Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  ‘But you will dine, sir?’ Mr. Pinney put that point as only a well-regulated Englishman of his class can.

  ‘I shall not dine, and you will not dine,’ answered Logotheti calmly, ‘if our dinner is at all likely to keep those people in prison an hour longer than is inevitable.’

  Mr. Pinney looked graver than ever. He was in the habit of dining early, and it is said that an Englishman does not fight on an empty stomach, and will eat an excellent breakfast before being hanged.

  ‘You can eat sandwiches in the hansom,’ said the Greek coldly.

  ‘I was thinking of you, sir,’ Mr. Pinney answered gloomily, as he finished the operation of shutting the safe; he did not like sandwiches, for his teeth were not strong.

  ‘You must also make an effort to trace those two young men who stole the ruby,’ said Logotheti.

  ‘I most certainly shall,’ replied the jeweller, ‘and if it is not found we will make it good to you, sir, whatever price you set upon it. I am deeply humiliated, but nobody shall say that Pinney and Son do not make good any loss their customers sustain through them.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that, Mr. Pinney,’ said Logotheti, who saw how much distressed the old jeweller really was.

  So they went out and hailed a hansom, and drove away.

  It would be tiresome to give a detailed account of what they did. Mr. Pinney had not been one of the principal jewellers in London for forty years without having been sometimes in need of the law; and occasionally, also, the law had been in need of him as an expert in very grave cases, some of which required the utmost secrecy as well as the greatest possible tact. He knew his way about in places where Logotheti had never been; and having once abandoned the idea of dinner, he lost no time; for the vision of dinner after all was over rose softly, as the full moon rises on a belated traveller, very pleasant and companionable by the way.

  Moreover, as the fact that Baraka and Spiro were really innocent has been kept in view, the manner in which they were proved so is of little importance, nor the circumstances of their being let out of Brixton Gaol, with a vague expression of regret on the part of the law for having placed faith in what Mr. Pinney had testified ‘to the best of his belief,’ instead of accepting a fairy story which a Tartar girl, caught going about in man’s clothes, told through the broken English of a Stamboul interpreter. The law, being good English law, did not make a fuss about owning that it had been mistaken; though it reprimanded Mr. Pinney openly for his haste, and he continued to feel deeply humiliated. It was also quite ready to help him to find the real thieves, though that looked rather difficult.

  For law and order, in their private study, with no one looking on, had felt that there was something very odd about the case. It was strange, for instance, that the committed person should have a large bank account in Paris in his, or her, own name, and should have made no attempt to conceal the latter when arrested. It was queer that ‘Barak’ should be known to a number of honourable Paris jewellers as having sold them rubies of excellent quality, but that there should never have been the least suspicion that he, or she, took any that belonged to other people. It was still more extraordinary that ‘Barak’ should have offered an enormous ruby, of which the description corresponded remarkably well with the one that had appeared in evidence at the Police Court, to two French dealers in precious stones, who had not bought it, but were bearing it in mind for possible customers, and were informed of Barak’s London address, in case they could find a buyer. In the short time since Baraka had been in prison, yards of ciphered telegrams had been exchanged between the London and Paris police; for the Frenchmen maintained that if the Englishmen had not made a mistake, there must have been a big robbery of precious stones somewhere, to account for those that Baraka was selling; but that, as no such robbery, or robberies, had been heard of anywhere in Europe, America, India, or Australia, the Englishmen were probably wrong and had locked up the wrong person. For the French jewellers who had bought the stones all went to the Paris Chief of Police and laid the matter before him, being much afraid that they had purchased stolen goods which had certainly not been offered for sale in ‘market overt.’ The result was that the English police had begun to feel rather nervous about it all, and were extremely glad to have matters cleared up, and to say so, and to see about the requisite order to set the prisoners at large.

