Part 16

He lit another cigarette. He was feeling pleased with himself. Never before had ideas marshalled themselves in his mind in such long and well-ordered ranks. He felt that he could go on talking like this all night. He was getting brainier every minute. He remembered reading in some book somewhere of a girl (or chappie) who had had her (or his) “hour of clear vision”. This was precisely what had happened now. Whether it was owing to the excitement of what had taken place that night, or because he had been keeping up his thinking powers with excellent dry champagne, he did not know. All he knew was that he felt on top of his subject. He wished he had had a larger audience. “A girl like Miss McEachern,” he resumed, “doesn’t want any of the hair-stroking business. She’d simply laugh at a feller if he asked for it. She needs a chappie of the Get On or Get Out type—somebody in the six-cylinder class. And as a matter of fact, between ourselves, I rather think she’s found him.”

“What?”

Mr. McEachern half rose from his chair. All his old fears had come surging back.

“What do you mean?”

“Fact,” said his lordship, nodding. “Mind you, I don’t know for certain. As the girl says in the song, I don’t know, but I guess. What I mean to say is, they seemed jolly friendly and all that—calling each other by their Christian names, and so on.”

“Who?”

“Pitt,” said his lordship. He was leaning back, blowing a smoke-ring at the moment, so did not see the look on the other’s face and the sudden grip of his fingers on the arms of his chair. He went on with some enthusiasm.

“Jimmy Pitt!” he said. “Now, there’s a feller. Full of oats to the brim, and fairly bursting with go and energy. A girl wouldn’t have a dull moment with a chap like that. You know,” he proceeded confidentially, “there’s a lot in this idea of affinities. Take my word for it, dear old—sir. There’s a girl up in London, for instance. Now, she and I hit it off most amazingly. There’s hardly a thing we don’t think alike about. For instance, ‘The Merry Widow’ didn’t make a bit of a hit with her; nor did it with me, yet look at the millions of people who raved about it. And neither of us like oysters. We’re affinities—that’s why. You see the same sort of thing all over the place. It’s a jolly queer business. Sometimes makes me believe in re—in-what’s-its-name—you know what I mean. All that in the poem, you know. How does it go? ‘When you were a tiddley-om-pom and I was a thingummajig.’ Dashed brainy bit of work. I was reading it only the other day. Well, what I mean to say is, it’s my belief that Jimmy Pitt and Miss McEachern are by way of being something in that line. Doesn’t it strike you that they are just the sort to get on together? You can see it with half an eye. You can’t help liking a feller like Jimmy Pitt. He’s a sport! I wish I could tell you some of the things he’s done, but I can’t, for reasons; but you can take it from me he’s a sport. You ought to cultivate him. You’d like him.... Oh, dash it! there’s the music! I must be off. Got to dance this one.”

He rose from his chair and dropped his cigarette into the ash-tray.

“So long,” he said, with a friendly nod. “Wish I could stop, but it’s no go. That’s the last let-up I shall have to-night.”

He went out, leaving Mr. McEachern seated in his chair, a prey to many and varied emotions.

★ 29 ★ _The Last Round_

He had only been gone a few minutes when Mr. McEachern’s meditations were again interrupted. This time the visitor was a stranger to him—a dark-faced, clean-shaven man. He did not wear evening clothes, so could not be one of the guests; and Mr. McEachern could not place him immediately. Then he remembered. He had seen him in Sir Thomas Blunt’s dressing room. This was Sir Thomas’s valet.

“Might I have a word with you, sir?”

“What is it?” asked McEachern, staring heavily. His mind had not recovered from the effect of Lord Dreever’s philosophical remarks. There was something of a cloud on his brain. To judge from his lordship’s words, things had been happening behind his back; and the idea of Molly deceiving him was too strange to be assimilated in an instant. He looked at the valet dully.

“What is it?” he asked again.

“I must apologise for intruding, but I thought it best to approach you before making my report to Sir Thomas.”

“Your report?”

“I am employed by a private inquiry agency.”

“What?”

“Yes, sir—Wragge’s. You may have heard of us, in Holborn Bars; very old established, divorce a speciality. You will have seen the advertisements. Sir Thomas wrote asking for a man, and the governor sent me down. I have been with the house some years. My job, I gathered, was to keep my eyes open generally. Sir Thomas, it seemed, had no suspicions of any definite person. I was to be on the spot just in case, in a manner of speaking. And it’s precious lucky I was, or her ladyship’s jewels would have been gone. I’ve done a fair cop this very night.”

