Читать книгу The Masters of Murder Mystery - Max Pemberton Edition - Pemberton Max - Страница 14

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We had been back in Paris nearly two months when the strange business connected with the golden egg came about. There was a time when I was very glad that my master had something to occupy his mind; but that was at the beginning of it. By and by, I thought much as the rest of them did; and whether to laugh or whether to cry I really did not know.

For my part, I was not sorry to be in Paris. All said and done, it's a city for a gentleman to live in. High born or low, good man or bad, you may find your company there so long as the guineas rattle in your pocket. And when you've spent your bit, you'll still find your company. That's the way of it—either rich or poor, but no betweens; and no need to show your family Bible before you're on nodding terms with your neighbors.

"If you'll take my advice, sir," said I to Sir Nicolas, the week after the Oakley affair, "you'll stop here until it's time to move for Monaco. Folks will be coming back from the seaside in a month or so, and meanwhile we'll do no hurt to rest a bit."

"Indeed, and I believe you're right," cried he, "though what a man is to do in Paris these times I'd like to learn."

"You've more than a thousand pounds to spend, sir," said I, reminding him how well we had sold Janet Oakley's diamonds.

"That's so," said he, brightening up wonderfully; "there's a deal of spending in a thousand pounds. And I don't forget that Jack Ames is here. There should be fun while he stops, any way."

"Quite true, sir," replied I, "so long as you don't play billiards with him. Making bold to say it, he could beat you with his umbrella."

"No such thing!" exclaimed he. "I'll take fifteen in a hundred and play him for a monkey any day."

"I wouldn't, if I were you, sir," said I; "we've got to go steady a bit yet—don't forget that."

This made him serious, as any word about his position always did.

"Do you think they'll follow us?" he asked quickly, "or is it some news you've got in your head?"

"Neither the one nor the other. I've no news, and I don't think they'll follow us, sir. But this I do say, that I wouldn't let myself be heard of for a month or so, if you can help it. There's no telling what Heresford would do if it came to his ears that you were starring about."

"You're right there. I'm trusting that Oakley hushed the affair up. There's nothing about it in the English papers that I can see."

"And there won't be, if we go on as we're doing now."

"Exactly; that's what I mean to do. Would I be advertising myself on the hoardings? Is it a child in long clothes that I am, Hildebrand?"

I said nothing, for it was plain that he was working himself up into one of his tempers. He'd been hard enough to bear with since we said good-by to Janet Oakley; but Sir Nicolas Steele was worth five hundred pounds a year to me, one way and the other, and you can stand a bit of temper at that price. I knew that he would think over what I said to him, and so it turned out; for a month went and he lived like a parson. Then, all of a sudden, came the business of the golden egg—and that's the story I write about.

The affair happened quite suddenly, as I say. He had been to Trouville with Jack Ames, and had lost a good deal of money, I knew. Ames was a long-nosed painting man, who lived on what he could get by finding fault with other people's pictures. He had nice manners, though; and I will say that he was a wonder with a billiard cue. Many's the mug he's skinned in this very Hôtel de Lille. I could have cried every time I saw my master going up to the billiard-room with him—and yet a prettier pair to play a four-handed match you'd never find. Ames it was who introduced Sir Nicolas to the theatricals of the Bouffes Parisiens; and what with giving dinners here and picnics there, the thousand we had made in Derbyshire soon looked thin enough.

"Never mind, Nick, my boy," that Ames used to say when be came with some new thing in bis head—" never mind, Nick, my boy; we'll marry you to a rich woman one of these days. And then I'll buy your pictures for you, be hanged if I don't."

You see, the man knew where to get him; for if there was one thing Nicky Steele never could stand against, it was a compliment about the women. The most ordinary creature alive could turn his head with a word. I don't think a vainer man ever was born into this world. He'd clothes enough to stock a theatre; and when I saw him, as I did often, standing before his glass like a schoolgirl dressing for her first party, I could have laughed in his face. If ever Jack Ames wanted money of him, he'd wheedle him with some story of a female who was after his beaux yeux, as he called it. And there wasn't a woman he knew who didn't flatter him outrageously, and laugh at what she'd done when his back was turned.

Well, it was by some tale of a woman that Ames got him down to Trouville; he paying the expenses, you may be pretty sure. The pair were away about a week, and when they came back, I knew that a good deal of money had been spent. He was very down in the mouth, and talked about going to try his luck in America, and other stuff. He got to work on the champagne, too, and I began to have the old trouble with him.

"What am I doing here?" he raved. It was the first night he was back from Trouville. "What's to become of me, Hildebrand—me that was born a gentleman? Is it in a garret you'd see me die? I haven't fifty pounds in the world, as the Lord is my witness."

"Now, don't you think of that, sir," said I. "You're not the man to die in any garret. Have a little patience, and we shall hear of something. Luck's never failed us yet, and it's not going to now."

"That's what you're always telling me," he wailed. "Luck—what's luck done for me? Is it lucky I am to have no friend in the world? The devil take such luck!"

I put him to bed—we were then staying in the Hôtel de Lille, over on the south side of the river, which corresponds to our London Surrey side—and next morning he slept late. It had been arranged that he and Mr. Ames should breakfast together in the hotel, and then go for a day down to Fontainebleau—à la campagne, as the French call it. I had called him at nine o'clock, but it was ten o'clock before he got up; and while he was dressing, the waiter brought up one of the funniest parcels 1 have ever seen. It was very small, very neat, done up in very bright blue paper; but more strange than any thing else was its weight, which was extraordinary for such a little thing.

"It seems to me, sir," said I, "that somebody has been making you a present of a few bullets. I never handled any thing like that in my life."

He took it in his hand and weighed it.

