Chapter VI: “lo! ’twas a Gala Night!” (2)

“There is no danger whatever--no real cause for anxiety,” I summed up. “I will have some medicine made up instantly.”

“Trinitrin?” demanded Miss Russell.

“Yes,” I answered, a little astonished at this readiness. “Your regular physician prescribed it?”

(I should explain to you that trinitrin is nothing but nitro-glycerine in a non-explosive form.)

“I think it was trinitrin,” Miss Russell replied, with an appearance of doubtfulness. “Perhaps you will write the prescription and I will despatch a messenger at once. I should be obliged, doctor, if you would remain with us until--if you would remain with us.”

“Decidedly!” I said. “I will remain with pleasure. But do accept my assurance,” I added, gazing at her face, so anxious and apprehensive, “that there is no cause for alarm.”

She smiled and concurred. But I could see that I had not convinced her. And I began to suspect that she was not after all so intelligent as I had imagined. My patient, who was not now in any pain, lay calmly, with closed eyes.

III.

Do not forget the old bald-headed lawyer in the drawing-room.

“I suppose you are often summoned to the Grand Babylon, sir, living, as you do, just round the corner,” he remarked to me somewhat pompously. He had a big nose and a habit of staring at you over his eye-glasses with his mouth wide-open, after having spoken. We were alone together in the drawing-room. I was waiting for the arrival of the medicine, and he was waiting for--I didn’t know what he was waiting for.

“Occasionally. Not often,” I responded. “I am called more frequently to the Majestic, over the way.”

“Ah, just so, just so,” he murmured.

I could see that he meant to be polite in his high and dry antique legal style; and I could see also that he was very bored in that hotel drawing-room. So I proceeded to explain the case to him, and to question him discreetly about my patient and Miss Russell.

“You are, of course, aware, sir, that the young lady is Miss Spanton, Miss Adelaide Spanton?” he said.

“What? Not ‘the’ Spanton?”

“Precisely, sir. The daughter of Edgar Spanton, my late client, the great newspaper proprietor.”

“And this Miss Russell?”

“Miss Russell was formerly Miss Adelaide’s governess. She is now her friend, and profoundly attached to the young lady; a disinterested attachment, so far as I can judge, though naturally many people will think otherwise. Miss Adelaide is of a very shy and retiring disposition; she has no other friends, and she has no near relatives. Save for Miss Russell she is, sir, if I may so phrase it, alone in the world.”

“But Miss Spanton is surely very wealthy?”

“You come to the point, sir. If my young client reaches her twenty-first birthday she will be the absolute mistress of the whole of her father’s fortune. You may have noticed in the public press that I swore his estate at more than three millions.”

“And how far is Miss Spanton from her twenty-first birthday?” I demanded.

The old lawyer glanced at his watch.

“Something less than three hours. At midnight she will have legally entered on her 22nd year.”

“I see,” I said. “Now I can understand Miss Russell’s anxiety, which refuses to be relieved even by my positive assurance. No doubt Miss Russell has worked herself up into a highly nervous condition. And may I inquire what will happen--I mean, what would have happened, if Miss Spanton had not reached her majority?”

“The entire estate would have passed to a cousin, a Mr. Samuel Grist, of Melbourne. I daresay you know the name. Mr. Grist is understood to be the leading theatrical manager in Australia. Speaking as one professional man to another, sir, I may venture to remark that Mr. Grist’s reputation is more than a little doubtful--you may have heard--many transactions and adventures. Ha, ha! Still, he is my late client’s sole surviving relative, except Miss Adelaide. I have never had the pleasure of meeting him; he confines himself exclusively to Australia.”

“This night then,” I laughed, “will see the end of any hopes which Mr. Grist may have entertained.”

“Exactly, sir,” the lawyer agreed. “It will also see the end of Miss Russell’s immediate anxieties. Upon my word, since Mr. Spanton’s regrettable death, she has been both father and mother to my lonely young client. A practical woman, sir, Miss Russell! And the excessiveness of her apprehensions, if I may so phrase it, must be excused. She has begged me to remain here till midnight, in order that I may witness to Miss Spanton’s--er--vitality, and also in order to obtain Miss Spanton’s signature to certain necessary documents. I should not be surprised, sir, if she requested you also to remain. She is not a woman to omit precautions.”

“I’m afraid I can’t stop till twelve,” I said. The conversation ceased, and I fell into meditation.

I do not mind admitting that I was deeply impressed by what I will call the romantic quality of the situation. I thought of old Spanton, who had begun with something less than nothing and died virtually the owner of three daily papers and twenty-five weeklies and monthlies. I thought of Spantons, Ltd., and their colossal offices spreading half round Salisbury Square. Why, I even had a copy of the extra special edition of the _Evening Gazette_ in my pocket! Do any of you fellows remember Spanton starting the _Evening Gazette_? He sold three hundred thousand the first day. And now old Spanton was dead--you know he died of drink, and there was nothing left of the Spanton blood except this girl lying there on the bed, and the man in Australia. And all the Spanton editors, and the Spanton sub-editors, and the Spanton artists, and the Spanton reporters and compositors, and the Spanton rotary presses, and the Spanton paper mills, and the Spanton cyclists, were slaving and toiling to put eighty thousand a year into this girl’s purse. And there she was, feeble and depressed, and solitary, except for Miss Russell, and the man in Australia perhaps hoping she would die; and there was Miss Russell, worrying and fussing and apprehending and fearing. And the entire hotel oblivious of the romantic, I could almost say the pathetic, situation. And then I thought of Miss Spanton’s future, burdened with those three millions, and I wondered if those three millions would buy her happiness.