He paused, and eyed the ex-policeman keenly. McEachern was obviously excited. Could Jimmy have made an attempt on the jewels during the dance? Or Spike?

“Say,” he said, “was it a red headed——?”

The detective was watching him with a curious smile.

“No, he wasn’t red headed. You seem interested, sir. I thought you would be. I will tell you all about it. I had had my suspicions of this party ever since he arrived. And I may say that it struck me at the time that there was something mighty fishy about the way he got into the castle.”

McEachern started. So he had not been the only one to suspect Jimmy’s motives in attaching himself to Lord Dreever.

“Go on,” he said.

“I suspected that there was some game on, and it struck me that this would be the day for the attempt, the house being upside down, in a manner of speaking, on account of the theatricals. And I was right. I kept near those jewels on and off all day, and presently, just as I had thought, along comes this fellow. He’d hardly got to the door when I was on him.”

“Good boy! You’re no rube.”

“We fought for a while, but, being a bit to the good in strength, and knowing something about the game, I had the irons on him pretty quick, and took him off and locked him in the cellar. That’s how it was, sir.”

Mr. McEachern’s relief was overwhelming. If Lord Dreever’s statement was correct, and Jimmy had really succeeded in winning Molly’s affection, this would be indeed a rescue at the eleventh hour. It was with a _Nunc Dimittis_ air he felt for his cigar case and extended it towards the detective. A cigar from his own private case was with him a mark of the supremest favour and good will—a sort of accolade which he bestowed only upon the really meritorious few.

Usually it was received with becoming deference, but on this occasion there was a somewhat startling deviation from routine, for, just as he was opening the case, something cold and hard pressed against each of his wrists; there was a snap and a click, and looking up, dazed, he saw that the detective had sprung back, and was contemplating him with a grim smile over the barrel of an ugly-looking little revolver.

Guilty or innocent, the first thing a man does, when he finds handcuffs on his wrists, is to try to get them off. The action is automatic. Mr. McEachern strained at the steel chain till the veins stood out on his forehead. His great body shook with rage.

The detective eyed his efforts with some satisfaction. The picture presented by the other, as he heaved and tugged, was that of a guilty man trapped.

“It’s no good, my friend,” he said.

His voice brought McEachern back to his senses. In the first shock of the thing the primitive man in him had led him beyond the confines of self-restraint. He had simply struggled unthinkingly. Now he came to himself again.

He shook his manacled hands furiously.

“What does this mean?” he shouted. “What the——”

“Less noise,” said the detective sharply. “Get back!” he snapped, as the other took a step forward.

“Do you know who I am?” thundered McEachern.

“No,” said the detective. “And that’s just why you’re wearing those bracelets. Come, now, don’t be a fool, the game’s up; can’t you see that?”

McEachern leaned helplessly against the billiard-table. He felt weak. Everything was unreal. Had he gone mad? he wondered.

“That’s right,” said the detective—“stay there. You can’t do any harm there. It was a pretty little game, I’ll admit. You worked it well—meeting your old friend from New York and all, and having him invited to the castle. Very pretty. New York, indeed! Seen about as much of New York as I have of Timbuctoo. I saw through him.”

Some inkling of the truth began to penetrate McEachern’s consciousness. He had become so obsessed with the idea that, as the captive was not Spike, it must be Jimmy, that the possibility of Mr. Galer being the subject of discussion only dawned upon him now.

“What do you mean?” he cried. “Who is it that you have arrested?”

“Blest if I know. You can tell me that, I should think, seeing he’s an old Timbuctoo friend of yours. Galer’s the name he goes by here.”

“Galer!”

“That’s the man. And do you know what he had the impudence, the gall, to tell me? That he was in my own line of business. A detective! He said you had sent for him to come here.”

He laughed amusedly at the recollection.

“And so he is, you fool. So I did.”

“Oh, you did, did you? And what business had you bringing detectives into other people’s houses?”

Mr. McEachern started to answer, but checked himself. Never before had he appreciated to the full the depth and truth of the proverb relating to the frying-pan and the fire. To clear himself he must mention his suspicions of Jimmy, and also his reasons for those suspicions. And to do that would mean revealing his past. It was Scylla and Charybdis.

A drop of perspiration trickled down his temple.

