not the
slightest idea that he was guilty--no, that was the wrong word, the
coward's word, no guilt attached to his actions--that he was capable of
such a feat. She saw that he was disturbed and continued gaily.
"Why, even the supposition of such a thing is
repugnant to you, and yet you ask why?"
"Even suppose that the idea is repugnant," he replied, "I still ask why
it is so. Reason could justify the action."
"For reason say sophistry," she answered quickly. "You know that
the repugnance of the thought is inbred. It's inherited. We can't
help thinking like that because the knowledge of right and wrong is
intuitive."
"A woman's answer," he answered lightly.
"A man's still more," she said with earnestness. "One might possibly
forgive a woman's theft. We are the weaker creatures and the more
easily swayed by our desires. But the man should be strong enough to
resist. No man worthy the name could stoop to dishonour himself in so
petty a manner, nor could he have aught but contempt for the woman who
so gave way to her covetousness. No, Mr. Hora. You could never persuade
me that you could have an atom of respect for me if I were to so forget
my principles as to filch any one of the over-jewelled dowager's
trinkets? Now, would you?"
He sought refuge from the direct answer in a side issue. "But if your
principles were such that you honestly believed that the good lady had
no more right than yourself to her jewels and that only the fear of
punishment restrained you from taking possession of them?"
Meriel laughed gaily. "I cannot even conceive such a possibility," she
said. "It seems to me you are preaching anarchy, and I'm not the least
little bit of an anarchist."
The approach of a third person interrupted Guy's
reply. Looking away from Meriel he saw Captain Marven
standing beside him. The Captain had heard his niece's
concluding words and he corroborated them.
"I can safely swear that a more tyrannical dictator of law and order
than Meriel never stepped over a man's threshold. You must accuse her
of something else, Hora."
Guy laughed and the subject dropped. But the conversation had made
an impression upon him. It had destroyed, though at the time he did
not recognise the fact, the delight he had felt in being something
apart from other men, the exhilaration of being in conflict with
the world. The obvious scorn which the girl felt for the thief,
her absolute belief that the idea of theft was as repugnant to
him as it was to herself, were deadly blows to the philosophy
which Lynton Hora fondly imagined he had planted so deeply as to
be ineradicable. Guy felt that his belief was crumbling. He knew
that if he were to be true to the man he knew as father he should
forswear the bewitching companionship of the girl who exercised
so unsettling an influence upon him, nevertheless when a little
later Captain Marven asked him to visit them at their country
home when the season was over, he accepted eagerly.