The Master Detective Part 25

The police were called in. The men in the corridor could not be accounted for, but a search resulted in the finding of the leather case under the bed. The earrings had gone.

Naturally police suspicion fell on the French maid, but the contessa absolutely refused such an explanation. Angelique, who was pa.s.sionately fond of her and of the child, would not do such a thing.

The case looked simple enough, but it proved to be one in which facts did not const.i.tute the best evidence. Indeed, they proved somewhat misleading.

Beautiful, romantic, eccentric, superst.i.tious, and most unfortunate according to her own account, the Contessa di Castalani was the sensation of a whole London season.

As a dancer of a bizarre kind, she had set Paris nodding to the rhythm of her movements and raving about the beauty of her eyes and hair. Her reputation had preceded her to London, and when she appeared at the Regency it was universally admitted that she far surpa.s.sed everything that had been said about her.

The press had duly informed the public that Castalani was one of the oldest and most honored names in Italy. There had been a Castalani in the Medici time, a close friend of the magnificent Lorenzo, it was a.s.serted.

One paper declared that a Castalani had worn the triple tiara, which a learned don of Oxford took the trouble to write and deny. And it would appear that no one who had ever borne the name had been altogether unimportant.

How the family, resident in Pisa, liked this publicity, I do not know.

They made no movement to repudiate this daughter of their house, and I have no reason whatever to doubt that the lady had a perfect right to her t.i.tle. I never heard any scandalous tale about her which even seemed true, and if she and her husband were happier going each their own way, it was their affair.

So much mystery was woven round her during her appearances in the European capitals, that I do not guarantee the correctness of my statements when I say she was of humble origin, a Russian gipsy, I have heard, seen in a Hungarian village by young Castalani, who immediately fell in love with her and married her.

Although in the course of this investigation I saw her many times and she talked a great deal about herself, she was always vague when she was dealing with facts.

I am only concerned with her appearance in London. She attracted overflowing houses to the Regency. A real live countess performing bizarre and daring dances was undoubtedly the attraction to some, the woman's splendid beauty charmed others, while a third section could talk of nothing but her wonderful jewelry.

At least two foolish young peers were said to be in love with her, and there were tales of a well-known Cabinet Minister constantly occupying a stall at the Regency when he ought to have been in his seat in the House.

Had I not taken Christopher Quarles and Zena to the Regency one evening I should probably never have known anything further of the contessa, but it so happened that the professor was very much attracted by her.

He went to the Regency three times in one week to study the inward significance of her dances, he declared. He treated me to a learned discourse concerning them, and was furious when one journal, slightly puritanical in tone, perhaps, said that they were generally unedifying, and in one case, at any rate, immodest.

Zena and I began by laughing at the professor, but he did not like it. He was quite serious in his admiration, and declared that nothing would afford him greater pleasure than an introduction to the dancer.

To his delight he got what he wanted, and incidentally solved one of the most curious cases we have ever been engaged in together.

In the ordinary way the case would never have come into my hands. It was at Quarles's instigation that I asked to be employed upon it, and since small and insignificant affairs are sometimes ramifications of big mysteries, no surprise was caused by my request.

I have not the slightest hesitation in saying that it was the introduction to the woman which interested Quarles rather than her pearls. Indeed, he appeared to think of nothing else beyond making himself agreeable.

It seemed to me she was just as interested in him, talked about herself in a naive kind of way, and was delighted when her little girl, Nella, took a tremendous fancy to the professor, demanding to be taken on his knee and to have his undivided attention.

Christopher Quarles, in fact, presented quite an unfamiliar side of his character to me, and I do not think he would have bothered about the pearls at all but for the fact that the contessa was superst.i.tious about them.

"They were given to me by a Hungarian count," she said in her pretty broken English; "just two pearls. I had them made into earrings. It was the best way I could wear them. They are perfect, and they have a history. They were a thank-offering to some idol in Burmah, but were afterwards sold or stolen--I do not know which. It does not matter; it was a very long time ago; but what does matter is that they bring good luck. I shall be nothing without them, do you see?"

