Читать книгу Anybody's Pearls - Footner Hulbert - Страница 5

Table of Contents

Greatorex was now all affability, though he still worked in touches of arrogance in order to keep Dick impressed with his aristocratic quality, as when he said: “Let’s go to my digs where we can talk quietly. I can’t take you to my club, they’re so damn particular. It’s the Junior Carlton, you know.”

Dick didn’t know, but he silently damned the man for his impudence, and accepted his invitation with a grin.

They walked down Victoria street, which reminded the New Yorker of West Forty-Second between Sixth and Broadway. Coming towards them Dick beheld his four shipmates of the Baratoria, arm in arm, seeing the sights. Here was a chance. Dick took Greatorex’s arm.

The four Americans seeing Dick’s elegant companion, looked rather nonplussed. Dick hailed them cheerfully.

“Hello, fellows! I want you to meet my friend Lord Greatorex.” He told them off to the Englishman. “Mr. Filbert; Mr. Manby; Mr. Debenham; Mr. Papps.”

Greatorex screwed his monocle more firmly into his eye, and gave them each a curt nod. “Hah-je-do!” he enunciated four times, and looked away. He seemed not to see the outstretched hands. The four innocents were enormously impressed by his style. Up to that moment they had felt as if they were showing the Londoners something, but all were conscious that Greatorex made them look like hicks.

“... Er ... Let’s go somewhere and have a smile,” suggested Filbert.

“Sorry, old man,” said Dick, “but Lord Greatorex and I are lunching with the Marquess of Salisbury ... See you later.”

They walked on. Dick felt avenged.

Greatorex’s rooms were in a big apartment house—mansions they are called in London. They were pleasant enough, but rather small and dark; hardly a fitting town residence for a peer with eighteen thousand acres.

“Up until this year I’ve always lived at the Albany,” said Greatorex languidly, “but they’re letting in the stockbrokers.”

This remark was rather wasted on Dick, who did not then know that an address at the Albany is the hall-mark of the real thing in young blood.

Dick’s sharp eyes perceived that the numerous photographs displayed about the rooms did not suggest aristocratic relatives. There was one in a silver frame though, of a dark-eyed girl who was beautiful enough to be anything. Greatorex had good taste, he thought.

His host brought out a bottle of Scotch, apologising for the necessity of waiting on themselves. “I gave my man a holiday,” he said; “thinking I would be at the Chester for the next few days.”

“How could they have made such a mistake at the Chester!” said Dick sympathetically.

“Oh, I have enemies!” said Greatorex darkly.

Greatorex unobtrusively shifted the photograph in the silver frame, that it might the more easily catch Dick’s eye. And Dick allowed his eye to be caught, and waited for what would come of it.

“My sister, the Countess of Brentford,” said Greatorex carelessly.

“She’s easy to look at,” said Dick, dryly.

“I suppose so,” said the other, flicking the ash off his cigarette. “But of course, one hardly sees one’s sister. They call her the most beautiful woman in England.”

“I can well believe it,” said Dick.

“She’s married to a frightful rotter,” Greatorex went on, “but a big-wig of course, and all that. Fortunately he doesn’t trouble her much. They go their own ways.”

“She’s far too good for him,” said Dick encouragingly.

“Quite!” said Greatorex.

“Funny we should be talking about her,” Greatorex presently went on; “for it was poor Millicent’s business that took me to the Chester this morning.”

“Is that so?” said Dick.

Greatorex sprang up and began to pace the sitting-room. “Oh, it’s the devil of a business! the devil of a business!” he cried in seeming agitation; but Dick perceived the glint of the self-pleased actor in his black eyes. “I don’t know what to do now!”

“If I could help?” suggested Dick.

“No, my dear fellow, it’s a family affair. And so I can confide in nobody, you see.”

Dick merely waited, confident that the rest of it would soon be forthcoming now.

“And yet,” said Greatorex, stopping short and fixing Dick with a piercing glance, “if you would do it, you would be far better fitted to carry the thing through than I, with your experience.”

Ah, a burglary, thought Dick. “Try me,” he said aloud.

Greatorex snatched up the photograph, and gazed at it with heart-broken eyes. He ought to be on the stage, thought Dick. “Would you risk something to save the most beautiful woman in England?” Greatorex cried dramatically.

“I reckon,” drawled Dick.

“Poor Millicent!” mourned Greatorex, still gazing at the photograph; “like all the Greatorexes she is fatally reckless. We’re decadent, I suppose. The family is too old. You don’t know these high-bred English women of course; when they get the bit between their teeth, there is no stopping them. If she had been happy in her marriage it would never have happened.... Well, I have decided to tell you all now. Whatever your past may have been, there is something about you that has won my confidence, Kid—if that is what I must call you.

“Same here, Lord,” said Dick.

“Oh, call me Greatorex, as between man and man. What does rank amount to? ... Besides,” he went on, dropping the histrionics for the moment; “there’s a thousand pounds in it for you, Kid, if you carry the thing through.”

“Oh, don’t mention that, old man,” said Dick.

“I must tell you,” Greatorex went on, “that my poor sister lost her head over an American adventurer called Michael Rulon. Ever hear of him?”

Dick shook his head, and Greatorex looked relieved. “Well, when you see him,” he went on, “you will wonder what there could be about him to attract a woman like Millicent. You never can tell. There is some fatal attraction there.... The long and the short of it is, that this scoundrel Rulon took advantage of the poor girl’s infatuation to steal the Brentford pearls from about her neck! Oh! my blood simply boils when I think of it! Hanging is too good for such a man! He ought to be drawn and quartered!”

“You said a mouthful!” said Dick.

“We can’t have the man arrested without disgracing my sister,” Greatorex resumed. “On the other hand, the loss of the pearls cannot long be kept hidden from her husband, and she’ll be disgraced anyway. The only thing I could think of was to steal them back from that scoundrel. Would you blame me?”

“Absolutely not,” said Dick.

“He is stopping at the Chester. He is booked to return to America on the Baratoria on Wednesday. We have just three days. Well, I am blocked now. Will you act in my place, Kid? You can have all the assistance you need on the outside.”

Dick was thinking fast. He did not believe a word of this romantic story, of course. Gee! he must think eagles are downy birds! he thought. Stripped of its embroidery, this was just a plain, everyday robbery that was proposed. Rulon was undoubtedly the rightful owner of the pearls. In that case he must be a rich man. Dick’s best line was to seem to accept, and then tip the American off. He, Dick, owed these English crooks nothing. And blood was thicker than water. And besides, his grateful countryman ought to be glad to do something for him.

“All right,” said Dick laconically. “I’m on.”