“What’s the good?” said the detective. “Mighty ingenious idea, that, only you hadn’t allowed for there being a real detective in the house. It was that chap pitching me that yarn that made me suspicious of you. I put two and two together. ‘Partners,’ I said to myself. I’d heard all about you, scraping acquaintance with Sir Thomas and all. Mighty ingenious. You become the old family friend, and then you let in your pal. He gets the stuff and hands it over to you. Nobody dreams of suspecting you, and there you are. Honestly, now, wasn’t that the game?”

“It’s all a mistake——” McEachern was beginning, when the door-handle turned.

The detective looked over his shoulder. McEachern glared dumbly. This was the crowning blow, that there should be spectators of his predicament.

Jimmy strolled into the room.

“Dreever told me you were in here,” he said to McEachern. “Can you spare me a—— Halloa!”

The detective had pocketed his revolver at the first sound of the handle—to be discreet was one of the chief articles in the creed of the young men from Wragge’s Detective Agency—but handcuffs are not easily concealed. Jimmy stood staring in amazement at McEachern’s wrists.

“Some sort of a round game?” he inquired with interest.

The detective became confidential.

“It’s this way, Mr. Pitt. There’s been some pretty deep work going on here. There’s a regular gang of burglars in the place. This chap here’s one of them.”

“What, Mr. McEachern?”

“That’s what he calls himself.”

It was all Jimmy could do to keep himself from asking Mr. McEachern whether he attributed his downfall to drink. He contented himself with a sorrowful shake of the head at the fermenting captive. Then he took up the part of counsel for the defence.

“I don’t believe it,” he said. “What makes you think so?”

“Why, this afternoon I caught this man’s pal—the fellow that calls himself Galer——”

“I know the man,” said Jimmy. “He’s a detective really. Mr. McEachern brought him down here.”

The sleuth’s jaw dropped limply, as if he had received a blow.

“What?” he said, in a feeble voice.

“Didn’t I tell you——” began Mr. McEachern; but the sleuth was occupied with Jimmy. That sickening premonition of disaster was beginning to steal over him. Dimly he began to perceive that he had blundered.

“Yes,” said Jimmy. “Why, I can’t say; but Mr. McEachern was afraid some one might try to steal Lady Julia Blunt’s rope of diamonds, so he wrote to London for this man Galer. It was officious, perhaps, but not criminal. I doubt if, legally, you could handcuff a man for a thing like that. What have you done with good Mr. Galer?”

“I’ve locked him in the coal-cellar,” said the detective dismally. The thought of the interview in prospect with the human bloodhound he had so mishandled was not exhilarating.

“Locked him in the cellar, did you?” said Jimmy. “Well, well, I dare say he’s very happy there. He’s probably busy detecting black-beetles. Still, perhaps you had better go and let him out. Possibly if you were to apologise to him—— Eh? Just as you think—I only suggest. If you want somebody to vouch for Mr. McEachern’s non-burglariousness, I can do it. He is a gentleman of private means, and we knew each other out in New York.”

“I never thought——”

“That,” said Jimmy, with sympathetic friendliness, “if you will allow me to say so, is the cardinal mistake you detectives make. You never do think.”

“It never occurred to me——”

He took the key of the handcuffs from his pocket and toyed with it. Mr. McEachern emitted a low growl. It was enough.

“If you wouldn’t mind, Mr. Pitt,” said the detective obsequiously. He thrust the key into Jimmy’s hands and fled. Jimmy unlocked the handcuffs. Mr. McEachern rubbed his wrists.

“Ingenious little things,” said Jimmy.

“I’m much obliged to you,” growled Mr. McEachern, without looking up.

“Not at all—a pleasure. This circumstantial evidence business is the devil, isn’t it? I knew a man who broke into a house in New York to win a bet, and to this day the owner of the house thinks him a professional burglar.”

“What’s that?” said Mr. McEachern sharply.

“Why do I say ‘a man’? Why am I so elusive and mysterious? You’re quite right. It sounds more dramatic; but, after all, what you want is facts. Very well. I broke into your house that night to win a bet. That’s the limpid truth.”

McEachern was staring at him. Jimmy proceeded.

“You are just about to ask—what was Spike Mullins doing with me? Well, Spike had broken into my flat an hour before, and I took him along with me as a sort of guide, philosopher, and friend.”

“Spike Mullins said you were a burglar from England.”

