AMBER SEES THE MAP
Cynthia Sutton was twenty-three, and, by all standards, beautiful. Her
hair was a rich chestnut, her eyes were big, and of that shade which is
either blue or grey, according to the light in which they were seen.
Her nose was straight, her upper lip short; her lips full and red, her
skin soft and unblemished. “She has the figure of a woman, and the eyes
of a child,” said Amber, describing her, “and she asked me to come to
tea.”
“And you didn’t go,” said Peter, nodding his head approvingly. “You
realized that your presence might compromise this innercent flower.
‘No,’ you sez to yourself, ‘no, I will go away, carrying a fragrant
memory, an’----’”
“To be exact, my Peter,” said Amber, “I forgot all about the
appointment in the hurry and bustle of keeping out of Lambaire’s way.”
They were sitting in the little room under the roof of 19, Redcow
Court, and the sweet song of the caged birds filled the apartment with
liquid melody.
“No,” continued Amber thoughtfully, “I must confess to you, my Peter,
that I had none of those interestin’ conversations with myself that
your romantic soul suggests.”
He looked at his watch. It was ten o’clock in the forenoon, and he
stared through the open window, his mind intent upon a problem.
“I ought to see her,” he said, half to himself; he was groping for
excuses. “This business of young Sutton’s ... compass and chart ...
hidden treasures and all that sort of thing, eh, my Peter?”
Peter’s eyes were gleaming from behind his gold-rimmed spectacles, and
his hand shook with excitement, as he rose and made his way to the
cretonne-curtained shelves.
“I’ve got a yarn here,” he said, fumbling eagerly amongst his literary
treasures, “that will give you some ideas: money and pieces of
eight--what is a piece of eight?” He turned abruptly with the question.
“A sovereign,” said Amber promptly, “eight half-crowns.” He was in the
mood when he said just the first thing that came into his head.
“Um!” Peter resumed his search, and Amber watched him with the gentle
amusement that one reserves for the enthusiasm of children at play.
“Here it is,” said Peter.
He drew forth from a pile of books one, gaudy of colour and
reckless of design. “This is the thing,”--he dusted the paper cover
tenderly--“_Black Eyed Nick, or, The Desperado’s Dream of Ducats_;
how’s that?”
Amber took the book from the old man and inspected it, letting the
pages run through his fingers rapidly.
“Fine,” he said, with conviction. “Put it with my pyjamas, I’ll read
myself to sleep with it”--he spoke a little absently, for his mind was
elsewhere.
It was a relief to him when Peter left him to “shop.” Shopping was the
one joy of Peter’s life, and usually entailed a very careful rehearsal.
“A penn’oth of canary seed, a quarter of tea, two of sugar, four
bundles of wood, a pint of paraffin, tell the greengrocer to send me
half a hundred of coal, eggs, bit of bacon--you didn’t like the bacon
this morning, did you, Amber?--some kippers, a chop--how will a chop
suit you?--and a pound of new potatoes; I think that’s all.”
Leaning out of the window, Amber saw him disappearing up the court, his
big rush bag gripped tightly in his hand, his aged top-hat tilted to
the back of his head.
Amber waited until he was out of sight, then made his way to his
bedroom and commenced to change his clothes.
A quarter of an hour later he was on his way to Warwick Gardens.
The maid who answered his knock told him that her mistress was engaged,
but showed him into a little study.
“Take her a note,” said Amber, and scribbled a message in his
pocket-book, tearing out the leaf.
When the twisted slip of paper came to her, Cynthia was engaged in
a fruitless, and, so far as Lambaire was concerned, a profitless
discussion on her brother’s projected expedition. She opened the note
and coloured. “Yes,” she said with a nod to the maid, and crumpled the
note in her hand.
“I hardly think it is worth while continuing this discussion,” she
said; “it is not a question of my approval or disapproval: if my
brother elects to take the risk, he will go, whatever my opinions are
on the subject.”
“But, my dear young lady,” said Lambaire eagerly, “you are wrong; it
isn’t only the chart which you have placed at our disposal----”
“At my brother’s,” she corrected.
“It isn’t only that,” he went on, “it’s the knowledge that you are in
sympathy with our great project: it means a lot to us, ye know, Miss
Cynthia----”
“Miss Sutton,” she corrected again.