“Here is the medicine, doctor,” said Miss Russell, entering the drawing-room hurriedly, and handing me the bottle with the chemist’s label on it. I went with her into the bedroom. The beautiful Adelaide Spanton was already better, and she admitted as much when I administered the medicine--two minims of a one per cent. solution of trinitrin, otherwise nitro-glycerine, the usual remedy for pseudo-angina.

Miss Russell took the bottle from my hand, corked it and placed it on the dressing-table. Shortly afterwards I left the hotel. The lawyer had been right in supposing that Miss Russell would ask me to stay, but I was unable to do so. I promised, however, to return in an hour, all the while insisting that there was not the slightest danger for the patient.

IV.

It was 10.30 when I came back.

“Second floor!” I said carelessly to the lift boy, and he whirled me upwards; the Grand Babylon lifts travel very fast.

“Here you are, sir,” he murmured respectfully, and I stepped out.

“Is this the second floor?” I asked suddenly.

“Beg pardon! I thought you said seventh, sir.”

“It’s time you were in bed, my lad!” was my retort, and I was just re-entering the lift when I caught sight of Miss Russell in the corridor. I called to her, thinking she would perhaps descend with me, but she did not hear, and so I followed her down the corridor, wondering what was her business on the seventh floor. She opened a door and disappeared into a room.

“Well?” I heard a sinister voice exclaim within the room, and then the door was pushed to; it was not latched.

“I did say the seventh!” I called to the lift-boy, and he vanished with his machine.

The voice within the room startled me. It gave me furiously to think, as the French say. With a sort of instinctive unpremeditated action I pressed gently against the door till it stood ajar about an inch. And I listened.

“It’s a confounded mysterious case to me!” the voice was saying, “that that dose the other day didn’t finish her. We’re running it a dashed sight too close! Here, take this--it’s all ready, label and everything. Substitute the bottles. I’ll run no risks this time. One dose will do the trick inside half an hour, and on that I’ll bet my boots!”

“Very well,” said Miss Russell, quite calmly. “It’s pure trinitrin, is it?”

“You’re the coolest customer that I ever struck!” the voice exclaimed, in an admiring tone. “Yes, it’s pure trinitrin--beautiful, convenient stuff! Looks like water, no taste, very little smell, and so volatile that all the doctors on the Medical Council couldn’t trace it at a post-mortem. Besides the doctor prescribed a solution of trinitrin, and you got it from the chemist, and in case there’s a rumpus we can shove the mistake on to the chemist’s dispenser, and a fine old row he’ll get into. By the way, what’s the new doctor like?”

“Oh! So-so!” said Miss Russell, in her even tones.

“It’s a good thing on the whole, perhaps, that I arranged that carriage accident for the first one!” the hard, sinister voice remarked. “One never knows. Get along now at once, and don’t look so anxious. Your face belies your voice. Give us a kiss!”

“To-morrow!” said Miss Russell.

I hurried away, as it were drunk, overwhelmed with horror and amazement, and turning a corner so as to avoid discovery, reached the second floor by the staircase. I did not wish to meet Miss Russell in the lift.

My first thought was not one of alarm for Adelaide Spanton--of course, I knew I could prevent the murder--but of profound sorrow that Miss Russell should have proved to be a woman so unspeakably wicked. I swore never to trust a woman’s face again. I had liked her face. Then I dwelt on the chance, the mere chance, my careless pronunciation, a lift-boy’s error, which had saved the life of the poor millionaire girl. And lastly I marvelled at the combined simplicity and ingenuity of the plot. The scoundrel upstairs--possibly Samuel Grist himself--had taken the cleverest advantage of Miss Spanton’s tendency to pseudo-angina. What could be more clever than to poison with the physician’s own medicine? Very probably the girl’s present attack had been induced by an artful appeal to her appetite; young women afflicted as she was are frequently just a little greedy. And I perceived that the villain was correct in assuming that nitro-glycerine would never be traced at a post-mortem save in the smallest possible quantity--just such a quantity as I had myself prescribed. He was also right in his assumption that the pure drug would infallibly kill in half an hour.

I pulled myself together, and having surreptitiously watched Miss Russell into Suite No. 63, I followed her. When I arrived at the bedroom she was pouring medicine from a bottle; a maid stood at the foot of the bed.

“I am just giving the second dose,” said Miss Russell easily to me.

“What a nerve!” I said to myself, and aloud: “By all means.”

She measured the dose, and approached the bed without a tremor. Adelaide Spanton opened her mouth.

“Stop!” I cried firmly. “We’ll delay that dose for half an hour. Kindly give me the glass!” I took the glass from Miss Russell’s passive fingers. “And I would like to have a word with you now, Miss Russell!” I added.

The maid went swiftly from the room.

V.

The old bald-headed lawyer had gone down to the hotel smoking-saloon for a little diversion, and we faced each other in the drawing-room--Miss Russell and I. The glass was still in my hand.

“And the new doctor is so-so, eh?” I remarked.

“What do you mean?” she faltered.

“I think you know what I mean,” I retorted. “I need only tell you that by a sheer chance I stumbled upon your atrocious plot--the plot of that scoundrel upstairs. All you had to do was to exchange the bottles, and administer pure trinitrin instead of my prescribed solution of it, and Miss Spanton would be dead in half an hour. The three millions would go to the Australian cousin, and you would doubtless have your reward--say, a cool hundred thousand, or perhaps marriage. And you were about to give the poison when I stopped you.”