  Also, Mr. Pinney restored the ruby to her, and all her other belongings were given back to her, even including the smart grey suit of men’s clothes in which she had been arrested; and her luggage and other things which the manager of the hotel where she had been stopping had handed over to the police were all returned; and when Spiro appeared at the hotel to pay the small bill that had been left owing, he held his head as high as an Oriental can when he has got the better of any one, and that is pretty high indeed. Furthermore, Mr. Pinney insisted on giving Logotheti a formal document by which Messrs. Pinney and Son bound themselves to make good to him, his heirs, or assigns, the loss of a ruby, approximately of a certain weight and quality, which he had lost through their carelessness.

  All these things were arranged with as little fuss and noise as might be; but it was not possible to keep the singular circumstances out of the newspapers; nor was it desirable, except from Mr. Pinney’s point of view, for Baraka had a right to be cleared from all suspicion in the most public manner, and Logotheti insisted that this should be done. It was done, and generously too; and the girl’s story was so wonderfully romantic that the reporters went into paroxysms of adjectivitis in every edition of their papers, and scurried about town like mad between the attacks to find out where she was and to interview her. But in this they failed; and the only person they could lay hands on was Logotheti’s private secretary, who was a middle-aged Swiss with a vast face that was as perfectly expressionless as a portrait of George the Fourth on the signboard of an English country inn, or a wooden Indian before the door of an American tobacconist’s shop. He had been everywhere and spoke most known languages, for he had once set up a little business in Constantinople that had failed; and his power of knowing nothing, when he had a secret to keep for his employer, was as the combined stupidity of ten born idiots.

  He knew nothing. No, he did not know where Baraka was; he did not know what had become of her servant Spiro; he did not know where Logotheti was; he did not know anything; if the reporters had asked him his own name, he would very likely have answered that he did not know that either. The number of things he did not know was perfectly overwhelming. The reporters came to the conclusion that Logotheti had spirited away the beautiful Tartar; and they made some deductions, but abstained from printing them yet, though they worked them out on paper, because they were well aware that Logotheti was engaged to marry the celebrated Cordova, and was too important a personage to be trifled with, unless he had a fall, which sometimes happens to financiers.

  On the day following Baraka’s liberation, Lady Maud received Margaret’s pressing telegram begging her to go to Bayreuth. The message reached her before noon, about the time when Margaret and her companions had come back from their morning walk, and after hesitating for half-an-hour, she telegraphed that she would come with pleasure, and would start at once, which meant that evening.

  She had just read the official account of the ruby case in its new aspect, and she did not believe a word of the story. To her mind it was quite clear that Logotheti was still infatuated with the girl, that he had come to London as fast as he could, and that he had deliberately sworn that the ruby was not his, but another one, in order to get her out of trouble. If it was not his it had not been stolen from Pinney’s, and the whole case fell through at once. If she was declared innocent the stone must be given back to her; he would take it from her as soon as they were alone and return it to his own pocket; and being an Oriental, he would probably beat her for robbing him, but would not let her out of his sight again till he was tired of her. Lady Maud had heard from her late husband how all Turks believed that women had no
souls and should be kept under lock and key, and well fed, and soundly beaten now and then for the good of their tempers. This view was exaggerated, but Lady Maud was in a humour to recall it and accept it without criticism, and she made up her mind that before leaving town to join Margaret she would make sure of the facts. No friend of hers should marry a man capable of such outrageous deeds.

  If she had not been an impulsive woman she could never have done so much good in the world; and she had really done so much that she believed in her impulses, and acted on them without taking into consideration the possibility that she might be doing harm. But the damage which very actively good people sometimes do quite unintentionally is often greater and more lasting than that done by bad people, because the good ones carry with them the whole resistless weight of real goodness and of real good works already accomplished.

  Perhaps that is why honestly convinced reformers sometimes bring about more ruin in a few months than ten years of bribery and corruption have wrought before them.