“It means more than you can imagine; I’ve made a clean breast of my
position. On the strength of your father’s statement about this mine,
I floated a company; I spent a lot of money on the expedition. I sent
him out to Africa with one of the best caravans that have been got
together--and now the shareholders are bothering me. ‘Where’s that
mine of yours?’ they say. Why”--his voice sank to an impressive
whisper--“they talk of prosecuting me, don’t they, Whitey?”
“They do indeed,” said his responsive companion truthfully.
“So it was a case of fair means or foul,” he went on. “I had to get the
plan, and you wouldn’t give it me. I couldn’t burgle your house for it,
could I?”
He smiled pleasantly at the absurdity of taking such a course, and she
looked at him curiously.
“It is strange that you should say that,” she replied slowly, “for
remarkably enough this house was burgled twice after my refusal to part
with the little map.”
“Remarkable!” said Lambaire.
“Astoundin’!” said Whitey, no less surprised.
She rose from her chair.
“Since the matter has been settled--so far as I have anything to do
with it,” she said, “you will excuse my presence.”
She left the room, and Amber, sitting in the little study, heard the
swish of her skirts and rose to meet her.
There was a touch of pink in her cheeks, but she was very grave and
self-possessed, as she favoured him with the slightest of bows and
motioned him to a seat.
“Good of you to see me, Miss Sutton,” said Amber.
She noted, with a little pang, that he was quite at ease. There
could be little hope for a man who was so lost to shame that he
gloried in his misspent career rather than showed some indication of
embarrassment in the presence of a woman who knew him for what he was.
“I felt I owed you this interview at least,” she replied steadily. “I
wish----” She stopped.
“Yes?” Amber perked his head on one side inquiringly. “You were going
to say that you wished----?”
“It does not matter,” she said. She felt herself blushing.
“You wish you could do something for me,” he said with a half-smile,
“but, my lady, half the good people in the world are trying to do
something for me. I am hopeless, I am incorrigible; regard me as that.”
Nevertheless, lightly as he discussed the question of his regeneration,
he eyed her keenly to see how she would take the rejection of help.
To his relief, and somewhat to his annoyance also, be it admitted, he
observed she accepted his valuation of himself very readily.
“I have come to see you to-day,” he went on, “in relation to a matter
which is of supreme importance to you. Do you mind answering a few
questions I put to you?”
“I have no objection,” she said.
“Your father was an explorer, was he not?”
“Yes.”
“He knew Central Africa very well?”
“Yes--very well.”
“He discovered a mine--a diamond mine, or something of the sort?”
She shook her head with a smile.
“That has yet to be proved,” she said. “He had heard, from the natives,
of a wonderful river--the River of Stars they called it, because in its
bed were stones, many of which had been polished by the action of the
water until they glittered,--they were undoubtedly diamonds, for my
father purchased a number from the people of the country.”
Amber nodded.
“And then I suppose he came home and got into touch with Lambaire?”
“That is so,” she said, wondering at the course the interview was
taking.
Amber nodded thoughtfully.
“The rest of the story I know,” he said. “I was at pains to look up
the circumstances attending your father’s death. You received from the
Commissioner of the district a chart?”
She hesitated.
“I did--yes.”
He smiled.
“I have no designs upon the mine, but I am anxious to see the
chart--and before you refuse me, Miss Sutton, let me tell you that I am
not prompted by idle curiosity.”
“I believe that, Mr. Amber,” she said; “if you wait, I will get it for
you.”
She was gone for ten minutes and returned with a long envelope. From
this she extracted a soiled sheet of paper and handed it to the
ex-convict.
He took it, and carried it to the window, examining it carefully.
“I see the route is marked from a point called Chengli--where is that?”
“In the Alebi forest,” she said; “the country is known as far as
Chengli; from there on, my father mapped the country, inquiring his way
from such natives as he met--this was the plan he had set himself.”
“I see.”
He looked again at the map, then from his pocket he took the compass he
had found in Lambaire’s safe. He laid it on the table by the side of
the map and produced a second compass, and placed the two instruments
side by side.
“Do you observe any difference in these, Miss Sutton?” he asked, and
the girl looked carefully.