“I was not!” she cried. And she fell into a chair, and hid her face in her hands, and then looked, as it were longingly, towards the bedroom.

“Miss Spanton is in no danger,” I said sneeringly. “She will be quite well to-morrow. So you were not going to give the poison, after all?” I laughed.

“I beg you to listen, doctor,” she said at length, standing up. “I am in a most invidious position. Nevertheless, I think I can convince you that your suspicions against me are unfounded.”

I laughed again. But secretly I admired her for acting the part so well.

“Doubtless!” I interjected sarcastically, in the pause.

“The man upstairs is Samuel Grist, supposed to be in Australia. It is four months ago since I, who am Adelaide Spanton’s sole friend, discovered that he was scheming her death. The skill of his methods appalled me. There was nothing to put before the police, and yet I had a horrible fear of the worst. I felt that he would stop at nothing--absolutely at nothing. I felt that, if we ran away, he would follow us. I had a presentiment that he would infallibly succeed, and I was haunted by it day and night. Then an idea occurred to me--I would pretend to be his accomplice. And I saw suddenly that that was the surest way--the sole way, of defeating him. I approached him and he accepted the bait. I carried out all his instructions, except the fatal instructions. It is by his orders, and for his purposes, that we are staying in this hotel. Heavens! To make certain of saving my darling Adelaide, I have even gone through the farce of promising to marry him!”

“And do you seriously expect me to believe this?” I asked coldly.

“Should I have had the solicitor here?” she demanded, “if I had really meant--meant to----”

She sobbed momentarily, and then regained control of herself.

“I don’t know,” I said, “but it occurs to me that the brain that was capable of deliberately arranging a murder to take place in the presence of the doctor might have some hidden purpose in securing also the presence of the solicitor at the performance.”

“Mr. Grist is unaware that the solicitor is here. He has been informed that Mr. Dancer is my uncle, and favourable to the--to the----” she stopped, apparently overcome.

“Oh, indeed!” I ejaculated, adding: “And after all you did not mean to administer this poison! I suppose you meant to withdraw the glass at the last instant?”

“It is not poison,” she replied.

“Not poison?”

“No. I did not exchange the bottles. I only pretended to.”

“There seems to have been a good deal of pretending,” I observed. “By the way, may I ask why you were giving this stuff, whether it is poison or not, to my patient? I do not recollect that I ordered a second dose.”

“For the same reason that I pretended to change the bottle. For the benefit of the maid whom we saw just now in the bedroom.”

“And why for the benefit of the maid?”

“Because I found out this morning that she is in the pay of Grist. That discovery accounts for my nervousness to-night about Adelaide. By this time the maid has probably told Mr. Grist what has taken place, and, and--I shall rely on your help if anything should happen, doctor. Surely, surely, you believe me?”

“I regret to say, madam,” I answered, “that I find myself unable to believe you at present. But there is a simple way of giving credence to your story. You state that you did not exchange the bottles. This liquid, then, is the medicine prescribed by me, and it is harmless. Oblige me by drinking it.”

And I held the glass towards her.

She took it.

“Fool!” I said to myself, as soon as her fingers had grasped it. “She will drop it on the floor, and an invaluable piece of evidence will be destroyed.”

But she did not drop it on the floor. She drank it at one gulp, and looked me in the eyes, and murmured, “Now do you believe me?”

“Yes,” I said. And I did.

At the same moment her face changed colour, and she sank to the ground. “What have I drunk?” she moaned. The glass rolled on the carpet, unbroken.

Miss Russell had in fact drunk a full dose of pure trinitrin. I recognised all the symptoms at once. I rang for assistance. I got a stomach pump. I got ice, and sent for ergot and for atropine. I injected six minims of the Injectis Ergotini Hypodermica. I despaired of saving her; but I saved her, after four injections. I need not describe to you all the details. Let it suffice that she recovered.

“Then you did exchange the bottles?” I could not help putting this question to her as soon as she was in a fit state to hear it.

“I swear to you that I had not meant to,” she whispered. “In my nervousness I must have confused them. You have saved Adelaide’s life.”

“I have saved yours, anyway,” I said.

“But you believe me?”

“Yes,” I said; and the curious thing is that I did believe her. I was convinced, and I am convinced, that she did not mean to exchange the bottles.

“Listen!” she exclaimed. We could hear Big Ben striking twelve.

“Midnight,” I said.

She clutched my hand with a swift movement. “Go and see that my Adelaide lives,” she cried almost hysterically.

I opened the door between the two rooms and went into the sleeping chamber.

“Miss Spanton is dozing quietly,” I said, on my return.

“Thank God!” Miss Russell murmured. And then old bald-headed Mr. Dancer came into the room, blandly unconscious of all that had passed during his sojourn in the smoking saloon.

When I left the precincts of the Grand Babylon at one o’clock, the guests were beginning to leave the Gold Rooms, and the great courtyard was a scene of flashing lights, and champing horses, and pretty laughing women.

“What a queer place a hotel is!” I thought.

Neither Mr. Grist nor the mysterious maid was seen again in London. Possibly they consoled each other. The beautiful Adelaide Spanton--under my care, ahem!--is completely restored to health.

Yes, I am going to marry her. No, not the beautiful Adelaide, you duffers--besides she is too young for my middle age--but Miss Russell. Her Christian name is Ethel. Do you not like it? As for the beautiful Adelaide, there is now a viscount in the case.

