The Distributors E-Book

E. Phillips Oppenheim

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

Lord Evelyn and a group of seven like-minded esthetes make up „The Ghosts” a cabal of social arbiters, of whom the mere mention is regarded as a faux pas. They are imbued with almost mystical power in setting tastes and trends and behavior for the members of Society in London in 1908. Desperate for stimulation „The Ghosts” embark on a risky program of wealth redistribution... other peoples wealth. Meanwhile, a spurned aspirant to their club, the American debutante Sophy Van Heldt, seeks revenge against them. Originally published in 1908 as „The Ghosts of Society” this intriguing novel carries the theme of social boredom, ennui, and sensation craving which entranced late Victorian Europe in the pre-war period.

Leseprobe

Contents

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

CHAPTER XXVIII

CHAPTER XXIX

CHAPTER XXX

CHAPTER XXXI

CHAPTER XXXII

CHAPTER XXXIII

CHAPTER XXXIV

CHAPTER XXXV

CHAPTER XXXVI

CHAPTER XXXVII

CHAPTER XXXVIII

CHAPTER XXXIX

CHAPTER XL

CHAPTER XLI

CHAPTER XLII

CHAPTER I

THE teacups clattered, a violin from somewhere in the adjoining room seemed to be seeking new notes from impossible heights, a little group of people were talking with all the zest which the desire of a hostess for silence seems alone to provoke. A girl was drawing the attention of her neighbours to something which was taking place a few yards away–a very familiar happening at such gatherings. Their hostess was performing an introduction.

“Look!” the girl exclaimed. “Pamela has her heart’s desire at last. The duchess is presenting Lord Evelyn.”

“Scarcely her heart’s desire, I should imagine,” a man at her elbow remarked. “I have seen them at the same functions many times this season. She could easily have met him at any one of them.”

“I heard Lady Armhurst tell her that she was sending Lord Evelyn to take her down to tea at Armhurst House the other afternoon,” another girl remarked, “and Pamela excused herself–said that she had to leave. She could have met him at any time during the last few months if she had chosen.”

“Nevertheless,” the first girl declared firmly, “I repeat that to-day she has her heart’s desire. Pamela may not know it, but she is a poseuse! She isn’t like the rest of us. If she wants a thing she doesn’t rush at it– she rather avoids it!”

“She is afraid to court disappointment, perhaps,” a man from the edge of the group remarked, “or perhaps she knows that pleasure in life only exists in its foretastes! It is the artistic temperament.”

“I want you all to look at her,” the first girl suddenly remarked. “Is she really so beautiful? If so, can anyone tell me why?”

There was a moment’s silence. Everyone looked across the room.

They saw the disappearing hostess, and they saw the man and the girl whom her careless words had brought into the conventional knowledge of each other. No one looked at the man, for the simple reason that notwithstanding his reputation for extreme exclusiveness, there was no person in London whose face and figure were more familiar to these few people. They looked at the girl. She was tall and slender almost to thinness; her fair hair was parted in the middle and just visible under her black picture hat; her profile was like a delicate etching of Hellier’s; her eyes were soft and large and gray, with the glint of a warmer colour when she smiled or looked interested, as the sun may draw life from the still land.

“She is too thin,” one girl declared, “much too thin. Her clothes are loose enough, and yet she looks like a lath.”

“I am sure that she is delicate,” another declared.

“A complexion like hers will fade in a few years,” a man remarked, dropping his eyeglass. “Sort of girl, you know, who wouldn’t dare to be out for a moment without a parasol. Never catch her on a yacht, for instance!”

The first girl–who was an American and loved the truth–wound up the conversation.

“She is the most beautiful person I ever saw in my life,” she declared. “I cannot see anything about her that is not perfect.”

There was a moment’s silence. Then one of the other girls rose with a little shrug of the shoulders.

“You may be right, Miss Van Heldt,” she said. “And yet I do not believe that she is witch enough to get what she wants from Lord Evelyn. Here is Mr. Mallison. Ask him what he thinks.”

She leaned forward and touched a passer-by on the arm–a middle-aged man, slight and immaculate, who was not short-sighted, but who walked always with half-closed eyes, as though it were too great trouble to recognise familiar things and people.

“Mr. Mallison,” she exclaimed, “we want you to look at your new recruit, over there talking to Lord Evelyn.”

