Читать книгу Unravelled Knots - Baroness Orczy - Страница 16

Table of Contents

The case had very much interested me at the time, but the mystery was a nine days’ wonder as far as I was concerned, and soon far more important matters than the temporary disappearance of a few rows of pearls occupied public attention.

It was really only last year when I had renewed my acquaintance with the Man in the Corner that I bethought myself once more of the mystery of the pearl necklace, and I felt the desire to hear what the spook-like creature’s theory was upon the subject.

“The pearl necklace?” he said with a cackle. “Ah, yes, it caused a good bit of stir in its day. But people talked such a lot of irresponsible nonsense that thinking minds had not a chance of arriving at a sensible conclusion.”

“No,” I rejoined amiably. “But you did.”

“Yes, you are right there,” he replied, “I knew well enough where the puzzle lay but it was not my business to put the police on the right track. And if I had I should have been the cause of making two innocent and clever people suffer more severely than the guilty party.”

“Will you condescend to explain?” I asked, with an indulgent smile.

“Why should I not?” he retorted, and once again his thin fingers started to work on the inevitable piece of string. “It all lies in a nutshell, and is easily understandable if we realise that ‘old Pasquier,’ the man with the walrus moustache, was not the friend of the Saunders’s, but their enemy.”

I frowned. “Their enemy?”

“An old pal shall we say?” he retorted, “who knew something in the past history of one or the other of them that they did not wish their newest friends to know: really a blackmailer who, under the guise of comradeship, sat not infrequently at their fireside, watching an opportunity for extorting a heavy price for his silence and his goodwill. Thus he could worm himself into their confidence; he knew their private life; he heard about the necklace, and decided that here was the long sought for opportunity at last. Think it all over and you will see how well the pieces of that jigsaw puzzle fit together and make a perfect picture. Pasquier calls on the Saunders’s a day or two before their departure and springs his infamous proposal upon them then. For the time being Arthur succeeds in giving him the slip; his journey is not yet... the necklace is not yet in his possession... but he knows the true quality of the blackmailer now and he is on the alert. He begins by going to Sir Montague Bowden and begging him to entrust the mission to somebody else. Judging by the butler’s evidence, he even makes a clean breast of his troubles to Sir Montague who, however, makes light of them and advises consultation with Mr. Haasberg, who perhaps would undertake the journey. In any case it is too late to make fresh arrangements at this hour. Very reluctantly now, and hoping for the best, the Saunders’s make a start. But the blackmailer, too, is on the alert, he has succeeded in spying upon them and in tracing them to the Majestic in Paris., The situation now has become terribly serious, for the blackmailer has thrown off the mask and demands the necklace under threats which apparently the Saunders’s did not dare defy.

“But they are both clever and resourceful, and as soon as Haasberg’s arrival rids them temporarily of their tormentor they put their heads together and invent a plot which was destined to free them for ever from the threats of Pasquier and at the same time would enable them to honour the trust which had been placed in them by the committee. In any case they had until the morrow to make up their minds. Remember the words which Mr. Haasberg overheard on the part of Pasquier: “S’long old man. I’ll wait till tomorrow.” Anyway, Pasquier must have gone off that evening confident that he had Captain Saunders entirely in his power and that the wretched man would on the morrow hand over the necklace without demur.

“Whether Arthur Saunders confided in Haasberg or no is doubtful. Personally I think not. I believe that he and Mary did the whole thing between them. Arthur having parted from his brother-in-law went back to the hotel, took the necklace out of the strong room and then left it in Mary’s charge. He threw the tin box away, there where it would surely be found again. Then he went as far as the Rue de Moncigny and crouched, seemingly unconscious, in the blind alley, having previously taken the precaution of saturating his handkerchief with chloroform.

“Thus the two clever conspirators cut the ground from under the blackmailer’s feet, for the latter now had the police after him for an assault, which he might find very difficult to disprove, even if he cleared himself of the charge of having stolen the necklace. Anyway he would remain a discredited man, and his threats would in the future be defied, because if he dared come out in the open after that, public feeling would be so bitter against him for a crime which he had not committed that he would never be listened to if he tried to do Captain Saunders an injury. And it was with a view to keeping public indignation at boiling pitch against the supposed thief that the Saunders’s kept up the comedy for so long. To my mind that was a very clever move. Then they came out with the story of the restoration of the necklace and became the heroes of the hour.

“Think it over,” the funny creature went on as he finally stuffed his bit of string back into his pocket and rose from the table, “think it over and you will realise at once that everything happened just as I have related and that it is the only theory that fits in with the facts that are known; you’ll also agree with me, I think, that Captain and Mrs. Saunders chose the one way of ridding themselves effectually of a dangerous blackmailer. The police were after him for a long time, as they still believed that he had something to do with the theft of the necklace and with the assault on M le Capitaine Saunders. But presently 1914 came along and what became of the man with the walrus moustache no one ever knew. What his nationality was was never stated at the time, but whatever it was, it would, I imagine, be a bar against his obtaining a visa on his passport for the purpose of visiting England and blackmailing Arthur Saunders.

“But it was a curious case.”