a gift. He told me that the custom of giving wedding presents was the
insane fashion of an insane age; that he consented to follow it only in
view of the fuss that society would make if his card did not lie on Lord
Varnley's table when the other presents were shown. In this bargaining
he displayed a meanness which was triumphant even for him. I must have
shown him quite a hundred rings, pins, and watches, of all values, from
fifty pounds to five hundred, before he could in any way make up his
mind, and he did not cease to rebuke me for that which he called my
preposterously extravagant insinuation. "Fifty sovereigns! a hundred
sovereigns!" he kept exclaiming; "Why, man alive, do you think I'm made
of money? Show me something cheap, something that five pounds will buy,
d'ye see? any bit of stuff's good enough for a jackanapes like that."
"But not for your card on Lord Varnley's table."
"Why, what do you mean?"
"People who are uncharitable, you know, might say that it was a
curiously insufficient present."
"D'ye think they'd say that?"
"I am sure they would."
"Pshaw!--so am I; that comes of being thought a rich man when you're as
poor as a parson. I'm quite a poor man, you know, Sutton."
I listened to him patiently, and in the end persuaded him to buy Watts
an exquisite set of jeweled links. These had a fine diamond in each of
them, but their greatest ornament was the superb enameling, worthy of
Jean Toutin or Petitot, with which all the gold was covered. I asked one
hundred and fifty pounds for these remarkable ornaments; and the old
man, struck, like the artist he was, with the perfection of the
workmanship, fixed his greedy eyes upon them, and was persuaded. He
protested that they were too good, far too good, for such a worthless
ingrate as his nephew, and that he ought to keep them in his own
collection; but at last he ordered me to send them, with his card, to
Lord Varnley's town house, and went away chafing at his own generosity,
and, as he avowed, at his stupidity.
I saw no more of him for a week. The wedding had been celebrated, and
Master Bertie Watts had conveyed away quietly to Folkestone as pretty an
English girl as ever flourished in the glare of the West. Lord and Lady
Varnley shut up their house during the week after the marriage, having
sent the very numerous wedding presents to their bankers; and society
would have forgotten the whole business if it had not paused to discuss
the important question--How were the young couple to exist in the future
on the paltry income of four or five hundred pounds a year? One half of
the world may not know how the other half lives, but that is not for
lack of effort on its part to find out. It was a matter of club-room
news that old Lord Harningham had not relented--and, beyond what his
nephew called "those twopenny-half-penny sleeve links," had not given
him a penny. How then, said this same charitable world, will these silly
children keep up their position in town when they return from the
second-rate hotel they are now staying in at Folkestone?
Curiously enough, I was able myself to answer that question in three
days' time--though at the moment I was as ignorant as any of them. The
matter came about in this way. On the very morning that Lord Varnley
went to Paris, it was known through the daily papers that there had been
a robbery at his house in Cork Street, of a green velvet case,
containing a crescent of pearls, turquoises, and diamonds. This was a
present from one of the Embassies to his daughter, and must, said the
reports, have been abstracted from the house during the press and the
confusion of the reception. Later in the afternoon I received an advice
from Scotland Yard cautioning me against the purchase of such a gem, and
inviting immediate communication if it were offered to me. The theft of
wedding presents is so common that I gave little heed to the matter; and
was already immersed in other business when Lord Harningham was
announced. He seemed rather fidgety in his manner, I thought, and hummed
and hawed considerably before he would explain his mission.
"It's about those links I gave my nephew," he said at last. "They're far
too good for him, Sutton--and they're too pretty. I never saw better
work in my life, and must have been a fool when I let them go out of my
possession--d'ye see?"
"Well, but you can't get them back now?" I remarked with a smile.
He took snuff vigorously at my reply, and then said,--
"Man, you're wrong, I've got them in my pocket."
I must have expressed my astonishment in my look, for he went on
quickly,--
"Yes, here in the green case as you sold them. Do I surprise you, eh?
Well, I'm going to give Master Bertie a bit of a check and to keep these
things; but one of the stones is off color--I noticed it at the
wedding--and I must have a new one in, d'ye see?"
"I thought that you had already handed them over," I interrupted, quite
disregarding his last request.
"So I did, so I did; but a man can take his own back again, can't he?