  Lady Maud was a reformer, in a sense, and she was afraid of nothing when she thought she was doing right. She went to Logotheti’s lodgings and asked to see him, as regardless of what any one should think of her, if she were recognised, as she had been in the old days when she used to go to Van Torp’s chambers in the Temple in the evening.

  She was told that Logotheti was out of town. Where? The servant did not know that. The lady could see the secretary, who might, perhaps, tell her. He received every one who had business with Monsieur Logotheti.

  She went up one flight and was admitted to a very airy sitting-room, simply furnished. There were several large easy-chairs of different shapes, all covered with dark wine-coloured leather, and each furnished with a different appliance for holding a book or writing materials. There was a long bookcase full of books behind glass. There was a writing-table, on which were half-a-dozen monstrously big implements of an expensive kind, but handsome in their way: a paper-cutter hewn from at least a third of an elephant’s tusk, and heavy enough to fell a man at a blow; an enormous inkstand, apparently made of a solid brick of silver, without ornament, brightly polished, and having a plain round hole in the middle for ink; a blotting-case of the larger folio size, with a Greek inscription on it in raised letters of gold; a trough of imperial jade, two feet long, in which lay a couple of gold penholders fitted with new pens, and the thickest piece of scarlet sealing-wax Lady Maud had ever seen. They were objects of the sort that many rich men receive as presents, or order without looking at them when they are furnishing a place that is to be a mere convenience for a few days in the year. There was nothing personal in what Lady Maud saw, except the books, and she could not have examined them if she had wished to.

  The one thing that struck her was a delicate suggestion of sweetness in the fresh air of the room, something that was certainly not a scent, and yet was not that of the perfumes or gums which some Orientals like to burn where they live. She liked it, and wondered what it was, as she glanced about for some one of the unmistakable signs of a woman’s presence.

  The Swiss secretary had risen ponderously to receive her, and as she did not sit down he remained standing. His vast face was fringed with a beard of no particular colour, and his eyes were fixed and blue in his head, like turquoises set in pale sole leather.

  ‘I am Countess Leven,’ she said, ‘and I have known Monsieur Logotheti some time. Will you kindly tell me where he is?’

  ‘I do not know, madam,’ was the answer.

  ‘He is not in London?’

  ‘At present I do not know, madam.’

  ‘Has he left no address? Do you not forward his letters to him?’

  ‘No, madam. I do not forward his letters to him.’

  ‘Then I suppose he is on his yacht,’ suggested Lady Maud.

  ‘Madam, I do not know whether he is on his yacht.’

  ‘You don’t seem to know anything!’

  ‘Pardon me, madam, I think I know my business. That is all I know.’

  Lady Maud held her beautiful head a little higher and her lids drooped slightly as she looked down at him, for he was shorter than she. But the huge leathern face was perfectly impassive, and the still, turquoise eyes surveyed her without winking. She had never seen such stolidity in a human being. It reminded her of those big Chinese pottery dogs with vacant blue eyes that some people keep beside a fireplace or a hall door, for no explicable reason.

  There was clearly nothing to be done, and she thought the secretary distinctly rude; but as that was no reason why she should be, she bade him good-morning civilly and turned to go. Somewhat to her surprise, he followed her quickly across the room, opened the door for her and went on into the little hall to let her out. There was a small table there, on which lay some of Logotheti’s hats, and several pairs of gloves were laid out neatly before them. There was one pair, of a light grey, very much smaller than all the rest, so small indeed that they might have fitted a boy of seven, except that they looked too narrow for any boy. They were men’s gloves as to length and buttons, but only a child could have worn them.

  Lady Maud saw them instantly, and remembered Baraka’s disguise; and as she passed the big umbrella jar to go out, she saw that with two of Logotheti’s sticks there was a third, fully four inches shorter; just a plain crook-handled stick with a silver ring. That was enough. Baraka had certainly been in the lodgings and had probably left in them everything that belonged to her disguise. The fact that the gloves and the stick were in the hall, looked very much as if she had come in dressed as a man and had left them there when she had gone away in woman’s attire. That she was with Logotheti, most probably on his yacht, Lady Maud had not the least doubt, as she went down the stairs.

