Part 4

"Well," he exclaimed at last, "it's devilish rough on a fellow to have a relation of that sort, isn't it?--a positive disgrace to the family. I wonder what the old blackguard is going to give me for a wedding present. Did he ask you to show him any American tickers, by the way? I shouldn't wonder if he presented me with a brass clock, and Eva with a guinea set in jet--he's mean enough."

"He bought a ruby bracelet here some days ago," I remarked, as in parenthesis.

"Did he now?" he exclaimed in a tone of pleasure. "I wonder if it's for the girlie! but, of course, it couldn't be. He'd die to give away anything that once went into his old safe. Look here, Sutton, couldn't you charge him an extra hundred, and go halves? I feel like something desperate."

I told him that that was impossible, and he went away with the aigrette in his pocket, and a very thoughtful expression upon his face. Before he did so, however, he had uttered the pious wish that his uncle might die of some tormenting visitation; and that he might be alive to dance on the day of the funeral. I must say that I sympathized with him, for he was a good-looking and kindly-hearted young fellow, who for many years had been led to believe that his relations would do something for him; and who was about to be grievously disappointed. Nor could I forget that he was engaged to one of the prettiest girls in town--and for her sake enjoyed a kind of reflected sympathy which was sincere enough on the part of every man who knew him.

The date of the wedding was now fixed, being the 21st of January, to be well ahead of Lent. I saw Watts very frequently during the following ten days, he coming with expectant persistency to ask me if his uncle had yet bought him anything; and remaining disappointed almost to the very eve of his marriage. In fact, the wedding was to take place on the Wednesday, and it was only on the previous Monday that Lord Harningham ascended my stairs puffing and blowing, and in a shocking temper, to make his purchase of a present.

"Sutton," he said, "this is the greatest tomfoolery on earth--that young rascal is going to get married after all, and I suppose I'll have to give him something."

"You can scarce do less," I said with a smile.

"Of course I can do less," he replied garrulously. "I can give him nothing at all, d'ye see; not a brass halfpenny. Look at the ass, maudling about the first pretty face he sees over a dinner table when he might marry money twenty times for the asking of it. Did I make such a fool of myself when I was his age?"

I assured him that he did nothing of the sort.

"Then what's he want to do it for? Thinks he's going to get something out of me, perhaps--out of _me_, but he ain't--not sixpence; not if they hadn't enough to get to the station with. Ha, ha! I'm not such a spendthrift as I look."

He talked in this strain for some while, and then fell to haggling over a gift. He told me that the custom of giving wedding presents was the insane fashion of an insane age; that he consented to follow it only in view of the fuss that society would make if his card did not lie on Lord Varnley's table when the other presents were shown. In this bargaining he displayed a meanness which was triumphant even for him. I must have shown him quite a hundred rings, pins, and watches, of all values, from fifty pounds to five hundred, before he could in any way make up his mind, and he did not cease to rebuke me for that which he called my preposterously extravagant insinuation. "Fifty sovereigns! a hundred sovereigns!" he kept exclaiming; "Why, man alive, do you think I'm made of money? Show me something cheap, something that five pounds will buy, d'ye see? any bit of stuff's good enough for a jackanapes like that."

"But not for your card on Lord Varnley's table."

"Why, what do you mean?"

"People who are uncharitable, you know, might say that it was a curiously insufficient present."

"D'ye think they'd say that?"

"I am sure they would."

"Pshaw!--so am I; that comes of being thought a rich man when you're as poor as a parson. I'm quite a poor man, you know, Sutton."

I listened to him patiently, and in the end persuaded him to buy Watts an exquisite set of jeweled links. These had a fine diamond in each of them, but their greatest ornament was the superb enameling, worthy of Jean Toutin or Petitot, with which all the gold was covered. I asked one hundred and fifty pounds for these remarkable ornaments; and the old man, struck, like the artist he was, with the perfection of the workmanship, fixed his greedy eyes upon them, and was persuaded. He protested that they were too good, far too good, for such a worthless ingrate as his nephew, and that he ought to keep them in his own collection; but at last he ordered me to send them, with his card, to Lord Varnley's town house, and went away chafing at his own generosity, and, as he avowed, at his stupidity.

I saw no more of him for a week. The wedding had been celebrated, and Master Bertie Watts had conveyed away quietly to Folkestone as pretty an English girl as ever flourished in the glare of the West. Lord and Lady Varnley shut up their house during the week after the marriage, having sent the very numerous wedding presents to their bankers; and society would have forgotten the whole business if it had not paused to discuss the important question--How were the young couple to exist in the future on the paltry income of four or five hundred pounds a year? One half of the world may not know how the other half lives, but that is not for lack of effort on its part to find out. It was a matter of club-room news that old Lord Harningham had not relented--and, beyond what his nephew called "those twopenny-half-penny sleeve links," had not given him a penny. How then, said this same charitable world, will these silly children keep up their position in town when they return from the second-rate hotel they are now staying in at Folkestone?

Curiously enough, I was able myself to answer that question in three days' time--though at the moment I was as ignorant as any of them. The matter came about in this way. On the very morning that Lord Varnley went to Paris, it was known through the daily papers that there had been a robbery at his house in Cork Street, of a green velvet case, containing a crescent of pearls, turquoises, and diamonds. This was a present from one of the Embassies to his daughter, and must, said the reports, have been abstracted from the house during the press and the confusion of the reception. Later in the afternoon I received an advice from Scotland Yard cautioning me against the purchase of such a gem, and inviting immediate communication if it were offered to me. The theft of wedding presents is so common that I gave little heed to the matter; and was already immersed in other business when Lord Harningham was announced. He seemed rather fidgety in his manner, I thought, and hummed and hawed considerably before he would explain his mission.

"It's about those links I gave my nephew," he said at last. "They're far too good for him, Sutton--and they're too pretty. I never saw better work in my life, and must have been a fool when I let them go out of my possession--d'ye see?"

"Well, but you can't get them back now?" I remarked with a smile.

He took snuff vigorously at my reply, and then said,--

"Man, you're wrong, I've got them in my pocket."

I must have expressed my astonishment in my look, for he went on quickly,--

"Yes, here in the green case as you sold them. Do I surprise you, eh? Well, I'm going to give Master Bertie a bit of a check and to keep these things; but one of the stones is off color--I noticed it at the wedding--and I must have a new one in, d'ye see?"

"I thought that you had already handed them over," I interrupted, quite disregarding his last request.

"So I did, so I did; but a man can take his own back again, can't he? Well, when I saw them at the house, I concluded it was ridiculous to give a boy like that such treasures, and so----"

"You spoke to him?"

"Hem--that is, of course, man. Pshaw! You're too inquisitive for a jeweler: you ought to have been a lady's maid."

"Have you brought them with you now?"

"What should I be here for if I hadn't?"

He laid upon my table a green velvet case, of the exact size, color, and shape of that which had contained the links; but when I opened it I gave a start, and put it down quickly. The case held a crescent of pearls, turquoises, and diamonds, which answered exactly to the description of the one stolen from Lord Varnley's house on the day of his daughter's wedding.

"There's some mistake here," said I, "you've evidently left the links at home," with which remark I put the jewels under his very nose for him to see. He looked at them for a moment, the whole of his flabby face wrinkling and reddening; then he seemed almost to choke, and the veins in his forehead swelled until they were as blue threads upon an ashen and colorless countenance.

"Good God!" he ejaculated, "I've taken the wrong case."

"Your nephew gave it you, no doubt, but he must have forgotten it, for he's advertised the loss of this crescent at Scotland Yard, and there are detectives now trying to find it. I am cautioned not to purchase it," I said with a laugh.

The effect of these words upon him was so curious that for some moments I thought he had spasm of the heart. Starting up in the chair, with wild eyes, and hands clutching at the arms to rest upon them, he made several attempts to speak, but not a word came from his lips. I endeavored to help him with his difficulty, but it was to little purpose.

"It seems to me, Lord Harningham," I suggested, "that you have only to write a line of explanation to your nephew--and there's an end of the matter."

"You think so?" he cried eagerly.

"Why not," said I, "since he returned the jewels to you?"

"But he didn't," he interrupted, cringing in the chair at this confession of a lie; "he didn't; and he'd prosecute me; he hates me, and this is his opportunity, d'ye see?"

"Do you mean to say," I exclaimed, beginning to understand the situation, "that you took the case without his permission?"

"Yes, yes," he mumbled, "they were so beautiful, such work! You know what work they were. I saw them at the wedding, and was sure that I should not have parted with them. I meant to send him a check against them--and when no one was looking I put what I thought was the case into my pocket, but it was the wrong one. God help me, Sutton what shall I do?"

Now it seemed to me that this was one of the most delightful comedies I had ever assisted at. Technically, Lord Harningham was a thief, and undoubtedly Bertie Watts could have prosecuted him had he chosen, though the probability of his getting a conviction was small. But it was very evident to me that here was the boy's opportunity, and that in the interest of his pretty wife I should make the best of it. With this intent, I played my first card with necessary boldness.

"Undoubtedly the case is very serious for you," said I, apparently with sympathy, "and it is made the more serious from the strange relations existing between your nephew and yourself. You know the law, I doubt not, as well as I do; and that once a prosecution has been initiated at Scotland Yard it is impossible to withdraw without a trial. Mr. Watts might get into serious trouble for compounding a felony; and I might suffer with him as one in the conspiracy. But I tell you what I will do; I'll write to him to-night and sound him. Meanwhile, let me advise you to keep out of the way, for I can't disguise the fact that you might be arrested."

He gave a great scream at this, and the perspiration rolled from him, falling in great drops upon the carpet. "Oh, Lord!" he kept muttering, "oh, that I should have been such a consummate fool!--oh, Heaven help me! To think of it--and what it will cost, I could cry, Sutton--cry like a child."

I calmed him with difficulty, and led him down the back stairs to a cab with a positive assurance that I would not communicate with Scotland Yard. Then I wrote to Folkestone a letter, the precise contents of which are immaterial, but the response to which was in the form of a telegram worded as follows:--

"Am inexpressibly shocked and pained, but the law must take its course."

I put this into my pocket without any delay and went over to Harningham's house in Park Lane. He had been up all night, they told me, and the doctor had just left him; but I found him suffering only from an enervating fear, and white as the cloth on the breakfast table before him.

"Well," he said, "what is it, what does he say? Will he prosecute me?"

I handed him the telegram for answer, and I thought he would have swooned. He did not know that I had in my pocket another letter from his nephew, in which Master Bertie informed me that I was the "best chap in the world," and I saw no reason to mention this. Indeed, I listened with infinite gravity when the old man told me that he was irretrievably ruined, and that his name would stand in all the clubs as that of a common thief. Jewel-hunger plainly accounted for everything he had done; but it was not to my end to console him, and I said in a severe and sufficiently melancholy voice,--

"Lord Harningham, there is only one thing to do, and for your sake I will make myself a criminal participator in the conspiracy. You must go to Folkestone with me this afternoon, and take your check book with you."

The groan he gave at this would have moved a man of iron. I saw tears standing in his eyes, and his hand shook when I left him so that he could scarce put it into mine. Yet he came to the station to meet me in the afternoon, and by six o'clock we were in Folkestone at a shabby second-rate hotel, called "The Cock and Lobster," inquiring for the bride and bridegroom. Mr. and Mrs. Watts, they said, were out on the parade; but we went to look for them, and surprised them coming from the Lees, as handsome a couple as you could look upon. She, a pretty, brown-haired English girl, her tresses tossed over her large eyes by the sharp wind that swept in from the sea, was close under the arm of her husband, who, at that stage, fearing to lose her touch, seemed engaged in the impossible attempt to cover her entirely with one of his arms. And in this pursuit privacy came to his aid, for the breeze was fresh from the Channel at the beginning of night, banishing all loiterers but those loitering in love; and the lamps flickered and went low in the gusts as though fearing to illumine the roses upon the cheeks of a bride.

When Master Bertie saw us he became as sedate as a Methodist minister, and, commanding a solemn tone acted the part to perfection.

"Uncle," he said, "I would never have believed it of you. But this is too serious a matter to mention here; let us go to the hotel."

We returned in silence, but directly we were in the hall the young man called for his bill, and speaking almost in a boisterous tone, cried:--

"We're going to change our quarters, uncle, and will begin by moving to the best hotel in the place. That poor girl is moped to death here, and now you're going to pay for our honeymoon--cost doesn't matter, does it, old man?"

The old man concerned started at this, his mouth wide open with the surprise of it.

"What's that?" he muttered. "What're you going to do?" But I whispered to him to be silent, and in an hour we were sitting down to a superb dinner--which he did not touch, by the bye--in the great saloon of the biggest hotel in the place. During the meal the bride, who scarce seemed able to do anything else than look at her husband, made few remarks, but Watts and I talked freely, quite ignoring the old man; and it was not until we were in the private room that the negotiations began.

There is no need to describe them. They lasted until midnight, at which hour the nephew of Lord Harningham had five hundred pounds in his pocket, and an allowance of five hundred a year. From the moment of assenting to these conditions until we entered the train next morning the old man never opened his lips, but he kissed the bride at the door of the hotel, and color came again to his cheeks at the warmth of her lips. When at last we were alone in the carriage he gave a great sigh of relief and said,----

"Sutton, thank God that's over!"

"Nearly over, my lord," I replied with emphasis.

"What do you mean?" he cried. "Do you think that any one will get to hear of it? Why, man, what have I half-ruined myself for?"

"To keep your nephew quiet," I suggested pleasantly.

"And who else knows anything when he's settled with?" he asked angrily.

"Why," said I quite calmly, "you and I, perhaps."

He looked at me as though his glance was all-consuming and would wither me, but I met him with a placid smile and continued,--

"It seems to me that I want what Mr. Stevenson calls 'a good memory for forgetting.' Do you know, Lord Harningham, that if you paid my bill--gave me, say, eight thousand pounds on account, I believe my mind would be quite oblivious to the events of last night."

The shot struck home--in the very center of my target. He thought over it for some while, and spoke but once between Sevenoaks and Charing Cross. His remark was more forcible than convincing, for he exclaimed suddenly, and _à propos_ of nothing in particular, "Sutton to blazes with all jewels!" Then he subsided, and came with me quietly to my rooms, where he wrote a check for eight thousand pounds and signed it with considerable firmness. The ink was hardly dry, however, before he dropped heavily upon the carpet, and lay prone in a fit.

The shock of parting with so much money had been too much for him. He is now in Madeira seeking a climate.

TREASURE OF WHITE CREEK.

TREASURE OF WHITE CREEK.

She was the daughter of Colonel Kershaw Klein, and he was worth a million, as the society papers said. I had danced with her for the first time in the ball-room of the magnificent house her father had rented in Grosvenor Crescent, on the occasion of her coming of age; and I agreed with the men that she was beyond criticism, an exquisite vision of dark and matured girlhood, so incomparably fascinating that you forget in her company some of her bluntness in speech, and set down the voluptuousness of her glance and mien to the southern luxuriance amidst which she had been reared, and to those "other" notions which prevail in Chili, the land of fleeting republics.

Some part of this perhaps unnecessary adulation may have been due to the fact that I had helped in the production of her perfect picture on the night of which I am speaking. The commercial element will intrude at such times; and I could not help but see that she wore at least eight hundred pounds' worth of my jewels. Had the value of them been double, it would have been the same to me, for of her father's stability I had then no doubt. He had been received and made much of in the highest places, accorded the chief seats at the feasts; entrusted--as the old ladies told you--with the most important missions by Government; and a share in the Western Hill diamond mine at South Africa was not the least substantial factor in the sum of his income. Any and every gem to which he took a fancy I had let him have readily, being assured by an important personage at the Embassy that his credit was unquestionable; and it was a pretty pleasure to me when I first met his daughter to observe how well my diamonds sat upon her, and how shapely were her arms clasped in the ruby bracelets which had been amongst the treasures of Bond Street but three months before. She was, indeed, a sunny child of the South, radiating a warming light about her, tempting you to wait long for a single press of her hand, luring you to follow the sparkle of her eyes even when she looked at you over the shoulder of a dancer who for the moment had the privilege of holding her in the entrancement of the _deux temps_. There was keen contention for her programme, but somehow I found her disposed to favor me, and danced no less than four with her, to the infinite annoyance of the many youths who eyed me angrily from their watching-ground by the door. They said that they had never seen her brighter; and I was ready to believe them, for she kept her tongue going merrily through the waltzes, and leant upon my arm in a languorous way that was completely entrancing.

At the end of the dance--the next being some newfangled "Barn Dance" wherein men scarce put their hands upon their partners--she said that she would sit in the conservatory and eat ices; and for the first time during the long evening I found myself able to talk easily with her.

"Well," she said, when we had composed ourselves behind a huge fern, and had made a successful attack upon the _meringues glacés_, "well, this is about splendid; don't you think so?"

I said that nothing could be more delightful.

"And to think that I've never danced with you before; why, you're just perfect," she went on. "I haven't enjoyed myself right along like this since I was in Valparaiso."

"Are the Chilians such wonderful dancers then?" I asked, as she looked up at me bewitchingly.

"They just make a profession of it between the shooting times," said she; and then changing the subject quickly, she asked, "What do you think of the crystals now I've got them on?"

It is not particularly consoling to hear your rubies spoken of as crystals, but her description was accompanied by such a pretty laugh, and she opened her great black eyes so widely, that I smiled when I answered,--

"Why, they're to be envied in such a setting."

"You're the fourth man that has said the same to-night," she exclaimed, putting her glass down and tugging at her glove. "I think that Britishers learn their compliments out of copy-books; they're all presents for good girls. Let's see if you're cleverer at getting a glove on than at making pretty speeches."

The arm that she held out was gloriously white; and as every man knows, the operation of pulling on the glove of a pretty girl is apt to be prolonged. There are fingers to fit, and a little thumb to stroke daintily; while the grip upon the more substantial part of the forearm will bear repetition so long as time serves. I must have occupied myself at least five minutes with her buttons, she finding it necessary to press close to me when I did so; and the task was none the less pleasant when her rich brown hair touched my face, and her dress rustled with her long-drawn breathing. How long the process would have lasted, or what I should have said foolishly in the end, I do not know; but of a sudden she drew her arm away and exclaimed,--

"Oh, I'd quite forgotten; I wanted to ask you about the bull's-eye."

This was her description, I may mention without anger, of the famous White Creek Diamond, which, as all London knows, I have had in my possession for the last two years. Her father, who was reputed to have some commission to buy it for a Persian, was then negotiating with me for its purchase for the sum of one hundred and thirty thousand pounds. He waited only, he said, for the coming of his partner from Valparaiso, to complete the transaction; and it was owing to the intimacy which the _pour parlers_ brought about that I found myself then in his house. How much his daughter knew of the business, however, I could not tell, and I answered her question by another.

"What do you know about the bull's-eye?"

"That you're trying to sell it to my father," she replied, "and that he won't promise to give it to me."

"Have you asked him, then?"

"Have I asked him--why, look at him; isn't he ten years older since he met you in Bond-street?"

"He certainly seems to have something on his mind," said I.