THE POLICE STATION.

Lord Trent has several times remarked to me that I am a philosopher. And I am one. I have guided my life by four rules: To keep my place, to make others keep theirs, to save half my income, and to beware of women. The strict observance of these rules has made me (in my station) a successful and respected man. Once, and only once, I was lax in my observance, and that single laxity resulted in a most curious and annoying adventure, which I will relate.

It was the fourth rule that I transgressed. I did not beware of a woman. The woman was Miss Susan Berry, lady’s maid to the Marchioness of Cockfosters.

The Cockfosters family is a very old one. To my mind its traditions are superior to anything in the peerage of Great Britain; but then I may be prejudiced. I was brought up in the Cockfosters household, first at Cockfosters Castle in Devon, and afterwards at the well-known town house at the south-east corner of Eaton Square.

My father was valet to the old Marquis for thirty years; my mother rose from the position of fifth housemaid to be housekeeper at the Castle. Without ever having been definitely assigned to the situation, I became, as it were by gradual attachment, valet to Lord Trent--eldest son of the Marquis, and as gay and good-natured a gentleman as ever drank brandy-and-soda before breakfast.

When Lord Trent married Miss Edna Stuyvesant, the American heiress, and with some of her money bought and furnished in a superb manner a mansion near the north-west corner of Eaton Square, I quite naturally followed him across the Square, and soon found myself, after his lordship and my lady, the most considerable personage at No. 441. Even the butler had to mind his “p’s” and “q’s” with me.

Perhaps it was this pre-eminence of mine which led to my being selected for a duty which I never cared for, and which ultimately I asked his lordship to allow me to relinquish--of course he did so. That duty related to the celebrated Cockfosters emeralds. Lady Trent had money (over a million sterling, as his lordship himself told me), but money could not buy the Cockfosters emeralds, and having seen these she desired nothing less fine. With her ladyship, to desire was to obtain. I have always admired her for that trait in her character. Being an American she had faults, but she knew her own mind, which is a great thing; and I must admit that, on the whole, she carried herself well and committed few blunders. She must have been accustomed to good servants.

In the matter of the emeralds, I certainly took her side. Strictly speaking, they belonged to the old Marchioness, but the Marchioness never went into society; she was always engaged with temperance propaganda, militant Protestantism, and that sort of thing, and consequently never wore the emeralds. There was no valid reason, therefore, why Lady Trent should not have the gratification of wearing them. But the Marchioness, I say it with respect, was a woman of peculiar and decided views. She had, in fact, fads; and one of her fads was the emeralds. She could not bear to part with them. She said she was afraid something might happen to the precious heirlooms.

A prolonged war ensued between the Marchioness and my lady, and ultimately a compromise was effected. My lady won permission to wear the emeralds whenever she chose, but they were always to be brought to her and taken back again by Susan Berry, in whom the Marchioness had more confidence than in anyone else in the world. Consequently, whenever my lady required the emeralds, word was sent across the Square in the afternoon; Susan Berry brought them over, and Susan Berry removed them at night when my lady returned from her ball or reception.

The arrangement was highly inconvenient for Susan Berry, for sometimes it would be very late when my lady came home; but the Marchioness insisted, and since Susan Berry was one of those persons who seem to take a positive joy in martyrising themselves, she had none of my pity. The nuisance was that someone from our house had to accompany her across the Square. Eaton Square is very large (probably the largest in London, but I may be mistaken on such a trivial point); its main avenue is shut in by trees; and at 2 a.m. it is distinctly not the place for an unprotected female in charge of valuable property. Now the Marchioness had been good enough to suggest that she would prefer me to escort her maid on this brief nocturnal journey. I accepted the responsibility, but I did not hide my dislike for it. Knowing something of Miss Berry’s disposition, I knew that our household would inevitably begin, sooner or later, to couple our names together, and I was not deceived.

Such was the situation when one night--it was a Whit-Monday, I remember, and about a quarter past one--Lord and Lady Trent returned from an entertainment at a well-known mansion near St. James’s Palace. I got his lordship some whisky in the library, and he then told me that I might go to bed, as he should not retire for an hour or so. I withdrew to the little office off the hall, and engaged in conversation with the second footman, who was on duty. Presently his lordship came down into the hall and began to pace about--it was a strange habit of his--smoking a cigarette. He caught sight of me.

“Saunders,” he said, “I told you you could go to bed.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Why don’t you go?”

“Your lordship forgets the emeralds.”

“Ah, yes, of course.” He laughed. I motioned to the footman to clear out.

“You don’t seem to care for that job, Saunders,” his lordship resumed, quizzing me. “Surely Berry is a charming companion. In your place I should regard it as excellent fun. But I have often told you that you have no sense of humour.”

“Not all men laugh at the same jokes, my lord,” I observed.

As a matter of fact, in earlier and wilder days, his lordship had sometimes thrown a book or a boot at me for smiling too openly in the wrong place.

The conversation might have continued further, for his lordship would often talk with me, but at that moment Susan Berry appeared with the bag containing the case in which were the emeralds. Lady Trent’s own maid was with her, and the two stood talking for an instant at the foot of the stairs, while Lady Trent’s maid locked the bag and handed the key to Berry. Heaven knows how long that simple business would have occupied had not the voice of my lady resounded from the first floor, somewhat excitedly calling for her maid, who vanished with a hurried good-night. His lordship had already departed from the hall.

