Читать книгу Jeremiah and the Princess - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 5

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On the last evening of his visit Jere mounted to his rooms to change for dinner, at the accustomed hour, to find his clothes not yet laid out, and Sam Clowes, his valet, in a state of considerable perturbation.

“What’s wrong, Sam?” Jere asked him quickly.

The man stepped behind his master and closed the door. His good-natured, freckled face was damp with perspiration.

“Someone has been through all your things, sir,” he confided. “Must have been since four o’clock. Although you told me I could have the afternoon off I didn’t leave till then.”

“What have they got away with?”

The man looked more puzzled than ever.

“That’s what gets me, sir. Every article of clothing you possess has been out and replaced. Your toilet things have all been ransacked. Although I was only away an hour or so and I have all the keys here in my pocket, your despatch box has been opened, the mattress has been lifted from the bed, the carpets have been lifted and put down again.”

“But what’s missing?” Jere demanded.

“Not a thing, sir, that I’ve been able to discover,” the man acknowledged. “It don’t seem natural somehow. Your jewellery case has been opened, the secret shelf has been looked at, and not a thing taken. Your black pearls and the diamond and onyx studs you bought last time you were in Paris are both there. Everything has been disturbed, but nothing taken away. Of course, I can’t tell about the despatch box.”

Jere drew the green leather case towards him and glanced through its contents. They consisted mostly of writing materials and a few books, but on the top was nearly a thousand dollars in notes.

“Not a thing gone, Sam. A thousand dollars here untouched.”

“Well, what do you know about that?” Sam Clowes demanded, his mouth open and his expression one of blank bewilderment. “I never knew a sneak thief turn down a thousand dollars before.”

Jere grinned good-naturedly.

“Sam,” he inquired, “are you of an adventurous disposition?”

The man responded to his master’s humour.

“I don’t mind a rough-house now and then, sir,” he said, “but I like to understand what’s doing. A robbery that isn’t a robbery at all, kind of leaves one on the mat.”

“I have a conviction,” Jere declared, “that we are coming in for a good deal of this sort of thing. I felt it on the way down. I felt it as I turned in at the gate.”

“Well, nothing much seems to have happened up till now, sir,” the man remarked, “and I understand that we’re leaving to-morrow.”

“You are quite right, Sam,” his master assented. “We are leaving to-morrow. As to nothing having happened since we arrived here, that is not—strictly speaking—accurate. Furthermore, there remains another night. The night is the time for adventure. Did you pack me a revolver, Sam?”

“Never thought of it, sir,” the man replied. “What would you be wanting with a revolver in a house like this?”

Jere pointed to the dismantled room.

“What about this?”

The man’s face had never quite lost its expression of stupefaction. He shook his head.

“That’s right, sir,” he admitted. “A sneak thief who had nothing to say to a thousand dollars in cash or fifty thousand bucks’ worth of jewellery might have been an ugly customer to deal with. What’s got me beaten, sir, is what was he after if what we had wasn’t good enough for him?”

The dressing bell rang and Jere started.

“Get a move on, Sam,” he ordered. “My bath—quick—and out with my clothes. Short jacket to-night and the opal studs for luck.”

Sam went about his duties with a grimace. He preferred bachelor masters.

Jere saw no reason for concealing what had happened from his host and hostess. They were naturally bewildered, and Tom Hansard even mounted the stairs and interviewed Sam himself. When he returned he was still more puzzled.

“Say, I can’t get a line on this at all,” he acknowledged. “Some real swell jewellery there—some I’d have lifted myself if I could have done it without being found out—and a thousand dollars in cash! None of ’em good enough for our Raffles. Do you think anyone’s having a joke with you, Jere?”

“Haven’t an idea,” the latter confessed. “The opening of my despatch box is what gets me. It’s some lock that, and the keys have never left my pocket.”

“What about Sam?”

“Safe as the bank,” Jere declared. “Been with us since I was a kid.”

“Do you want me to send for the police?”

“How the mischief can you? There isn’t even a pair of sock suspenders missing! That’s the queer part of it.”

“Queer in more ways than one,” Tom Hansard meditated. “The bloke, whoever he was, knew that he couldn’t be pinched if he didn’t take anything. What do you carry about with you, young fellow, worth more than a thousand dollars or a set of black pearls?”

“Ask me another,” Jere begged, as he listened anxiously to the sound of the dinner gong....

Alice came hurrying over to them from a distant corner of the room. There was a gleam of sympathy in her eyes as she turned to Jere.

“A bad evening for you, I’m afraid, Jere dear,” she warned him. “First of all this mysterious raid on your belongings, and now a message from Marya asking to be excused from dining this evening. Stupid headache or something. Your last evening too, isn’t it, and hers?”

“Do you mean that she’s not coming down to dinner at all?” Jere demanded incredulously.

“I’m afraid that’s so. Don’t look so furious. You have monopolised her pretty well, you know, up till now. You shall come and sit on my left instead. We are almost alone to-night. I’m rather glad of it for a change.”

“You say so,” Jere smiled, as he tucked her arm through his, “but you’re rushing up to New York to-morrow for the opera, you’re going to the Hotwood ball the next night and you’re having a hundred people down here next week-end I hear!”

Alice indulged in the wail of all hostesses.

“My dear,” she lamented, “these things are forced upon us....”

They were a small company for dinner, and Alice, in the intervals of making conversation with her right-hand neighbour, an elderly judge of solemn deportment and of profound gastronomic devotion, found time to give Jere some good advice.

“Jere,” she said, “we’ve been good pals, haven’t we, since we were children? I always liked you. You’re a year younger than I am, but I should have married you if you’d asked me during my first year out.”

