THE EVE OF THE BATTLE
Mr. Levanter, receiving Captain Burgoyne in his elegant front shop in
full view of assistants and customers, was a bland, suave, and polite
gentleman; Mr. Levanter, closeted with Captain Burgoyne in his private
sanctum at the rear of the establishment, became a man of deep mystery.
Burgoyne saw at once that the jeweller was burning to communicate some
news which he believed to be of importance, and he waited calmly to
hear it.
“Take a seat, Captain,” said Mr. Levanter, cordially polite. “I--the
fact is, I have something to tell you which I think you will like to
hear. I would have stepped round to you myself, but I was not sure that
I should find you alone, you understand, and so----”
“Quite right,” said Burgoyne. “What is it, Mr. Levanter?”
Mr. Levanter hummed and hawed two or three times, and went through the
pantomimic gestures which are invariably indulged in by persons who
desire to make communications that in their opinion are tinged with
mystery. He smiled on his visitor.
“The fact is, Captain,” he said, “I was at the Odalium Theatre last
night.”
“So was I,” said Burgoyne bluntly.
“Yes,” said Mr. Levanter. “Yes. In fact I saw you. Hem!--I also noticed
your friends, Captain.”
“Well?” said Burgoyne.
“Yes,” continued Mr. Levanter. “Yes. Hem!--this is a difficult and
delicate matter, Captain. Er--may I ask if the--the lady in whose
company you were is a very personal friend of yours?”
“You may,” answered Burgoyne. “You may ask me anything you like. She is
not.”
“A--mere acquaintance, shall we say?” suggested Mr. Levanter.
“About that,” said Burgoyne. “Why?”
Mr. Levanter rubbed his hands together.
“That makes matters much more simple,” he said. “I may say anything I
like?”
“Anything,” replied Burgoyne.
“Very well,” said Mr. Levanter. “Er--I observed that the lady was
wearing the necklace, Captain.”
“You observed that the lady was wearing a necklace,” said Burgoyne.
Mr. Levanter started.
“Ah!” he said. “Just so. _A_ necklace? Yes. Now, Captain, was that the
necklace--the imitation one which you brought here, you know--or was it
the--real one?”
Burgoyne gave Mr. Levanter an inquiring look. Mr. Levanter smiled
again, and again rubbed his hands.
“You’ve got something to tell me about--that?” said Burgoyne. “I see.
Well, now, did you observe a gentleman who was with me in that box last
night?--a gentleman who has lost his left arm?”
“I did, sir, and I know him,” answered Mr. Levanter. “Captain Blair. He
is an occasional customer of mine.”
“Very good,” said Burgoyne. “Now, Mr. Levanter, I have given you a
great deal of my confidence and I am going to give you more. The real
reason why my friend Captain Blair and I were at the Odalium last night
with young Mr. Shrewsbury and that lady was that----”
Mr. Levanter suddenly put up a hand.
“Pardon a moment, Captain,” he said. “I ought to say that I know the
lady, Mrs. Walsingham. She has been here often with Mr. Shrewsbury.”
“Then that simplifies matters,” said Burgoyne. “I was going to say that
Captain Blair and I were where we were because of the necklace. The
fact is that Captain Blair is helping me to investigate matters. And if
you have anything to tell me I should like Captain Blair to hear it.
He is at his club in Dover Street at this moment, and if you have no
objection I’ll fetch him.”
“No objection whatever, Captain,” said Mr. Levanter. “Not at all, sir.
I shall be at your disposal as soon as you return.”
The friendliness of the jeweller’s intentions was evidenced by the fact
that when Burgoyne and Blair came back together he had set out on the
table in his private room a decanter of sherry and a box of cigars, and
that he pressed hospitality upon his visitors in a fashion which could
not well be refused.
“Allow me to offer you a glass of wine, gentlemen,” said Mr. Levanter.
“I believe you would find it hard to improve upon this sherry in the
town. And these cigars are as good, but if you prefer cigarettes,
gentlemen, here is an excellent brand. When one has a little
confidential talk in view, gentlemen, it is as well to be comfortable.”