"What the deuce can it be, Hildebrand?" exclaimed he; and with that he cut the string, while I pretended to be busy with his clothes. But I saw him open the box, and when he got through a deal of tissue paper, he came to a little golden egg, quite the size of a plover's egg, and exactly like one in shape.

"Well," said he, "if that isn't rum! Who the blazes will be sending me this?"

It certainly was a funny thing, and when he passed the egg on to me, I was just as puzzled as he was. There it stood, a plain bit of gold—as you could tell by its weight—and not a mark or sign to make the giver known or to tell why it had been sent.

"Perhaps there's a letter with it, sir," said I, "or one will follow it."

"Is it gold, do you think?" he asked next.

"It should be, by its weight; but I'll put a drop of acid on it and see, sir."

It was gold right enough. The acid showed us that; yet when we had made the test, we had done nothing to answer the question, Who sent it?

"Who is it, now," he kept saying, "that is sending me golden eggs? It would be a woman most likely. Of course that's it. There'll be some message or letter to follow this. No one would be such a fool as to send the thing anonymously. Didn't I tell you that our luck would change. Bedad! it's changed already. I'll have a bottle of champagne on this, Hildebrand; it should be worth that, any way."

"Better wait a bit and see, sir," cried I; "though it's a queer present, I do say."

Well, it was no good talking to him; he was that excited about it already that he would have had the wine if his last guinea had bought it. I've known him before now to crack a bottle of champagne when he found a horseshoe in the road; and he always was one to be up or down like an umbrella. The least thing would send him laughing or crying; and this queer present, coming at a time when the money was very low, was quite enough. By the time I'd got the champagne he was singing at the top of his voice. What's more, the golden egg was open, and as I put the wine on the table I caught sight of the portrait of a woman lying in the heart of it.

"So, sir," said I, "you've found out all about it?"

"Yes," said he, coming to a stop suddenly, "it's only a locket, after all. Open the fizz, will you? my mouth's like a sandhill."

Now, it seemed to me queer that he should be so silent about it, but he never did talk to me when a woman was in the case. And it wasn't for me to say any thing when he held his tongue. So I uncorked the wine, and was pouring him out a glass, when Jack Ames opened the door and walked straight into the room.

"Halloa," said he, "at it already, Nicky, my boy! What's fresh now, then?"

"There's nothing fresh that I know of," answered Sir Nicolas, quickly closing the locket; "is it ready to start ye are?"

"As ready as yourself. You're not going to leave the liquor like that, surely? Man, it would be a crime!"

"Get another glass, Hildebrand," said my master now, " and when you've done that, fetch me fiacre."

I went to do his bidding, and when I had filled Mr. Ames' glass I left the room and shut the door after me. But I took good care to clap my ear to the keyhole, and then I heard them talking.

"Jack," said Sir Nicolas, "there's the strangest thing happened that ever you heard of. I've had a present, my boy, not half an hour before you came in. Look at that now, and tell me what you think of it."

There was silence for a while after this, and I supposed that Mr. Ames was looking at the locket. But Sir Nicolas was the one who spoke next.

"Did ye ever see a sweeter face?" he asked. "Isn't it curious that it should come to me like that, with not a word or a letter? Indeed, and I think it's a very pretty mystery."

Jack Ames spoke now.

"You've the right to consider it that," said he; "do you happen to know who the lady is?"

"No more than the dead," replied my master.

"Then I'll take leave to tell you. She's the Baroness de Moncy, the wife of the late Ambassador to Portugal. Her husband died four years ago, and left her three hundred thousand pounds. Nicky, my boy, it's a lucky day for you. Where the devil did she see you, may I ask?"

"How should I know that, when I hear her name now for the first time? But you're joking with me, Jack."

"Me! truth, I'm not, as you'll soon find out for yourself. Eh, gad, Nicky, I can hardly believe it, though I'm right glad about it, old man, and here's my hand on it!"

What more he said I didn't hear, for it was time to get the cab for them, and they went off together in a few minutes, Sir Nicolas being that full of himself that his hand shook when he emptied his glass. As for me, I didn't know whether I was on my head or my heels, and stood for a long time acting like a fool, I make sure.

"The Baroness de Moncy," said I, "and worth three hundred thousand! Well, if this don't beat any thing. To think that he cut that Derbyshire lot to run into a thing like this. Did any one ever hear of such a thing?"

The affair was a blank mystery, and that was all about it. That a woman should send her picture to a man she had never seen was not the least wonderful part of it. It was the rum way she sent it, with- out note or word. I've seen a good deal of women one way and another, and they do act in a surprising manner sometimes, I must confess. But that one of them, who was a baroness, should send a gold locket with her portrait to Sir Nicolas Steele, fairly beat any tiling I'd ever heard of.

"Who is she?" I kept asking myself, "the Baroness de Moncy? I've heard the name somewhere. She isn't in Paris now, or I should have known of it. He must have met her at Trouville at a masked ball or something. He couldn't have known her, but she knew him—and here's the reminder. Did ever a man have such luck?"

With this in my head I went to his private drawer, where he'd put the locket away, and I had a good look at it. The thing weighed heavy enough to be gold twice over; but it was not until I had fingered it for ten minutes or a quarter of an hour that I found out how to open it. You did it by a press of your hand upon the top of the egg, and then it flew open sharp, like a matchbox. The portrait, which might have been called a miniature, I suppose, lay deep in the heart of it. It was the picture of a girl perhaps of twenty-six years of age, and I must say. that the prettiness of the thing fairly took my breath away. I'm not one to say much about the looks of Frenchwomen as a whole, but this creature was beautiful beyond compare. If I'd have hunted Paris for a month I could not have found her like—not one so elegant or with such hair tumbling about her shoulders as that picture gave her. And when I remembered that Mr. Ames had said she was worth three hundred thousand pounds, I could have cried at the luck that had come to us.