Читать книгу The Thief in the Night and Other Stories - Edgar Wallace - Страница 6

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"SOCIETY," said the Countess of Widdicombe in her severest manner, "will more readily forgive a theft than a slander."

Diana laughed.

"Which shows how thoroughly immoral society is," she said lightly.

She sat swaying her fan, her eyes fixed upon the floor of the ballroom below, crowded with dancing couples.

Lady Widdicombe's dances during the cricket week attracted the whole county, and outside in the drive the waiting motor-cars reached from the lodge gates to the hospitable doors of High Felsham.

"Mrs. Crewe-Sanders tells me," said Diana, still watching the glittering throng below, "that nobody except a person acquainted with the ins and outs of Morply Castle could have got in."

"She was the chief sufferer," said Lady Widdicombe, and Diana laughed—and when Diana laughed, her delicate face was singularly beautiful.

"The poor dear woman so plasters herself with diamonds that the wonderful thing to me is that she has missed any at all!" she said. "The curious thing is that though there were a lot of other guests, and diamonds in galore, the thief took nobody's property but hers."

"I could forgive that," said Lady Widdicombe reverting to her pet topic, "but the 'Candid Friend' business is unpardonable. Any kind of anonymous letter-writer is contemptible, but an anonymous letter-writer who works wholesale, and who takes a wicked and malicious delight in breaking hearts and ruining lives—there is no punishment too severe for her."

"Why her?" asked Diana curiously.

"Because a man wouldn't do such a thing," said Lady Widdicombe.

Diana's fan waved slowly.

"I've known some men who would do most things," she mused, and turned her head to answer the greeting of the girl who came swinging along the gallery to where they were sitting.

"Hello, Barbara May," she said lazily. "Aren't you dancing?"

In her evening gown Barbara was good to look upon, for she was in the first flush and beauty of womanhood. Her laughing eyes fell upon Lady Diana.

"Aren't you afraid to wear your diamonds, Diana," she said, nodding to the plaque that sparkled on Diana's white dress.

"No, I don't think our burglar will come here."

"Do you want me, dear?" asked Lady Widdicombe.

"I wanted to tell you that I'd changed my room."

"Oh, that's good of you," said Lady Widdicombe gratefully. "You are sure you don't mind?"

"Not a bit," laughed the girl.

"One of Widdicombe's innumerable cousins has been taken ill," explained Lady Widdicombe, "and Barbara most kindly offered to change rooms with her."

Her eyes followed the girl admiringly as she swept down the gallery.

"By the way," she said. "Barbara told me that the mysterious 'Candid Friend' had written a perfectly horrible note about her to one of her relations."

"She seems to bear up very well," said Diana smiling.

"I think it is abominable," said Lady Widdicombe angrily; "abominable! The person who writes those kind of letters should be tarred and feathered."

In the spacious library, which had been turned into a smoke- room for the night, the Morply burglary and the activities of the "Candid Friend" were the principal topics of conversation. Lord Widdicombe, a tall, thin, dyspeptic man with a sense of humour which so few dyspeptics possess, had already held forth on the iniquity of the anonymous letter-writer.

Whoever was this devilish mischief-maker, he or she had already worked havoc in three homes, and the poison was working in a fourth under their very eyes. It was on the subject of the burglary that Lord Widdicombe was most entertaining, for, as usual, he found something in these crimes to remind him of his Indian experiences, and the Earl of Widdicombe on India was worth going a long way to hear.

"Diamonds?" he said. "Well, I suppose he takes diamonds because they're most marketable. When I was Governor of Bombay there was staged one of the most sensational diamond robberies which, had it succeeded, would have landed the British Government in a devil of a mess. You've heard of the Kali Diamond? I bet you haven't, though," he chuckled. "Well, it's a very famous stone, of no great size, and worth one to a few hundred pounds intrinsically. As a matter of fact, a million wouldn't buy it, because on one of the facets is engraved by some extraordinary native mechanic a whole verse from one of the sacred books. The microscopic character of the writing and the difficulty of the engraving you may imagine, and it is not wonderful that the natives believe that this inscription is of divine origin.

"There had been one or two attempts to steal the stone and at last the British Government intervened, knowing that if this thing was missing there would be trouble in the Province. They took charge of the stone, which has to be shown on one of their holy days—I think it is next month some time—in fact, I am sure. Well, this infernal jewel was guarded with the greatest care. Nevertheless, a gang of native burglars broke into the vault where it was deposited and got away with it. It happened a week or two before the ceremony which is called 'The Showing of the Stone,' and everybody connected with the Government were in a cold sweat of fear. Happily, we managed to get in touch with the rascally robbers but it cost us the greater part of a hundred thousand pounds to restore it."

"I suppose you let it be pretty well known that the stone was missing?"

"Good Lord, no," said his lordship, aghast at the idea. "Let the people know that their sacred stone had gone? That would have been the most lunatic proceeding. No, we kept it as quiet as possible. We dare not breathe a. word about the loss, for rumour runs fast in the shiny East."

Barbara May had strayed into the smoke-room, and, going up behind a young man, touched him on the shoulder. He turned round with a start.

"I'm awfully sorry," he apologized. "I was listening to a most engrossing story."

He led her out into the ballroom, and a few seconds later they were two-stepping to the plebeian strains of "Whose Little Baby Are You?"