THE LADY'S MAID'S MOTHER
When the manager, much appeased and relieved in mind, had gone, Fullaway
tapped at the door of the bedroom, summoned the pretty chambermaid, and
handed her the rosewood box.
"Put this back exactly where Mademoiselle has kept it since she came
here," he commanded. "Now you yourself--you're going to stay in the rooms
until she comes back from the concert? That's right--if she returns
before my friend and I come up again, tell her that we shall present
ourselves at five minutes to eleven. Come downstairs, Allerdyke," he
proceeded, leading the way from the room. "We must book rooms for the
night here, so we'll send to the station for our things and make our
arrangements, after which we'll smoke a cigar and talk--I am beginning to
see chinks of daylight."
He led Allerdyke down to the office, completed the necessary
arrangements, and went on to the smoking-room, in a quiet corner of which
he pulled out his cigar-case.
"Well?" he said. "What do you think now?"
"I think you're a smart chap," answered Allerdyke bluntly. "You did all
that very well. I said naught, but I kept an eye and an ear open.
You'll do."
"Very complimentary!--but I wasn't asking you what you thought about me,"
said Fullaway, with a laugh. "I'm asking you what you think of the
situation, as illuminated by this last episode?"
"Well, I'm still reflecting on what you said to that manager
chap," answered Allerdyke. "You really think this young woman has
lost her jewels?"
"Oh, no doubt, no doubt at all," replied Fullaway. "Mademoiselle is
impetuous, impulsive, demonstrative, much given to insisting on her own
way, but she's absolutely honest and truthful, and I've no doubt
whatever--none!--that she's been robbed. But--not here. She never brought
those jewels here. They were not in that box when she came here.
Mademoiselle, my dear sir, was relieved of those jewels either on the
steamer, as she crossed from, Christiania to Hull, or during the few
hours she spent at the Hull hotel. The whole thing--the robbery from your
cousin, the robbery from Mademoiselle de Longarde--is all the work of a
particularly clever and brilliant gang of international thieves; and, by
the holy smoke, sir, we've got our hands full! For there isn't a clue to
the identity of the operators, so far, unless the lady with whom we are
going to sup can help us to one."
Allerdyke ruminated over this for a moment or two. Then, after lighting
the cigar which Fullaway had offered him, he shook his head--in grim
affirmation.
"I shouldn't wonder," he said. "Certainly, it seems a big thing. You're
figuring on its having been a carefully concocted scheme? No mere chance
affair, eh?"
"This sort of thing's never done by chance," responded the American.
"This is the work of very clever and accomplished thieves who somehow
became aware of two facts. One, that your cousin was bringing with him to
England the jewels of the Princess Nastirsevitch. The other, that
Mademoiselle Zélie de Longarde carried her pearls and diamonds in an
innocent-looking rosewood box. My dear sir! you observed that I examined
that box with seeming carelessness--in reality, I was looking at it with
the eye of a trained observer. I am one of those people who, from having
knocked about the world a lot, engaging in a multifarious variety of
occupations, have picked up a queer scrap-heap of knowledge, and I will
lay you any odds you like that I am absolutely correct in affirming that
the box which I just now handed to Maggie, the chambermaid, was newly
made by a Russian cabinet-maker within the last four weeks!"
"For a purpose?" suggested Allerdyke.
"Just so--for a purpose," assented Fullaway. "That purpose being, of
course, its substitution for the real original article. You did not
handle the box which is now upstairs--it is carefully weighted, though it
is empty. I believe--nay, I am sure, it contains a sheet of lead under
its delicate lining of satin. That, of course, was to deceive
Mademoiselle. You heard her say that the jewels were in her box at
Christiania, and that she never opened the box until this evening here in
Edinburgh? Very good--between here and Christiania somebody substituted
the imitation box for the real one. Ah!--in all these great criminal
operations there is nothing like sticking to the old, well-worn,
tried-and-proved tricks of the trade!--they are like well-oiled,
well-practised machinery. And now we come back to the real, great,
anxious question--Who did it? And there, Allerdyke, we are at
present--only at present, mind!--up against a very big, blank wall."
"On the other side of which, my lad, lies the secret of the murder of my
cousin," said Allerdyke grimly. "Mind you that! That's what I'm after,
Fullaway. Damn all these jewels and things, in comparison with
that!--it's that I'm after, I tell you again, and a thousand times again.
And I'm considering if I'm doing any good hanging round here after this
singing woman when the probable sphere of action lies yonder away at
Hull, eh?"
"The proper--not probable--sphere of action, my dear sir, is the
supper-table to which we're presently going," answered Fullaway, with
supreme assurance. "What the singing woman, as you call her, can tell us
will most likely make all the difference in the world to our
investigations. Remember the shoe-buckle! Have it ready to exhibit when I
lead up to it. Then--we shall see."
The prima donna, back for her engagement at eleven o'clock, came in
flushed and smiling--the extraordinary warmth and fervour of her
reception by the audience which she had at first been so inclined to
treat with scant courtesy had restored her to good humour, and when she
had eaten a few mouthfuls of delicate food and drunk her first glass of
champagne she began to laugh almost light-heartedly.
"Well, I suppose you've been doing your best, Fullaway," she said, with
easy familiarity. "I declare you turned up at the very moment, for that
fat Weiss would have been no good. But I'm still wondering how you came
to be here, and what this gentleman--Mr. Allerdyke, is it?--is doing here
with you. Allerdyke, now--well, that's the same name as that of a man I
came across from Christiania with, and left at Hull."
Fullaway kicked Allerdyke under the table.
