is The Ringer?” she asked.
“Nobody you would know anything about, or ought to know,” he said, almost brusquely. And then, with a little laugh: “We’re all talking ‘shop,’ and criminal justice is the worst kind of ‘shop’ for a young lady’s ears.”
“I wish to heaven you’d find something else to talk about,” growled John Lenley fretfully, and was turning away when Maurice Meister asked: “You are at present in a West End division, aren’t you, Wembury? What was your last case? I don’t seem to remember seeing your name in the newspapers.”
Alan made a little grimace.
“We never advertise our failures,” he said. “My last job was to inquire into some pearls that were stolen from Lady Darnleigh’s house in Park Lane on the night of her big Ambassadors’ party.”
He was looking at Mary as he spoke. Her face was a magnet which lured and held his gaze. He did not see John Lenley’s hand go to his mouth to check the involuntary exclamation, or the quick warning glance which Meister shot at the young man. There was a little pause.
“Lady Darnleigh?” drawled Maurice. “Oh, yes, I seem to remember…as a matter of fact, weren’t you at her dance that night, Johnny?”
He looked at the other and Johnny shook his shoulder impatiently.
“Of course I was…I didn’t know anything about the robbery till afterwards. Haven’t you anything else to discuss, you people, than crimes and robberies and murders?”
And, turning on his heel, he slouched across the lawn.
Mary looked after him with trouble in her face.
“I wonder what makes Johnny so cross in these days — do you know, Maurice?”
Maurice Meister examined the cigarette that burnt in the amber tube between his fingers. “Johnny is young; and, my dear, you mustn’t forget that he has had a very trying time.”
“So have I,” she said quietly. “You don’t imagine that it is nothing to me that I am leaving Lenley Court?” Her voice quivered for a moment, but with a resolution that Alan could both understand and appreciate, she was instantly smiling. “I’m being very pathetic; I shall be weeping on Alan’s shoulder if I am not careful. Come along, Alan, and see what is left of the rosery — perhaps when you have seen its present condition, we will weep together!”
Chapter 4
Johnny Lenley looked after them until they had disappeared from view. His face was pale with anger, his lips trembled.
“What brings that swine here?” he demanded.
Maurice Meister, who had followed across the lawn, looked at him oddly.
“My dear Johnny, you’re very young and very crude. You have the education of a gentleman and yet you behave like a boor!”
Johnny turned on him in a fury.
“What do you expect me to do — shake him cordially by the hand and bid him welcome to Lenley Court? The fellow’s risen from the gutter. His father was our gardener—”
Maurice Meister interrupted him with a chuckle of malicious enjoyment.
“What a snob you are, Johnny! The snobbery wouldn’t matter,” he went on in a more serious tone, “if you would learn to conceal your feelings.”
“I say what I think,” said Johnny shortly.
“So does a dog when you tread on his tail,” replied Maurice. “You fool!” he snarled with unexpected malignity. “You halfwit! At the mention of the Darnleigh pearls you almost betrayed yourself. Did you realise to whom you were talking, who was probably watching you? The shrewdest detective in the C.I.D.! The man who caught Hersey, who hanged Gostein, who broke up the Flack Gang.”
“He didn’t notice anything,” said the other sulkily, and then, to turn the conversation to his advantage: “You had a letter this morning, was there anything about the pearls in it — are they sold?”
The anger faded from the lawyer’s face; again he was his suave self.
“Do you imagine, my dear lad, that one can sell fifteen thousand pounds’ worth of pearls in a week? What do you suppose is the procedure — that one puts them up at Christie’s?”
Johnny Lenley’s lips tightened. For a while he was silent. When he spoke his voice had lost some of its querulous quality.
“It was queer that Wembury was on the case — apparently they’ve given up hope. Of course, old Lady Darnleigh has no suspicion—”
“Don’t be too sure of that,” warned Meister. “Every guest at No. 304, Park Lane, on that night is suspect. You, more than any, because everybody knows you’re broke. Moreover, one of the footmen saw you going up the main stairs just before you left.”
“I told him I was going to get my coat,” said Johnny Lenley quickly, and a troubled look came to his face. “Why did you mention that I was there to Wembury?”
Maurice laughed.
“Because he knew; I was watching him as I spoke. There was the faintest glint in his eyes that told me. I’ll set your mind at ease; the person at present under suspicion is her unfortunate butler. Don’t imagine that the case has blown over — it hasn’t. Anyway, the police are too active for the moment for us to dream of disposing of the pearls, and we shall have to wait a favourable opportunity when they can be placed in Antwerp.”
He threw away the end of the thin cigarette, took a gold cigarette-case from his waistcoat pocket, selected another with infinite care and lit it, Johnny watching him enviously.
“You’re a cool devil. Do you realise that if the truth came out about those pearls it would mean penal servitude for you, Maurice?”
Maurice sent a ring of smoke into the air.
“I certainly realise it would mean penal servitude for you, my young friend. I fancy that it would be rather difficult to implicate me. If you choose for your amusement to be a robber baron, or was it a Duke of Padua? — I forget the historical precedent — and engage yourself in these Rafflesish adventures, that is your funeral entirely. Because I knew your father and I’ve known you since you were a child, I take a little risk. Perhaps the adventure of it appeals to me—”
“Rot!” said Johnny Lenley brutally. “You’ve been a crook ever since you were able to walk. You know every thief in London and you’ve ‘fenced’—”
“Don’t use that word!” Maurice Meister’s deep voice grew suddenly sharp. “As I told you just now, you are crude. Did I instigate this robbery of Lady Darnleigh’s pearls? Did I put it into your head that thieving was more profitable than working, and that with your education and entry to the best houses you had opportunities which were denied to a meaner — thief?”
This