  The Swiss secretary stood at the open door on the landing till she was out of sight below, and then went in again, and returned to work over a heap of business papers and letters. When he had worked half an hour, he leaned back in his leathern chair to rest, and stared fixedly at the bookcase. Presently he spoke aloud in English, as if Lady Maud were still in the room, in the same dull, matter-of-fact tone, but more forcibly as to expression.

  ‘It is perfectly true, though you do not believe me, madam. I do not know anything. How the dickens should I know where they are, madam? But I know my business. That is all.’

  CHAPTER X

  THE ERINNA WAS steaming quietly down the Channel in a flat calm, at the lazy rate of twelve knots an hour, presumably in order to save her coal, for she could run sixteen when her owner liked, and he was not usually fond of going slow. Though September was at hand, and Guernsey was already on the port quarter, the sea was motionless and not so much as a cat’s-paw stirred the still blue water; but the steamer’s own way made a pleasant draught that fanned the faces of Logotheti and Baraka as they lay in their long chairs under the double awning outside the deck-house.

  The Tartar girl wore a skirt and jacket of dark blue yachting serge, which did not fit badly considering that they had been bought ready-made by Logotheti’s man. She had little white tennis shoes on her feet, which were crossed one over the other on the deck-chair, but instead of wearing a hat she had bound a dove-coloured motor-veil on her head by a single thick gold cord, in the Asiatic way, and the thin folds hung down on each side, and lay on her shoulders, shading her face, and the breeze stirred them. Logotheti’s valet had been sent out in a taximeter, provided with a few measurements and plenty of cash, and commissioned to buy everything that a girl who had nothing at all to wear, visible or invisible, could possibly need. He was also instructed to find a maid who could speak Tartar, or at least a little Turkish.

  After five hours he had come back with a heavy load of boxes of all shapes and sizes and the required maid. You can find anything in a great city, if you know how to look for it, and he had discovered through an agency a girl from Trebizonde who had been caught at twelve years old by missionaries, brought to England and educated to go into service; she spoke English very prettily, and had n
ot altogether forgotten the lingua franca of Asia. It was her first place, outside of the retired missionary’s house, where she had been brought up and taught by a good old lady who had much to say about the heathen, and gave her to understand that all her deceased forefathers and relatives were frying. As she could not quite believe this, and had not a grateful disposition, and was of an exceedingly inquiring turn of mind, she was very glad to get away, and when she learned from the valet that her mistress was a Tartar lady and a Musulman, and could not speak English, her delight was quite boundless; she even said a few unintelligible words, in a thoughtful tone, which did not sound at all like any Christian prayer or thanksgiving she had learned from the missionaries.

  Moreover, while Logotheti and Baraka were lying in their chairs by the deck-house, she was telling the story of her life and explaining things generally to the good-looking young second mate on the other side of the ship.

  The consequence of her presence, however, was that Baraka was dressed with great neatness and care, and looked very presentable, though her clothes were only ready-made things, bought by a man-servant, who had only her height and the size of her waist to guide him. Logotheti watched her delicate, energetic profile, admiring the curves of her closed lips, and the wilful turning up of her little chin. She was more than very pretty now, he thought, and he was quietly amused at his own audacity in taking her to sea alone with him, almost on the eve of his marriage. It was especially diverting to think of what the proper people would say if they knew it, and to contrast the intentions they would certainly attribute to him with the perfectly honourable ones he entertained.

  As for Baraka, it never occurred to her that she was not as safe with him as she had been in her father’s house in the little white town far away, nearly three years ago; and besides, her steel bodkin with the silver handle had been given back to her, and she could feel it in its place when she pressed her left hand to her side. But the little maid who had been brought up by the missionaries took quite another point of view, though this was not among the things she was explaining so fluently in her pretty English to the second mate.