“How done?”
“Smashed,” said Sylvia. “Broke. Done in. Before the war I should have had to run away from my creditors and live in third-rate foreign hotels, but now I don’t know what one does.”
Peter was frowning.
“Good lord, Sylvia, you don’t mean it! You’re not serious?”
“Peter!” Sylvia put out one hand and just touched his knee with it. “Of course I’m serious.” Her voice began to tremble a little. “I hate being serious, but one has to be when one’s ruined, and—and—it comes to that.”
“I thought Moreland left you quite well off.”
“Everything’s so dreadfully expensive,” sighed Sylvia.
“Even orchids,” said Peter rather grimly.
Sylvia’s eyes did not fall.
“Yes, even orchids,” she said.
There was a silence—of consternation on Peter’s part.
He got up, and stood leaning against the mantelpiece, frowning heavily.
“Look here, Sylvia,” he said, “what do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know,” said Sylvia. “I just wanted to talk. It’s—it’s so lonely with no one to talk to.”
Her eyes filled with tears, but Peter was not looking at her.
“What’s the good of talking?” he said. “Do you know what your assets are? Do you know what you owe?”
Sylvia shook her head.
“Then, my dear girl, the first thing to do is to find out. I can’t be any earthly use to you unless you can give me some facts. But, look here, if you’re in a mess, why don’t you go to your father? Where is he?”
“He’s at Sunnings,” said Sylvia, “up to his eyes in his old books and manuscripts and things. He doesn’t care; and, besides, he’s awfully hard up himself. The war hit him pretty hard, and he talks of selling Sunnings and going off to the East again—China, you know.”
“Not Annam?” said Peter.
He heard his own voice say the words, but he did not know why he said them. He looked full at Sylvia as he spoke, and saw her shiver as if a cold wind had blown between them.
“Why did you say that?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” said Peter slowly. “You were born there, weren’t you?”
Sylvia shook her head.
“No, in China; I was born in China. What in the world made you think of such an out-of-the-way place as Annam?”
A dark look fell upon Peter’s face. Across eight years he could hear her voice saying, “I was born in Annam.” Why was she lying about it now?
Sylvia reached out her hand and took up the book that lay under the lamp, the book with the brilliant yellow cover.
“Father’s a tremendous Chinese scholar,” she said. “He lived in China for years. My mother was a missionary’s daughter, and I was born there. He’s the authority on old Chinese manuscripts. This is his last book.”
She held it out as she spoke. Peter took it mechanically. On the yellow suède cover he read in gold lettering, Two Old Chinese Manuscripts. He opened the book and saw the title-page. The author’s name stood out very black on the white paper—Roden Coverdale.
CHAPTER XV
Peter walked across to the little table and laid the yellow book down upon it. Then he took up the enamel tray, which was rather precariously balanced on the arm of the chair, and put it carefully back in its place. The two yellow things lay in the lamplight. Peter looked fixedly at them for a moment, moved the tray just a little, and sat down.
“About your affairs …” he said, frowning. He talked of them for about a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes, and finished by saying:
“Get the figures, the exact sums, as far as you can; and if you really want me to, I’ll go through them with you and see what can be done to straighten things out.”
“Oh, you are good,” said Sylvia.
Peter got up and said good night. When he got back to his rooms he took out the exercise-book with the black cover which contained his father’s notes. He turned the pages until he came to the place where Henry Waring had written:
The other man is called Dale, but that’s not his real name. James did not know his real name, but said he found by accident that his Christian name was Roden—an unusual name—might be a clue.
Then he turned to the last entry in the book. It stood out boldly in strong contrast to the illegible scrawl which preceded it:
“N.B.—To find out the real name of the man who calles himself Roden Dale …”
Roden Dale—Roden Coverdale! It was beyond a coincidence. And Sylvia, who had told him eight years ago that Annam was her birthplace, and tonight had lied to him … His face darkened, his eyes became intent.
