Читать книгу The Case of the Two Pearl Necklaces - A. Fielding - Страница 6

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KITTY was before her time at the Priest's House in Islington. She was shown into a very bare little waiting-room. Three doors opened out of it. One was Ambrose Walsh's sitting-room, and she heard voices in conversation within it. Kitty stiffened, for one voice was Ann's. Well, she might have known it. Ambrose had been Ann's confessor for a few months. Ann would be sure to want to get her story in first. Very likely she was even enlisting Ambrose's help to give the Colonel her version of what had happened. What had happened? Kitty asked herself again. Who had been lying...? Something about Ann's exit had been very telling...And, though it seemed incredible that Violet should have done such a thing, yet how had the pearls been imitated?

But against those doubts rose her old well-founded distrust of Ann Lovelace. Ann of the quiet voice and effective manner, the cool calm eyes, the subtle brain. Kitty had felt quite certain that Ann meant to get triumphantly between Arthur and Violet Finch, that she had secretly tried hard to do this during the week they had all spent together at the Walsh's place in the country.

For when Arthur wrote that he was bringing his fiance down for a week's visit, his aunt had promptly asked Ann to come down, too. Ann, with whom Arthur had been so madly in love, in the days when Gerald was still at home. Handsome, careless, undependable Gerald. The days when Arthur, though well off, was still only the younger son. There was no entail in the family. The Colonel could leave his really big fortune as he liked, but it was natural to expect that the elder would get the lion's share. Also, Ann, at that time, was all out to marry Lord Wilverstone. But there, too, she failed. Lord Wilverstone married an old love of his, despite Ann's cleverest counter-diplomacy. Kitty happened to know, however, that Ann had nearly succeeded there.

Again her thoughts returned, now, to her present problem, as she distantly heard the sound of Ann Lovelace's quiet but "carrying" voice, speaking evidently with what, for Ann, amounted to vehemence. Nor were the sounds misleading. For, inside, Father Ambrose and Ann were facing each other dynamically at the two ends of his mantelshelf. The Reverend Ambrose Walsh was solidly built, physically, and something about his face, with its strongly-marked features, suggested a character also firmly built. Pale of face, with a beak of a nose, 'a flexible, long upper lip and firm jaw—his brilliant and keenly-penetrating eyes were fastened searchingly on his visitor's.

"It's a bad, sad business," he said regretfully when she stepped speaking. His own voice had irrepressible warm undertones. It suggested subdued but strong passions underneath. Just as his face did. "A very bad, very sad business," he repeated, half to himself. "But if it breaks his engagement to such a character it may prove a blessing to him yet."

"It won't break it!" Ann said decisively. "Nothing can do that. It's as if she had Arthur under a witch's spell."

"I wonder what his father, my uncle, will say," murmured Ambrose Walsh reflectively.

"Oh, Arthur will swear to him by all his gods that Violet's an innocent dove, that it's I, not she, that is the guilty one."

A very penetrating glance flashed for a second from Father Ambrose's eyes, but Ann's were fastened on her gloves, as she wrinkled and smoothed their gauntlets. "He once trusted and liked me," she continued composedly; "but Violet Finch holds him, as I said, just as though he were under some spell. He can't seem to see or hear the truth, where she's concerned. You met her, I remember, one afternoon down at Friar's Halt. Did you see anything in her to account for such an infatuation?"

The priest made no answer and Ann moved towards the door.

"I wanted you to know all the facts, Father, so as to be able to explain things to your uncle, Colonel Walsh." Ann had not come for that reason at all. But she knew that Ambrose Walsh was against the marriage; and she hoped that, learning from her what more than sufficient reason he had for his opposition—he would increase his personal pressure on Arthur to persuade him to give up the girl. After all, Arthur, too, was a Catholic. Like all the Walshes, at one time, he had been quite under his cousin's influence.