Well, when I saw them at the house, I concluded it was ridiculous to
give a boy like that such treasures, and so----"
"You spoke to him?"
"Hem--that is, of course, man. Pshaw! You're too inquisitive for a
jeweler: you ought to have been a lady's maid."
"Have you brought them with you now?"
"What should I be here for if I hadn't?"
He laid upon my table a green velvet case, of the exact size, color, and
shape of that which had contained the links; but when I opened it I gave
a start, and put it down quickly. The case held a crescent of pearls,
turquoises, and diamonds, which answered exactly to the description of
the one stolen from Lord Varnley's house on the day of his daughter's
wedding.
"There's some mistake here," said I, "you've evidently left the links at
home," with which remark I put the jewels under his very nose for him to
see. He looked at them for a moment, the whole of his flabby face
wrinkling and reddening; then he seemed almost to choke, and the veins
in his forehead swelled until they were as blue threads upon an ashen
and colorless countenance.
"Good God!" he ejaculated, "I've taken the wrong case."
"Your nephew gave it you, no doubt, but he must have forgotten it, for
he's advertised the loss of this crescent at Scotland Yard, and there
are detectives now trying to find it. I am cautioned not to purchase
it," I said with a laugh.
The effect of these words upon him was so curious that for some moments
I thought he had spasm of the heart. Starting up in the chair, with wild
eyes, and hands clutching at the arms to rest upon them, he made several
attempts to speak, but not a word came from his lips. I endeavored to
help him with his difficulty, but it was to little purpose.
"It seems to me, Lord Harningham," I suggested, "that you have only to
write a line of explanation to your nephew--and there's an end of the
matter."
"You think so?" he cried eagerly.
"Why not," said I, "since he returned the jewels to you?"
"But he didn't," he interrupted, cringing in the chair at this
confession of a lie; "he didn't; and he'd prosecute me; he hates me, and
this is his opportunity, d'ye see?"
"Do you mean to say," I exclaimed, beginning to understand the
situation, "that you took the case without his permission?"
"Yes, yes," he mumbled, "they were so beautiful, such work! You know
what work they were. I saw them at the wedding, and was sure that I
should not have parted with them. I meant to send him a check against
them--and when no one was looking I put what I thought was the case into
my pocket, but it was the wrong one. God help me, Sutton what shall I
do?"
Now it seemed to me that this was one of the most delightful comedies I
had ever assisted at. Technically, Lord Harningham was a thief, and
undoubtedly Bertie Watts could have prosecuted him had he chosen, though
the probability of his getting a conviction was small. But it was very
evident to me that here was the boy's opportunity, and that in the
interest of his pretty wife I should make the best of it. With this
intent, I played my first card with necessary boldness.
"Undoubtedly the case is very serious for you," said I, apparently with
sympathy, "and it is made the more serious from the strange relations
existing between your nephew and yourself. You know the law, I doubt
not, as well as I do; and that once a prosecution has been initiated at
Scotland Yard it is impossible to withdraw without a trial. Mr. Watts
might get into serious trouble for compounding a felony; and I might
suffer with him as one in the conspiracy. But I tell you what I will do;
I'll write to him to-night and sound him. Meanwhile, let me advise you
to keep out of the way, for I can't disguise the fact that you might be
arrested."
He gave a great scream at this, and the perspiration rolled from him,
falling in great drops upon the carpet. "Oh, Lord!" he kept muttering,
"oh, that I should have been such a consummate fool!--oh, Heaven help
me! To think of it--and what it will cost, I could cry, Sutton--cry like
a child."
I calmed him with difficulty, and led him down the back stairs to a cab
with a positive assurance that I would not communicate with Scotland
Yard. Then I wrote to Folkestone a letter, the precise contents of which
are immaterial, but the response to which was in the form of a telegram
worded as follows:--
"Am inexpressibly shocked and pained, but the law must take its course."
I put this into my pocket without any delay and went over to
Harningham's house in Park Lane. He had been up all night, they told me,
and the doctor had just left him; but I found him suffering only from an
enervating fear, and white as the cloth on the breakfast table before
him.
"Well," he said, "what is it, what does he say? Will he prosecute me?"