"You haven't heard of that Mr. Allerdyke since you left him at Hull,
then?" he asked, gazing intently at their hostess.
"Heard? How should I hear?" asked the prima donna. "He was just a
travelling acquaintance. All the same, I had certainly fixed up to see
him in London on a business matter."
"You don't read the newspapers, then?" suggested Fullaway.
"Not unless there's something about myself in them," she answered, with
an arch smile at Allerdyke.
"If you'd read this morning's papers, you'd have seen that the Mr.
Allerdyke with whom you travelled--this gentleman's cousin, by the
by--was found dead in his room at the hotel in Hull not so long after you
quitted it," said Fullaway coolly. "In fact, he must have been dead when
you passed his door on your way out."
The prima donna was genuinely shocked. She set down the glass which she
was just lifting to her lips; her large, handsome eyes dilated, her lips
quivered a little. She turned a look of sympathy on Allerdyke, who, at
that moment, realized that she was a very beautiful woman.
"You don't say so!" she exclaimed. "Well, I'm really grieved to hear
that--I am! Dead?--and when I left! Why, I was in his room that very
night we reached Hull, having a talk on the business matter I mentioned
just now--he was well enough and lively enough then, I'll swear.
Dead!--why, what did he die of?"
The two men looked at each other. There was a brief pause; then
Allerdyke slowly produced a small packet, wrapped in tissue-paper, from
his waistcoat pocket. He laid it on the table at his side and looked at
his hostess.
"I knew you had been in my cousin's room," he said. "You left or dropped
your shoe-buckle there. I found it when I searched his room. Then the
hotel manager showed me your wire. Here's the buckle."
He was watching her narrowly as he spoke, and his glance deepened in
intensity as he handed over the little packet and watched her unwrap the
paper. But there was not a sign of anything but a little surprised
satisfaction in the prima donna's face as she recognized her lost
property, and her eyes were ingenuous enough as she turned them on him.
"Why, of course, that's mine!" she exclaimed. "I'm ever so much obliged
to you, Mr. Allerdyke. Yes, I wired to the hotel, in my proper name, you
know--Zélie de Longarde is only my professional name. I didn't want to
lose that buckle--it was part of a birthday present from my mother. But
you don't mean to say that you travelled all the way to Edinburgh to hand
me that! Surely not?"
"No!" replied Allerdyke. He wanted to take a direct share in the talking,
and went resolutely ahead now that the chance had come. "No--not at all.
I knew you'd come to Edinburgh--found it out from that chauffeur who was
driving you when you and I met at Howden the night before last, and so I
came on to find you. I want to ask you some questions about my cousin,
and maybe to get you to come and give evidence at the inquest on him."
"Inquest!" she exclaimed. "I know what that means, of course. Why--you
don't say there's been anything wrong?"
"I believe my cousin was murdered that night," answered Allerdyke. "So,
too, does Fullaway there. And you were probably the last person who ever
spoke to him alive. Now, you see, I'm a plain, blunt-spoken sort of
chap--I ask people straight questions. What did you go into his room to
talk to him about?"
"Business!" she replied, with a directness which impressed both men.
"Mere business. He and I had several conversations on board the
_Perisco_--I made out he was a clever business man. I want to invest some
money--he advised me to put it into a development company in Norway,
which is doing big things in fir and pine. I went into his room to look
at some plans and papers--he gave me some prospectuses which are in that
bag there just now---I was reading them over again only this evening.
That's all. I wasn't there many minutes--and, as I told you, he was very
well, very brisk and lively then."
"Did he show you any valuables that he had with him--jewels?" asked
Allerdyke brusquely.
"Jewels! Valuables!" she answered. "No--certainly not."
"Nor when you were on the steamer?"
"No--nor at any time," she said. "Jewels?--why--what makes you ask such a
question?"
"Because my cousin had in his possession a consignment of such things, of
great value, and we believe that he was murdered for them--that's why,"
replied Allerdyke. "He had them when he left Christiania--he had them
when he entered the Hull hotel--"
Fullaway, who had been listening intently, leant forward with a shake
of his head.
"Stop at that, Allerdyke," he said. "We don't know, now, that he did have
them when he entered the hotel at Hull! He mayn't have had. Miss
Lennard--we'll drop the professional name and turn to the real one," he
said, with a bow to the prima donna--"Miss Lennard here thinks she had
her jewels in her little box when she entered the Hull hotel, and also
when she came to this hotel, here in Edinburgh, but--"
"Do you mean to say that I hadn't?" she exclaimed. "Do you mean--"
"I mean," replied Fullaway, "that, knowing what I now know, I believe
that both you and the dead man, James Allerdyke, were robbed on the
_Perisco_. And I want to ask you a question at once. Where is your maid!"
Celia Lennard dropped her knife and fork and sat back, suddenly
turning pale.
"My maid!" she said faintly. "Good heavens! you don't think--oh, you
aren't suggesting that she's the thief? Because--oh, this is dreadful!
You see--I never thought of it before--when she and I arrived at Hull
that night she was met by a man who described himself as her brother. He
was in a great state of agitation--he said he'd rushed up to Hull to meet
her, to beg her to go straight with him to their mother, who was dying in
London. Of course, I let her go at once--they drove straight from the
riverside at Hull to the station to catch the train. What else could I
do? I never suspected anything. Oh!"
Fullaway leaned across the table and filled his hostess's glass.
"Now," he said, motioning her to drink, "you know your maid's name and
address, don't you? Let me have them at once, and within a couple of
hours we'll know if the story about the dying mother was true."