“One is a needle compass, and on the other there is no needle,” she
said.
“That is so; the whole of the dial turns,” Amber nodded. “Nothing
else?” he asked.
“I can see no other difference,” she said, shaking her head.
“Where is the north on the dial?”
She followed the direction of the letter N and pointed.
“Where is the north of the needle?”
Her brows knit in a puzzled frown, for the thin delicate needle of the
smaller compass pointed ever so slightly in a more westerly direction
than its fellow.
“What does that mean?” she asked, and their eyes met over the table.
* * * * *
Lambaire and his host had finished their business. Francis Sutton was
in a jubilant mood, and came into the hall with his patron.
“You mustn’t worry about my sister,” he said; “she’ll come round to
my way of thinking after a while--she’s a woman, you know,” he added
vaguely.
“I understand, my boy,” said the expansive Lambaire. “We both
understand, don’t we, Whitey?”
“Certainly,” said Whitey.
“Still, she’ll probably be annoyed if you go off without saying
good-bye,--where is your mistress, Susan?” he asked of the maid who had
come in answer to his bell.
“In the study, sir.”
“Come along.” He led the way to the study and opened the door.
“Cynthia----” he began.
They were leaning over the table; between them lay the map and the two
compasses. What Sutton saw, the other two saw; and Lambaire, sweeping
past the youth, snatched up his property.
“So that’s the game, is it?” he hissed: he was trembling with passion;
“that’s your little game, Amber!”
He felt Whitey’s hand grip his arm and recovered a little of his
self-possession.
“This man is not content with attempting to blackmail,” he said, “not
content with committing a burglary at my office and stealing valuable
drawings----”
“What does this mean, Cynthia?”
Sutton’s voice was stern, and his face was white with anger. For the
second time Amber came to the rescue. “Allow me,” he said.
“I’ll allow you nothing,” stormed the boy; “get out of this house
before I kick you out. I want no gaol birds here.”
“It is a matter of taste, my Francis,” said the imperturbable Amber;
“if you stand Lambaire you’d stand anybody.”
“I’ll settle with you later,” said Lambaire darkly.
“Settle now,” said Amber in his most affable manner. “Mr. Sutton,” he
said, “that man killed your father, and he will kill you.”
“I want none of your lies,” said Sutton; “there’s the door.”
“And a jolly nice door too,” said Amber; “but I didn’t come here to
admire your fixtures: ask Lambaire to show you the compass, or one like
it, that he provided for your father’s expedition. Send it to Greenwich
and ask the astronomers to tell you how many points it is out of the
true--they will work out to a mile or so how far wrong a man may go who
made his way by it, and tried to find his way back from the bush by
short cuts.”
“Francis, you hear this?” said the girl.
“Rubbish!” replied the youth contemptuously. “What object could Mr.
Lambaire have had? He didn’t spend thousands of pounds to lose my
father in the bush! The story isn’t even plausible, for, unless my
father got back again to civilization with the plan, the expedition was
a failure.”
“Exactly!” applauded Lambaire, and smiled triumphantly.
Amber answered smile for smile.
“It wasn’t the question of his getting back, as I understand the
matter,” he said quietly; “it was a question whether, having located
the mine, and having returned with the map, _and_ the compass, whether
anybody else would be able to locate it, or find their way to it,
without Lambaire’s Patent Compass.”
The tangled skein of the plot was unravelled before the girl’s eyes,
and she looked from Amber to the stout Lambaire.
“I see, I see,” she whispered. “Francis,” she cried, “don’t you
understand what it all means----”
“I understand that you’re a fool,” he said roughly; “if you’ve finished
your lies, you can go, Amber.”
“I have only a word to add,”--Amber picked up his hat. “If you do not
realize that Lambaire is the biggest wrong ’un outside prison--I might
add for your information that he is a notorious member of the Big Five
Gang; a forger of bank-notes and Continental securities; he has also a
large interest in a Spanish coining establishment--didn’t think I knew
it, eh, my Lambie?--where real silver half-crowns are manufactured
at a profit, thanks to the fact that silver is a drug on the market.
Beyond that I know nothing against him.”
“There’s the door,” said Sutton again.
“Your conversation is decidedly monotonous,” said Amber, and with a
smile and a friendly nod to the girl, he left.