“May I relieve you of the bag, Miss Berry?” I asked.

“Thank you, Mr. Saunders,” she replied, “but the Marchioness prefers that I myself should carry it.”

That little dialogue passed between us every time the emeralds had to be returned.

We started on our short walk, Miss Berry and I, proceeding towards the main avenue which runs through the centre of the Square east and west. It was a beautiful moonlight night. Talking of moonlight nights, I may as well make my confession at once. The fact is that Miss Berry had indeed a certain influence over me. In her presence I was always conscious of feeling a pleasurable elation--an excitement, a perturbation, which another man might have guessed to be the beginning of love.

I, however, knew that it was not love. It was merely a fancy. It only affected me when I was in her company. When she was absent I could regard her in my mind’s eye as she actually was--namely, a somewhat designing young woman, with dark eyes and too much will of her own. Nevertheless, she had, as I say, a certain influence over me, and I have already remarked that it was a moonlight night.

Need I say more? In spite of what I had implied to Lord Trent I did enjoy the walk with Susan Berry. Susan Berry took care that I should. She laid herself out to fascinate me; turning her brunette face up to mine with an air of deference, and flashing upon me the glance of those dark lustrous eyes.

She started by sympathising with me in the matter of the butler. This was, I now recognise, very clever of her, for the butler has always been a sore point with me. I began to think (be good enough to remember the moonlight and the trees) that life with Susan Berry might have its advantages.

Then she turned to the topic of her invalid sister, Jane Mary, who was lame and lived in lodgings near Sloane Street, and kept herself, with a little aid from Susan, by manufacturing artificial flowers. For a month past Miss Berry had referred regularly to this sister, who appeared to be the apple of her eye. I had no objection to the topic, though it did not specially interest me; but on the previous evening Miss Berry had told me, with a peculiar emphasis, that her poor dear sister often expressed a longing to see the famous Cockfosters emeralds, and that she resided quite close too. I did not like that.

To-night Miss Berry made a proposition which alarmed me. “Mr. Saunders,” she said insinuatingly, “you are so good-natured that I have almost a mind to ask you a favour. Would you object to walking round with me to my sister’s--it is only a few minutes away--so that I could just give her a peep at these emeralds. She is dying to see them, and I’m sure the Marchioness wouldn’t object. We should not be a quarter of an hour away.”

My discretion was aroused. I ought to have given a decided negative at once; but somehow I couldn’t, while Susan was looking at me.

“But surely your sister will be in bed,” I suggested.

“Oh, no!” with a sigh. “She has to work very late--very late indeed. And besides, if she is, I could take them up to her room. It would do her good to see them, and she has few pleasures.”

“The Marchioness might not like it,” I said, driven back to the second line of fortification. “You know your mistress is very particular about these emeralds.”

“The Marchioness need never know,” Susan Berry whispered, putting her face close up to mine. “No one need know, except just us two.”

The accent which she put on those three words “just us two,” was extremely tender.

I hesitated. We were already at the end of the Square, and should have turned down to the left towards Cockfosters House.

“Come along,” she entreated, placing her hand on my shoulder.

“Well, you know----” I muttered, but I went along with her towards Sloane Street. We passed Eaton Place.

“Really, Miss Berry----” I began again, collecting my courage.

Then there was a step behind us, and another hand was placed on my shoulder. I turned round sharply. It was a policeman. His buttons shone in the moonlight.

“Your name is Charles Saunders,” he said to me; “and yours Susan Berry,” to my companion.

“True,” I replied, for both of us.

“I have a warrant for your arrest.”

“Our arrest!”

“Yes, on a charge of attempting to steal some emeralds, the property of the Marquis of Cockfosters.”

“Impossible,” I exclaimed.

“Yes,” he sneered, “that’s what they all say.”

“But the emeralds are here in this bag.”

“I know they are,” he said. “I’ve just copped you in time. But you’ve been suspected for days.”

“The thing is ridiculous,” I said, striving to keep calm. “We are taking the emeralds back to Lady Cockfosters, and----”

Then I stopped. If we were merely taking the emeralds back to Lady Cockfosters, that is, from one house in Eaton Square to another house in Eaton Square, what were we doing out of the Square?

I glanced at Susan Berry. She was as white as a sheet. The solution of the puzzle occurred to me at once. Susan’s sister was an ingenious fiction. Susan was a jewel thief, working with a gang of jewel thieves, and her request that I would accompany her to this mythical sister was part of a plan for stealing the emeralds.

“At whose instance has the warrant been issued?” I asked.

“The Marquis of Cockfosters.”

My suspicions were only too well confirmed.

I did not speak a word to Susan Berry. I could not. I merely looked at her.

“You’ll come quietly to the station?” the policeman said.

“Certainly,” I replied. “As for us, the matter can soon be cleared up. I am Lord Trent’s valet, No. 441, Eaton Square, and he must be sent for.”

“Oh, must he!” the constable jeered. “Come on. Perhaps you’d prefer a cab.”

A four-wheeler was passing. I myself hailed the sleepy cabman, and we all three got in. The policeman prudently took the bag from Susan’s nerveless hands. None of us spoke. I was too depressed, Susan was probably too ashamed, and the constable was no doubt too bored.

After a brief drive we drew up. Another policeman opened the door of the cab, and over the open portal of the building in front of us I saw the familiar blue lamp, with the legend “Metropolitan Police” in white letters. The two policemen carefully watched us as we alighted, and escorted us up the steps into the station. Happily, there was no one about; my humiliation was abject enough without that.