“I’m afraid I rather led him to think so. I had been to see the opening performance of a burglar-play called _Love, the Cracksman_, that night, and I worked off on Spike some severely technical information I had received from a pal of mine who played lead in the show. I told you when I came in that I had been talking to Lord Dreever. Well, what he was saying to me was that he had met this very actor-man, a fellow called Mifflin—Arthur Mifflin—in London just before he met me. He’s in London now, rehearsing for a show that’s come over from America. You see the importance of this item? It means that if you doubt my story all you need to do is to find Mifflin—I forget what theatre his play is coming on at, but you could find out in a second—and ask him to corroborate. Are you satisfied?”

McEachern did not answer. An hour before he would have fought to the last ditch for his belief in Jimmy’s crookedness, but the events of the last ten minutes had shaken him. He felt something of a reaction in Jimmy’s favour.

“Look here, Mr. McEachern,” said Jimmy, “I wish you would listen quietly to me for a minute or two. There’s really no reason on earth why we should be at one another’s throats in this way. We might just as well be friends. Let’s shake hands and call the fight off. I suppose you know why I came here to see you?” McEachern did not speak.

“You know that your daughter has broken off her engagement to Lord Dreever?”

“Then he was right!” said McEachern, half to himself. “It is you?”

Jimmy nodded. McEachern drummed his fingers on the table and stared thoughtfully at him.

“Is Molly——?” he said, at length. “Does Molly——?”

“Yes,” said Jimmy.

McEachern continued his drumming.

“Don’t think there’s been anything underhand about this,” said Jimmy. “She absolutely refused to do anything unless you gave your consent. She said you had been partners all her life, and she was going to do the square thing by you.”

“She did?” said McEachern eagerly.

“I think you ought to do the square thing by her. I’m not much, but she wants me. Do the square thing by her.”

McEachern was staring straight in front of him. There was a look in his eyes which Jimmy had never seen there before—a frightened, hunted look.

“It’s too late,” he burst out. “I’ll be square with her now, but it’s too late. I won’t stand in her way when I can make her happy. But I’ll lose her! Oh, my God, I’ll lose her!

“Did you think I had never said to myself,” he went on, “the things you said to me that day when we met here? Did you think I didn’t know what I was? Who should know it better than myself? But she didn’t—I’d kept it from her. I’d sweat for fear she would find out some day. When I came over here I thought I was safe; and then you came, and I saw you together. I thought you were a crook—you were with Mullins in New York—I told her you were a crook.”

“You told her that?”

“I said I knew it. I couldn’t tell her the truth why I thought so. I said I had made inquiries in New York and found out about you.”

Jimmy saw now. The mystery was solved. So that was why Molly had allowed them to force her into the engagement with Dreever.

“I see,” he said slowly.

McEachern gripped the table in silence.

“I see,” said Jimmy again. “You mean she’ll want an explanation?”

He thought for a moment.

“You must tell her,” he said quickly. “For your own sake you must tell her. Go and do it now. Wake up, man!” He shook him by the shoulder. “Go and do it now. She’ll forgive you. Don’t be afraid of that. Go and look for her and tell her now.”

McEachern roused himself.

“I will,” he said.

“It’s the only way,” said Jimmy.

McEachern opened the door, then fell back a pace. Jimmy could hear voices in the passage outside. He recognised Lord Dreever’s.

McEachern continued to back away from the door.

Lord Dreever entered, with Molly on his arm.

“Halloa!” said his lordship, looking round.

“Halloa, Pitt! Here we all are; what?”

“Lord Dreever wanted to smoke,” said Molly.

She smiled, but there was anxiety in her eyes. She looked quickly at her father and at Jimmy.

“Molly, my dear,” said McEachern huskily, “I want to speak to you for a moment.”

Jimmy took his lordship by the arm.

“Come along, Dreever,” he said. “You can come and sit out with me. We’ll go and smoke on the terrace.”

They left the room together.

“What does the old boy want?” inquired his lordship. “Are you and Miss McEachern——?”

“We are,” said Jimmy.

“By Jove! I say, old chap! Million congratulations and all that sort of rot, you know!”

His lordship had to resume his duties in the ballroom after a while; but Jimmy sat on, smoking and thinking.

In the general stillness the opening of the door at the top of the steps came sharply to his ears. He looked up. Two figures were silhouetted for a moment against the light, and then the door closed again. They began to move slowly down the steps.