Dale had had a wife and child up country. The child must have been Sylvia. She said her father had asked so many questions. Questions? Questions, of course, about him, Peter, and what he had said to her, and what she had said to him. Roden Dale—Roden Coverdale would be concerned to know what Sylvia had said to Peter, and what Peter had said to Sylvia on the subject of Annam. As a sequel, the Sylvia who had prattled about her birthplace had become the Sylvia who had lied about it carefully and with circumstance.
Certainly Roden Dale was Roden Coverdale.
Peter closed the book and locked it away in his father’s dispatch box.
Roden Dale was Roden Coverdale. What next? How did this fact affect Sylvia and himself?
He thought about it for a long time. James and Henry Waring had undoubtedly lost their lives in a struggle to gain or retain the Annam Jewel. They were on one side of the struggle, and on the other were Roden Coverdale and the man Henderson. James Waring was Peter’s uncle, and Henry his father. In some sort Roden Coverdale was guilty of their deaths. The narrative, however, exonerated Coverdale from actual violence: it was Henderson who had fired.
Peter shook himself impatiently, and began to walk up and down. It all seemed to him a very long time ago. These old feuds were rotten things—one wasn’t in the Middle Ages any longer. What on earth had this violence and bloodshed of twenty-five years ago to do with Sylvia and himself? Sylvia was a pal, and she was up against it; she wanted helping; she wanted someone to look after her—women did—and he was going to help her if she were fifty times the daughter of Roden Dale.
That something in Peter which at twelve had made him set out with thirty shillings in his pocket to rescue Rose Ellen and find her a home was in the ascendant. Sylvia was up against it, and she had appealed to him. Something much stronger than family feuds urged him to her assistance.
As soon as Peter left her, Sylvia Moreland changed her white shoes for black ones, covered her dress with a long, dark coat, and pulled a small, black velvet cap down over her fair hair. She then called a taxi, and drove to a well-known restaurant. She paid the man, and went through the swing doors into the vestibule. After waiting for, perhaps, half a minute, she passed out again into the street and, turning to the left, began to walk slowly along the pavement. She had not gone fifty yards before a man came up from behind and joined her. Sylvia glanced up at him and recognized the massive build and heavy, clean-shaven face of Mr. Virgil P. Hendebakker. She nodded, and they walked on together.
“You’ve seen him?” said Mr. Hendebakker.
Sylvia nodded again.
“Well, that being so, I should be glad if you would hand over any impressions that you have managed to collect.”
He spoke like an American, but beneath his accent was a suggestion of something guttural. One would have said that the United States had not had the privilege of giving him birth.
“Oh, impressions?” Sylvia’s tone was impatient. “What’s the use of talking about Peter and impressions in the same breath? He’s about as impressionable as a paving-stone.”
“Maybe, but it’s your impressions I’m after, not his. What did you get out of him?”
“Nothing, absolutely nothing.”
“Did you ask him point-blank if he had the Jewel?”
“I did.
I did really.”
“And …?”
“I don’t know if he even heard me. He was fidgeting with something on the mantelpiece in the exasperating way he has, and he just made a remark about its colour as if he hadn’t taken in what I was saying. I didn’t like to ask again, but later I talked about you and Anita, and described the Jewel to him. He hardly seemed interested at all.”
They walked in silence for a minute or two. Then Hendebakker said:
“It doesn’t matter. It’s your father’s copy that matters. If this young Waring has one at all, it’s just a rough thing that wouldn’t take in the lowest sneak-thief. You’re sure he showed no interest?”
He put the question sharply, turning so that he could see Sylvia’s face in the glare of a street lamp.
“I couldn’t see that he did. I thought he was bored.”
“Well,” said Hendebakker, “if that’s so, he’s out of it. The game’s between me and Dale, as it’s been these twenty-five years. Your father,” he added, “he passed as Dale for short. It’s him and me and the Jewel. And I calculate that this is the last hand and that I hold some real good cards—you, for instance, my dear. You make a pretty queen of diamonds, I reckon—queen of diamonds or queen of trumps, and I rather think it’s queen of trumps.”
Sylvia flashed an angry look at him, but did not speak.
“Now,” he said, “this is where we are. I’ve got the Jewel, and Dale’s got the copy I made after we got to New York. And I want that copy, never you mind why I want it, and you’re going to get it for me.”