Father Ambrose showed her out by a door that did not lead back into the common sitting-room where Kitty sat impatiently counting the minutes. Then he gravely welcomed his second visitor. His eyes lit up as they shook hands, for he liked Kitty sincerely. And whenever he saw her he saw not the charming young woman, but his romping child cousin. Saw himself, too, again a mischievous schoolboy making her walk the plank into a tub of water and getting soundly thrashed for it afterwards, as well as in a score of childhood's scenes.

He led her into his own little sitting-room and closed the door. "Well, Kit? What brings you for the first time to see me here?"

"I oughtn't to have come," she said to that. "Really, Ambrose, I shouldn't take up your time, but I'm bewildered...and frightened. Ann Lovelace has just left, hasn't she? Oh, never mind," as he made no reply. "I know she has been here. I'm come on the same matter...That accusation against Violet Finch about the pearls—"

"You don't think the charge of fraud is true?" he questioned.

"No, I don't," she replied promptly. "Partly because Ann Lovelace is making it, and also because it's absolutely incredible It makes Arthur's fiance just a common thief!"

"Nevertheless, it would be the best thing that could happen to Arthur if it could be shown to be true," Ambrose said in his authoritative, crisp way. "I didn't say that to Ann, and I shan't say it to Arthur, probably. But it's stern facts, Kit. I have met Miss Finch, have talked with her, studied her. And I tell you candidly—and confidentially—that if Arthur marries her—he's doomed!"

"Why—!" Kitty demanded. But she knew how uncannily right Ambrose's summing up of people and consequences used to prove in the end.

"Because she's devoted, soul and body, to the World and the Flesh—if not to the Devil. And because Arthur is only too much inclined that way himself."

"You always wanted Arthur to be a priest, too!" Kitty said resentfully.

He gave her a steely look. "Catherine"—Ambrose only called her that when he wished to emphasise the fact that he was speaking with authority—"stand aside! Have nothing to do with the woman or the affair of her pearls. It is just possible that Providence may be going to take a hand—to save Arthur from damnation."

"Marriage with Violet Finch doesn't mean damnation—necessarily," she protested indignantly. "I wish, of course, that she were one of us. But she may come to be—given time and fair play."

Ambrose looked very much the priest. His face stiffened, his look grew inscrutable. He was clearly not taken with the notion of a converted Violet.

There was a short silence. Kitty felt done. She had come for nothing. Ambrose had no light to shed on this matter. Or if he had, he was keeping it for his own use. But she stood to her guns.

"Ambrose, Ann, of course, has told you her version—"

"I think she's told me the truth," he said deliberately, dispassionately. "I questioned her closely."

"I don't think she has!" Kitty blazed out. "Not by a long, long lot! Ann Lovelace would do anything to get her knife into Violet, to get Arthur from her—for herself!"

Her cousin, Ambrose, seemed, on this, to have grown very chilling, very distant, as he looked down at her with eyes veiled and inscrutable.

"At least, whatever may be her faults, she is a lady and a religious woman at heart," he answered sternly.

"Oh, stuff, Ambrose!" Kitty said hotly, throwing off the awe of the priest. "That's her cloak. She's just a—" But she stopped herself. For the Reverend Ambrose Walsh did not seem to hear her. She recognised clearly that his mind was definitely closed to any further discussion of Violet's case.

"Evidently you're on Ann's side," she concluded coldly.

And at that Father Ambrose gave a fleeting smile as he said calmly, "I'm on her side, certainly, if she can rightly prevent Arthur's disastrous marriage to Miss Finch."

Kitty rose to leave. Coldly asking, as she glanced at his writing-table overflowing with papers and books: "What is your coming book about?"

"The Church Militant," he said in a ringing tone. "There's far too much talk of converts slithering from the Anglican Church into ours as though there were small difference between them. I want the gates, on the contrary, to be barred and locked, except to those who show the right credentials for admission. I want there to be an end to marriages between ourselves and heretics—no matter though we do get their children, who are not worth the having, as a rule.

