CHAPTER XXII
By this time the major, his daughter, and young Curzon Leake, full ofdeep and earnest solicitude for the long-erring Henry, and fairlybristling with questions and entreaties, had crossed the interveningspace and were at Sir Mawson's side; but as the details of whatwas said and done for the next ten minutes have no bearing uponthe case in hand, they may well be omitted from these records.Suffice it then, that, on the plea of "having some very importantbusiness with these gentlemen, which will not permit of anothermoment's delay," and promising to "discuss the other matter lateron," Sir Mawson managed to get rid of them, with the story of thelost necklace still unconfessed, and was again free to return tothe subject in hand.
"Of course, I can understand your reluctance, with those Indianchaps about, to take anybody into your confidence regarding the lossof the jewel, Sir Mawson," said Cleek, as soon as the others werewell out of hearing; "but sometimes a policy of silence is wise, andsometimes it is a mistake. For instance: if any of a man's servantsshould know of a circumstance which might have a bearing upon arobbery they are not likely to mention it if they don't even knowthat a robbery has been committed. However, we shall know more aboutthat after I've been over the ground and poked about a bit. So, ifyou and her ladyship will be so kind, I should like to have a lookindoors, particularly in Lady Leake's boudoir, as soon as possible."
Upon what trivial circumstances do great events sometimes hinge!Speaking, he turned toward the curve of the road to go back to theguarded gates of the house which he had so recently passed, whenLady Leake's hand plucked nervously at his sleeve.
"Not that way! Not for worlds, with those Hindus on the watch!" sheexclaimed agitatedly. "Heaven knows what they might suspect, whatword they might send to the Ranee's steward, if they saw us returningto the house without having seen us leave it. Come! there is anotherand a safer way. Through the grounds and round to the door of themusic room, at the back of the building. Follow me."
They followed forthwith, and in another moment were taking that"other way" with her, pushing through a thick plantation, crossinga kitchen garden, cutting through an orchard, and walking rapidlyalong an arboured path, until they came at last to the final obstacleof all--a large rock garden--which barred their progress to thesmooth, close-clipped lawn at whose far end the house itself stood.This rock garden, it was plain from the course she was taking, itwas Lady Leake's intention to skirt, but Cleek, noting that therewas a path running through the middle of it, pointed out that fact.
"One moment!" he said. "As time is of importance, would not this bethe shorter and the quicker way?"
"Yes," she gave back, without, however, stopping in her progressaround the tall rocks which formed its boundary. "But if we tookit we should be sure to meet Bevis. That is his especial playground,you know, and if he were to see his father and me we shouldn't beable to get rid of him again. No! Don't misunderstand, Mr. Cleek.I am not one of those mothers who find their children a nuisancein their nursery stage. Bevis is the dearest little man! But he isso full of pranks, so full of questions, so full of life and highspirits--and I couldn't stand that this morning. Besides, he has noone to play with him to-day. This is Miss Miniver's half holiday.Pardon? Yes--his nursery governess. She won't be back until three. Ionly hope he will stay in the rock garden and amuse himself with hispirates' cave until then."
"His----"
"Pirates' cave. Miss Miniver took him to a moving-picture show oneday. He saw one there and nothing would do him but his father mustlet him have one for himself; so the gardeners made one for him inthe rock garden and he amuses himself by going out on what he calls'treasure raids' and carries his spoils in there."
"His spoils, eh? H'm! I see! Pardon me, Lady Leake, but do you thinkit is possible that this affair we are on may be only a wild goosechase after all? In other words, that, not knowing the value of theRanee's necklace, your little son may have made that a part of hisspoils and carried it off to his pirates' cave?"
"No, Mr. Cleek, I do not. Such a thing is utterly impossible. Forone thing, the boudoir door was locked, remember; and, for another,Bevis had been bathed and put to bed before the necklace was lost. Hecould not have got up and left his room, as Miss Miniver sat withhim until he fell asleep."
"H'm!" commented Cleek. "So that's 'barking up the wrong tree' for asecond time. Still, of course, the necklace couldn't have vanished ofits own accord. Hum-m-m! Just so! Another question, your ladyship:You spoke of running down to the foot of the stairs with the lintfor Miss Eastman and running back in a panic when you remembered thenecklace. How, then, did you get the lint to Miss Eastman, after all?"