“And what is it that you have to talk to us about, Mr. Levanter?” asked
Blair when they had settled down behind a door which looked to be as
safe and sound-proof as the door of a Bank of England vault. “Captain
Burgoyne has told me what you have already told him.”
Mr. Levanter looked approvingly at the smoke which curled from his
cigar.
“Well, gentlemen,” he said, “it’s a rather curious story, and in my
opinion it throws a sidelight on the question of the diamond necklace
which belongs to Captain Burgoyne, about which, Captain Blair, I
understand you know all that I do?”
“Yes,” answered Blair. “I do.”
“Well, gentlemen,” continued Mr. Levanter, “it so happened that last
night I went to the Odalium Theatre with a friend of mine. I am not
going to tell you his name, but he is a well-known jeweller, who is
also a pawnbroker. The reason why we went to the theatre was that he
and I had just done a very pretty little bit of business together,
so we decided to have an evening at the play, and a little supper
afterwards. We went to the Odalium because it was musical comedy--my
friend loves musical comedy. We sat in the dress-circle--rather far
back, for the seats were nearly all taken when we got to the theatre.
And we saw you, and Mr. Shrewsbury, and Mrs. Walsingham. And, of
course, I noticed that Mrs. Walsingham was wearing the necklace.”
“A necklace, Mr. Levanter,” said Burgoyne.
“I beg your pardon, sir--a necklace,” said Mr. Levanter. “Well, of
course, knowing all that I do, I wondered a bit about this. After a
time, my friend drew my attention to your box. ‘You see the woman there
with the diamond necklace, my boy?’ he said. ‘Yes,’ said I. ‘Wait till
we’re having our bit of supper,’ said he, ‘and I’ll tell you something
about that necklace and her, too,’ he said. Eh, gentlemen?”
Burgoyne and Blair exchanged looks, and Mr. Levanter, greatly enjoying
his rôle of story-teller, proceeded.
“You will easily understand, gentlemen,” he said, “that I naturally
pricked up my ears at that, especially as I saw that my friend--whose
name, as I say, I can’t give, though I may as well tell you that it
is to be given, if absolutely necessary, which depends, I take it,
entirely on you, Captain Burgoyne--as I saw, I say, that my friend was
a good deal--well, interested in seeing the lady and the necklace on
full show, as it were. However, I never believe in asking a man to tell
anything until he’s ready to tell it, so I said nothing. I noticed,
however, that at frequent intervals during the evening my friend’s eyes
were turned on your box, gentlemen, and that whenever he looked that
way, he sighed deeply.”
“We had no idea that we were attracting so much attention, I am sure,
Mr. Levanter,” observed Blair. “But I interrupt you--pray proceed.”
“Not at all, sir,” said Mr. Levanter, politely. “Well gentlemen, in
due course my friend and I went to have our bit of supper, and as
we had had a profitable deal during the day, we treated ourselves
to champagne. And after a glass or two, my friend’s spirits seemed
to rise. ‘You sighed a good deal in the theatre,’ I said to him.
‘Especially when you looked at the lady with the necklace.’ ‘Ah, my
boy,’ said he, ‘so would you have sighed if you knew all that I do! I
had that necklace in pledge, my boy,’ he said, ‘for nigh on two years,
and I was always hoping that it would eventually drop into my hands, my
boy, but it never did. And it’s worth, my boy, it’s worth every penny
of twelve thousand of the best, my boy, it is, indeed!’ he said. And
then he fell to sighing again.”
Here Mr. Levanter begged permission to refill the gentlemen’s glasses,
and incidentally refilled his own.
“Well, gentlemen,” he continued, “the whole story then came out. It
appears that about two years ago--rather more than two years ago, to be
exact--this Mrs. Walsingham visited my friend, who is, as I told you,
but had better remind you again, a jeweller who is also a pawnbroker
in a first-class line of business, and told him she wanted to pledge
a diamond necklace, which she there and then produced, and which he
declares to be the one she was wearing at the Odalium last night. He
at once saw that the necklace was of great value; as he observed to me
over the supper-table, he valued it at not less than twelve thousand
pounds, and he is a knowing man and an expert. Greatly to his surprise,
when he asked her how much she wished to borrow on it, she replied that
she wanted a thousand pounds, and----”
“Only a thousand!” exclaimed Blair.
“Only a thousand pounds, sir,” replied Mr. Levanter. “And she wanted
a special contract, on the terms of which she was to pay the interest
every six months. The transaction was put through on those terms, and
when it was completed, my friend, who, I must tell you, gentlemen, is
fond of a bargain, began to sound her as to buying the necklace. Of
course, she wouldn’t hear of it, and she took her thousand pounds and
went away. When she came again, six months later, to pay her interest,
he sounded her again, but with no result. The same thing happened at
six-monthly intervals. Finally, when the necklace had been in his hands
two years, and she came to pay the fourth six-months’ interest, my
friend made a determined attempt to buy from her--he offered her a big
sum.”
“How much?” asked Blair.
Mr. Levanter smiled and shook his head.
“That, sir, he did not tell me,” he answered. “But I gathered that it
was a good deal. However, she would not listen to him then, but he
confided to me that at that time he certainly had hopes of getting her
to sell it to him for seven or eight thousand--he knew, if she did,
that he could get ten thousand for it at once.”
“A nice profit!” said Burgoyne.
“A very pretty profit, sir,” assented Mr. Levanter, calmly. “But while
he was still anticipating this, the lady turned up one morning--it is
only a few days ago that this happened--and said that she had come to
redeem her pledge. You may imagine, gentlemen, how deeply concerned my
friend was to hear this! He had never given up hope of being able to
persuade the lady to sell, and he gave me to understand last night that
he was so anxious to acquire the necklace that he actually increased
his offer until it reached a sum which would only have left him a
nominal profit--say fifteen hundred pounds.”
“And yet without result,” observed Blair, drily.
“Without result, sir!” said Mr. Levanter. “Imagine a lady--ladies never
have much ready money--refusing eight thousand five hundred pounds in
solid cash! However, this lady would listen to nothing: she paid the
thousand pounds and what trifle of interest there was, and carried her
necklace off. And my friend assured me, gentlemen, that he felt the
transaction almost as much as if he’d lost a favourite child!”
“I should think so,” remarked Blair. “Yes, I should think so.” He
glanced at Burgoyne, who was staring fixedly at the jeweller, and then
turned to Mr. Levanter again. “Well, this is a very interesting story,
Mr. Levanter,” he said. “How does it seem to you?”
Mr. Levanter smiled slyly.
“Well, sir,” he said, “I should just like to ask Captain Burgoyne--or
you, for you know all about it--a plain question. Was that necklace
which Mrs. Walsingham was wearing at the theatre last night the real
genuine article which Captain Burgoyne lost, or was it the imitation
one which he brought to me?”
Burgoyne answered promptly--“The real one!”
Mr. Levanter rose, still smiling.
“Then, gentlemen, I think you know who annexed the real one when it
was--annexed,” he said. “There’s no need to say more.”
“Except that for the present the secrecy between us must remain,” said
Blair. “You quite understand that, Mr. Levanter.”
Mr. Levanter answered with many smiles and reassuring nods that he
understood, and presently the two friends went away and walked up Bond
Street together.
“Now, Ralph,” said Blair. “You must be off to Paris at once. There’s
no use in delaying this affair. Get off this afternoon. Do nothing
to-morrow, except to wire for the youngster. Wire me as soon as he
arrives. Tell him what you’ve got to tell him the day after his
arrival. While you’re tackling him, Winch shall tackle Carsdale, and
I’ll tackle the woman. I shan’t see you again. Where will you stay?”
“_Bristol_,” answered Burgoyne, laconically.
“Very well,” said Blair. “Now, be off. Remember, this is the eve of
battle.”
“I wish it were against honest enemies!” said Burgoyne. And he strode
away, growling.