The Second Latchkey Part 16

"They aren't gone?" shrieked his wife, hurrying after him.

"One of them is."

In an instant the three had grouped behind him, where he stood staring at an empty frame, between two others of the same pattern and size, charming old frames twelve or fourteen inches square, within whose boundaries of carved and gilded wood, nymphs held hands and danced.

"Are we _dreaming_ this?" gasped Constance.

"Thank Heaven we're not!" the husband answered. "The two paintings are on wood, you see. So was the missing one. Someone has simply unfastened it from the frame, and trusted to this being a dark, out-of-the-way corner, not to have the theft noticed for hours or maybe days. By all that's wonderful, here's _another_ insurance haul for me! What about the jade Buddha in the Chinese room?"

They rushed back into the green drawing room, and so to the beautiful Chinese room beyond, with its priceless lacquer tables and cabinets. In one of these latter a collection of exquisite jade was gathered together.

And the Buddha which Paul Van Vreck had coveted was gone!

CHAPTER XI

ANNESLEY REMEMBERS

There was great excitement for the next few days at Valley House and throughout the neighbourhood, for the Annesley-Setons made no secret of the robbery, and the affair got into the papers, not only the local ones, but the London dailies.

Two of the latter sent representatives, to whom Lord Annesley-Seton granted interviews. Something he said attracted the reporters' attention to Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith, who had been dining at Valley House on the evening when the theft was discovered, and Knight was begged for an interview.

He was asked if he had formed an opinion as to the disappearance of the three heirlooms, and whether he knew personally Mr. Paul Van Vreck, the American collector and retired head of the famous firm of jewellers, who had wished to buy the vanished treasures.

Having spent most of his life in America, Knight had the theory that unless you wished to be misrepresented, the only safe thing was to let yourself be interviewed. He was accordingly so good-natured and interesting that the reporters were delighted with him. If he had been wishing for a wide advertis.e.m.e.nt of his personality, his possessions, and his plans, he could not have chosen a surer way of getting it.

The two newspapers which had undertaken to boom the "Valley House Heirloom Theft" had almost limitless circulations. One of them possessed a Continental edition, and the other was immensely popular because of its topical ill.u.s.trations.

Snapshots, not so unflattering as usual, were obtained of the young Anglo-American millionaire and his bride, as they started away from the Knowle Hotel in their motor, or as they walked in the garden. Though Knight had disclaimed any personal acquaintance with the great Paul Van Vreck, he was able to state that Mr. Van Vreck had been convalescing at Palm Beach, in Florida, at the time of the robbery. He had had an attack of pneumonia in the autumn, and instead of travelling in his yacht to Egypt, as he generally did travel early in the winter, he had been ordered by his doctors to be satisfied with a "place in the sun" nearer home.

Everyone in America knew this, Knight explained, and everyone in England might know it also, unless it had been forgotten. If Mr. Van Vreck were well enough to take an interest in the papers, he was sure to be amused by the coincidence that the things stolen from Valley House were among those he had wanted to buy.

Knight thought, however, that even if the clever thief or thieves had heard of Van Vreck's whim, no attempt would be made to dispose of the spoil to him. The elderly millionaire, though one of the most eccentric men living, was known as the soul of honour.

The relationship between young Mrs. Nelson Smith and Lord Annesley-Seton was touched upon in the papers; and though it was irrelevant to the subject in hand, mention was made of the Nelson Smiths' plan to live in London.

This gave Constance her chance. At an impromptu luncheon at the Knowle Hotel, before the intended dinner party at Valley House, she referred to the interest Society would begin to take in this "romantic couple."

"Everybody will have fallen in love with you already," she said, "from those snapshots in the _Looking Gla.s.s_. They make you both look such darlings--though they don't flatter either of you. All the people we know will be clamouring to meet you, so you must hurry and find a nice house, in the right part of town, before some other sensation comes up and you're forgotten. How would it be if you took _our_ house for a couple of months, while you're looking round? Naturally, if you _liked_ it, you could keep it on. We'd be delighted, for we have to let it when we can, and it would be a pleasure to think of you in it."

"If we're in it, you must both come and stay, and not only 'think' of us, but be with us: mustn't they, Anita?" Knight proposed. Of course Annesley said yes, and meant yes. Not that she really wanted her duet with Knight to be broken up into a chorus, but she longed to succeed as a woman of the world, since that was what he wanted her to be; and she realized that Lady Annesley-Seton's help would be invaluable.

So, through the theft at Valley House and the developments therefrom, the hidden desires of Nelson Smith and the daughter of the deposed Sugar King accomplished themselves, Connie still believing that she had engineered the affair with diplomatic skill, and Knight laughing silently at the way she had played into his hands.

Detectives were set to work by the two insurance companies, who hoped to trace the thief and discover the stolen Fragonards and the jade Buddha; but their efforts failed; and at the dinner party given in honour of the new cousins, Lord and Lady Annesley-Seton rejoiced openly in their good luck.

"All the same," Constance said, "I _should_ like to know how the things were spirited out of the house, and where they are. It is the first mystery that has ever come into our lives. I wish I were a clairvoyante.