"I sent it to her with apologies for not being able to do thebandaging for her."
"Sent it to her, your ladyship? By whom?"
"Jennifer--one of the servants."
"Oho!" said Cleek, in two different tones. "So then you _did_ unlockthe door of your boudoir for a second time, and somebody other thanSir Mawson and your stepson _did_ see the inside of the room, eh?"
"Your pardon, Mr. Cleek, but you are wrong in both surmises.Jennifer was the servant who was working in the lower hall atthe time--the one who says he saw Henry leave the house at tenminutes past seven. The instant I reached the foot of the stairsand thought of the necklace, I called Jennifer to me, gave him thelint with orders to take it at once to Miss Eastman's maid withthe message mentioned, and then turned round and ran back to myboudoir immediately."
"H'm! I see. I suppose, your ladyship, it isn't possible that thisman Jennifer might, in going to carry that message----But no! Irecollect: the door of your boudoir was locked. So even if he hadmanaged to outstrip you by going up another staircase----"
"Oh, I see what you mean!" she declared, as they reached the edge ofthe lawn and set out across it. "But, Mr. Cleek, such a thing wouldnot bear even hinting at, so far as Jennifer is concerned. He isthe soul of honesty, for one thing; and, for another, he couldn'thave outstripped me, as you put it, had I returned at a snail'space. He is very old, and near-sighted. There! look! That is he,over there, sweeping the leaves off the terrace. You can see foryourself how impossible it would be for him to run upstairs."
Cleek did see. Looking in the direction indicated, he saw an elderlyman employed as stated, whose back was bowed, and whose limping gaitbetokened an injury which had left him hopelessly lame.
"His leg had to be amputated as the result of being run over by anomnibus in the streets of London," explained her ladyship, "and,in consequence, he wears a wooden one. He has been in the employ ofthe family for more than forty years. Originally he was a gardener,and, after his accident, Sir Mawson was for pensioning him off sothat he could end his days in quiet and comfort. But he quitebroke down at the thought of leaving the old place, and as hewouldn't listen to such a thing as being paid for doing nothing,we humoured his whim and let him stay on as a sort of handy man. Iam sorry to say that Bevis, little rogue, takes advantage of hisinability to run, and plays no end of pranks upon him. But headores the boy, and never complains."
Cleek, who had been studying the man fixedly with his narrowedeyes--and remembering what had been said of Diamond Nick's skill atimpersonation, the while they were crossing the lawn--here twitchedhis head, as if casting off a thought which annoyed him, and turned abland look upon Lady Leake.
"One last question, your ladyship," he said. "I think you said thatJennifer was cleaning the hall at the time your stepson left thehouse; and, as, presumably, you wouldn't overwork a crippled old chaplike that, how happened it that he was still at his labours at tenminutes past seven o'clock in the evening? That's rather late tobe cleaning up a hall, isn't it?"
"Yes, much _too_ late," she acknowledged. "But it couldn't be helpedin the present instance. The gasfitters didn't finish their workas early as we had hoped, and as he couldn't begin until they _had_finished, he was delayed in starting."
"The gasfitters, eh? Oho! So you had those chaps in the houseyesterday, did you?"
"Yes. There had been an unpl
easant leakage of gas in both the musicroom and the main hall, for two or three days, and as the men had totake down the fixtures to get to the seat of the trouble, Jenniferimproved the opportunity to give the chandelier and the bracketsa thorough cleaning, since he couldn't of course start to clear upthe mess the workmen made until after they had finished and gone.But--Mr. Cleek! _They_ couldn't have had anything to do with theaffair, for they left the house at least ten minutes before theLadder of Light came into it. So, naturally----This is the doorof the music room, gentlemen. Come in, please."
The invitation was accepted at once, and in another half minuteCleek and Mr. Narkom found themselves standing in a wonderfulwhite-and-gold room, under a huge crystal chandelier of silverand cut glass, and looking out through an arched opening, hungwith sulphur-coloured draperies, into a sort of baronial hallequipped with armour and tapestries, and broad enough to drive acoach through without danger to its contents.
