CHAPTER I_The Great Pearl Secret

Produced by Al Haines

[Frontispiece: "He glared at the clasp as if the diamond and sapphire

eye were a miniature head of Medusa"]

THE GREAT PEARL

SECRET

C. N. & A. M. WILLIAMSON

FRONTISPIECE

JULIAN DE MISKEY

GARDEN CITY, N. Y., AND TORONTO

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

1921

C. N. & A. M. WILLIAMSON

INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. In Juliet's Sitting Room

II. The Explanation

III. "To Meet the Duchess"

IV. The Letter with the Tsarina's Seal

V. The Third Ringer of the Bell

VI. Behind the Bookshelf

VII. What Juliet Told Jack

VIII. Juliet Breaks the Seals

IX. The Eye That Looked to the Right

X. The House in a Crosstown Street

XI. In Jack's Private Sitting Room

XII. "The 'Whisperer' Stuff"

XIII. A Woman's Eyes

XIV. Supper at Twelve

XV. The Fortune Teller

XVI. The Grey Room

XVII. The Crystal

XVIII. The Bargain

XIX. Old Nick

XX. The Third Degree

XXI. The Middle Door

XXII. The Whole of the Secret

THE GREAT PEARL SECRET

CHAPTER I

IN JULIET'S SITTING ROOM

A maid opened the door leading from a bedroom to a salon of the "royal

suite" at Harridge's Hotel. Dusk had fallen, and entering, she

switched on the electricity. The room, with its almost Louis Seize

decorations, was suddenly flooded with light; and to her surprise the

Frenchwoman saw a slim black figure nestled deep among cushions on a

sofa before the fire. A small white face, with a frame of terra-cotta

hair crushed under a mourning toque, turned a pair of big black eyes

upon her.

"Miladi West!" exclaimed the maid. (She pronounced it "Vest") "Pardon,

Madame, I did not know that any one was here."

She spoke in French, with an accent which told that her first language

had been Italian, learned in the south of France; though in looks she

was the chic Parisienne. Her English was quite good, but when she used

that tongue, her accent was of New York. She preferred French,

however, was proud of being French, and had Frenchified her

Nicois-Italian name of Simonetta Amaranti to Simone Amaranthe. All

Juliet Phayre's friends had to be polite to Simone.

"Mr. Phayre's man let me in," said the red-haired lady in widow's

weeds. "After I'd had a look at the wedding presents, I was so dazzled

that I switched off the lights." She laughed, and then cried, "Leave

the lights now! I suppose Mademoiselle won't be forever?"

Simone shrugged her thin shoulders just perceptibly. "Mademoiselle

sent me out on an errand, Miladi. I have not long returned, with the

perfume she wanted. It was for the _coiffeur_ who is here to wash the

hair of Mademoiselle. She would not have the stuff he brought, so the

man was obliged to wait. I am afraid the drying, even with the hot-air

machine, will take some time. Miladi knows what a quantity of the

hairs there are on the pretty head of Mademoiselle, and how she is

exacting of the way everything is done!"

The red-haired lady guessed from the Frenchwoman's tone that Simone

considered the introduction of a _coiffeur_ a slight to her own skill.

"Why, yes," she agreed. "Mademoiselle is exacting. But what would

you? She is a spoiled child. The least crumple in a rose-leaf--by the

way, Simone" (she stopped for a little throaty chuckle), "is it true

about the _carpet_ in this suite?"

"The carpet, Miladi?" Simone flushed faintly through her dark skin,

and "Miladi" made a second guess. Of course Juliet trusted Simone, and

depended upon her blindly; but she--Emmy West--had often wondered how

certain spicy little items concerning the Phayre family reached the

gossip columns of "society papers."

"I read such an amusing paragraph in _Modern Ways_ this morning," she

explained. "It was _apropos_ of the wedding, of course. _Modern Ways_

loves a chance for a 'dig' at us Americans who marry well-known

Englishmen! It said that when Miss Juliet Phayre and her Uncle Henry

came over from Paris the other day, and took this royal suite which Mr.