"That I will not believe! You will always be--"

"Beautiful," she said before Quarles could complete the sentence. "Ah, yes, I know that. I have been told that when I cease to be beautiful I shall cease to live. A gipsy in Budapest told me so. But what is beauty if you have no luck?"

"When were they given to you?" Quarles asked.

"A year after I married. Listen, I will tell you a secret. It was the beginning of the little difference with my husband. He was jealous."

"It was natural."

"No, it was not," she answered. "My Hungarian friend, he loved me of course. That is the natural part. I was born like that. Some women are.

It is not their fault. It just is so, and yet people think evil and say, shocking! It is in their own mind--the evil--and nowhere else, and I say 'basta,' and go my way, caring not at all. Why, every night in my dressing room at the Regency there is a pile of letters--like that, and flowers. The room is full of them--all from people who love me--and I do not know one of them. I like it, but it makes no difference to me. I told my husband that it was nothing, but no, he went on being jealous. He was very foolish, but I think some day he will grow sensible. Then I shall very likely say it is too late. The world has said it loves me, and that is better than one Castalani. You do not know the Castalanis?"

"No."

"Ah, they are what you call thoughtful for themselves, very high, and very few people are quite as good, so we had little quarrels, and then a big one, because he said he would throw my pearls into the Arno. I hid them, and he could not find them. If he had found them and thrown them away I would have killed him."

Quarles nodded, as if such a tragedy would have been the most natural thing possible.

"His mother made it worse," the contessa went on, "so we have one fierce quarrel and I speak my mind. I say a great deal when I speak my mind, and I am not nice then. I went away with my little girl. It was very unfortunate, but what could I do? I love dancing, so I go on the stage, and--and I have lost my pearls. See, there is the case, but it is empty."

Quarles looked at it, but I was sure he was not thinking of what he was doing, and he did not even ask the most obvious questions.

I did that, and received scant answers. She was not a bit interested in me.

"My pearls," she went on, "I want my pearls. There are some women pearls love. I am one. When I wear them a little while they are alive.

The colors in them glow and palpitate. They are never dull then. I do not wear them always, only on certain days--on feasts, and when I am very happy."

"We must find them," said Quarles.

"Of course. That is why I come to know you, isn't it?"

The professor was full of her as we left the hotel.

"A most charming woman," he said.

"I doubt if you will find her so when you fail to restore her pearls."

"I shall restore them," he said, with that splendid confidence which sometimes characterized him, but, having no faith in his judgment on this occasion, I went my own way. I searched the maid's boxes and found that she had purloined many of the contessa's things--garments which had hardly been worn, silk scarves, laces--in fact, anything which took her fancy, and which her mistress would not be likely to miss. Of the two men in the corridor I could find no trace. The manager said there were no workmen about the hotel at that time, and the only description I could get from the contessa was so vague that it would have fitted anybody from the Prime Minister to the old bootlace-seller at the end of the street.

One of the hotel servants was confident that he had seen the French maid speak to a man in the street outside the hotel on more than one occasion, but he was not inclined to swear to anything. However, the French maid was finally arrested on suspicion.

I knew that Quarles had been to see the contessa once or twice by himself, and when I went to the Brunswick Hotel on the day after Angelique's arrest, I found him there.

"Ah, you have taken an innocent woman," the contessa exclaimed.

"I think not."

"What you think does not matter at all, it is what I know. I asked her, and she said she had not taken the pearls. Voila! She would not tell me anything that was not true."

"But, contessa--"

"I say there is no evidence against her. You just find two or three of my stupid things in her room, but that is nothing. French maids always take things like that--one expects it. But I am not angry. You think what is quite--quite silly, but you do something which is quite right." And then, turning to the professor, she went on, "But you--you do nothing at all. You come to tea. You come and look at me, and think me very beautiful, which is quite nice and very well, but it does not give me back my pearls."

"It will," said Quarles.

"I have no opinion. I only know I have not the pearls. I gave you the empty case. I want it back with the earrings in it. I have heard that Monsieur Quarles is very clever--that he finds out everything, but--"

"It takes time, contessa," he said, rising. "There is one thing I want to see before I go."