Herbert Mallison followed her gesture quickly enough. His eyes were wide enough open now. For some reason he seemed to find the girl’s words disconcerting.

“Ah!” he said slowly, “it is Miss Pamela Cliffordson, is it not?”

The girl nodded.

“She has been introduced to Lord Evelyn just now,” she said.

“A friend of mine and hers once told me that Pamela had only one idea in life, and that was to become a ‘Ghost.’ Do you think that Lord Evelyn will be able to resist her?”

Mallison looked at the two for a moment longer before he answered. Then he turned to the girl who had questioned him. Notwithstanding an attempt at lightness, he was unable to conceal the fact that the matter appealed to him seriously.

“I have never considered Lord Evelyn impressionable,” he said slowly, “and our numbers are full!”

Mallison passed on. The girl who had detained him had committed a breach of decorum in alluding to a certain matter, and his tone and stiff farewell bow seemed intended to convey his appreciation of that fact. Sophy Van Heldt leaned forward.

“Do you know,” she declared, “I think that Society of Ghosts, or whatever they call it, is just about the queerest thing I ever knew. Why can’t I get hold of some one to tell me all about it? I’d love to start one over in New York.”

They looked at her as though she had committed sacrilege. No one said a word. The girl continued gaily and unembarrassed.

“There you are, you see!” she declared. “That’s just what I can’t understand. None of you belong to it and yet you seem to think it terrible if one even mentions a thing about it. Mind, if that’s the right attitude, I’d like to be with you, but in my present state of ignorance I can’t. I simply know that seven of the most delightful, the most charming, the cleverest, and most desirable people in every way in your Society here seem to have a sort of little club of their own. They call themselves ‘Ghosts.’ You mayn’t ask them what it is all about. No one knows what they do or why they do it. To mention the matter to one of them is tantamount to social suicide. That’s all very well for you people who’ve been brought up in the fear of it,‘but I think a stranger might ask a few questions without being jumped upon.”

“A stranger may,” a quiet voice answered at her elbow. “Ask on, Miss Van Heldt. I will try and satisfy your curiosity.”

The girl turned suddenly round to find Mr. Mallison standing by her side. She was in no way disconcerted.

“That’s kind of you, Mr. Mallison,” she declared heartily. “I warn you I’m inquisitive.”

“Ask on,” he answered simply. “I promise nothing, but if I can answer you I will.”

“First, then,” the girl said, turning upon him the full artillery of her blue eyes and piquant expression, “what are the qualifications of a would-be ‘Ghost’?”

Mallison answered her readily enough. His expression was changeless, his tone matter-of-fact. The animation of his questioner, designedly provocative, found him absolutely irresponsive.

“Birth, culture, and understanding,” he said. “In the case of your sex, one might add a certain rare reticence and an earnest desire to acquire some interest in life apart from the purely mundane.”

“My!” the girl declared. “That sounds difficult. Well, what do ‘Ghosts’ do, anyway?”

“They devote a certain amount of time,” Mallison answered, “to the cultivation of their secondary selves.”

“One more question,” the girl persisted, making a brave fight against the indefinable antagonism with which she felt herself confronted. “Could I–if I tried–really tried–make myself eligible?” ,

“Never!” Mallison answered coldly. “You have not a single one of the essential qualifications.”

“You’re not over-polite, are you?” the girl remarked, ruffled at last.

Mallison looked at her with the faintest of smiles upon his thin lips.

“You are a newcomer here,” he said, with covert insolence, “and you do not understand. You have asked your questions and I have answered them. Forgive me if I add that no one except a stranger amongst us would have dreamed of exhibiting such curiosity.”

He passed on with a stiff little bow. Sophy Van Heldt turned round to the others with scarlet cheeks.

“Well, of all the rude old men!” she exclaimed. “Did you ever hear anything like that?”

She scarcely found the sympathy she expected. Everyone seemed to avoid accepting her appeal as personal. Her best friend, a young diplomat, drew her a little to one side.

“It’s a queer sort of institution that you’ve run up against, Miss Van Heldt,” he remarked confidentially. “I can understand how you feel about it, of course, but to us who know ‘em all, and that sort of thing, it’s got to be considered a kind of bad form to ask any questions or show any curiosity about the ‘Ghosts.’ I don’t suppose for a moment that they do anything except read ‘Omar Khayyam’ and talk esoteric rubbish. All the same, it’s got to be a sort of shibboleth with us to think they’re very wonderful and to let ‘em alone. See?”

