Jonah and Co Part 17

"Cleaned out?" cried Daphne. "D'you mean to say you've been robbed?"

"That's right," said Sally. "Peter and I got back this morning to find the Marats gone and the place stripped. Of course, the furniture belonging to the flat's there, but the only decent things were what I'd added, and those have vanished."

"Not all the things you got from Planchet?"

"Rather," said Sally. "Shawl and everything. Jolly, isn't it?"

"What an awful shame!" cried Adele. "But who's taken them? Not the Marats?"

"Must be," said Mrs. Featherstone. She nodded over her shoulder.

"I've just been to the police about it, but you know how hopeless they are."

"If I can do anything," said Berry, "you know I'd only be too happy..."

"Thanks awfully," was the reply, "but to tell you the truth, I don't see what there is to be done. As far as I can make out, they left before Christmas, so they've got a pretty good start."

"I'm terribly sorry," said I. "Of course I never saw the goods, but, if they were anything like the things we bought, it's a cruel shame."

Mrs. Featherstone laughed.

"I do feel sore," she admitted. "The maddening part of it is, I meant to take the shawl home to show George, and then, in the rush at the last, I left it out." She turned to my sister. "And you know I trusted that couple implicitly."

"I know you did."

"The queer thing is, they seem to have suffered one solitary pang of remorse. Did I show you those Chinese mats I was so crazy about?

Well, after they'd gone, I suppose, their hearts smote them, because they did the three up and sent them back."

For a moment we looked at one another.

Then--

"I'm sorry to disappoint you, Sally," said Daphne gently, "but you mustn't give the brutes that credit. We sent you the mats as a Christmas present." Sally knitted her brows. "They're not yours. We bought them from Planchet. Directly I saw them, I thought how beautifully they'd match yours, and we wanted you to have a set."

Sally stared at her.

"But I could have sworn-----"

"I know," said Daphne. "It was because they were such a wonderful match that we----"

"What else did he sell you?"

A sudden thought came to me, and I turned to catch Berry by the arm....

As men in a film, he and I looked at one another with open mouths....

Sublimely unconscious. Daphne and Adele were reciting the list of our treasures.

Mrs. Featherstone heard them out solemnly. Then--

"And what," she said, "does Planchet look like?"

It became Daphne's turn to stare.

I moistened my lips.

"Slight, dark, clean-shaven, large brown eyes, nervous manner, scar on the left temple--_or am I describing Marat?_"

Sally spread out her hands.

"To the life," she said simply.

There was a dreadful silence.

At length--

"'Sold,'" I said slowly. "'By order of the trustees. Owner going abroad.' Marat was with you when you bought them, of course? But what a smart bit of work!"

Sally covered her face and began to shake with laughter. Daphne and Adele stared at her as if bewitched.

At his third attempt to speak--

"Well, that's topping," said Berry. "And now will you come back and get your things now, or shall we bring them over to-morrow? We've taken every care of them." He sighed. "When I think," he added, "that, but for my good offices, n.o.bby would have sent that treacherous drawlatch away, not only empty, but with the modern equivalent of a flea in his ear, I could writhe. When I reflect that it was I who supported the swine's predilection for hard cash, I could scream. But when I remember that ever since our purchase of the shawl, my wife has never once stopped enumerating and/or indicating the many superiorities which distinguish it from yours, I want to break something." He looked round savagely. "Where's a grocer's?" he demanded. "I want some marmalade."

CHAPTER IV

HOW BERRY MADE AN ENGAGEMENT, JILL A PICTURE, AND ADeLE A SLIP OF SOME IMPORTANCE

A natural result of our traffic with Planchet was that we became temporarily suspicious and careful to a fault. The horse had been stolen. For the next three weeks we locked not only the stable door, but every single door to which a key could be fitted--and suffered accordingly. In a word, our convenience writhed. To complete our discomfort, if ever one of us jibbed, the others were sure to lay the lash about his shoulders. The beginning of the end arrived one fine February day.

An early breakfast had made us ready for lunch. As we were taking our seats--

"Are the cars locked?" said Daphne.

Adele held up a key.

"Pong is," she said.

My sister fumed to Jonah.

"And Ping?"

My cousin shook his head.

"No," he said shortly. "I omitted the precaution. If this was Paris, instead of Pau, if the cars were standing in an undesirable thoroughfare, instead of in the courtyard of the English Club, if----"

"It's all very well," said Daphne, "but you know what happened to the Rolls."