The Oyster Part 51

"A thief!" Bertie Carteret turned white to the lips as he read. They called his wife a thief. He sat for an hour before he moved. Should he go to Cyril Blakeney, fling the foul slander in his face? What should he do?

"Move carefully, or I show this."

Esme had the photograph which could brand Estelle before the world. He feared it, feared his wife. She came in now, dressed to go out.

"Esme," he said hoa.r.s.ely, "Esme, do you know why people dropped you?"

"I have never known," she answered coldly. "Come, Bertie, are you more sensible to-day? Get out of my life and I'll let your girl's reputation be."

She was his wife, bore his name. He told her then, quickly, his brain reeling.

"They say that!" she cried wildly. "Denise let that lie pa.s.s. Denise knew, and let them say I _stole_."

There was no guilt in Esme's storming, but a madness of rage, of blind, futile fury.

"Did you sell diamonds?" he asked. "Esme, tell me the truth, and I'll see the slander buried. You are my wife."

"I did. I sold them," she flung out. "They have the evidence. But Denise gave them to me; she gave me money to buy silence. So that, too--that too! all for one thing. A thief to the world--a fallen woman to you. A thief! Oh, G.o.d! a thief!" Her hands were at her throat; she gasped a little. "Oh! I have borne enough," she raged wildly. "And now Denise shall suffer. Tell as much truth as will clear me, and give me back my own. You don't believe it, Bertie?" There was wild appeal in her tortured eyes.

"Before heaven, no, Esme," he rang out.

"And your belief is as false. Before to-morrow you shall know what I am, and what I've done, and judge me then. I am going to find Denise.

I'll send for you."

"What is there between you?" he asked. "What?"

"You'll know to-morrow." There were tears now in her eyes; just at the door she turned, held out her hands. "Forgive a sinner, Boy," she faltered, "though not the sinner you dream of." In all her bravery and paint she was very pitiful.

Before Bertie could answer she had slipped away.

She had gone to the Blakeneys; there was something between the two women.

Then Marie, trim, moving deftly, came in.

"Monsieur," she said.

"Well?" He hated the woman who held the photograph and had shown it.

"Monsieur, I would follow Madame. She was distraught, wild! There is some secret, Monsieur, between her and Milady Blakeney. Always notes to the club, and notes by special messenger for Madame, though it is that they do not speak. And, Monsieur, I leave to-day. I go to be married. I will speak. Has Monsieur never suspected anything? Before I left Madame, Madame was enceinte. I know, I could not be mistaken. The two Madames then disappear--alone. Has Monsieur never seen?"

"What?" almost shouted Bertie. He got his hands on the maid's shoulder, unconsciously he shook her.

"_How like Milady Blakeney's son is to Madame here_," hissed Marie; "that when he was ill Madame sat here as one distraught. Ah! gently, Monsieur."

"You mean?" he gulped out, letting go.

"That Milady Blakeney is not the mother of one of her children," said the Frenchwoman, softly. "And that sorrow for having parted with her child has made Madame so miserable as she is now. Follow her, Monsieur.

She is worn out from drugged sleep--from remedies full of the cocaine.

Follow her swiftly."

"Woman, I think you're mad."

With a groan stifled in his throat Bertie ran down the stairs and hailed a taxi to drive to Grosvenor Square.

The butler was human; distress and gold broke his reserve.

"Her ladyship was out of town. Master Cecil had not been well, and her ladyship and the children were at Trelawney in Devonshire."

Trelawney was the village close to Cliff End.

"Mrs Carteret was here, sir. She got a time-table and looked out the trains; she has left for Devonshire, I fancy. There is a fast train reaching Trelawney at about four, no other now for some time. Mrs Carteret, sir, said she would get a motor, as it would be much quicker."

"You, Carteret!" Cyril Blakeney had driven up in his big car. "What is the matter? You look ill."

"Slander's the matter. Mischief's the matter," Bertie burst out. "A story too strange for credence is the matter."

"A moment! Come in here. The doorstep's no home for confidence."

"With you--who spread this lying tale!" rasped Bertie.

The two men faced each other. One worn from unhappiness; one big, prosperous, untroubled.

"You've only heard it now then? Now, Carteret? Come in here. You're ill. Keep the car, Jarvis! Come and hear my side."

There was something dominant in Sir Cyril; his will forced Bertie into the dining-room, kept him there to listen to the explanation. There, quietly, without any exaggeration, he told the whole story.

"And you believed this? One side," said Bertie, bitterly. "Sir Cyril, your wife lied; she gave diamonds to my wife."

"Gave them? Why?" The big man's voice rang in cool contempt. "That's your wife's story to you."

"As silence money for some secret. Esme told me that. It must have been when they were away in Italy. Sir Cyril, my wife was not lying to-day.

It was the truth."

"And if mine was?" The big chin stuck out, the heavy brows drew together. Cyril Blakeney could always think quickly. "As silence money," he muttered.

Bertie talked on, told how he had spoken to Esme, and what she had said. "And she was telling the truth," he said proudly. "She's no thief, Blakeney."

Denise had spent a great deal of money; Cyril knew that; on charity, she said. He had no thought of what it could be. He believed in his wife as much as he believed in any woman.

"Come to Trelawney," he said quietly. "My car is at the door. We cannot catch a train now, and if your wife is hysterical, overwrought, there may be trouble."

As a man in a dream, Bertie went with Sir Cyril, heard the quiet questioning, nothing forgotten.

"The tank's fairly full, isn't it? Put out the jack and the levers. We shall not want you, Anderson. Now, Carteret. Oh, you'll want a coat--take one of mine. We must run fast for it's a long way."

The big Daimler glided off, threading her decorous, restrained way through London, gathering speed in the endless dreariness of the suburbs, shooting past tradesmen's carts, past suburban children herded by nurses in spotless white, for Suburbia on two hundred a year must not be surpa.s.sed by Belgravia on four thousand. Then the open country, the hum of warm engines, the glorious rush of the highly-powered car through the sunlit world, spurning the miles, taking the hills contemptuously, rushing along the level. Roads showed white ribbons, and then when that ribbon was gone another was to be ruled off.

Policemen sprang out waving angry hands; the red car was past and away, and the quiet man who drove did not mean to stop. They stopped once for petrol and water, drank a whisky and Perrier, and munched some biscuits.