Phayre had engaged, Miss Phayre sent for the manager before she'd been

in the hotel half an hour. 'There's a spot of ink on the carpet,' she

complained (according to the paper). 'I must have another carpet at

once.' Now do tell me, Simone (I'm very discreet!) did that really

happen?"

"It did, Madame," the maid admitted. "Though how it got to these

sacred journalists----"

"And did the manager say to Mademoiselle, 'We have had half the kings

of Europe in this suite since that spot appeared, Miss Phayre, and not

one of them mentioned it!'"

"His words were to that effect, Miladi, so far as I remember. But----"

"Oh, then you _were_ in the room? What fun! You can tell me if

Juliet--if Mademoiselle replied that a spotted carpet might be good

enough for a king; it wasn't good enough for a Phayre."

Simone flung out her hands, palm upward. They were beautifully

manicured hands, as carefully tended as her mistress's. And as she

smiled her teeth showed very white. When her face was grave, she

looked somewhat sullen, and might be thirty-five; but the smile was

rejuvenating. It put her back to twenty-eight, and made her almost

handsome as well as _chic_. "Miladi has known Mademoiselle since her

schooldays, is it not?" she hedged. "Miladi will be able to judge as

well as if I told her whether Mademoiselle would have made that answer."

"I thought it rang true when I read it!" laughed Lady West. "But

Simone, when you say I have 'known Mademoiselle since her schooldays',

you make me sound awfully antique. We were at Madame de Sain's

together. I came over to England the year I left, and married poor Sir

Algy only three months after I was presented." She thought it best to

hammer these details into Simone's head, in case the woman really _was_

in touch with those back-door, kitchen-stairs reporters. Then, to give

an air of carelessness to her words, she turned the subject. "Perhaps

you might let Mademoiselle know I've come. Parker told me that she was

lying down--that she'd promised her uncle to rest till tea time. So I

wouldn't have her disturbed. But if her hair is being washed, she

might let me in."

"I will ask Miladi," said Simone. "I came to the salon to see if the

curtains were drawn. If Madame permits!" She tripped with her short,

high-heeled step first to one window, then the other, and closed the

draperies of old-rose brocade. Having done this, she pattered out of

the room.

Emmy West's eyes followed the thin but graceful figure in black silk.

"Simone is a character!" she thought. And she wondered what the maid's

secret opinion was of this marriage which would take place next day;

the richest American heiress with the poorest British duke!

Left alone again, Emmy wriggled up from her nest of cushions, and

beguiled the time in examining the wedding gifts once more. This did

not take long, as the marriage had been suddenly hurried on by special

license, and friends of Juliet Phayre and the Duke of Claremanagh had

had only a few days to send in their offerings. Emmy had made this

uninvited visit with the object of admiring a certain one of Juliet's

presents, but she had already informed herself that it was not on show

with the rest. Unless the bride-elect refused to see her, she did not

intend to leave Harridge's without a glimpse--or anyhow, news--of it.

When she had wandered languidly round the three or four tables on which

jewel cases, gold, silver, china, and tortoise-shell things were

spread, she propped her own black-edged card conspicuously in front of

a Sevres-framed mirror, and bent down for a hasty peep at her face in

its oval. She wondered if her hair were a tiny touch too red. She

liked it, herself, and thought the heart-shaped white face, with its

wide-apart black eyes set in that copper halo, a siren face. In the

weeds of a war-widow it seemed to her that she was almost irresistible,

but she could not help realizing that there were people who did resist

her. The Duke was one. And an attractive cousin of Juliet's, John

Manners, was another. She was vaguely aware that her own taste was

decidedly vivid. Perhaps the hair _was_ rather red! She had had it

"bobbed" since Juliet came to London, because it worried her that

Juliet should look years younger than she. No one would take Lady West

for twenty-seven, but she had been an "old girl" and Juliet a "new

girl," the year they met at school. Juliet was twenty-three now, and

she, Emmy, had gone back to twenty-five. One had to be that, if one

had married before the war!

Quickly she dusted on a little powder from her vanity box, and

accentuated the cupid's bow of her lips with a stick of red salve, for

it was possible that Claremanagh might "breeze in." It would be like

him! This thought was still in her mind when a door behind her opened.