“No, I do not see!” the young woman answered frankly. “I do not see why that old stick should look at me as though I were a kitchen maid out in my mistress’ clothes, because I asked a few simple questions.”

The young man was in despair.

“I don’t suppose I can make you understand,” he said. “It’s one of those things like not turning your trousers up, or wearing a ready-made tie. The unprepared mind cannot appreciate the enormity of such things. I can only say that not one of us would have dared to have asked such questions. It would have seemed to us just as bad form as to ask a man who was dining you how much he gave for his champagne.”

“Well, you’re a queer lot,” Miss Van Heldt remarked, with a resigned sigh. “I’ll never find my way about in such a fog.”

“Come and look for an ice,” the young man suggested suddenly, with a brilliant inspiration.

“I’m not sure that I want any more freezing,” the girl remarked, placing her hand willingly upon his arm. “I’ll be glad to come, all the same, though.”

They passed down the room together, but as they reached the main entrance they were confronted with a little stir, and every one drew back to leave a clear passage into the room. The girl’s fingers tightened upon his arm.

“Do tell me what is going to happen,” she whispered. “Another of our absurd conventions,” he answered, smiling.

“The gentleman who enters must be treated as royalty, although he comes from a very far-off country. We must stand still while he passes. You see even the duke is playing usher in his own household.”

“Who is it?” she whispered once more.

He signed to her to be silent for a moment. Tall and dignified, dressed in a costume which was a strange admixture of the picturesqueness of the East and the requirements of Western conventions, there came into the room the ruler of one of those countries whose curiosity as to Western civilisation had only recently been aroused, and whose visits, though so desirable as a matter of policy, are for a time particularly embarrassing to those who from necessity become their hosts. The Sultan of Dureskan boasted a descent longer even than that of the duke, who walked by his side. His subjects were numbered by the millions, his wealth was boundless, his good will almost a necessity. His appearance was impressive enough. He wore a plain black frock coat, covered with ribbons and ablaze with such marvellous jewels that a little wave of half-uttered wonder escaped from the lips of the women who bent forward to look at him. Upon his head was a small blue cap, crowned with an aigrette of diamonds.

The man’s appearance, if one found time to look at his features, was sufficiently forbidding. His mouth was coarse and cruel. His eyes were set too close together. His features seemed to reflect the long centuries of unbridled power and natural cruelty which lay behind him. Nevertheless, he carried himself with the dignity of a born ruler of men as he passed across the great reception room thronged with people, whose costumes, whose manners, even whose speech was strange to him. He carried himself with all that amazing self- possession which seems to be the peculiar heritage of people from Eastern countries.

Sophy Van Heldt looked away from his disappearing figure and turned toward her companion.

“What a marvellous person!” she exclaimed. “Do tell me who he is.”

“He is called the Sultan of Dureskan,” the young diplomat answered, “and he is the ruler of a State which lies close up against some of our Eastern possessions. I only wish,” he added, “that those fellows would stay at home. My chief has been in a fever since the day he landed. Take my advice, and if anyone offers to present you to him, don’t have anything to do with him. It’s an impossibility to teach the beast manners!”

The girl laughed softly.

“I can assure you,” she declared, “that I have not the least desire to make his acquaintance. You see, in my country we cannot think of these coloured races as you do. Doesn’t it seem a hideous shame, though,” she added, with a little sigh, “to think of all those magnificent jewels being wasted upon a man’s coat?”

He shrugged his shoulders as he piloted her along toward the reshment room.

“That isn’t the worst of it,” he answered. “He carries on his person alone jewels worth something like a million pounds, and I believe that if he lost one of them he would expect us to fill our prisons with suspects. We have to keep him surrounded by detectives.”

They reached the refreshment room at last. Sophy Van Heldt sighed as she drew off her gloves and sipped the coffee which her companion brought her.

“After all,” she said, “I am afraid that I shall never be able to live in your country.”

“Why not?” he asked. “A good many of your country people seem to get along here very well.”

She shook her head.

“There are too many complications for me,” she declared. “For instance?” he asked.

“Well, the Society of Ghosts,” she replied. “They certainly are the most impossible people in the world.”

He took the cup from her outstretched fingers and looked into it silently for a moment.