I handed him the telegram for answer, and I thought he would have
swooned. He did not know that I had in my pocket another letter from his
nephew, in which Master Bertie informed me that I was the "best chap in
the world," and I saw no reason to mention this. Indeed, I listened with
infinite gravity when the old man told me that he was irretrievably
ruined, and that his name would stand in all the clubs as that of a
common thief. Jewel-hunger plainly accounted for everything he had done;
but it was not to my end to console him, and I said in a severe and
sufficiently melancholy voice,--
"Lord Harningham, there is only one thing to do, and for your sake I
will make myself a criminal participator in the conspiracy. You must go
to Folkestone with me this afternoon, and take your check book with
you."
The groan he gave at this would have moved a man of iron. I saw tears
standing in his eyes, and his hand shook when I left him so that he
could scarce put it into mine. Yet he came to the station to meet me in
the afternoon, and by six o'clock we were in Folkestone at a shabby
second-rate hotel, called "The Cock and Lobster," inquiring for the
bride and bridegroom. Mr. and Mrs. Watts, they said, were out on the
parade; but we went to look for them, and surprised them coming from the
Lees, as handsome a couple as you could look upon. She, a pretty,
brown-haired English girl, her tresses tossed over her large eyes by the
sharp wind that swept in from the sea, was close under the arm of her
husband, who, at that stage, fearing to lose her touch, seemed engaged
in the impossible attempt to cover her entirely with one of his arms.
And in this pursuit privacy came to his aid, for the breeze was fresh
from the Channel at the beginning of night, banishing all loiterers but
those loitering in love; and the lamps flickered and went low in the
gusts as though fearing to illumine the roses upon the cheeks of a
bride.
When Master Bertie saw us he became as sedate as a Methodist minister,
and, commanding a solemn tone acted the part to perfection.
"Uncle," he said, "I would never have believed it of you. But this is
too serious a matter to mention here; let us go to the hotel."
We returned in silence, but directly we were in the hall the young man
called for his bill, and speaking almost in a boisterous tone, cried:--
"We're going to change our quarters, uncle, and will begin by moving to
the best hotel in the place. That poor girl is moped to death here, and
now you're going to pay for our honeymoon--cost doesn't matter, does it,
old man?"
The old man concerned started at this, his mouth wide open with the
surprise of it.
"What's that?" he muttered. "What're you going to do?" But I whispered
to him to be silent, and in an hour we were sitting down to a superb
dinner--which he did not touch, by the bye--in the great saloon of the
biggest hotel in the place. During the meal the bride, who scarce seemed
able to do anything else than look at her husband, made few remarks,
but Watts and I talked freely, quite ignoring the old man; and it was
not until we were in the private room that the negotiations began.
There is no need to describe them. They lasted until midnight, at which
hour the nephew of Lord Harningham had five hundred pounds in his
pocket, and an allowance of five hundred a year. From the moment of
assenting to these conditions until we entered the train next morning
the old man never opened his lips, but he kissed the bride at the door
of the hotel, and color came again to his cheeks at the warmth of her
lips. When at last we were alone in the carriage he gave a great sigh of
relief and said,----
"Sutton, thank God that's over!"
"Nearly over, my lord," I replied with emphasis.
"What do you mean?" he cried. "Do you think that any one will get to
hear of it? Why, man, what have I half-ruined myself for?"
"To keep your nephew quiet," I suggested pleasantly.
"And who else knows anything when he's settled with?" he asked angrily.
"Why," said I quite calmly, "you and I, perhaps."
He looked at me as though his glance was all-consuming and would wither
me, but I met him with a placid smile and continued,--
"It seems to me that I want what Mr. Stevenson calls 'a good memory for
forgetting.' Do you know, Lord Harningham, that if you paid my
bill--gave me, say, eight thousand pounds on account, I believe my mind
would be quite oblivious to the events of last night."
The shot struck home--in the very center of my target. He thought over
it for some while, and spoke but once between Sevenoaks and Charing
Cross. His remark was more forcible than convincing, for he exclaimed
suddenly, and _a propos_ of nothing in particular, "Sutton to blazes
with all jewels!" Then he subsided, and came with me quietly to my
rooms, where he wrote a check for eight thousand pounds and signed it
with considerable firmness. The ink was hardly dry, however, before he
dropped heavily upon the carpet, and lay prone in a fit.
