It was at dinner that Jimmy had his first chance of seeing the rope of
pearls which had so stimulated the roving fancy of Spike Mullins. Lady
Blunt sat almost opposite to him. Her dress was of unrelieved black,
and formed a wonderfully effective foil to the gems. It was not a rope
of pearls. It was a collar. Her neck was covered with them. There was
something Oriental and barbaric in the overwhelming display of
jewelry. And this suggestion of the East was emphasized by the
wearer's regal carriage. Lady Blunt knew when she looked well. She did
not hold herself like one apologizing for venturing to exist.
Jimmy stared hungrily across the table. The room was empty to him but
for that gleaming mass of gems. He breathed softly and quickly through
clinched teeth.
"Jimmy!" whispered a voice.
It seemed infinitely remote.
A hand shook his elbow gently. He started.
"_Don't_ stare like that, _please_. What is the matter?"
Molly, seated at his side, was looking at him wide-eyed. Jimmy smiled
with an effort. Every nerve in his body seemed to be writhing.
"Sorry," he said. "I'm only hungry. I always look like that at the
beginning of a meal."
"Well, here comes Keggs with some soup for you. You'd better not waste
another moment. You looked perfectly awful."
"No!"
"Like a starved wolf."
"You must look after me," said Jimmy, "see that the wolf's properly
fed."
* * * * *
The conversation, becoming general with the fish, was not of a kind to
remove from Jimmy's mind the impression made by the sight of the
pearls. It turned on crime in general and burglary in particular.
Spennie began it.
"Oh, I say," he said, "I forgot to tell you, mother. Number Six was
burgled the other night."
Number Six-a, Easton Square, was the family's London house.
"Burgled!"
"Well, broken into," said Spennie, gratified to find that he had got
the ear of his entire audience. Even Lady Blunt was silent and
attentive. "Chap got in through the scullery window about one o'clock,
in the morning. It was the night after you dined with me, Pitt."
"And what did our Spennie do?" inquired Sir Thomas.
"Oh, I--er--I was out at the time," said Spennie. "But something
frightened the feller," he went on hurriedly, "and he made a bolt for
it without taking anything."
Jimmy, looking down the table, became conscious that his host's eye
was fixed gloomily upon him. He knew intuitively what was passing in
McEachern's mind. The ex-policeman was feeling that his worst
suspicions had been confirmed. Jimmy had dined with Spennie--obviously
a mere excuse for spying out the land; and the very next night the
house had been burgled. Once more Mr. McEachern congratulated himself
on his astuteness in engaging the detective from Wragge's Agency. With
Jimmy above stairs and Spike Mullins below, that sleuthhound would
have his hands full.
"Burglary," said Wesson, leaning back and taking advantage of a pause,
"is the hobby of the sportsman and the life work of the avaricious."
Everybody seemed to have something to say on the subject. One young
lady gave it as her opinion that she would not like to find a burglar
under her bed. Somebody else had known a man whose father had fired at
the butler, under the impression that he was a housebreaker, and had
broken a valuable bust of Socrates. Spennie knew a man at Oxford whose
brother wrote lyrics for musical comedy, and had done one about a
burglar's best friend being his mother.
"Life," said Wesson, who had had time for reflection, "is a house
which we all burgle. We enter it uninvited, take all that we can lay
hands on, and go out again."
"This man's brother I was telling you about," said Spennie, "says
there's only one rhyme in the English language to 'burglar', and
that's 'gurgler'. Unless you count 'pergola', he says----"
"Personally," said Jimmy, with a glance at McEachern, "I have rather a
sympathy for burglars. After all, they are one of the hardest-working
classes in existence. They toil while everybody else is asleep. They
are generally thorough sportsmen. Besides, a burglar is only a
practical socialist. Philosophers talk a lot about the redistribution
of wealth. The burglar goes out and does it. I have found burglars
some of the decentest criminals I have ever met. Out of business hours
they are charming."
"I despise burglars!" ejaculated Lady Blunt, with a suddenness which
stopped Jimmy's eloquence as if a tap had been turned off. "If I found
one coming after my jewels and I had a gun handy, I'd shoot him. I
would."
"My dear Julia!" said Lady Jane. "Why suggest such dreadful things? At
any rate, this house has never been burgled, and I don't think it's
likely to be."
"Beroofen!" said Jimmy, touching the back of his chair. As he did so,
he met McEachern's eye, and smiled kindly at him. The ex-policeman was
looking at him with the gaze of a baffled but malignant basilisk.
"I take very good care no one gets a chance at my jewels," said Lady
Blunt. "I've had a steel box made for me with a special lock which
would drive the cunningest burglar on this earth mad before he'd been
at it ten minutes. It would. He'd go right away and reform."
Jimmy's lips closed tightly, and a combative look came into his eye at
this unconscious challenge. This woman was too aggressively confident.
A small lesson. He could return the jewels by post. It would give her
a much-needed jolt.
Then he pulled himself up.
"James, my boy," he said to himself, with severity, "this is
hypocrisy. You know perfectly well that is not why you want those
pearls. Don't try and bluff yourself, because it won't do."
The conversation turned to other topics. Jimmy was glad of it. He
wanted to think this thing over.
From where he sat, he had an excellent view of the rope of pearls
which was tugging him back to his old ways. And when he looked at them
he could not see Molly. The thing was symbolical. It must be one or
the other. He was at the crossroads. The affair was becoming a civil
war. He felt like a rudderless boat between two currents. Eight years
of gem collecting do not leave a man without a deep-rooted passion for
the sport. As for that steel box, that was all nonsense. It was
probably quite a good steel box, and the lock might very well be
something out of the ordinary; but it could not be a harder job than
some of those he had tackled.
The pearls shone in the lamplight. They seemed to be winking at him.