“Take my advice, Miss Van Heldt,” he said, “and don’t bother about them any more. They are too strong a combination to run up against. Society, you know, is one of those mysterious bodies which loves to feel the whip of a master or mistress. Evelyn and his friends seem somehow to be able to do what they like with it.”

The girl did not answer for a moment. With a slight frown upon her forehead, she was watching two figures who were passing through the room toward an inner suite beyond. She motioned silently toward them.

“They say,” she murmured, “that Miss Cliffordson wants to become a ‘Ghost.’ Will she succeed, do you think?”

Her companion shook his head.

“I think not,” he answered.

“She is very beautiful,” the girl remarked doubtfully.

“No doubt,” her companion answered. “All the same, I do not think that that will help her. Evelyn has many weaknesses, but no one has ever heard him called impressionable.”

The girl laughed a little hardly.

“Impressionable!” she. repeated. “I don’t think that word would apply to your countrymen at all. I haven’t met one yet, at any rate.”

“And when you do?” he asked, smiling.

“I shall make him tell me a little more–perhaps all there is to tell–about this Society of Ghosts,” she answered, rising. “Shall we go back? I want to hear Calve sing and to catch one more glimpse of those wonderful jewels.”

CHAPTER II

The conventional words which followed the introduction of these two people, in whom others besides Sophy Van Heldt had shown so much interest, were so softly murmured, if spoken at all, as to be almost unrecognisable. Evelyn’s mother, who was above all things a wonderful hostess, and whose absent eyes had been watching somebody else all the time, hurried away to greet some late comers, all unconscious of the significance of this thing which she had done. The man and the girl remained standing alone.

Even then they were in no hurry to commit their thoughts to speech. Their silence had no kinship to the silence of awkwardness. It was simply that they were both people with many emotional qualities–he, at any rate, had become an Epicure in all that appertains to the sensations.

“I suppose,” she said at last, with a little sigh, “that it was unavoidable.”

“Entirely so,” he assented, “and now that it has come, I am glad. After all,” he continued, with only a momentary pause, “we have been behaving rather like children, haven’t we?”

“Like children, or very wise people,” she assented. “Perhaps there is no essential difference. Children and animals are wise by instinct. It is when we know a little that we commit follies.”

“Let me take you somewhere where we can talk for a few minutes,” he said. “You do not wish to listen to the music?”

She shook her head.

“The violin, in a drawing-room crush like this, sounds wrong, doesn’t it?” she answered. “It shows what pagans we are getting, that we should expect artists to give us of their best in such an atmosphere.”

They moved slowly away, side by side. Soon they came to a small room which was almost deserted.

“I must not stay,” she said, as he drew up a chair for her. “My aunt, who is chaperoning me, detests this sort of crush, and I promised not to leave her for more than a few minutes.”

“I will not keep you,” he answered. “Now or another time–it does not matter. We have a lifetime before us. Only I want to look at you. I want to see whether you seem different to me now that those fatal words have been spoken. Do you realise that we have been introduced–that some one has told you that I am Lord Evelyn Madrecourt, and me that your name is Pamela Cliffordson?”

She nodded gravely.

“Perhaps,” she said, “we should have been wiser to have avoided it.”

“I cannot believe that,” he answered. “Now that it has happened, I cannot imagine why it has not happened before. You are wonderful,” he added, a little abruptly.

She laughed easily.

“You are the only person who thinks so, then,” she answered. “Most of my friends are quite disgusted with me. I am counted a failure.”

“Why?” he asked calmly.

“I have painted a picture which no one would buy, which no one would even look at,” she answered. “I have written a book which did not sell even its first edition. I have been out for four years and I am still a spinster.”

“These things,” he answered, “count for success, not failure. The books that are bought, the pictures before which the world gapes–we know them for what they are, you and I. For the rest, to speak of it is sacrilege! What should you be doing with a husband?” .

“Come and ask my aunt,” she answered lightly. “I am partly emancipated, it is true, but only partly. My aunt still feels me on her conscience. She was so successful with her own children!”

He shivered.

“Forgive me,” he said. “For a moment there was a thought I could not grapple with. If you had been different!”

She laughed a little unsteadily.

“Well,” she said, “I am what I am. I have only one ambition that I know of, and something which you have said encourages me to tell you what that is.”

“Ambition,” he said deprecatingly, “is too positive a word. It does not harmonise. It is not in you, I am sure, to be guilty of anything so near vulgarity.”