The shock of parting with so much money had been too much for him. He is
now in Madeira seeking a climate.
TREASURE OF WHITE CREEK.
TREASURE OF WHITE CREEK.
She was the daughter of Colonel Kershaw Klein, and he was worth a
million, as the society papers said. I had danced with her for the first
time in the ball-room of the magnificent house her father had rented in
Grosvenor Crescent, on the occasion of her coming of age; and I agreed
with the men that she was beyond criticism, an exquisite vision of dark
and matured girlhood, so incomparably fascinating that you forget in her
company some of her bluntness in speech, and set down the voluptuousness
of her glance and mien to the southern luxuriance amidst which she had
been reared, and to those "other" notions which prevail in Chili, the
land of fleeting republics.
Some part of this perhaps unnecessary adulation may have been due to the
fact that I had helped in the production of her perfect picture on the
night of which I am speaking. The commercial element will intrude at
such times; and I could not help but see that she wore at least eight
hundred pounds' worth of my jewels. Had the value of them been double,
it would have been the same to me, for of her father's stability I had
then no doubt. He had been received and made much of in the highest
places, accorded the chief seats at the feasts; entrusted--as the old
ladies told you--with the most important missions by Government; and a
share in the Western Hill diamond mine at South Africa was not the least
substantial factor in the sum of his income. Any and every gem to which
he took a fancy I had let him have readily, being assured by an
important personage at the Embassy that his credit was unquestionable;
and it was a pretty pleasure to me when I first met his daughter to
observe how well my diamonds sat upon her, and how shapely were her arms
clasped in the ruby bracelets which had been amongst the treasures of
Bond Street but three months before. She was, indeed, a sunny child of
the South, radiating a warming light about her, tempting you to wait
long for a single press of her hand, luring you to follow the sparkle of
her eyes even when she looked at you over the shoulder of a dancer who
for the moment had the privilege of holding her in the entrancement of
the _deux temps_. There was keen contention for her programme, but
somehow I found her disposed to favor me, and danced no less than four
with her, to the infinite annoyance of the many youths who eyed me
angrily from their watching-ground by the door. They said that they had
never seen her brighter; and I was ready to believe them, for she kept
her tongue going merrily through the waltzes, and leant upon my arm in a
languorous way that was completely entrancing.
At the end of the dance--the next being some newfangled "Barn Dance"
wherein men scarce put their hands upon their partners--she said that
she would sit in the conservatory and eat ices; and for the first time
during the long evening I found myself able to talk easily with her.
"Well," she said, when we had composed ourselves behind a huge fern, and
had made a successful attack upon the _meringues glaces_, "well, this is
about splendid; don't you think so?"
I said that nothing could be more delightful.
"And to think that I've never danced with you before; why, you're just
perfect," she went on. "I haven't enjoyed myself right along like this
since I was in Valparaiso."
"Are the Chilians such wonderful dancers then?" I asked, as she looked
up at me bewitchingly.
"They just make a profession of it between the shooting times," said
she; and then changing the subject quickly, she asked, "What do you
think of the crystals now I've got them on?"
It is not particularly consoling to hear your rubies spoken of as
crystals, but her description was accompanied by such a pretty laugh,
and she opened her great black eyes so widely, that I smiled when I
answered,--
"Why, they're to be envied in such a setting."
"You're the fourth man that has said the same to-night," she exclaimed,
putting her glass down and tugging at her glove. "I think that
Britishers learn their compliments out of copy-books; they're all
presents for good girls. Let's see if you're cleverer at getting a glove
on than at making pretty speeches."
The arm that she held out was gloriously white; and as every man knows,
the operation of pulling on the glove of a pretty girl is apt to be
prolonged. There are fingers to fit, and a little thumb to stroke
daintily; while the grip upon the more substantial part of the forearm
will bear repetition so long as time serves. I must have occupied myself
at least five minutes with her buttons, she finding it necessary to
press close to me when I did so; and the task was none the less pleasant
when her rich brown hair touched my face, and her dress rustled with her
long-drawn breathing. How long the process would have lasted, or what I
should have said foolishly in the end, I do not know; but of a sudden
she drew her arm away and exclaimed,--
"Oh, I'd quite forgotten; I wanted to ask you about the bull's-eye."