“Am I?” Sylvia’s defiant eyes met Hendebakker’s cold, light stare, and could not sustain it. “How dare you?” she said.
“Oh, come, Lady Moreland.”
She stood still, quivering.
“If you speak my name, I go home at once, or, better still, I’ll say yours so loud that everyone hears it.”
“Now, now, that was just a slip of mine,” he said. “You listen to me, and stop being angry. There’s no business in getting angry, and what you’ve got to bear in mind is that we’re in a business deal together. You can’t afford to get angry in a business deal. You take that from me—you can’t afford it.”
“I hate the whole thing,” said Sylvia.
“That’s not business either,” said Mr. Hendebakker reprovingly. “You just set to work and think about how you’d hate to have all your creditors sue you, and what a mighty thin time you’d have on what was left when they were through with you. I’m giving you a pretty good price that’ll clear you and make you real comfortable. You keep right on thinking on those lines and you’ll pretty soon quit making fool objections to what’s just a matter of business. Now, you listen to me. Your father’s got a copy of the Jewel that it don’t suit me for him to have. I’m having paragraphs from the Press mailed to him every day. You know the sort of thing—‘What Is It?’ ‘The Great Hendebakker Jewel Mystery’; ‘The Beautiful Mrs. Hendebakker and Her Jewel’. Well, there’ll come a point when Dale will want to have a look at his copy. He doesn’t keep it in his house, or I shouldn’t be bothering you; I’d have had it long ago. I guess it’s in a safe at his London bank, and by and by he’ll come running up to town to take a look at it. Maybe he’ll ask you some questions. Maybe he’ll tell you that what he’s got is the real Jewel, and not a copy at all.”
Hendebakker looked closely at Sylvia’s profile as he spoke.
“It doesn’t much matter what he says, but what you say matters a lot. You’ve got to ask to see the Jewel. You’ve got to get round him so that he doesn’t just go to the bank and look at it there, and come away again. He’s got to bring it away with him and you’ve got to get it for me.”
“I can’t,” said Sylvia. “I won’t.”
“You won’t?” Hendebakker laughed. “Think that over.”
His smooth manner suddenly dropped from him. Sylvia’s glance showed her the man beneath the manner—cold, brutal, ferocious. She trembled from head to foot, and closed her eyes. Hendebakker slipped his hand inside her arm.
“I reckon you’re not such a fool as to think you can say ‘I won’t’ to me. You’ll do as you’re told. And, by gum, if you don’t, I’ll smash you! Now, listen. If Dale sends for you to Sunnings, you’ll wire to me, ‘Shares keeping steady’. If you have word of his coming to town, you’ll wire, ‘Shares rising’. If he gets the Jewel out of the bank, wire me, ‘Sell at once’. And when you get the Jewel, come straight to The Luxe with it, and don’t delay an instant. Now, repeat what I’ve said.”
Sylvia obeyed.
CHAPTER XVI
Next morning, Peter received a letter which surprised him a good deal. It was from his uncle, Miles Banham, whom he had neither seen nor heard from for thirteen years, and it was written on the paper of The Luxe hotel. To anyone who knew Miles Banham this last circumstance was sufficiently startling.
The letter ran as follows:
Dear Peter,
(1) I dug your address out of Ruth and Charlotte. They seem to love you a good deal nowadays. It was not ever thus. Temp. mut.!
(2) I’m rich. This is so improbable that I’m still educating myself to believe it—you needn’t.
(3) I want you to dine with me tonight at this pothouse. If already engaged, chuck the engagement and come. Seven forty-five in the lounge.
(4) I really mean it about chucking the engagement.
Yours,
Miles Banham.
Peter had no engagement, and was delighted at the prospect of meeting Miles again. He had never forgotten the sovereign which had been the one bright spot in what he recollected as one of the beastliest days of his whole life. This thought came first, and was immediately followed by another. He was going to dine at The Luxe. With any luck he would see the entry of Mrs. Hendebakker as described by Sylvia; he would see the Jewel.
At seven forty-five that evening he was shaking hands with Miles Banham and finding that he remembered him very well. Miles had not changed at all. He was brown, wiry, and rather shrivelled-looking. His malicious, bright eyes sparkled with vigour. His high, cracked voice was very cordial, as he greeted Peter and introduced him to “my friend, Mr. Cowan”.
Mr. Cowan was a thin, middle-aged Jew, with melancholy eyes and the most charming smile.
They went in to dinner, Miles Banham talking all the time and gesturing with his hands in an odd, foreign way. He was obviously in a state of pleased excitement.
“Have you ever dined at The Luxe before, Peter?” he inquired. “If you have, I disown you.”
“I haven’t,” said Peter.
“Good, good! No, don’t take that place; I want you to face the door. There, like that. As the rich uncle, you observe that I grow tyrannical.” He gave his funny, cackling laugh. “It’s dashed amusing, isn’t it? All these years the ne’er-do-well, the pauper, the wastrel—and then, all of a sudden, rich! Me, Miles Banham, rich! Oh, lord, it makes me laugh.”
Mr. Cowan smiled his charming smile, but he did not look at his host; he looked towards the doorway on his right. Without quite knowing why, Peter also looked in that direction. Miles Banham looked at Peter.
The Gold Room of The Luxe was full to overflowing. The hum of voices rose and fell. Quite suddenly there was a hush. The voices ceased. Here and there a chair scraped on the polished floor. With a rustling sound, like the sound of a low wind amongst leaves, all the people at all the tables turned to look in the direction in which Mr. Cowan was looking.
A man was standing just inside the door of which Miles Banham had spoken. He was big and clumsily built; his head almost bald; his face clean-shaven, with a heavy jowl; his eyes light, and as hard as pebbles. He stood for a moment as if waiting, and then moved to one side. A woman came through the doorway and began to walk slowly down the crowded room, with the man a yard behind her.
Peter put his elbow on the table, rested his chin on his hand, and looked.
Anita Hendebakker was worth looking at—a magnificent creature with a skin of w
arm whiteness, eyes like dark flowers, and lips and cheeks of a vivid carnation. A great deal of the warm whiteness was visible. Every other woman in the room wore a dress at least ten inches off the ground, but Mrs. Hendebakker’s sheath-like garment of black velvet touched the floor as she walked. It was cut extravagantly low, and right across the breast of it there stretched two exquisitely wrought diamond wings. Where the wings met the Jewel flamed.
Miles Banham was the only person in the room whose eyes were not fastened upon the Jewel. He looked at Peter and saw him flush to the very roots of his hair, and saw how he clenched the hand on which his chin was resting. He watched till the flush faded and a deep frown succeeded it.
Peter was conscious of nothing but the Jewel. Here was the Annam Jewel, and it was his by right. He saw it resting between the diamond wings, and he saw nothing else.
Anita Hendebakker came slowly towards them, walking with an indolent grace and ease. She seemed unconscious that all those people were staring at her. She held her head high; it was a small head, smoothly banded with sleek, black hair. Her colour did not vary, but with each step she took, the colours in the Jewel changed, melted, rushed into one another—the red, the blue, the burning emerald, and the inmost, mysterious golden ray. She passed, reached her table and sat down. Virgil Hendebakker also took his seat. All over the room the hum of conversation broke out again.
As Anita Hendebakker passed their table, Miles Banham shifted his gaze, and for a moment looked keenly at Mr. Cowan. Mr. Cowan, like everyone else in the room, was looking at the Jewel. Miles Banham saw his eyes very intent. Then, as Anita was at her nearest, an odd smile just touched Mr. Cowan’s lips. He tapped the table lightly with his fingers, and looked away. He began to talk of plays, music, politics. He talked extremely well. The talk became general. No one mentioned Mrs. Hendebakker, and no one mentioned the Jewel.
It was just as coffee was being brought to them that Peter saw Lady Moreland. She was coming towards them alone. Her white dress glittered in the Gold Room. It was no longer the white of the ingénue. The filmy material which draped her was entirely covered with a delicate diamond tracery of spiders webs. In the centre of each web lurked a black jet spider. A good many people looked at Sylvia as she crossed the room and stopped at Miles Banham’s table.
The Annam Jewel Page 10