From this hall, as they discovered, when Lady Leake led them withoutdelay toward the scene of the necklace's mysterious vanishment, abroad, short flight of richly carpeted stairs led to a squarelanding, and thence another and a longer flight, striking off atright angles, communicated with the passage upon which her ladyship'sboudoir opened.
"It was here that I stood, Mr. Cleek, when I recollected about thenecklace as I called Jennifer to me," she explained, pausing onthe landing at the foot of this latter flight of stairs just longenough to let him note, over the broad rail of the banister, that thegreat hall was clearly visible below. "He was there, just underyou, drying the globes of the music-room chandelier when I calledto him. Now come this way, please, and you will see how impossibleit is for any one to have entered and left the boudoir during mybrief absence without my seeing or hearing."
It was; for the door of the boudoir, which was entirely detachedfrom the rest of the suite occupied by herself and her husband, wasimmediately opposite the head of the staircase and clearly visiblefrom the landing at its foot.
She unlocked this one solitary door, and let them see that theonly other means of possibly entering the room was by way of a largeoverhanging bay window overlooking the grounds. But this was agood twenty feet above the surface of the earth and there was not avine nor a tree within yards and yards of it, and as the spacebeneath was so large and clear that no one could have manipulated aladder without the certainty of discovery, Cleek saw at a glancethat the window might be dismissed at once as a possible pointof entry.
Nor did anything else about the room offer a hint more promising.All that he saw was just what one might have expected to see in sucha place under such circumstances as these.
On the dressing-table, surrounded by a litter of silver and cut-glasstoilet articles, lay the case which had once contained the famousnecklace, wide open and empty. Over the back of a chair--as ifit had been thrown there under the stress of haste and greatexcitement--hung a negligee of flowered white silk trimmed withcascades of rich lace, and across a sofa at the far end of theroom, a dinner gown of gray satin was carefully spread out, with apair of gray silk stockings and gray satin slippers lying beside it.
"Everything is exactly as it was, Mr. Cleek, at the time the necklacedisappeared," explained her ladyship, noting the manner in whichhis glances went flickering about the room, skimming the surfaceof all things but settling on none. "Everything, that is, but thatnegligee there."
"Wasn't that in the room, then?"
"Oh, yes, but it wasn't on the chair; it was on me. I had comeup to dress for dinner a short time before Henry made hisappearance--indeed, I had only just taken off my street costumeand started to dress when he rapped at the door and implored me tolet him come in and speak to me for a minute or two. 'For God'ssake, mater!' was the way he put it, and as haste seemed to be ofvital importance, I slipped on my negligee and let him in asquickly as I could. Afterward, when Sir Mawson came in with thewonderful necklace----"
She stopped abruptly, and her voice seemed to die away in her throat;and when she spoke again it was in a sort of panic.
"Mr. Cleek!" she cried, "_Mr. Cleek!_ What is it? What's the matter?Good heavens, Mawson, has the man gone out of his mind?"
In the circumstances the question was an excusable one. A momentbefore, she had seen Cleek walk in the most casual manner to thechair where the lace-clouded negligee hung, had seen him pick it upto look at the chair seat under it, and was collectedly proceedingwith the account of the events of yesterday, when, without hint orwarning, he suddenly yapped out a sound that was curiously like adog that had mastered the trick of human laughter, flung the negligeefrom him, dropped on his knees, and was now careering round theroom like a terrier endeavouring to pick up a lost scent--pushingaside tables, throwing over chairs, and yapping, yapping.
"Cleek, old chap!" It was Narkom that spoke, and the hard, thickhammering of his heart made his voice shake. "Good lud, man! in thename of all that's wonderful----"
"Let me alone!" he bit in, irritably. "Of all the asses! Of all theblind, mutton-headed idiots!" then laughed that curious, uncannylaugh again, scrambled to his feet and made a headlong bolt for thedoor. "Wait for me--all of you--in the music room," he threw backfrom the threshold. "Don't stir from it until I come. I want thatfellow Jennifer! I want him _at once_!"
And here, turning sharply on his heel with yet another yapping sound,he bolted across the passage, ran down the staircase like an escapingthief, and by the time the others could lock up the boudoir andget down to the music room, there wasn't a trace of him anywhere.