Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  The Squire came home in the midst of the stir. He blustered a little, partly at the loss, chiefly at the encouragement of tramps, calling it astounding folly. Ordering Thomas to bring a lantern, he went stooping his old back down the path, and across to Coney’s and back again; not believing any one had searched properly, and finally kicking the snow about.

  “It’s a pity this here snow’s on the ground, sir,” cried Thomas. “A little thing like an earring might easily slip into it in falling.”

  “Not a bit of it,” growled the Squire. “That tramp has got the earring.”

  “I don’t believe the tramp has,” I stoutly said. “I don’t think she was a tramp at all: and she seemed honest. I liked her face.”

  “There goes Johnny with his ‘faces’ again!” said the Squire, in laughing mockery: and Tod echoed it.

  “It’s a good thing you don’t have to buy folks by their faces, Johnny: you’d get finely sold sometimes.”

  “And she had a true voice,” I persisted, not choosing to be put down, also thinking it right to assert what was my conviction. “A voice you might trust without as much as looking at herself.”

  Well, the earring was not to be found; though the search continued more or less till bed-time, for every other minute somebody would be looking again on the carpets.

  “It is not so much for the value I regret it,” spoke Mrs. Todhetley, the tears rising in her meek eyes: “as for the old associations connected with it. I never had the earrings out but they brought back to me the remembrance of my girlhood’s home.”

  Early in the morning I ran down to the school-house. More snow had fallen in the night. The children were flocking in. Miss Timmens had not noticed the earrings at all, but several of the girls said they had. Strange to say, though, most of them could not say for certain whether they saw both the earrings: they thought they did; but there it ended. Just like old Coney!

  “I am sure both of them were there,” spoke up a nice, clean little girl, from a back form.

  “What’s that, Fanny Fairfax?” cried Miss Timmens, in her quick way. “Stand up. How are you sure of it?”

  “Please governess, I saw them both,” was the answer; and the child blushed like a peony as she stood up above the others and said it.

  “Are you sure you did?”

  “Yes, I’m quite sure, please, governess. I was looking which o’ the two shined the most. ’Twas when the lady was stooping over the shirt, and the sun came in at the window.”

  “What did they look like?” asked Miss Timmens.

  “They looked — —” and there the young speaker came to a standstill.

  “Come, Fanny Fairfax!” cried Miss Timmens, sharply. “What d’you stop for? I ask you what the earrings looked like. You must be able to tell if you saw them.”

  “They were red, please, governess, and had shining things round them like the ice when it glitters.”

  “She’s right, Master Johnny,” nodded Miss Timmens to me: “and she’s a very correct child in general. I think she must have seen both of them.”

  I ran home with the news. They were at breakfast still.

  “What a set of muffs the children must be, not to have taken better notice!” cried Tod. “Why, when I saw only the one earring in, it struck my eye at once.”

  “And for that reason it is almost sure that both of them were in at the school-house,” I rejoined. “The children did not particularly observe the two, but they would have remarked it directly had only one been in. Old Coney said the same.”

  “Ay: it’s that tramp that has got it,” said the Squire. “While your mother was talking to her, it must have slipped out of the ear, and she managed to secure it. Those tramps lay their hands on anything; nothing comes amiss to them; they are as bad as gipsies. I dare say this was a gipsy — dark as she was. I’ll be off to Worcester and see the police: we’ll soon have her found. You had better come with me, Johnny; you’ll be able to describe her.”

  We went off without delay, caught a passing train, and were soon at Worcester and at the police-station. The Squire asked for Sergeant Cripp: who came to him, and prepared to listen to his tale.

  He began it in his impulsive way; saying outright that the earring had been stolen by a gipsy-tramp. I tried to say that it might have been only lost, but the pater scoffed at that, and told me to hold my tongue.

  “And now, Cripp, what’s to be done?” he demanded, not having given the sergeant an opportunity to put in a word edgeways. “We must get the earring back; it is of value, and much prized, apart from that, by Mrs. Todhetley. The woman must be found, you know.”