Charles Saunders a prisoner in a police station! I could scarcely credit my senses. One becomes used to a police station--in the newspapers; but to be inside one--that is different, widely different.

The two policemen took us into a bare room, innocent of any furniture save a wooden form, a desk, a chair, some printed notices of rewards offered, and an array of handcuffs and revolvers on the mantelpiece. In the chair, with a big book in front of him on the desk, sat the inspector in charge. He was in his shirt-sleeves.

“A hot night,” he said, smiling, to the policeman.

I silently agreed.

It appeared that we were expected.

They took our full names, our addresses and occupations, and then the inspector read the warrant to us. Of course, it didn’t explain things in the least. I began to speak.

“Let me warn you,” said the inspector, “that anything you say now may be used against you at your trial.”

My trial!

“Can I write a note to Lord Trent?” I asked, nettled.

“Yes, if you will pay for a cab to take it.”

I threw down half-a-crown, and scribbled a line to my master, begging him to come at once.

“The constable must search you,” the inspector said, when this was done and the first policeman had disappeared with the note.

“I will save him the trouble,” I said proudly, and I emptied my pockets of a gold watch and chain, a handkerchief, two sovereigns, a sixpence, two halfpennies, a bunch of keys, my master’s linen book, and a new necktie which I had bought that very evening; of which articles the inspector made an inventory.

“Which is the key of the bag?” asked the inspector. The bag was on the desk in front of him, and he had been trying to open it.

“I know nothing of that,” I said.

“Now you, Susan Berry, give up the key,” the inspector said, sternly, turning to her.

For answer Susan burst into sobs, and flung herself against my breast. The situation was excessively embarrassing for me. Heaven knows I had sufficient reason to hate the woman, but though a thief, she was in distress, and I must own that I felt for her.

The constable stepped towards Susan.

“Surely,” I said, “you have a female searcher?”

“A female searcher! Ah, yes!” smiled the inspector, suddenly suave. “Is she here, constable?”

“Not now, sir; she’s gone.”

“That must wait, then. Take them to the cells.”

“Sorry, sir, all the cells are full. Bank Holiday drunks.”

The inspector thought a moment.

“Lock ’em up in the back room,” he said. “That’ll do for the present. Perhaps the male prisoner may be getting an answer to his note soon. After that they’ll have to go to Vine Street or Marlborough.”

The constable touched his helmet, and marched us out. In another moment we were ensconced in a small room, absolutely bare of any furniture, except a short wooden form. The constable was locking the door when Susan Berry screamed out: “You aren’t going to lock us up here together in the dark?”

“Why, what do you want? Didn’t you hear the cells are full?”

I was profoundly thankful they were full. I did not fancy a night in a cell.

“I want a candle,” she said, fiercely.

He brought one, or rather half of one, stuck in a bottle, and placed it on the mantelpiece. Then he left us.

Again I say the situation was excessively embarrassing. For myself, I said nothing. Susan Berry dropped on the form, and hiding her face in her hands, gave way to tears without any manner of restraint. I pitied her a little, but that influence which previously she had exercised over me was gone. “Oh, Mr. Saunders,” she sobbed, “what shall we do?” And as she spoke she suddenly looked up at me with a glance of feminine appeal. I withstood it.

“Miss Berry,” I said severely, “I wonder that you can look me in the face. I trusted you as a woman, and you have outraged that trust. I never dreamed that you were--that you were an adventuress. It was certainly a clever plot, and but for the smartness of the police I should, in my innocence, have fallen a victim to your designs. For myself, I am grateful to the police. I can understand and excuse their mistake in regarding me as your accomplice. That will soon be set right, for Lord Trent will be here. In the meantime, of course, I have been put to considerable humiliation. Nevertheless, even this is better than having followed you to your ‘sister’s.’ In your ‘sister’s’ lodging I might have been knocked senseless, or even murdered. Moreover, the emeralds are safe.”

She put on an innocent expression, playing the injured maiden.

“Mr. Saunders, you surely do not imagine----”

“Miss Berry, no protestations, I beg. Let me say now that I have always detected in your character something underhand, something crafty.”

“I swear----” she began again.

“Don’t trouble,” I interrupted her icily, “for I shall not believe you. This night will certainly be a warning to me.”

With that I leaned my back against the mantelpiece, and abandoned myself to gloomy thought. It was a moment for me of self-abasement. I searched my heart, and I sorrowfully admitted that my predicament was primarily due to disobeying that golden rule--beware of women. I saw now that it was only my absurd fancy for this wicked creature which had led me to accept the office of guarding those emeralds during their night-passage across Eaton Square. I ought to have refused in the first place, for the job was entirely outside my functions; strictly, the butler should have done it.

And this woman in front of me--this Susan Berry, in whom the old Marchioness had such unbounded trust! So she belonged to the con-fraternity of jewel thieves--a genus of which I had often read, but which I had never before met with. What audacity such people must need in order to execute their schemes!

But then the game was high. The Cockfosters emeralds were worth, at a moderate estimate, twelve thousand pounds. There are emeralds and emeralds, the value depends on the colour; these were the finest Colombian stones, of a marvellous tint, and many of them were absolutely without a flaw. There were five stones of seven carats each, and these alone must have been worth at least six thousand pounds. Yes, it would have been a great haul, a colossal haul.