"I would rather—" He stopped himself. To Ambrose Walsh the sheep and the goats were born to be separated. And only he himself knew what a blow it had been to him to learn that his cousin Arthur was going to marry outside his Church, even apart from other considerations. There had been a time when he had seen a great deal of Arthur...when he had cherished strong hopes of getting him, too, to enter a Religious Life, either as a Priest or as a Brother. But in these last years Arthur had drawn away more and more from Ambrose, had left his letters unanswered, had refused to be in when he called...To any one who knew Ambrose Walsh at all, Arthur could have done nothing better calculated to make his cousin more firmly determined on getting his own way—even had there been no religious dynamic involved.

In silence he opened the door now for Kitty's departure and she felt herself still in pinafores, morally, as she said good-bye to him. She went down at once to Friar's Halt, and saw, as she stepped into Colonel Walsh's study, that he knew. He looked as though he had had a great shock.

"You've seen Ann," she said without hesitation.

He nodded. "She met me going to my club." He paused as Arthur came hurrying into the house and the room. He had driven Violet home, and had had a hard task to convince her that to him she was beyond suspicion, far above reproach. But he had succeeded in doing so. Now, as soon as he saw his father's face, he, too, knew that the Colonel had been met by Ann and her story.

His own face hardened; his back straightened; his jaw set.

"I'd like you to stay, Kitty," was his greeting, "as Violet's friend. Thank God, you're not prejudiced against her!"

"No, I'm not," Kitty replied. Hearing which, the Colonel wheeled on her.

"What? You don't believe—?" He checked himself. "Look here," he began again, "I don't think we need drag you into this harrowing question, Kitty, except for one vital query. Have you ever known Ann Lovelace to tell a lie? I don't mean those polite, stereotyped words which we all use as 'delighted' to meet people, or 'sorry' to see them go, etcetera. I mean by a 'lie' a deliberate, downright falsehood. Have you ever heard her utter one?"

"No," Kitty answered reluctantly. "But I've known her do still worse when it suited her game. I've known her so to put the truth so that it sounded more false than any outright lie could be."

"Oh, quite possible,"—agreed the Colonel promptly. "But subtlety of that sort need not be considered here, even if a fact. For here Ann makes certain definite assertions. She declares that she lent a considerable sum of money to Miss Finch on the pledged security of a certain necklace which was not, as Miss Finch stated them to be, her own property, and which, moreover, is not a string of real pearls, but a wax imitation. Ann and I went to Rinks', and saw the assistant manager who dealt with the affair. He assured me that the necklace shown him by Miss Lovelace earlier this morning was an exact facsimile of the shorter of the two necklaces which you, Arthur, bought of them.

"He agreed, too, with Ann that such a copy could only have been made from the original; and then only by an expert craftsman. He also further affirmed that the imitation Ann showed him was an exact duplicate of the original pearl necklace in weight and colour. For Ann had made him go into the matter very thoroughly indeed before coming to you, Arthur.

"Now, my boy, I'm inexpressibly sorry for your terrible shock; but I can't see that there's any possibility that Ann is not telling the absolute truth about it. She says you have taken possession of the paper written by Violet herself—" At this point Colonel Walsh caught sight of aghast Kitty, and insisted on her leaving them. He had quite forgotten her presence. And this was no question of attitude to one or the other girl. It was a question of actual facts; and the Colonel uncompromisingly held that he and his only son must sift these to the bottom together.

Kitty glanced back at her cousin. He looked like a man bracing himself for a bitter struggle, but firmly determined not to yield an inch of ground. And something in her leapt to meet this new Arthur, while her heart seemed a stricken thing.

As the door closed behind her, there was a second's silence, then Arthur said: "I have just given Violet those pearls outright, sir, though they will still be my wedding present to her. So she has a perfect right to raise money on them in such a position as she found herself in last night; a position, too, into which she had been jockeyed by Ann Violet had no other way of paying her gaming debt there and then. And, seeing that clearly, she took it. Ann had grossly deceived her as to the value of the discs with which they were playing. She had told her that they represented shillings, whereas they were pounds. Violet's no practised gambler, sir."