“You can call it what you like, then,” she answered simply–“a desire instead of an ambition, if you will. I want to be a ‘Ghost’!”

Evelyn remained perfectly silent for an appreciable space of time. Her words had not the effect upon him which she had imagined possible. Indeed, his attitude puzzled her. His eyes, dark and tired, and set in hollow places, seemed suddenly to dilate. His face lost its immobility. His lips distinctly twitched. He was like a man struggling with a secret fear. When he spoke, his voice had altered. He seemed to have become hoarse.

“It is not possible,” he said, “You must not think of that! Promise me that you will not.”

His attitude astonished her. She had no words ready for the moment. He recovered himself a little and continued more in his usual tone.

“I will tell you,” he said, “what I have told no one else, what I would tell no one. We shall never elect another ‘Ghost.’ There are twelve of us now, but five exist only in name. That is to say that there are but seven left. We shall never add to that number.”

“If one should die–or drop out?” she asked.

“Their places will not be filled,” he answered. “Those who are there to-day will go on to the end. But there will be no more. That is my fixed intention!”

Then they heard the sound which both had been dreading–the rustling of gowns, the babbling of inquiring voices. Their tête-à-tête was at an end. She leaned toward him.

“If it is vulgar,” she murmured, “to be ambitious, surely it is worse to be mysterious?”

“There is only one mystery in this world,” he answered–“the mystery of life and death. The rest are trifles.”

“But you were–almost melodramatic,” she persisted.

“Your fancy,” he assured her lightly. “Is this your aunt? I wonder?” he added, turning toward the door.

It was Evelyn’s mother who entered, and Evelyn was aware at once, from his first careless glance, that something very unusual had happened. The duchess was one of those women whose self-possession was a thing almost as stable and certain as the granite front of the great house in Grosvenor Square in which she entertained so brilliantly. Evelyn remembered only two occasions in his life upon which he had seen her show any signs of excitement. This, it seemed, was the third. He rose at once to his feet and she came with unaccustomed haste across the room toward them.

“You were looking for me?” he asked.

“My dear Evelyn,” she exclaimed, “you must come into the library at once! This is the result of trying to oblige your friends. We had that terrible man here just because Lord Singleton persuaded your father into it, and now can you imagine what has happened?”

Evelyn shook his head.

“How can one imagine?” he answered. “Anything might happen when you let a sort of Bluebeard like that, with a king’s ransom upon his chest, go wandering about among your guests.”

The duchess frowned.

“Do be serious, Evelyn!” she begged. “The man has been robbed!”

“What, here?” Evelyn demanded.

“In this very house,” the duchess answered impressively, “within the last few minutes. He declares that a great cluster of diamonds, which has been among the crown jewels of his family for heaven knows how many hundreds of years, has been stolen. You had better come into the study at once. He is there with your father.”

Evelyn smiled as he made his hasty adieux to Pamela.

“After all,” he said, “your words were only a little prophetic. The melodramatic has arrived.”

There were three men already in the library when Evelyn entered–the duke, Mallison, and the sultan himself. The sultan, a stiff and somewhat solemn figure, was standing upon the hearth-rug. His features had lost none of their magnificent impassivity. There was about him none of that agitation which the occasion seemed certainly to warrant. His very repression of tone and manner, under such circumstances, seemed to lend him an added dignity. Of the three men the duke seemed by far the most disturbed.

“Come in, Evelyn, and shut the door!” he exclaimed quickly, as his son entered. “You have heard what has happened I suppose?”

“I have just been told,” Evelyn answered.

The duke turned once more to his august visitor.

“Can Your Highness give us any idea,” he asked, “as to the value of these jewels?”

The sultan raised his eyebrows ever so slightly.

“In your English money,” he said, “I should find it hard to tell you. It matters very little. There are none others like them and I hold them in sacred trust for my nation. Pardon me if I repeat that their value in money does not disturb me. It is only that if I return to my country without them, I return as a man in disgrace.”

“You must not return without them!” the duke exclaimed. “The thing is preposterous! Evelyn what can you suggest?”

“When did His Highness miss them?” Evelyn asked.

“A few minutes ago only,” the sultan answered. “It is possible, however, that they may have been missing from my coat for a longer time. It is only a few minutes ago that I chanced to glance at the place where they should have been.”