She turned nervously, tucking the lip-salve into her gold mesh bag, for

just now the Duke was having a craze for baby complexions without

make-up. But it was not the Duke. It was a girl, standing in the

doorway between bedroom and salon.

"Hello, Emmy!" she said.

"Hello, Juliet!" said Emmy. And suddenly she felt years older than she

had felt a moment ago. Juliet Phayre was such a big baby!

The girl wore a pale pink chiffon thing which she probably considered a

dressing gown. It was embroidered with wild roses and banded with

swansdown, and no practical person would have dreamed of keeping it on

for a shampoo. Juliet, however, thought herself sufficiently protected

with a towel over her shoulders--a silvery damask towel under which her

bare, girlish arms hung down. Over the towel streamed masses of hair

in long, wet strands, which must be bright golden-brown when dry.

These fell--weighted with water--nearly to her knees, and from their

curly ends drops poured like unstrung pearls. She was so tall and

slender, and brilliant rose-and-white, that she would have looked to a

poet like Undine just out of her fountain.

"You extravagant thing," Lady West scolded, "to spoil a lovely boudoir

gown like that!"

"Simone gets it to-morrow as a perquisite, with all my old things,"

Juliet dismissed the subject. "She said you'd been here an age, so I

thought I'd better come in. I'll dry my hair before the fire,

presently we'll have tea."

So saying, she sat down tailor-fashion on a long, fat velvet cushion

which lay in front of the low fender.

"Evidently you're not expecting the Duke," laughed Lady West.

"No-o," said the girl. "But I'm expecting a letter from him--or

something."

"You haven't got the pearls on show with your other presents, I see,"

remarked her friend. "I don't blame you! Of course, Parker is doing

the watch-dog act outside; and only your _bestest_ pals come up.

Still, the pearls are frightfully valuable. And you can never tell!

But do, _do_ let me see them. I'm dying to!"

"I haven't got them yet," Juliet confessed.

"Not got them?" gasped the elder woman. "You're joking. Why"--and she

laughed with great gaiety--"one _marries_ Claremanagh for his pearls!"

"Does one?" Juliet took her up. "I know whole populations of females

who'd give _their_ pearls to marry him, for--himself!"

This told Emmy West that the bride-to-be knew she had been scratched,

and was ready to scratch back. For an instant Emmy hesitated whether

to be sweet or sharp, and decided to compromise. "By Jove, you _are_

in love, aren't you?" she said.

"I am," Juliet admitted. "I don't care a rap about being a duchess.

That sort of thing seems--somehow old-fashioned since the war. And I

don't think I ever was a snob, thank goodness."

Emmy wondered if this were another "dig." She had been a Chicago girl,

and only a "tuppenny half-penny" heiress, compared to Juliet Phayre;

but she had wanted a title, and had paid all she could afford for a

mere baronet, such as her few hundred thousand dollars would buy. On

the sofa once more facing her low-seated hostess, she looked Juliet

full in the eyes; but Juliet's were innocent, even dreamy. "I'd have

snapped at my Boy if he'd been just a Tommy when I met him Over There,

instead of a perfectly gorgeous Guardsman," the girl went on. "But, of

course, I _do_ want the pearls! I wouldn't be human if I didn't;

everyone talks about them so much, even my Cousin Jack Manners, and

says they're so marvellous. I expect they are what Pat is sending

around this evening."

"Sending around!" repeated the other. "You talk as if--as if they were

a box of chocolates! Claremanagh is the careless-est creature on

earth, I know. And he has been--er--very careless with the pearls.

But I don't think even he would be as bad as that."

"Why not?" asked the girl to whom most jewels meant little. "If he

sent them by Old Nick, that dear, quaint man of his, they'd be safer

than if he brought them himself. I never knew before that he was

superstitious. But he is. It's bad luck for a Claremanagh to see his

bride the day before the wedding. _Creepy_ things have happened, it

seems, according to an old story! So he said he wasn't running risks.

For some reason, he couldn't give me his present before to-day. So

that's why the thing is to come by messenger, you see."

"I see," echoed Emmy. "And you're sure the present _will_ be the

pearls?"

This was rather an impudent question to ask, especially for one who

knew the Duke's circumstances; but, for a wonder, Juliet did not seem

to mind. She answered quite easily, "Oh, I suppose so. Don't the

Claremanagh men always give them to their brides?"