It would be fun!"

"Did you ever hear of the Countess de Santiago, when you lived in America?" asked Knight in his calm voice. He did not glance toward Annesley, who sat at the other end of the table, but he must have guessed that she would turn with a start of surprise on hearing the Countess's name in this connection.

"The Countess de Santiago?" Connie echoed. "No. What about her? She sounds interesting."

"She _is_ interesting. And beautiful." Everybody had stopped talking by this time, to listen; and in the pause Knight appealed to his wife.

"That's not an exaggeration, is it, Anita?"

Annesley, wondering and somewhat startled, answered that the Countess de Santiago was one of the most beautiful women she had seen.

This riveted the attention which Knight had caught. He had his audience, and went on in a leisurely way.

"Come to think of it, she can't have been heard of in your part of the world until you'd left for England," he told Constance. "She's the most extraordinary clairvoyante I ever heard of. That's what made me speak of her. Unfortunately she's not a professional, and won't do anything unless she happens to feel like it. But I wonder if I could persuade her to look in her crystal for you, Lady Annesley-Seton?

"She's an old acquaintance of mine," he went on, casually. "I met her in Buenos Aires before her rich elderly husband died, about seven or eight years ago. She was very young then. I came across her again in California, when she was seeing the world as a free woman, after the old fellow's death. Then I introduced her by letter to one or two people in New York, and I believe she has been admired there, and at Newport.

"But I've only _heard_ all that," Knight hastened to explain. "I've been too busy till lately to know at first hand what goes on in the 'smart' or the artistic set. _My_ world doesn't take much interest in crystal-gazers and palmists, amateur or professional, even when they happen to be handsome women, like the Countess. But I ran against her again on board the _Monarchic_ about a month ago, crossing to this side, and we picked up threads of old acquaintance. She was staying at the Savoy when I left London."

He paused a moment, and added:

"As a favour to me, she might set her accomplishments to work on this business. Only she'd have to meet you both and see this house, for I've heard her say she couldn't do anything without knowing the people concerned, and 'getting the atmosphere.'"

"Oh, we _must_ have her!" cried Constance, and all the other women except Annesley chimed in, begging their hostess to invite them if the Countess came.

No one thought it odd that Mrs. Nelson Smith should be silent, for her remark about the Countess de Santiago's beauty showed that she had met the lady; but to any one who had turned a critical stare upon her then, her expression must have seemed strange. She had an unseeing look, the look of one who has become deaf and blind to everything outside some scene conjured up by the brain.

What Annesley saw was a copy of the _Morning Post_. Knight's mention of the Countess de Santiago's power of clairvoyance at the same time with the liner _Monarchic_ printed before her eyes a paragraph which her subconscious self had never forgotten.

For the moment only her body sat between a young hunting baronet and a distinguished elderly general at her cousins' dinner table. Her soul had gone back to London, to the ugly dining room at 22-A, Torrington Square, and was reading aloud from a newspaper to a stout old woman in a tea gown.

She was even able to recall what she had been thinking, as her lips mechanically conveyed the news to Mrs. Ellsworth. She had been wondering how much longer she could go on enduring the monotony, and what Mrs.

Ellsworth would do if her slave should stop reading, shriek, and throw the _Morning Post_ in her face.

As she pictured to herself the old woman's amazement, followed by rage, she had p.r.o.nounced the words:

SENSATIONAL OCCURRENCE ON BOARD THE S.S. _MONARCHIC_

Even that exciting preface had not recalled her interest from her own affairs. She could remember now the hollow, mechanical sound of her voice in her own ears as she had half-heartedly gone on, tempted to turn the picture of her wild revolt into reality.

The paragraph, seemingly forgotten but merely buried under other memories, had told of the disappearance on board the _Monarchic_ of certain pearls and diamonds which were being secretly brought from New York to London by an agent of a great jewellery firm. He had been blamed by the chief officer for not handing the valuables over to the purser.

The unfortunate man (who had not advertised the fact that he was an agent for Van Vreck & Co. until he had had to complain of the theft) excused this seeming carelessness by the statement that he had hoped his ident.i.ty might pa.s.s unsuspected. His theory was that safety lay in insignificance.

He had engaged a small, cheap cabin for himself alone, taking an a.s.sumed name; had pretended to be a schoolmaster on holiday, and had worn the pearls and other things always on his person in a money belt. Even at night he had kept the belt on his body, a revolver under his pillow, and the door of his cabin locked, with an extra patent adjustable lock of his own, invented by a member of the firm he served. It had not seemed probable that he would be recognized, or possible that he could be robbed.

Yet one morning he had waked late, with a dull headache and sensation of sickness, to find that his door, though closed, was unfastened, and that all his most valuable possessions were missing from the belt.

Some were left, as though the thief had fastidiously made his selection, scorning to trouble himself with anything but the best. The mystery of the affair was increased by the fact that, though the man (Annesley vaguely recalled some odd name, like Jekyll or Jedkill) felt certain he had fastened the door, there was no sign that it had been forced open.