[Illustration: "I wanted to ask you about the bull's-eye."
--_Page 82_]
This was her description, I may mention without anger, of the famous
White Creek Diamond, which, as all London knows, I have had in my
possession for the last two years. Her father, who was reputed to have
some commission to buy it for a Persian, was then negotiating with me
for its purchase for the sum of one hundred and thirty thousand pounds.
He waited only, he said, for the coming of his partner from Valparaiso,
to complete the transaction; and it was owing to the intimacy which the
_pour parlers_ brought about that I found myself then in his house. How
much his daughter knew of the business, however, I could not tell, and I
answered her question by another.
"What do you know about the bull's-eye?"
"That you're trying to sell it to my father," she replied, "and that he
won't promise to give it to me."
"Have you asked him, then?"
"Have I asked him--why, look at him; isn't he ten years older since he
met you in Bond-street?"
"He certainly seems to have something on his mind," said I.
"That's me; he's got me on his mind," she remarked flippantly; "but I
wish he'd buy the bull's-eye, and give it to me for a wedding present."
"Oh, you're engaged," I ventured dolefully; "you never told me that----"
"Didn't I?" she answered, "well, of course I am, and here's my partner."
She went away on another man's arm; but she left to me a vision of dark
eyes and ivory white flesh; and her breath still seemed to blow balmily
upon my forehead. Her partner was a young man just down from Oxford,
they told me; seemingly a simple youth, to whom the whole sentence in
conversation was as much a mystery as the binomial theorem; but he
danced rather well, and I doubt not that she suffered him for that. I
watched her through the waltz, and then, after a few words with her
father, who promised to call upon me the next day concerning White Creek
treasure, I said "Good night" to her. She give me a glance which was
more entrancing than any word; and although she had the habit of looking
at a man as though she were dying for love of him, I carried it away
with me foolishly into the street, when the dawn had broken with summer
haze, and an exalting sweetness was in the air.
The invigorating breath of morning somewhat sobered my thoughts; but
none the less left the impression of her beauty fermenting in my mind. I
turned into Hyde Park, where the trees were alive with song-birds, and
the glowing flowers sparkled with the silver freshness of the dew, and
set out to walk to Bayswater. In these moments, I forgot the prosaic
necessities of forms and customs; and bethought how pleasant it would be
if some enchantment could place her at my side, a Phyllis of Mayfair,
freed from the tie of conventionality, to look at me for all time with
those eyes she had used so well but an hour ago. I forgot her manners of
speech, her unpleasing idioms, even the discordant note that her usually
melodious voice was sometimes guilty of; forgot all but her ripe beauty,
the softness of her touch, the alluring fascination of her way, the
insurpassable play of her mouth, the exquisite perfection of her figure.
Women's eyes make dreamers of us all; and though I have pride in the
thought that I am not a susceptible man, I will confess without
hesitation that I was as near to being in love on that summer morning in
July as was ever a professor of the single state who has come within
hail of his thirty-fifth year with the anti-feminine vow unweakened.
At Lancaster Gate I paused a moment, leaning upon the iron rail of the
drive to look back at the London veldt fresh to luxuriance in the dew
showers which gave many colors in the play of sunlight. There was
stillness under the trees, and the hum of the still sleeping city was
hushed, though day was seeking to enter the blind-hid windows, and
workmen slouched heavily to their labor. The scene was fresh enough,
beautiful as many of the city's scenes are beautiful; but I had scarce
time to enjoy when I saw the Oxford youth who had last danced with
Margaret Klein coming striding over the grass; a masterful pipe in his
mouth; and a very rough ulster wrapped round his almost vanishing
shoulders. He gave me a cheery nod for greeting, and to my surprise he
seated himself upon the seat beside me; and having offered me a cigar,
which I took, he found his tongue so readily that I, who had heard his
"haw-hawing" in the ball-room, concluded at once that it was assumed and
not natural to him. And in this I was right, as the first exchange of
speech with him proved.
"I've had a sharp run to catch you," said he, "for this infernal dancing
takes it out of you when you're not used to it. I wanted a word with you
particularly before this thing goes any further. Do you know anything of
these people?"
"Why," said I, "I might ask you that question, since you made yourself
so much at home there; don't you know them?"