“It isn’t fair to tell me that now,” Jere complained.

“I don’t care,” she laughed. “You had your chance, but Tom came along and he did just as well. That’s the worst about husbands—they’re so terribly alike. I wasn’t going to talk about husbands, though. I wanted to talk about you and Marya.”

“Well?”

“Any progress?”

“That depends on what you mean by progress,” he fenced.

“You know what I mean. Have you stepped over a single obstacle? In plain words—well, you know how it would have been with us girls round here. I won’t try you too high. Have you even held her hand?”

“No,” Jere admitted.

Alice shook her head in melancholy fashion.

“Such a dear,” she murmured, “but such a little icicle. It’s all on the surface too. She isn’t really, you know. I wonder you stand for it, Jere.”

“I’m fond of her,” he declared doggedly. “I never found much fun in this kissing and hugging game with girls just because they were girls.”

“You’ve kissed me,” she reminded him.

“I’d do it again if I had the chance,” he assured her.

“And Tom only the width of this table away,” she sighed. “How dare you say such a thing?”

“Tom wouldn’t mind.”

“That isn’t very flattering for one of us—I’m not sure which! But seriously, Jere, give it up. I tell you that Marya is as likely to form a serious attachment for you or any of our crowd as she is to take the veil, which she once threatened to do.”

“I am too deep in,” he confessed. “I shall have to go the whole way and take my knock when it comes.”

Alice sighed.

“And to think how happy you could make any one of my flock of debutantes!”

“I shall either marry Marya,” he announced, “or wait until you are a widow.”

“My dear,” she confided, “that is ridiculous. Tom is the most marvellously healthy person. He drinks less than any man I know, he does physical jerks in the morning even when we’re in New York, he simply glows with health. As for Marya—she has an earthly religion which is stronger than most people’s spiritual one. To our way of thinking the rules may seem to be moth-eaten and the whole thing rubbish, but she’ll stick to it.”

“I think she’s afraid of me,” Jere declared vaingloriously. “I think that’s why she didn’t come down to-night.”

“Idiot!” his hostess laughed. “She probably didn’t wish to administer your coup de grâce.”

“You’re a depressing little pig,” Jere told her. “Talk to the judge. He’s panting between courses.”

Jere, as he sank into a secluded chair on the balcony, found it hard to feel anything but depressed at the thought of his progress during the last two days. Marya had been only guardedly gracious to him, and but for the exception of that single evening’s dancing she had shown him no more favour than the other young men of the party. She played no games, but she had ridden with him once, displaying thereby horsemanship which had won everyone’s admiration. She had allowed him to take her for a motor ride, but on that occasion her maid had occupied the coupé. He had taken her sailing and, although she had only accepted charge of the tiller at necessary moments, she had shown a knowledge of the pastime equal to his own. She had sat with him on the terrace in the evening and had talked pleasantly enough of her own country and its charm, of Paris and Florence, and other of her favourite places, but at the least attempt on his part to introduce a more personal note into the conversation she had become suddenly taciturn. Alice was right, he supposed. He had better do like the other young men, who had no time for such nonsense and who quietly but definitely left her alone. She was utterly out of place here and in this environment. These people were not her people nor their ways hers. Her failure to join the party to-night, her wish to remain isolated in her room, was in itself an admission of her inability to adapt herself to her surroundings and a proof of her lack of interest in him. The Baroness had laughed at the idea of there being anything the matter with her. “Marya must have her whims,” had been her sole reply to the many murmurs of disappointment. Jere tried to work himself into a state of indignation. Why should she be allowed to have whims any more than any other girl of her age? And why should she be treated as though she were something apart from other women because she was born a princess of the royal family of a tottering kingdom with no institutions, scanty government and an ignorant peasantry? One wave of the coming spirit of republicanism, and Jakovia as a kingdom would be swept from the face of the earth. It was near at hand too, muttering over the Balkans, growling across the sea....

One of Alice’s army of white-linened footmen issued through the French windows of the house and approached Jere. He presented a salver upon which reposed a note. With a thrill of anticipation Jere tore open the envelope and read the few lines in thin, spidery hand-writing.

Dear Mr. Strole,

I have not forgotten my promise, and if you would care to see me again before the breaking up of our pleasant little party I will receive you for a short time in my salon about half-past nine.

Sincerely,

Marya Pia Jakovia.

“Tell Her Highness that I will be there,” Jere directed.

Jere came upon his host in the lounge as he was strolling about with one eye always upon the clock.

“What about a highball, young fellow?” the latter suggested.

“Too early if you don’t mind, Tom.”

“I’ve been up to your room again. Damned if I can understand it at all. I found your man there, and he showed me the sort of skeleton key that must have been used upon your Brahma lock. The whole thing seems to me to be pretty mysterious.”

“Beats me entirely,” Jere, who had forgotten all about the affair, confessed.

“By the way, you are still attached to the Foreign Department, I suppose?”

“Waiting for a job,” Jere acknowledged. “They talked about some more South America, but I’ve done my stunt there. It’s Europe or nowhere for me this time.”

“If you’re only waiting for a job,” Hansard meditated, “you hadn’t any secret treaties or papers or anything of that sort with you?”

“They don’t trust us juniors with much of that sort of stuff,” Jere replied, “apart from the fact that I am not attached anywhere at the present moment. No, I hadn’t got a darn thing, Tom. What licks me is—what could anyone imagine my carrying about more valuable than fifty thousand dollars’ worth of jewellery and a thousand dollar wad?”

Hansard shook his head in dazed fashion, and made his way towards the billiard-room. Jere proceeded on his errand of Fate.