Parlous Times Part 32

"Try a drink, then."

"I've just had one."

"Drinking alone? That's a bad sign. What are you so blue about?"

"I'm wondering," said Stanley, "how a man can ever be fool enough to fall in love, or get married."

"Oh," said the Lieutenant, "so she's refused you, eh?"

"Who?"

"Belle Fitzgerald."

"Yes," replied the Secretary, shortly.

The Lieutenant thrust his hands deep into his trousers pockets and paced the room in silence, whistling softly to himself. Finally he remarked:

"Well, I'm sorry, old chap, but I've been more lucky."

"Oh," said the Secretary. "Lady Isabelle, I suppose."

Kingland nodded.

"Does mamma approve?" inquired Stanley.

The young officer shrugged his shoulders.

"I'm going to postpone entering into that matter," he said, "till after the ceremony."

"Oh," said the Secretary shortly. "An elopement. Well, I don't know that I can conscientiously offer my congratulations--to Lady Isabelle, at least, but I dare say you'll find it worth while."

"You needn't be so nasty, just because you've been disappointed."

"Oh, it isn't that; but, as you say, I've no reason to express an opinion. It isn't the first time a young man's eloped with a lady of means."

"Well," snapped the Lieutenant in reply, "it's a shade above eloping with somebody else's wife who happens to have a large bank account."

Stanley sprang to his feet.

"If that cad of a Darcy," he cried, "has been saying----"

"Oh, you needn't a.s.sume the high moral role," said Kingsland. "I've just had the story first hand from him."

"It isn't the first time he's told it to-night," snapped the Secretary.

"What! You don't mean to the fair Belle?"

Stanley nodded, and Kingsland threw himself on the sofa in a paroxysm of laughter.

"But how did you come to see Darcy?" demanded the young diplomat, ignoring his friend's ill-timed merriment. "I ordered him out of the house."

"Yes," replied the Lieutenant, "so he told me. But he's lost a valuable letter in the hall."

"The hall? Why, there doesn't seem to be much chance of losing anything there. There are no draperies and very little furniture."

"Well, it's a queer business," admitted the officer. "But while the Colonel was telling me about your little escapade, he dropped a letter which he had taken from its envelope, and just at that moment the butler came in. He started to pick up the letter for the Colonel, but Darcy jumped forward, and so between them it was pushed under the crack of that old oak door studded with silver nails."

"A letter!" cried the Secretary. "Did you notice what it looked like?"

"No," said Kingsland incautiously, "except that it had an address scrawled across one side in pencil."

Stanley waited to hear no more. Fate seemed playing into his hands at last, and springing to the door he threw it open, and saw to his intense astonishment the figure of Colonel Darcy grovelling on the floor of the hall.

"I thought I told you to leave this house, Colonel Darcy," said Stanley, striving to be calm, but his voice quivering with suppressed emotion.

"So you did," replied his adversary, rising slowly to his feet, very red in the face and somewhat short of breath.

"Then why haven't you gone? Do you wish me to speak to Mrs. Roberts?"

"I intended to obey your request, out of respect to Miss Fitzgerald. But the fact is, I have lost an important letter."

"So Kingsland tells me, though it seems almost impossible."

"Truth, sir, is often stranger than fiction," replied the Colonel angrily, "as our own relations with each other have already proved. But, as you have given me the lie once this evening, you can, if you see fit, prove the truth of my statement by referring it to the butler."

"I gave you the lie, as you express it, Colonel Darcy," replied the Secretary, "because my own knowledge a.s.sured me, that your charges were untrue. In this case, however, I am quite ready to fully accept your statement. But it's a pure waste of time to attempt to recover your letter. For two hundred years they've tried to open that portal, and to this day it remains closed."

"The butler told me some such c.o.c.k-and-bull story--but of course----"

"It's quite true."

"But I must have my letter. I must have it, I tell you--surely someone knows the secret."

"There's a legend current to the effect that the pressure of five of these silver nails, one by each of the five fingers, will suffice to open the door. But to my way of thinking it's likely to remain closed for two centuries to come."

"Curse it!" cried the Colonel, throwing himself against the portal in a frenzy. "It has neither handle nor keyhole, and it's as firm as iron!

What am I to do?"

"If it's absolutely necessary to recover this doc.u.ment, I'll tell Mrs.

Roberts. Though I should doubt if she'd consent to ruin an interesting heirloom for the sake of a gentleman against whom she already entertains a prejudice."

"I couldn't think of it. Impossible to put Mrs. Roberts to so much inconvenience; I shouldn't consider it for a moment! Let the cursed letter remain where it is!" replied the Colonel, evidently very much upset by this proposition.

"As I'd supposed, Colonel Darcy, you would prefer that the doc.u.ment should remain where it is, rather than it should pa.s.s, even temporarily, into any other hands than yours. Might I inquire if it's the one you received from Miss Fitzgerald."

"It is, of course, quite useless to attempt to deceive a diplomat,"

replied his companion, with a touch of temper which was not lost on Stanley, who answered composedly: