SIMPKINS & MARKLE
Hortense Markle had besought the friends of Mary Louise to come and
call on her, but when Elizabeth Wright was ushered into the charming
little drawing room bent on the mission intrusted to her by her
partner, she had a feeling that she was not quite so welcome as she had
been led to expect. Could it be because she interrupted a tête-a-tête
between her hostess and Billy McGraw? That young man seemed to be very
much at home in the little apartment, as though he had paid many visits
there in the short time he had been acquainted with the charming Mrs.
Markle.
Elizabeth was a little embarrassed but determined to fulfill her
mission before she left. She liked Billy and hated to see him making a
fool of himself over the pretty adventuress. She wished she could save
him from the bitter chagrin that would be sure to be his when the sorry
business would finally come to light, but her loyalty to Josie forbade
her doing or saying a thing to put him on his guard. Then he had paid
her just enough attention to make it possible for him to think that
jealousy prompted her in anything she might do or say.
“We have been very busy at the shop to-day,” Elizabeth began, in a
rather loud tone as though determined that her voice would be heard by
Hortense and her husband too, if he had concealed himself somewhere
behind the curtains. “Irene finished mending the lace and then Josie
laundered the whole lot and I have just delivered it to its owner.”
“Ah, indeed!” ejaculated Hortense.
Was there a note of disappointment in her voice?
“I rather wanted to see that lace again. It was a beautiful pattern. I
have a passion for fine and rare lace.”
“Well, it’s safe with the rich old lady who brought it to us,” said
Elizabeth, bluntly.
“You are quite wise to get it in safe keeping as soon as possible,”
said Hortense, suavely.
“By the way, you never have let me see the orchid pin,” put in Billy.
“You remember you promised.”
“Why, of course! I’ll get it immediately.”
She was gone from the room for a few moments. Elizabeth, who usually
was very much at home with Billy McGraw, now sat in silence. For the
moment she had nothing to say. He looked at her a little uneasily.
“Are you--are you--kind of angry with me?” he finally said.
“I? The idea! Why should I be angry with you?”
“I don’t know. You don’t seem so--so--chummy as you do sometimes.”
“Chummy? I did not know I had been quite that,” she said with a touch
of coldness that she could not keep from her tones.
“Now I know you have got it in for me somehow.”
Elizabeth said nothing as Hortense came back in the room with the
orchid pin which she handed to Billy.
“My, it’s a peach!” he declared. He examined it with great interest.
“It is as near like Vi Thomas’ as can be. Hers, of course, had
Tiffany’s mark on the back and a date, as I remember, some date that
meant something to her and her husband.
“Mine just has the name Felix loves to call me, ‘Pet.’ It sounds
awfully silly and sentimental, but he would have it on.”
“Can’t I see it?” asked Elizabeth, wishing in her heart she had a
magnifying glass handy, feeling sure there would be marks of other
things to be disclosed. She noticed that the gold mounting back of the
pin was slightly concave. “No doubt Josie will attach much importance
to that,” she said to herself.
“You promised some day to show me your original Rembrandt etching,” she
said to Hortense. “I have never seen one.”
“Have you an original Rembrandt?” asked Billy. “You never told me.
I’d certainly like to see it. The Thomases had a crackerjack of a
Rembrandt. Of course that was lifted too when the orchid pin was.”
“Heavens! what luck. Those Thomases seem to be perfect Jonahs,” laughed
Hortense. Elizabeth thought she detected a little sharp note in her
laugh.
“I am terribly sorry not to show you my treasure of treasures, but the
frame was pulling loose a bit and Felix has taken it to have it mended.
Anything as precious as a Rembrandt must be framed in an airtight
frame. Felix has been offered a huge sum for our Rembrandt and I am
trembling for fear he might sell it. Of course, I know that persons
of our means have no business owning such a rare etching but I would
so hate to part with it. Felix is something of a speculator in such
things, while I have more the soul of the born collector.”
“I should think you would live in continual fear of having your things
snatched from you,” said Elizabeth, wondering at her own cruelty in
making such a remark.
“I do,” said Hortense, sadly. “Why, Felix is so keen on a trade that I
shouldn’t be astonished if he wanted sometime to sell my lovely orchid
pin.”
“Ah, but the ‘Pet’ engraved on the back would keep him from doing
that,” suggested Billy, thinking what a mercenary brute the husband
must be.
“Oh, but that could be taken off,” said Elizabeth with an air of
childlike innocence. “We had some marks taken off some silver one
time. It was the initials of a person who had married into my father’s
family and had her initials put on an old family tea service. She had
no right to the service and the service was ruined in our eyes by the
addition of her initials. Of course, it meant some of the thickness of
the silver had to be sacrificed to get rid of the engraving and there
is almost a concavity where there used to be a convexity, but we prefer
that to the initials of the interloper.”
“Oh, please don’t tell my husband such a thing could be done,” was
Hortense’s playful rejoinder. “He would surely get some of the eraser
and take off the ‘Pet.’ Of course, this little pin is very valuable as
a work of art and I shouldn’t object if we get really hard up. I have
never been an unreasonable wife, and we have had our ups and downs.”
“You might write to your friend Mr. Thomas,” Elizabeth suggested to
Billy, “and tell him there is a chance for him to buy the duplicate of
the pin his wife lost.” Elizabeth well understood she was teasing Mrs.
Markle, but could not resist doing it, feeling assured that she was
supposed to be unconscious of so doing.
“Don’t do it! Please don’t do it!” begged Hortense, plainly alarmed.
“If this Mr. Thomas hears of this pin he might make a bid for it and
Felix is almost sure to take him up, although it does belong to me.