"I believe they have dutifully handed them over _so far_--for several

generations, since the pearls came into their family in that exciting

way," said Lady West. "But you know, Peter--I mean Claremanagh--is

very independent, and quite--er--a law unto himself."

"Why do you call him 'Peter'?" the girl branched off from the subject.

"He has about a dozen names, I know, but I hadn't heard that 'Peter'

was one. My selection from the lot is Pat!"

"Oh, 'Peter' was only a silly nickname I made up for him. 'Peter Pan',

because he just isn't the sort who ever grows up!" Emmy explained

elaborately. "Of course he was a lot with Algy and me the first year I

married--before the war spoilt everything for everyone. And then, when

I took up Red Cross work in France, after poor Algy---"

"I know," Juliet ruthlessly interrupted. "That was where and when _I_

came on the scene."

"It was," agreed Emmy, in a flat voice. "You came, you saw, you

conquered. But we were talking of the Tsarina pearls. I do hope the

Duke _is_ 'delivering the goods', as we say in our country. I don't

mind confessing to you, my angel child, I dropped in hoping for a

private view."

"Oh, I guessed _that_ the minute Simone told me you were here, and

determined to wait!" Juliet laughed like a naughty child who dares a

"grown-up" to slap it. Emmy's ears tingled. The girl's tone, though

intimate and friendly, told her how unimportant she was in the future

Duchess's scheme of things. She had always envied Juliet, and had an

old grudge against the heiress for refusing her brother, Bill Lowndes.

Now she suddenly hated her. Instead of inflicting a kittenish scratch

or two, she wanted to strike at Juliet Phayre's heart.

"Well," she excused herself, "I never saw the pearls, except--er--at a

_distance_."

"You have seen them, then?" Juliet exclaimed. "How was that? Pat's

mother died years before you knew him, and only the Duchess is supposed

to wear the pearls, isn't she?"

"Only the Duchess is _supposed_ to wear them."

Juliet sat up straight on the velvet cushion. Her hair was drying

beautifully now. The red background of fireglow lit it to flame, so

that Lady West saw the slight figure surrounded by a nimbus. "Ever

since Pat and I were engaged, you've been hinting at something queer,

or _secret_, about that rope of pearls, Emmy," the girl blazed. "Now,

_out_ with it, please! Tell me what you mean."

The elder woman was taken aback. "Don't you _know_ what I mean?" she

temporized.

"No, I don't," snapped Juliet. "But I'm sure it's something

unpleasant."

"At least, I had no intention of telling you," Lady West snapped back.

"I wouldn't distress you for worlds, dear, especially on your _wedding

eve_."

"Wedding eve be--'jizzled!'" inelegantly remarked the bride-elect.

"You sound quite early Edwardian! If you don't tell me, I shall think

the thing worse than it is."

"You had better ask Claremanagh, or Jack Manners, who is a pal of his,"

said Emmy.

"I can't, till I have an idea what to ask them about."

"Ask whether Lyda Pavoya ever--no, I won't say it!"

"Whether she ever wore the pearls? That's what you were going to say!"

"So you _did_ know?"

"I didn't. And I don't now. I only know what you have in your mind.

I don't believe she was allowed to wear the pearls."

"Why should you believe it? And even if she did, it was before you

knew Peter--the Duke. Or anyhow, it was before you were _engaged_. It

was when she was dancing for the Polish Relief Fund in Paris, that I

saw----"

"You saw what?"

"Saw--her."

"Emmy! You _didn't_ see her wearing the Tsarina pearls? It's not

possible."

"Why, of course you must be right, dear. Even though they are _blue_,

they'd be like any other pearls, wouldn't they, _to see at a distance_."

"That's just what you said about Pat's pearls five minutes ago: that

you'd seen them only 'at a distance.'"

Lady West did not reply. She put on a stricken, trapped expression,

which went well with her widow's weeds. The two gazed into each

other's eyes, each waiting for the other to speak. Neither heard a

sound at the door until a respectable voice--such a voice as is never

possessed save by a British butler or valet--announced "His Grace the

Duke of Claremanagh."