Читать книгу Secret of the River - Fred M. White - Страница 5

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ANGELA a common thief!

The mere thought of it struck Nevil like a blow over the heart. It seemed almost impossible to believe that Angela should stoop to so mean and sordid a crime. To place herself upon the same level with those poor, unfortunate creatures who find themselves, from time to time, in the dock charged with shop-lifting and attempting to explain away their weakness and vanity with some story of nerves, drink, or drugs.

And to imagine Angela in such a category was sheer madness. No one could look into those glorious grey eyes of hers or study those features, so clear and innocent, and believe for a moment that Angela came under a stigma so terrible. It seemed to Nevil as if he would wake up presently from a bad dream and find what he had just seen no more than the figment of a diseased imagination. And yet, he had witnessed it for himself—seen Angela steal out of the shadows and creep on tiptoe to the glittering object that Diana Longworth had dropped, and hide it away with every appearance of greed and cupidity.

For a moment or two, Nevil stood there, in the semi-darkness, trying to collect his thoughts and wondering what to do next. He was wavering between two decisions—one to get this hideous business put straight at any cost, short of denouncing Angela as a thief, and the other to contrive some method by which he could get away with it safely and leave the world to believe that the whole thing had been nothing more than a mistake. Moreover, he wanted to put it in such a way as to induce Angela to delude herself with the idea that nobody, not even Nevil, had known the full intention that had lurked in the back of her mind.

And then something like inspiration came to him. His long training on the stage was going to stand him in good stead now, and, if he could maintain a bold front for the next quarter of an hour or so, then all might be well. He wiped the perspiration from his face and went slowly in the direction of the stage. He could hear the bursts of laughter and light gaiety and the popping of corks, and this jarred upon his senses to such an extent that he was half inclined to turn his back upon the whole thing and leave the rest to chance. All the same, he pushed forward and took his seat at the table as if nothing had happened.

Immediately opposite to him was Angela, who seemed to be in a contemplative mood. There was no trace whatever of agitation about her, those grey eyes were clear and candid and her whole aspect was one of maidenly innocence and openness. Almost by a coincidence, Nevil found himself seated next to Diana Longworth, who was chatting to her next door neighbour in her bold, free manner, and apparently utterly unconscious of the fact that the pearl collar no longer adorned her neck. And, moreover, nobody else seated there appeared to have noticed the loss. Well, so far, all was to the good and the delay was everything in the way of gain to Nevil in working out the scheme he had at the back of his mind.

There came a lull presently in the noise and chatter, and then someone on the opposite side of the table broke the silence with a question that fairly startled Ashdown. The man who spoke was one of Nevil's most intimate friends, a retired doctor who had bought a model farm in the neighbourhood, and was living there with his wife, the pretty little woman with the vivacious manner, who was sitting alongside him. Tom Blissett it was who leant half across the table with his eyes on Diana Longworth, and an expression on his face that did not fail to attract the attention of more than one of those gathered round the festive board.

"Why, Diana," he cried, "what on earth have you done with that pearl collar of yours?"

Diana's hand went swiftly to her throat, and an expression of alarm crossed her face.

"It's gone!" she almost screamed. "I have lost it. I am certain I was wearing it a few minutes ago."

"So I thought," Ashdown said. "But I am bound to say that if you have lost it, it is entirely your own fault. You won't forget telling me a little time ago that the fastening was defective, and that you ought to have seen to it before you came."

"I am not going to deny it," Diana said sharply, "but the fact remains that I was wearing the collar a few minutes ago, and now it has gone."

It was Everard Murray who next broke in.

"Don't let there be any panic about this business," he said. "It is all very unfortunate, but we mustn't lose our heads. I propose that we make an immediate search everywhere. The thing is sure to turn up sooner or later. Are you quite sure you were wearing it a few minutes ago, Miss Longworth. Oh, I know what you women are—you put a thing down, leave it near a lavatory basin, and then swear by all your gods that you had it in your possession an hour later. Let us go and have a look round."