Time passed, the candle was burning low, and there was no sign of Lord Trent. I went to the door and knocked, first gently, then more loudly, but I could get no answer. Then I walked about the room, keeping an eye on Susan Berry, who had, I freely admit, the decency to avoid my gaze. I was beginning to get extremely tired. I wished to sit down, but there was only one form; Susan Berry was already upon it, and, as I said before, it was a very short form. At last I could hold out no longer. Taking my courage in both hands, I sat down boldly at one end of the form. It was a relief to me. Miss Berry sighed. There were not six inches between us.

The candle was low in the socket, we both watched it. Without a second’s warning the flame leapt up and then expired. We were in the dark. Miss Berry screamed, and afterwards I heard her crying. I myself made no sign. Fortunately the dawn broke almost immediately.

By this time I was getting seriously annoyed with Lord Trent. I had served him faithfully, and yet at the moment of my genuine need he had not come to my succour. I went again to the door and knocked with my knuckles. No answer. Then I kicked it. No answer. Then I seized the handle and violently shook it. To my astonishment the door opened. The policeman had forgotten to lock it.

I crept out into the passage, softly closing the door behind me. It was now quite light. The door leading to the street was open, and I could see neither constables nor inspector. I went into the charge room; it was empty. Then I proceeded into the street. On the pavement a piece of paper was lying. I picked it up; it was the note which I had written to Lord Trent.

A workman happened to be loitering along a road which crossed this street at right angles. I called out and ran to him.

“Can you tell me,” I asked, “why all the officers have left the police station?”

“Look ’ere, matey,” he says, “you get on ’ome; you’ve been making a night of it, that’s wot you ’ave.”

“But, seriously,” I said.

Then I saw a policeman at a distant corner. The workman whistled, and the policeman was obliging enough to come to us.

“’Ere’s a cove wants to know why all the police ’as left the police station,” the workman said.

“What police station?” the constable said sharply.

“Why, this one down here in this side-street,” I said, pointing to the building. As I looked at it I saw that the lamp which I had observed on the previous night no longer hung over the doorway.

The constable laughed good-humouredly.

“Get away home,” he said.

I began to tell him my story.

“Get away home,” he repeated--gruffly this time, “or I’ll run you in.”

“All right,” I said huffily, and I made as if to walk down the other road. The constable and the workman grinned to each other and departed. As soon as they were out of sight, I returned to my police station.

It was not a police station! It was merely a rather large and plain-fronted empty house, which had been transformed into a police station, for one night only, by means of a lamp, a desk, two forms, a few handcuffs, and some unparalleled cheek. Jewel thieves they were, but Susan Berry was not among them. After all Susan Berry probably had an invalid sister named Jane Mary.

The first policeman, the cabman, the second policeman, the inspector--these were the jewel thieves, and Susan Berry and I (and of course the Marchioness) had been the victims of as audacious and brilliant a robbery as was ever planned. We had been robbed openly, quietly, deliberately, with the aid of a sham police station. Our movements must have been watched for weeks. I gave my meed of admiration to the imagination, the skill, and the _sangfroid_ which must have gone to the carrying out of this coup.

Going back into the room where Susan Berry and I had spent the night hours, I found that wronged woman sweetly asleep on the form, with her back against the wall. I dared not wake her. And so I left her for the present to enjoy some much-needed repose. I directed my steps in search of Eaton Square, having closed the great door of my police station.

At length I found my whereabouts, and I arrived at No. 441 at five o’clock precisely. The morning was lovely. After some trouble I roused a housemaid, who let me in. She seemed surprised, but I ignored her. I went straight upstairs and knocked at my master’s door. To wake him had always been a difficult matter, and this morning the task seemed more difficult than ever. At last he replied sleepily to my summons.

“It is I--Saunders--your lordship.”

“Go to the devil, then.”

“I must see your lordship instantly. Very seriously.”

“Eh, what? I’ll come in a minute,” and I heard him stirring, and the voice of Lady Trent.

How should I break the news to him? What would the Marchioness say when she knew? Twelve thousand pounds’ worth of jewels is no trifle. Not to mention my gold watch, my two sovereigns, my sixpence, and my two halfpennies. And also the half-crown which I had given to have the message despatched to his lordship. It was the half-crown that specially rankled.

Lord Trent appeared at the door of his room, arrayed in his crimson dressing-gown.

“Well, Saunders, what in the name of----”

“My lord,” I stammered, and then I told him the whole story.

He smiled, he laughed, he roared.

“I daresay it sounds very funny, my lord,” I said, “but it wasn’t funny at the time, and Lady Cockfosters won’t think it very funny.”

“Oh, won’t she! She will. No one will enjoy it more. She might have taken it seriously if the emeralds had been in the bag, but they weren’t.”

“Not in the bag, my lord!”

“No. Lady Trent’s maid ran off with the bag, thinking that your mistress had put the jewels in it. But she had not. Lady Trent came to the top of the stairs to call her back, as soon as she found the bag gone, but you and Berry were out of the house. So the emeralds stayed here for one night. They are on Lady Trent’s dressing-table at the present moment. Go and get a stiff whisky, Saunders. You need it. And then may I suggest that you should return for the sleeping Berry? By the way, the least you can do is to marry her, Saunders.”

“Never, my lord!” I said with decision. “I have meddled sufficiently with women.”

THE ADVENTURE OF THE PRIMA DONNA.

Many years ago the fear of dynamite stalked through the land. An immense organisation of anarchists whose headquarters were in the United States had arranged for a number of simultaneous displays in London, Glasgow, and Quebec. As is well known now, the Parliament House at Quebec and the gasworks at Glasgow were to be blown up, while the programme for London included Scotland Yard, most of Whitehall, the House of Commons, the Tower, and four great railway stations thrown in.