Jimmy had recognised them. He got up. He was in the shadow; they could not see him. They began to walk down the terrace. They were quite close now. Neither was speaking, but presently, when they were but a few feet away, they stopped. There was the splutter of a match, and McEachern lit a cigar. In the yellow light his face was clearly visible. Jimmy looked, and was content.

★ 30 ★ _Conclusion_

The American liner _St. Louis_ lay in the Empress Dock at Southampton, taking aboard her passengers. All sorts and conditions of men flowed in an unceasing stream up the gangway.

Leaning over the second-class railing, Jimmy Pitt and Spike Mullins watched them thoughtfully.

“Well, Spike,” said Jimmy, “your schooner’s on the tide now, isn’t it? Your vessel’s at the quay. You’ve got some queer-looking fellow-travellers. Don’t miss the two Cingalese sports and the man in the turban and baggy breeches. I wonder if they’re airtight? Useful if he fell overboard.”

“Sure,” said Spike, directing a contemplative eye towards the garment in question. “He knows his business.”

“I wonder what those men on the deck are writing? They’ve been scribbling away ever since we came here. Probably society journalists. We shall see in next week’s papers, ‘Among the second-class passengers we noticed Mr. “Spike” Mullins looking as cheery as ever.’ It’s a pity you’re so set on going, Spike. Why not change your mind and stop?”

For a moment Spike looked wistful. Then his countenance resumed its woodenness. “Dere ain’t no use for me dis side, boss,” he said. “New York’s de spot. Youse don’t want none of me now you’re married. How’s Miss Molly, boss?”

“Splendid, Spike, thanks. We’re going over to France by to-night’s boat.

“It’s been a queer business,” said Jimmy, after a pause—“a deuced queer business. Still, I’ve come very well out of it, at any rate. It seems to me that you’re the only one of us who doesn’t end happily, Spike. I’m married. McEachern’s butted into society so deep that it would take an excavating party with dynamite to get him out of it. Molly—well, Molly’s made a bad bargain, but I hope she won’t regret it. We’re all going some, except you. You’re going out on the old trail again—which begins in Third Avenue and ends in Sing Sing. Why tear yourself away, Spike?”

Spike concentrated his gaze on a weedy young emigrant in a blue jersey, who was having his eye examined by the overworked doctor, and seemed to be resenting it.

“Dere’s nuttin’ doin’ dis side, boss,” he said at length. “I want to get busy.”

“Ulysses Mullins!” said Jimmy, looking at him curiously. “I know the feeling. There’s only one cure. I sketched it out for you once, but I doubt if you’ll ever take it. You don’t think a lot of women, do you? You’re the rugged bachelor.”

“Goils——!” began Spike comprehensively, and abandoned the topic without dilating on it further.

“Dose were great jools, boss,” said Spike thoughtfully.

“I believe you’re still brooding over them, Spike.”

“We could have got away wit dem, if you’d have stood for it—dead easy.”

“You are brooding over them. Spike, I’ll tell you something which will console you a little before you start out on your wanderings. It’s in confidence, so keep it dark. That necklace was paste.”

“What’s dat?”

“Nothing but paste. I spotted it directly you handed them to me. It wasn’t worth a hundred dollars.”

A light of understanding came into Spike’s eyes. His face beamed with the smile of one to whom dark matters are made clear.

“So dat’s why you wouldn’t stand for getting away wit it!” he exclaimed.

* * * * * * * *

The last voyager had embarked. The deck was full to congestion.

“They’ll be sending us ashore in a minute,” said Jimmy. “I’d better be moving. Let me know how you’re getting on, Spike, from time to time. You know the address. And, I say, it’s just possible you may find you want a dollar or two every now and then—when you’re going to buy another aeroplane, for instance. Well, you know where to write to for it, don’t you?”

“T’anks, boss. But dat’ll be all right. I’m goin’ to sit in at anodder game dis time—politics, boss. A fr’en’ of a mug what I knows has gotten a pull. He’ll find me a job.”

“Politics!” said Jimmy. “I never thought of that. ‘My brother Dan is an alderman with a grip on the Seventh Ward!’” he quoted softly. “Why, you’ll be a boss before you know where you are.”

“Sure,” said Spike, grinning modestly.

“You ought to be a thundering success in American politics,” said Jimmy. “You’ve got all the necessary qualities.”

A steward passed.

“Any more for the shore?”