"And a very good idea, too," Nevil said lightly. "Of course, nobody here in this room could have anything to do with it, and I don't want people who came in from outside to help us this evening to labour under any suspicion—I mean the two or three villagers who kindly gave their services in the way of scene shifting and that sort of thing. I am not saying one of them may not have picked up the collar—in fact, I am not saying anything until we have had a thorough search."

With one accord the guests rose from the table, and for the next half hour or so, the village hall was searched from end to end in every nook and corner, but without avail. Then, in a subdued frame of mind, and in an atmosphere charged with suspicion and doubt, one by one, the guests returned to the stage and sat down almost gloomily to continue the supper.

"Well," Nevil broke the silence at length. "Apparently, we are just as we were before. Now, look here, Diana—you are as much to blame as anybody else. You came here asking for trouble, and, apparently, you have found it. If you had taken the precaution before you left home to see that the fastening——"

"Oh, for goodness sake, don't go into that again," Diana cried. "I am not going to deny it, I always was careless about jewellery, and I suppose I always shall be."

"Ah, then I suppose that the lesson that two of us have tried to teach you has been thrown away," Nevil laughed.

"Here, what's that?" Murray exclaimed. "Am I to understand that the whole thing is a practical joke?"

Nevil smiled, absolutely grateful for the suggestion.

"Something like that," he said. "Wasn't it, Angela?"

Angela looked up with a strange expression in her eyes, but, fortunately, nobody seemed to notice.

"I—I suppose so," she said, almost under her breath.

"Well, I won't keep you in suspense any longer," Nevil said, with a flourish and a smile that deceived everybody. "As a matter of fact, it was Angela Murray who picked up the collar. There was no concealment about it, because I saw it done. It was Angela's idea to give you a bit of a fright, Diana, and I think she has succeeded. Now, Angela, if you please."

Like one in a kind of dream, Angela plunged her hand into the bosom of her dress and produced the missing collar. She seemed to do this mechanically, as if impelled by some unseen force. And Nevil, watching her, thanked his gods from the bottom of his heart that not a single soul gathered round the table had the smallest insight as to the tragi-comedy that was being enacted there and then, save perhaps the lank and melancholy Joseph Sidey, who was sitting on the far side of the table close to his partners, Murray and Blanchin. There was an expression on his face that rather disturbed Nevil, but it was gone almost as quickly as it had appeared.

"And now, Angela," Nevil said. "Tell them all about it."

"Don't you think it would come better from you?" Angela replied.

"Well, perhaps so," Nevil agreed. "Anyhow, there is practically nothing to tell, except to repeat that the whole thing was more or less in the nature of a practical joke. I knew exactly what Angela was going to do when she picked up the necklace and I tacitly fell in with her idea. A sort of case, don't you know, when two minds think exactly alike, and there are no words to be said."

It seemed to Nevil that he had succeeded in averting a serious scandal and he fondly hoped, at the same time, that he had convinced Angela of his absolute sincerity and belief in her integrity. She smiled a little wanly at him across the table and then, fortunately, somebody created a diversion and the whole thing was forgotten as if it had never happened. And when, presently, Nevil said good-night to Angela, her hand lay in his without the slightest tremor and she looked into his face as innocently as a child.

He felt that there was something strangely wrong here. Something he must get to the bottom of. Something that stood between him and his happiness—something that might account for Angela's strange manner from time to time.

He was still turning this over in his mind and standing abstractedly in the midst of the departing guests when Blissett came up behind him and smote him on the shoulders.

"What are you dreaming about?" Tom Blissett asked, in his breezy way. "Are you going to stand here all night? Have you forgotten that we were going to drive you back in our car and drop you at your house? Come on, old chap, get a move on."

"Oh, I suppose I was thinking of something else," Nevil said. "Anyhow, I am ready for you and Eleanor as soon as you like. Been a jolly evening hasn't it?"

"Jolly indeed," Blissett agreed. "And a jolly good lesson to that sporting young woman, which I hope she will remember."