The Datchet Diamonds Part 19

"I won't sit down. How can I sit down when you have something to tell me? I can always listen best when I am standing."

Putting his hands behind his back, Mr. Franklyn a.s.sumed what he possibly intended to be an air of parental authority.

"See here, Miss Strong. You can, if you choose, be as sensible a young woman as I should care to see. If you so choose now, well and good.

But I tell you plainly that on your showing the slightest symptom of hysterics my lips will be closed, and you will not get another word out of me."

If by his attempting to play the part of heavy father he had supposed that Miss Strong would immediately be brought into a state of subjection, he had seldom made a greater error. So far from having cowed her, he seemed to have fired all the blood in her veins. She drew herself up until she had increased her stature by at least an inch, and she addressed the man of law in a strain in which he probably had never been addressed before.

"How dare you dictate how I am to receive any sc.r.a.ps of information which you may condescend to dole out to me! You forget yourself. Cyril is to be my husband; you pretend to be his friend. If it is anything but pretence, and you are a gentlemen, and a man of honour, you will see that it is your duty to withhold no tidings of my promised husband from his future wife. How I choose to receive those tidings is my affair, not yours."

Certainly the lady's slightly illogical indignation made her look supremely lovely. Mr. Franklyn recognised this fact with a sensation which was both novel and curious. Even in that moment of perturbation, he told himself that it would never be his fate to have such a beautiful creature breathing burning words for love of him. While he wondered what to answer, Miss Wentworth interposed, rising from her chair to do so.

"Daisy is quite right, Mr. Franklyn. Don't play the game which the cat plays with the mouse by making lumbering attempts to, what is called, break it gently. If you have bad news, tell it out like a man! You will find that the feminine is not necessarily far behind the masculine animal in fibre."

Mr. Franklyn looked from one young woman to the other, and felt himself ill-used. He had known them both for quite a tale of years; and yet he felt, somehow, as if he were becoming really acquainted with them for the first time now.

"You misjudge me, Miss Strong, and you, Miss Wentworth, too. The difficulty which I feel is how to tell you, as we lawyers say, without prejudice, exactly what there is to tell. As I said, the situation is such an odd one. I must begin by asking you a question. Has either of you heard of the affair of the robbery of the d.u.c.h.ess of Datchet's diamonds?"

"The affair of the robbery of the d.u.c.h.ess of Datchet's diamonds?"

Miss Strong repeated his words, pa.s.sing her hand over her eyes, as if she did not understand. Miss Wentworth, however, made it quickly plain that she did.

"I have; and so of course has Daisy. What of it?"

"This. An addle-headed detective, named John Ireland, has got hold of a wild idea that Cyril knows something about it."

Miss Wentworth gave utterance to what sounded like a half-stifled exclamation.

"I guessed as much! What an extraordinary thing! I had been reading about it just before Mr. Paxton came in last night, and when he began talking in a mysterious way about his having made a quarter of a million at a single coup--precisely the amount at which the diamonds were valued--it set me thinking. I suppose I was a fool."

For Miss Wentworth's quickness in guessing his meaning Mr. Franklyn had been unprepared. If she, inspired solely by the evidence of her own intuitions, had suspected Mr. Paxton, what sort of a case might not Mr. Ireland have against him? But Miss Strong's sense of perception was, apparently, not so keen. She looked at her companions as a person might look who is groping for the key of a riddle.

"I daresay I am stupid. I did read something about some diamonds being stolen. But--what has that to do with Cyril?"

Mr. Franklyn glanced at Miss Wentworth as if he thought that she might answer. But she refrained. He had to speak.

"In all probability the whole affair is a blunder of Ireland's."

"Ireland? Who is Ireland?"

"John Ireland is a Scotland Yard detective, and, like all such gentry, quick to jump at erroneous conclusions."

They saw that Miss Strong made a little convulsive movement with her hands. She clenched her fists. She spoke in a low, clear, even tone of voice.

"I see. And does John Ireland think that Cyril Paxton stole the Datchet diamonds?"

"I fancy that he hardly goes as far as that. From what I was able to gather, he merely suspects him of being acquainted with their present whereabouts."

Although Miss Strong did not raise her voice, it rang with scorn.

"I see. He merely suspects him of that. What self-restraint he shows!

And is that John Ireland on the doorstep?"

"That is a man named Hollier, whom John Ireland was good enough to commission to keep an eye on me."

"Why on you? Does he suspect you also?"

Mr. Franklyn shrugged his shoulders.

"He knows that I am Cyril's friend."

"And all Cyril's friends are to be watched and spied upon? I see. And is Cyril arrested? Is he in prison? Is that the meaning of his absence?"

"Not a bit of it. He seems, temporarily, to have disappeared."

"And when he reappears I suppose John Ireland will arrest him?"

"Candidly, Miss Strong, I fear he will."

"There is something else you fear. And which you fear too!"

Miss Strong swung round towards Miss Wentworth with an imperious gesture. Her rage, despite it being tinged with melodrama, was in its way sublime. The young lady's astonishing intensity so carried away her hearers that they probably omitted to notice that there was any connection between her words and manner and the words and manner of, say, the transpontine drama.

"You fear, both of you, that what John Ireland suspects is true. You feel that Cyril Paxton, the man I love, who would not suffer himself to come into contact with dishonour, whose shoestrings you are neither of you worthy to unloose--you fear that he may have soiled his hands with sordid crime. I see your fear branded on your faces--looking from your eyes. You cravens! You cowards! You unutterable things! To dare so to prejudge a man who, as yet, has had no opportunity to know even what it is with which you charge him!"

Suddenly Miss Strong devoted her particular attention to Miss Wentworth. She pointed her words with a force and a directness which ensured their striking home.

"As for you, now I know what it was you meant last night; what it was which in your heart you accused him of, but which your tongue did not dare to quite bring itself to utter. And you have pretended to be my friend, and yet you are so swift to seek to kill that which you know is dearer than life to the man whom I love and hold in honour. Since your friendship is plainly more dangerous than your enmity, in the future we'll be enemies, openly, avowedly, for never again I'll call you friend of mine!"

Miss Wentworth moved forward, exclaiming--

"Daisy!"

But Miss Strong moved back.

"Don't speak to me! Don't come near to me! If you touch me, woman though I am, and woman though you are, I will strike you!"

Since Miss Strong seemed to mean exactly what she said, Miss Wentworth, deeming, under certain given circ.u.mstances, discretion to be the better part of valour, held her peace. Miss Strong, having annihilated Miss Wentworth, one could but hope to her entire satisfaction, redirected her attention to the gentleman.

"And you pretended to be Cyril's friend! Heaven indeed preserve us from our friends, it is they who strike the bitterest blows! This only I will say to you. You have the courage of your opinions when there's no courage wanted, but were Cyril Paxton this moment to enter the room you would no more dare to hint to him what you have dared to hint to me, than you would dare to fly."

Then, recollecting herself, with exquisite sarcasm Miss Strong apologised for having confused her meaning.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Franklyn, a thousand times. I said exactly the contrary of what I wished to say. Of course, if Cyril did enter the room, there is only one thing which you would dare to do, dare to fly.

I leave you alone together, in the complete a.s.surance that I am leaving you to enjoy the perfect communion of two equal minds."

Miss Strong moved towards the door. Mr. Franklyn interposed.

"One moment, Miss Strong. Where are you going?"