This plot was laid bare, stopped, and made public, and--except a number of people who happened quite innocently to carry black bags--no one was put to the slightest inconvenience.

The dynamite scare was deemed to be at an end. But the dread organisation was in fact still active, as the sixty policemen who were injured in what is called the “Haymarket Massacre” explosion at Chicago, on May 4, 1886, have dire occasion to know.

Everyone who reads the papers is familiar with the details of the Haymarket Massacre. Few people, however, are aware that a far more dastardly outrage had been planned to intimidate London a few days later. Through the agency of a courageous woman this affair too was unmasked in its turn, but for commercial and other reasons it was kept from the general public.

The scheme was to blow up the Opera House at Covent Garden on the first night of the season. Had the facts got abroad, the audience would probably have been somewhat sparse on that occasion; but the facts did not get abroad, and the house was crowded in every part; for the famous prima donna Louise Vesea (since retired) was singing “Marguerite,” in “Faust,” and enthusiasm about her was such that though the popular tenor had unaccountably thrown up his engagement, the price of stalls rose to thirty-three shillings. The police were sure of themselves, and the evening passed off with nothing more explosive than applause. Nevertheless, that night, after the curtain had fallen and Louise Vesea had gathered up all the wreaths and other tributes of admiration which had been showered upon her, there happened the singular incident which it is our purpose to record.

Vesea, wrapped in rich furs--it was midnight, and our usual wintry May--was just leaving the stage door for her carriage, when a gentleman respectfully accosted her. He was an English detective on special service, and Vesea appeared to know him.

“It will be desirable for you to run no risks, Madame,” he said. “So far as we know all the principals have left the country in alarm, but there are always others.”

Vesea smiled. She was then over thirty, in the full flower of her fame and beauty. Tall, dark, calm, mysterious, she had the firm yet gentle look of one who keeps a kind heart under the regal manner induced by universal adoration.

“What have I to fear?” she said.

“Vengeance,” the detective answered simply. “I have arranged to have you shadowed, in case----”

“You will do nothing of the kind,” she said. “The idea is intolerable to me. I am not afraid.”

The detective argued, but in vain.

“It shall be as you wish, Madame,” he said, ultimately.

Vesea got into her carriage, and was driven away. The pair of chestnuts travelled at a brisk trot through the dark deserted streets of Soho towards the West End. The carriage had crossed Regent Street and was just entering Berkeley Square when a hansom, coming at a gallop along Struton Street on the wrong side of the road, collided violently with Vesea’s horses at the corner. At the same moment another carriage, a brougham, came up and stopped. A gentleman jumped out, and assisted in disengaging Vesea’s coachman and footman from the medley of harness and horse-flesh. This done, he spoke to Vesea, who, uninjured, was standing on the footpath.

“One of your chestnuts will have to be shot,” he said, raising his hat. “May I place my own carriage at your disposal?”

Vesea thankfully accepted his offer.

“Where to?” he inquired.

“Upper Brook Street,” she answered. “But you are sure I do not inconvenience you?”

“Curiously enough,” he said, “I live in Upper Brook Street myself, and if I may accompany you----”

“You are more than kind,” she said, and they both entered the brougham, the gentleman having first thoughtfully taken the number of the peccant cabby, and given some valuable advice to Vesea’s coachman.

The brougham disappeared at a terrific pace. But it never went within half a mile of Upper Brook Street. It turned abruptly to the north, crossed Oxford Street, and stopped in front of a large house in a remote street near Paddington Station. At the same instant the door of the house opened, and a man ran down to the carriage. In a moment Vesea, with a cloth wrapped round her head, was carried struggling into the house, and the brougham departed. The thing was done as quickly and silently as in a dream.

The cloth was removed at length, and Vesea found herself in a long bare room, furnished only with chairs and a table. She realised that the carriage accident was merely part of a plot to capture her without fuss and violence. She was incapable of fear, but she was extremely annoyed and indignant. She looked round for the man who enticed her into his brougham. He was not to be seen; his share of the matter was over. Two other men sat at the table. Vesea stared at them in speechless anger. As to them, they seemed to ignore her.

“Where is the Chief?” said one to the other.

“He will be here in three minutes. We are to proceed with the examination; time is short.”

Then the two men turned to Vesea, and the elder spoke.

“You will be anxious to know why you are here,” he said.

She gazed at him scornfully, and he continued:

“You are here because you have betrayed the anarchist cause.”

“I am not an anarchist,” she said coldly.

“Admitted. But a week ago a member of our society gave you a warning to keep away from the Opera House to-night. In so warning you he was false to his oath----”

“Do you refer to Salti, the tenor?” she asked.

“I do. You perceive we have adherents in high places. Salti, then, warned you--and you instantly told the police. That was your idea of gratitude. Did Salti love you?”

“I decline to be cross-examined.”

“It is immaterial. We know that he loved you. Now it is perilous for an anarchist to love.”

“I do not believe that Salti is one of you,” she broke in.

“He is not,” the man said quietly. “He is dead. He was in the way.”

In spite of herself she started, and both men smiled cynically.

“The point is this,” the elder man proceeded. “We do not know how much Salti told you. It is possible that he may have blurted out other and more important--er--schemes than this of the Opera House which has failed. Have you anything to say?”

“Nothing,” she answered.