  “Yes, she must be found,” agreed the sergeant. “Can you give me a description of her?”

  “Johnny — this young gentleman can,” said the Squire, rubbing his brow with his yellow silk handkerchief, for he had put himself into a heat, in spite of the frosty atmosphere that surrounded us. “He was with Mrs. Todhetley when she talked to the woman.”

  “A thin woman of middle height, stooped a good deal, face pale and quiet, wrinkles on it, brown eyes,” wrote the sergeant, taking down what I said. “Black poke bonnet, clean cap border, old red woollen shawl with the fringe torn off in places. Can’t remember gown: except that it was dark and shabby.”

  “And, of course, sir, you’ve no clue to her name?” cried the sergeant, looking at me.

  “Yes: she said it was Nutten — as I understood it; but Mrs. Todhetley thought she said Nutt.” And I went on to relate the tale the woman told. Sergeant Cripp’s lips extended themselves in a silent smile.

  “It was well got up, that tale,” said he, when I finished. “Just the thing to win over a warm-hearted lady.”

  “But she could not have halted at the gate, expecting to steal the earring?”

  “Of course not. She was prowling about to see what she could steal, perhaps watching her opportunity to get into the house. The earring fell in her way, a more valuable prize than she expected, and she made off with it.”

  “You’ll be able to hunt her up if she’s in Worcester, Cripp,” put in the pater. “Don’t lose time.”

  “If she’s in Worcester,” returned Mr. Cripp, with emphasis. “She’s about as likely to be in Worcester, Squire Todhetley, as I am to be at this present minute in Brummagem,” he familiarly added. “After saying she was coming to Worcester, she’d strike off in the most opposite direction to it.”

  “Where on earth are we to look for her, then?” asked the pater, in commotion.

  “Leave it to us, Squire. We’ll try and track her. And — I hope — get back the earring.”

  “And about the advertisement for the newspapers, Cripp? We ought to put one in.”

  Sergeant Cripp twirled the pen in his fingers while he reflected. “I think, sir, we will let the advertisement alone for a day or two,” he presently said. “Sometimes these advertisements do more harm than good: they put thieves on their guard.”

  “Do they? Well, I suppose they do.”

  “If the earring had been simply lost, then I should send an advertisement to the papers at once. But if it has been stolen by this tramp, and you appear to consider that point pretty conclusive — —”

  “Oh, quite conclusive,” interrupted the pater. “She has that earring as sure as this is an umbrella in Johnny Ludlow’s hand. Had it been dropped anywhere on the ground, we must have found it.”

  “Then we won’t advertise it. At least not in to-morrow’s papers,” concluded Sergeant Cripp. And telling us to leave the matter entirely in his hands, he showed us out.

  The Squire went up the street with his hands in his pockets, looking rather glum.

  “I’m not sure that he’s right about the advertisement, Johnny,” he said at length. “I lay awake last night in bed, making up the wording of it in my own mind. Perhaps he knows best, though.”

  “I suppose he does, sir.”

  And he went on again, up one street, and down another, deep in thought.

  “Let’s see
— we have nothing to do here to-day, have we, Johnny?”

  “Except to get the pills made up. The mother said we were to be sure and not forget them.”

  “Oh, ay. And that’s all the way down in Sidbury! Couldn’t we as well get them made up by a druggist nearer?”

  “But it is the Sidbury druggist who holds the prescription.”

  “What a bother! Well, lad, let us put our best leg foremost, for I want to catch the one-o’clock train, if I can.”

  Barely had we reached Sidbury, when who should come swinging along the pavement but old Coney, in a rough white great-coat and top-boots. Not being market-day, we were surprised to see him.

  “I had to come in about some oats,” he explained. And then the Squire told him of our visit to the place, and the sergeant’s opinion about the advertisement.

  “Cripp’s wrong,” said Coney, decisively. “Not advertise the earring! — why, it is the first step that ought to be taken.”

  “Well, so I thought,” said the pater.

  “The thing’s not obliged to have been stolen, Squire; it may have been dropped out of the ear in the road, and picked up by some one. The offering of a reward might bring it back again.”

  “And I’ll be shot if I don’t do it,” exclaimed the pater. “I can see as far through a millstone as Cripp can.”

  Turning into the Hare and Hounds, which was old Coney’s inn, they sat down at a table, called for pen and ink, and began to draw out an advertisement between them. “Lost! An earring of great value, pink topaz and diamonds,” wrote the Squire on a leaf of his pocket-book; and when he had got as far as that he looked up.

  “Johnny, you go over to Eaton’s for a sheet or two of writing-paper. We’ll have it in all three of the newspapers. And look here, lad — you can run for the pills at the same time. Take care of the street slides. I nearly came down on one just now, you know.”

  When I got back with the paper and pills, the advertisement was finished. It concluded with an offer of £5 reward. Applications to be made to Mr. Sergeant Cripp, or to Squire Todhetley of Crabb Cot. And, leaving it at the offices of the Herald, Journal, and Chronicle, we returned home. It would appear on the next day, Saturday; to the edification, no doubt, of Sergeant Cripp.

  “Any news of the earring?” was the Squire’s first question when we got in.

  No, there was no news of it, Mrs. Todhetley answered. And she had sent Luke Macintosh over to the little hamlet, Islip; who reported when he came back that there was no Mrs. Nutt, or Nutten, known there.

  “Just what I expected,” observed the pater. “That woman was a thieving tramp, and she has the earring.”

  Saturday passed over, and Sunday came. When the Worcester paper arrived on Saturday morning the advertisement was in it as large as life, and the pater read it out to us. Friday and Saturday had been very dull, with storms of snow; on Sunday the sun shone again, and the air was crisp.

  It was about three o’clock, and we were sitting at the dessert-table cracking filberts, for on Sundays we always dined early, after morning service — when Thomas came in and said a stranger had called, and was asking if he could see Mrs. Todhetley. But the mater, putting a shawl over her head and cap, had just stepped over to sit a bit with sick Mrs. Coney.

  “Who is it, Thomas?” asked the Squire. “A stranger! Tell him to send his name in.”

  “His name’s Eccles, sir,” said Thomas, coming back again. “He comes, he says, from Sergeant Cripp.”

  “My goodness! — it must be about the earring,” cried the Squire.

  “That it is, sir,” said old Thomas. “The first word he put to me was an inquiry whether you had heard news of it.”

  I followed the pater into the study. Tod did not leave his filberts. Standing by the fire was a tall, well-dressed man, with a black moustache and blue silk necktie. I think the Squire was a little taken aback at the fashionable appearance of the visitor. He had expected to see an ordinary policeman.

  “Have you brought tidings of Mrs. Todhetley’s earring?” began the pater, all in a flutter of eagerness.

  “I beg a thousand pardons for intruding upon you on a Sunday,” returned the stranger, cool and calm as a cucumber, “but the loss of an hour is sometimes most critical in these cases. I have the honour, I believe, of speaking to Squire Todhetley?”

  The Squire nodded. “Am I mistaken in supposing that you come about the earring?” he reiterated. “I understood my servant to mention Sergeant Cripp. But — you do not, I presume, belong to the police force?”

  “Only as a detective officer,” was the answer, given with a taking smile. “A private officer,” he added, putting a stress upon the word. “My name is Eccles.”

  “Take a seat, Mr. Eccles,” said the Squire, sitting down himself, while I stood back by the window. “I do hope you have brought tidings of the earring.”

  “Yes — and no,” replied Mr. Eccles, with another fascinating smile, as he unbuttoned his top-coat. “We think we have traced it; but we cannot yet be sure.”

  “And where is it? — who has it?” cried the Squire, eagerly.

  “It is a very delicate matter, and requires delicate handling,” observed the detective, after a slight pause. “For that reason I have come over to-day myself. Cripp did not choose to entrust it to one of his men.”

  “I am sure I am much obliged to him, and to you too,” said the Squire, his face beaming. “Where is the earring?”

  “Before I answer that question, will you be so kind as to relate to me, in a few concise words, the precise circumstances under which the earring was lost?”