“There is a detective in the house, is there not?” Evelyn asked.

“I understood that one arrived here at the same time as His Highness.”

“I saw him,” the duchess answered. “He whispered to me who he was as he came into the room.”

“We must send for him at once,” Evelyn declared. “Everyone who is not known to us personally must be questioned and detained and the back entrances to the house secured. We can deal with the servants later.”

“There are carriages coming up now,” the duchess remarked, looking out into the street.

“Go and stop the people leaving,” Evelyn begged, laying his hand upon her arm. “You can easily make some excuse if you are there. And send us down that detective at once. You will be able to recognise him, I daresay.”

The duchess hurried away.

“After all,” Evelyn remarked, “it is not certain, of course, that this is a matter of theft. The jewels may possibly,” he added, turning to the sultan, “have fallen from Your Highness’ coat.”

The sultan laid his fingers upon a portion of his sash.

“You will see,” he said, “that the ribbon here, and the gold wire which passes through it, have been cut. It was very cleverly done. The thieves of your country have certainly little to learn.”

The duke turned toward Mallison.

“What do you think about it, Mallison?” he asked. “You have had some experience in this sort of thing.”

Mallison shook his head.

“My dear duke,” he said, “I can only say that the man who stole those jewels in your reception rooms, provided they were fastened as His Highness assures us that they were, was a greater genius than any I have ever been brought into contact with. You must remember that there has not been a second since the arrival of His Highness when he has not been the centre of observation. I cannot conceive how it was possible for anyone to have been foolhardy enough even to have attempted such a thing.”

“I have heard,” the sultan said slowly, “that there have been others besides myself who have suffered in this way. For practice in your language I read the Times newspaper. I have done so, indeed, for years. Is it not true that there have been lately many most mysterious robberies, especially in the houses of your noblemen?”

“That is true, certainly,” the duke admitted reluctantly, “but nothing of the sort has been brought so close to us as this.”

“There have been many daring robberies,” Mallison said slowly, “but none so audacious as the present one.”

A servant knocked at the door, and a man entered, following closely upon his footsteps. He was dressed as any other guest in the house might have been. Not until he spoke would it have been possible to have regarded him as anything else but one of the little crowd of young men who were still enjoying this latest sensation in the drawing-rooms beyond.

“Your Grace,” he said, “forgive me if I speak rapidly. I am sent here from Scotland Yard and I have been in attendance upon the sultan since his arrival. I understand that he has lost some jewels?”

“Such is unfortunately the case,” the duke answered.

“Your Grace,” the detective continued, “let me suggest that some member of your household, known to all your guests, stand with me at the main entrance to your house. At a gathering such as this it would be, I imagine, perfectly possible for anyone suitably dressed to mingle with the crowd. I want to have no one leave the house who is not personally known to some of you. All the back entrances are already in charge of my men.”

“I will go with you myself,” Evelyn said quickly. “I do not fancy that anyone can have left yet.”

The detective nodded.

“If the thieves are really as clever as they seem to be,” he remarked, “they will not have been in a hurry to rush away. If you will go first, Lord Evelyn, I will follow you.”

CHAPTER III

FOR the duke, who was a proud and sensitive man, the hour which followed was probably the longest which he had ever spent. More than once he tried to make conversation with his august guest, who remained always standing, courteous, impassive, yet with that faint, almost indefinable air of a man who, finding himself in a position which he does not quite understand, holds himself altogether in reserve. His replies to the duke’s remarks were never more than monosyllabic. He remained magnificently aloof from the two men, who each in their turn tried to break down the barrier which seemed to have sprung up between them and their guest. The sultan was, after all, in his way a great gentleman, and no word or look from him betrayed the agitation, perhaps even the suspicion, of a man who has sustained a loss which, from his peculiar point of view, was as great almost as the loss of life itself. He made no attempt to explain his feelings to them. How were they to understand, the people of this strange, cold nation, whose first question to him had been as to the value of these gems in their vulgar money–how were they to understand the almost holy significance of heirlooms passing from generation to generation of a race which was ancient when the history of these people was unborn? Between him and them was fixed a gulf so deep that he made no effort to bridge it. The methods which they were now employing to regain possession of his property were strange to him, but in their country it was perhaps best that they should pursue them. If such a thing had happened in his own palace, it would not have been policemen with suave questions who would have stood at the front door, but lines of soldiers whose sabres would have glittered before the eyes of guilty and innocent alike. There would have been no risk there of anyone stealing away with their booty. Better that a hundred should die than that one man escape to bring disgrace upon their ruler. There would have been confusion and death cries before now in his palace. Yet all that he could hear, standing there in the great, dimly lit library, was the soft music of violins, the unbroken tide of conversation, the passing back and forth of these people to whom the robbery which had taken place amongst them was nothing more than an agreeable sensation, a pleasant diversion to lend zest to their afternoon!