"Even though her mother had long kept what were essentially gambling hells?" the Colonel asked gently, for he was desperately sorry for his unhappy son.

"Just because of that, sir," Arthur said soberly. "I didn't conceal from you that, had I known beforehand whose daughter she was, I wouldn't have avoided her. But as it was...and is... she's the only woman in the world for me. She's quite incapable of the charge against her." He stopped. Arthur was never given to long speeches. His father's eyes were unrelenting, although his voice had real compunction in its tones.

"Sorry, my dear boy; but after what has come indubitably to light there can be no going on with the wedding. Surely you must see that, too?"

"I surely do not, sir!" Arthur's tones were no less firm than his father's. "It's a vile plot, Ann Lovelace's plot against Violet. I won't let her, or any one, come between me and the girl I love I Violet's as true as steel. Honest, loyal, honourable. Without a crooked fibre in her."

"She lied deliberately when she pledged those pearls as her own property," the Colonel said in a grim voice. "No, no "—as Arthur made a violent movement. "That's not all by a long way. But it is a thing to which you can't shut your eyes. Ann didn't write that I.O.U. Miss Finch wrote it herself, alleging both that she owned the pearls and that the string which she was handing over to Ann as security for the loan was one of the two that Ann had helped her choose and seen taken. The value of which Ann could therefore take on trust. And I cannot see any loophole where Miss Finch wasn't lying about that last, too."

Arthur kept silent with an effort; but he looked furious and obstinate.

"You know," the Colonel went on, "what I feel about a lie. It's not prejudice. It's not attaching an exaggerated importance to something that really means very little. All civilisation, all intercourse, all business, is built up on the belief that you can rely on a deliberate assertion. Why, Religion itself depends on that! I cut your brother Gerald off as I did because he was a deliberate liar; in other words, a moral leper. Do you mean to tell me that you intend to choose such a leper for your wife? For the mother of your children?"

"I maintain that it is Ann who is the 'moral leper' here," Arthur said hotly. "I deny absolutely that Violet was lying when she scribbled down those words about being the owner of the pearls. I had told her yesterday that they would be hers—absolutely—on her wedding day. As for the effective use that Ann made of an imitation necklace on which to base her accusations against Violet, I intend to have that curiously plausible production drastically investigated, you may rest assured, Pater! And you may also rest assured that my wife's honour will be irrefutably vindicated," Arthur's voice rang out. And like Kitty, his father rated him the higher for his unshakable and impassioned championship of the girl he loved. Yet Colonel Walsh was no less convinced that his son was the victim of a sheer infatuation.

"Love is often blind," he said gravely.

"I'm not blind!" Arthur exclaimed hotly. "Ann Lovelace hasn't succeeded in pulling her unscrupulously clever wool over my eyes, as she has, apparently, over yours, sir."

The Colonel took it quietly. He was too sorry for his son, too certain that he would yet know the bitterness of awaking, to be angry.

"How do you mean to prove your case?" he asked, "since you intend to do so?"

"I mean to hand the whole thing over to a first-class private investigator," was the firm reply.

"That's sensible!" The Colonel looked, and was relieved. But he was sorrier still for Arthur. "I think you'd better let me see about that," he said a little awkwardly.

Arthur's eyes flashed. "You can call in your own man, too, sir, if you like. But I claim the right to be first in the field. There's only one thing I do insist on. No steps must be taken openly for at least a fortnight. Vi and I believe that this is the only way to give my detective a chance to get at the root and branches of the matter. I'm keen to have Victor Sewell take charge of the investigation for me, and his secretary has told me, over the phone, that Sewell won't be back in town for another ten days. So everything must be at a standstill until then."

"Victor Sewell?" the colonel asked. "Never heard of him. Who is he?"

"He's studied for the Bar, but he's private means and likes problems. Just now he's clearing up a very private and difficult matter at Oxford in which two college men are concerned," Arthur replied. "That's in strict confidence, you know. He's a member of White's. Incidentally, he's a son of the former Commissioner of New Scotland Yard."