  The pater entered on the story, and I helped him. Mr. Eccles listened attentively.

  “Exactly so,” said he, when it was over. “Those are the facts Cripp gave me; but it was only second-hand, you see, and I preferred to hear them direct from yourselves. They serve to confirm our suspicion.”

  “But where is the earring?” repeated the pater.

  “If it is where we believe it to be, it is in a gentleman’s house at Worcester. At least he may be called a gentleman. He is a professional man: a lawyer, in fact. But I may not give names in the present stage of the affair.”

  “And how did the earring get into his house?” pursued the Squire, all aglow with interest.

  “News reached us last evening,” began Mr. Eccles, after searching in his pockets for something that he apparently could not find: perhaps a note-case— “reached us in a very singular way, too — that this gentleman had been making a small purchase of jewellery in the course of yesterday; had been making it in private, and did not wish it talked of. A travelling pedlar — that was the description we received — had come in contact with him and offered him an article for sale, which he, after some haggling, purchased. By dint of questioning, we discovered this article to be an earring: one earring, not a pair. Naturally Mr. Cripp’s suspicion was at once aroused: he thought it might be the very self-same earring that you have lost. We consulted together, and the result is, I decided to come over and see you.”

  “I’d lay all I’ve got it is the earring!” exclaimed the Squire, in excitement. “The travelling pedlar that sold it must have been that woman tramp.”

  “Well, no,” returned the detective, quietly. “It was a man. Her husband, perhaps; or some confederate of hers.”

  “No doubt of that! And how can we get back the earring?”

  “We shall get it, sir, never fear; if it be the earring you have lost. But, as I have just observed, it is a matter that will require extreme delicacy and caution in the handling. First of all, we must assure ourselves beyond doubt that the earring is the one in question. To take any steps upon an uncertainty would not do: this gentleman might turn round upon us unpleasantly.”

  “Well, let him,” cried the Squire.

  The visitor smiled his candid smile again, and shook his head. “For instance, if, after taking means to obtain possession of the earring, we found it to be coral set with pearls, or opal set with emer
alds, instead of a pink topaz with diamonds, we should not only look foolish ourselves, but draw down upon us the wrath of the present possessor.”

  “Is he a respectable man?” asked the pater. “I know most of the lawyers — —”

  “He stands high enough in the estimation of the town, but I have known him do some very dirty actions in his profession,” interrupted Mr. Eccles, speaking rapidly. “With a man like him to deal with, we must necessarily be wary.”

  “Then what are you going to do?”

  “The first step, Squire Todhetley, is to make ourselves sure that the earring is the one we are in quest of. With this view, I am here to request Mrs. Todhetley to allow me to see the fellow-earring. Cripp has organized a plan by which he believes we can get to see the one I have been telling you of; but it will be of no use our seeing it unless we can identify it.”

  “Of course not. By all means. Johnny, go over and ask your mother to come in,” added the Squire, eagerly. “I’m sure I don’t know where she keeps her things, and might look in her places for ever without finding it. Meanwhile, Mr. Eccles, can I offer you some refreshment? We have just dined off a beautiful sirloin of beef: it’s partly cold now, but perhaps you won’t mind that.”

  Mr. Eccles said he would take a little, as the Squire was so good as to offer it, for he had come off by the first train after morning service, and so lost his dinner. Taking my hat, I dashed open the dining-room door in passing. Tod was at the nuts still, Hugh and Lena on either side of him.

  “I say, Tod, do you want to see a real live detective? There’s one in the study.”

  Who should be seated in the Coneys’ drawing-room, her bonnet and shawl on, and her veil nearly hiding her sad face, but Lucy Bird — Lucy Ashton that used to be. It always gave me a turn when I saw her: bringing up all kinds of ugly sorrows and troubles. I shook hands, and asked after Captain Bird.

  She believed he was very well, she said, but she had been spending the time since yesterday at Timberdale Court with Robert and Jane. To-day she had been dining with the Coneys — who were always kind to her, she added, with a sigh — and she was now about to go off to the station to take the train for Worcester.