I couldn’t bear to part with my beautiful pin. It has such wonderful
associations. You see, Felix gave it to me in our early married life
when everything was quite different.” This, of course, was for Billy’s
benefit and he looked sad and promised he would not write to his friend.
Hortense looked daggers at Elizabeth, who began to feel that she was
regarded as being a bit catty, the expression that she had so recently
used to describe Hortense.
“No doubt I am,” Elizabeth said to herself, “but I couldn’t resist it.”
Aloud, she remarked that she must be going. Mrs. Markle did not urge
her to remain. She found this girl Elizabeth a little too inclined to
suggest unpleasant things. She was on the whole rather relieved when
Billy McGraw offered to take Elizabeth home in his car. She wanted to
get rid of both callers and to see Felix alone and report to him that
things were getting a trifle warm.
“I am afraid my clever puss has been talking too much,” suggested Mr.
Markle, when his wife told him of her having been asked to exhibit the
Rembrandt.
“Oh, I can’t think it. You see, one must be natural and what more
natural than to say one has a Rembrandt if it is the case?”
“That’s so! We may be moving on soon, Pet. Simpkins & Markle had a fine
offer to-day for a furnished apartment, and no questions asked. This
would be the very one and we could take with us all the doubtful things
and still leave a costly enough place.”
“Not before the wedding, surely!” she exclaimed.
“Well, hardly, when my wife is to be matron of honor! We will be here
several months longer. What is the date fixed!”
“June the twelfth! Must I give out that there is a chance of our
moving?”
“Not yet, but when you do, of course you must be the abused young wife
with the peculiar and mercenary husband. That is a great stunt of
yours. I heard what you were saying to that young ass of a McGraw.”
“Not jealous, are you?” she asked coyly.
“Not a bit! Just more in love with you than ever. I don’t know what
I’d do without such a clever wife and such a stupid business partner.
Simpkins is duller than ever. He accepts everything on its face value
in the firm and assists me in operating the business with never an
idea in his numskull that he is not conducting a perfectly legitimate
thing. Of course, we have a lot of simple deals on that any real estate
firm might have and then we have this out of town rental list that
I attend to as much as possible. Sometimes, though, it is up to him
and he accepts it with perfectly good grace. Specializing as we do in
elegantly furnished apartments brings in a class of clients with whom
he is unfamiliar and they seem in a measure to overawe him into extra
stupidity.”
Dorfield and the neighboring towns were suffering from the after war
congested conditions quite as much as were the large cities. New
industries had sprung into existence, bringing many strangers to
settle in the towns. Building was high and the cost of materials was
increasing every day. That was forcing up the price of real estate and
quite ordinary little apartments were renting for fabulous sums. When
those apartments were furnished the supposed value was doubled. And
when they were furnished elegantly the agents could go as far as they
liked in their demands upon the tenants.
Simpkins & Markle were doing a flourishing business, specializing in
small, elegantly furnished apartments. They had branch offices in all
the neighboring towns, Mr. Markle being the traveling member who kept
in touch with the branch offices.
These apartments were always let with the greatest care as to the form
of lease. The empty apartment would be rented to a young couple who
would sign the lease and pay a month’s rent in advance. Then their
household goods would arrive from some distant state and be installed.
Rugs, pictures, beautiful furniture of all kinds, silver, china, table
linen, etc. The couple would live in the apartment for about a month
and then the young husband would report at the real estate office that
he had a raise, a new job, a sick mother, or something and wanted to
sub-let his apartment, furnished. Of course, the beautiful furnishings
would double and sometimes triple the value of the rooms and Simpkins
& Markle would reap a reward. Simpkins would never be called upon to
interview this couple and would therefore never be struck with its
likeness to the couple before. He seemed merely to see that the firm
was doing well and their kind of business was a lucrative one. He
stayed in Dorfield and kept the books and attended to the old Dorfield
business, which was slow but steady, while his more active partner
attended to the furnished apartment rentals. His was the duty to pass
on to the distant young couple the profits reaped by their contract in
sub-renting.
The unerring taste of Hortense was often called in play to arrange
the furniture in these apartments. She could put a touch to them that
would add greatly to their value. Strangers, warned beforehand of
the difficulty of finding any place to live and almost hopeless of
obtaining even a roof over their heads, would be carried off their feet
when shown these beautiful rooms where Hortense had had her artistic
will. No price seemed too high for such a haven of rest and beauty.
There can be little doubt in the minds of my readers where this
furniture came from. A chain of burglars reaching from New York to
San Francisco were ever busy robbing any and every house where they
could make an entrance. Then the spoils were carefully sorted and
shifted to far away points where detection was not likely. Felix and
Hortense Markle were head and brains for this bold undertaking.
They worked under many aliases and sometimes appeared as father and
daughter, sometimes brother and sister, sometimes they worked singly,
but usually they were husband and wife. They were clever beyond the
belief of ordinary mortals, so clever that their existence was doubted
by some of the most astute and highly esteemed detectives. O’Gorman
had been on their track and was in a fair way to come up with them
when the war broke out and he was compelled to serve his country in
other ways besides bringing to justice a pair of the cleverest thieves
he confessed himself ever to have seen. He had talked to Josie of his
ambition and had given her what information he possessed. This form
of real estate hoax was a new one with the Markles, but their method
was the one they had always used, that of living in a respectable and
decent way and making friends with the best people in the town where
they hoped to get the most loot.
Sleepy Dorfield was a good place for their machinations. There was a
good deal of wealth in town and the friendship of Mary Louise and her
grandfather was “open sesame” to the society of Dorfield.