"Of that Sewell? Clever chap, the old general. Well, if you think he can serve you in this sad affair—" The colonel looked very pityingly at Arthur standing there before him all fire and eagerness.

"He'll clear Vi, sir," the younger man spoke with a certainty in his voice and face that made the father's heart ache for him. "He'll find out the truth. But till then, Vi's to have fair treatment from everybody. I'll put the fear of God into Ann if she starts letting her tongue run away with her."

"Ann's tongue doesn't run loosely," the colonel said dryly to that; "but I think I may possibly be able to persuade her to an active truce. What about the insurance, though? Are you notifying them that the smaller string seems lost?"

"Not just yet," Arthur said. "Both strings were insured up to the hilt, of course. But Vi thinks that, if Ann does not suspect us of setting investigations and detectives at work, her clever wits will devise some way to plausibly return the real pearls.

"Vi's a marvel, sir!" his son ejaculated. "Most girls, under such an abominable charge, would be wanting Ann Lovelace's blood. Yet Vi actually believes that Ann may have somehow been 'had' too! I think she suspects her mother's partner, Mills, of having had some hand in the exchange. But I, myself, don't agree there. I used to know Mills rather well, at one time. It was he who introduced me to the Little Owls. They were top-hole in those days—I can't think Mills would have a hand in such an injury to Violet. I used to be no end of jealous of him at first. I thought Vi liked him best. However...no open move to be made until Sewell takes the reins, to drive the whole thing straight to the truth."

Colonel Walsh responded hopefully outwardly, but with a sickening certainty that Arthur was riding for a terrible fall. He went up to Town to see Ann, though, and found her not so easy to deal with as he had hoped. In the end, however, he got her promise to keep the whole affair absolutely to herself at present. But he left her more than ever persuaded that she was sincere and had really been duped by Violet Finch. Nevertheless, it seemed to him odd that Ann—familiar with valuable pearls—should not have instantly detected the "feel" of imitation pearls when they were handed over to her.

This was on Wednesday. And on the following Saturday the colonel received a terrible blow. It was a letter from Arthur delivered by hand. In this his son stated that he had been married to Violet Finch that morning at the Kingsway registry office; and that they were on a flying "honeymoonette" in the Engadine. They would be "back home on Tuesday next."

The Colonel sat very still. At first he felt as though he had heard that Arthur had flung himself over a precipice. Then common sense came to his aid. After all, marriages nowadays were anything but permanent...And even did this one prove so, he must hope for the best. There must be something sweet in Violet to account for Arthur's indomitable devotion. And with sweetness allied to spirit no wife could be a misfortune.

Kitty was away from home and he was glad that she, too, would be gone until Tuesday. In reality she was back on Monday; and the colonel told himself thankfully that he must have been mistaken in thinking that she had secretly given her heart to Arthur. For when she learnt the news Kitty took Arthur's part against his aunt; who could not forgive him "his mad marriage to Violet Finch!"

"You should cut him off! You did Gerald for far less!" Lady Monkhouse said furiously to her brother.

Colonel Walsh winced, but he replied quietly: "Arthur has a perfect right to follow the dictates of his heart. He did not deceive me. I may agree that he is a besotted, if not hoodwinked, young fool; but that's no reason for attempting to make him see things as we do. Arthur is deeply in love with Violet, my dear. I only hope he may prove to be right about her, may be able to stay in love with her always. As to my Deed of Gift on his marriage, it was executed a week ago; and so comes into operation at once."

His sister snorted, but the colonel continued calmly: "He writes that they are going to stay in Mrs. Finch's house in Ennismore Gardens, when they get back, until the house in Grosvenor Square can be redecorated—"

"It didn't need any redecorating," snapped his sister; "but I don't doubt that Finch woman needs the money. He'll pay her for the use of hers."

The colonel said no more. He was lunching with Ambrose and feared that he must listen to similar sentiments about the marriage. But his nephew offered no comment beyond the significant priestly aphorism that "God's ways are not our ways. Neither are the devil's, unless we serve him."