These were the thoughts which passed through his brain. Yet he made no complaint, no sign of his feelings escaped him. With the magnificent philosophy of his race and great descent, he waited for the return of Evelyn and his companion, as though the issue of their search were indeed a matter of but little moment to him. Nevertheless, when at last they reappeared, and he read in their faces the fruitlessness of their quest, there flashed for a moment from his eyes the light of the great ruler, deprived for the time of the powers which he had come to look upon as legitimate.

“You have no news?” the duke asked, a little hoarsely.

“There is no news as yet, Your Grace,” the detective answered.

“The guests have all left?” the duke demanded.

“All except the sultan and this gentleman here,” the detective answered, glancing to where Mallison was standing among the shadows.

Mallison came forward with grave face.

“I am sorry to hear of your failure,” he said.

The detective bowed his acknowledgment.

“This gentleman, I presume,” he said softly, looking across the table to where Mallison and Evelyn were standing side by side –

The duke interposed.

“This is my friend Mr. Mallison, King’s Counsel, whom you probably know by sight,” he said. “I called him in, hoping that his professional experience might be of service to us.”

The detective bowed.

“I recognise Mr. Mallison now, Your Grace,” he said quietly. “With your permission I will go and see whether my men at the other end of the house have anything to report.”

“Certainly,” the duke answered. “And, Mr –”

“Carmichael is my name,” the detective interposed.

“Mr. Carmichael,” the duke answered, “I wish you to understand that the recovery of these jewels is a matter of the greatest, the most vital importance. Their intrinsic value, I believe, is very great, but whatever it may be, I myself offer a reward of a thousand pounds for their recovery.”

“It is a most generous offer, your Grace,” the detective said.

The sultan intervened. So still and silent had he remained since the reappearance of these two men that they had both almost forgotten his presence. He drew from his finger a ring, whose diamonds flashed like the gleam of bare steel against the dark tablecloth.

“And I,” he said, “I will give this ring and ten thousand pounds to the man who brings me back my jewels.”

“Ten thousand pounds!” Mallison murmured.

“It is nothing,” the sultan said quietly. “Money counts for less, I think, with us in the East, than with you nations whose greatness has sprung from your love of commerce. With us, life and honour count for more than gold. I cannot go back to my people with a broken trust. If your Grace will permit me,” he added, turning with a grave bow toward his host, “I will now take my leave.”

He left the room, preceded a little by the duke. Evelyn and Mallison lingered behind for a moment. Evelyn was searching in a bureau for a box of Russian cigarettes, which he produced at last and handed to the other. Mallison lit one and sniffed the tobacco approvingly.

“These are the real thing, Evelyn,” he said. “Better than any blend, by a long way. By-the-bye –”

He glanced toward the door. Evelyn closed it, and taking a cigarette himself, lit it.

“Most extraordinary thing, this robbery!” he murmured.

“Most extraordinary!” Mallison assented. “I think,” he continued, “under the circumstances, that if I were the thief, and bearing in mind the difficulty of disposing of jewels of such a value, I should be inclined to content myself with the reward of–what was it–ten thousand pounds? Ten thousand pounds is a great deal of money.”

“I am inclined to agree with you,” Evelyn assented. “Have you had enough of this excitement? If so, I will let you out myself.”

Mallison nodded.

“Very good of you,” he said. “I am dining somewhere early to- night, so I must get away. We shall meet later on.”

“Naturally,” Evelyn answered. “Come along and I will see you safely out.”

They stood together for a moment on the steps of the great house in Grosvenor Square. A man came up and was on the point of accosting them when he recognised Lord Evelyn and turned respectfully away.

“Do you want a hansom?” Evelyn asked.

Mallison shook his head.

“My electric is here, I think,” he said. “Yes, the man sees me. Till to- night, then.”

“Till to-night,” Evelyn answered, turning back into the house.