The Second Latchkey Part 25

What if there were some scheme for a robbery on a vast scale at Valley House, and this letter were part of the scheme? What if the band of thieves supposed to be "working" lately in London should try to make him a cat's paw in bringing off their big haul?

This was a terrifying idea, and more feasible than the one suggested by the anonymous writer, that Mrs. Nelson Smith should--oh, certainly it seemed the wildest nonsense!

Still, there was his duty to the Van Vrecks. They must be considered ahead of everything! So Ruthven Smith, nervous as a rabbit who has lost its warren, travelled down to Devonshire on Sat.u.r.day afternoon, invited to stay at Valley House till Tuesday.

It was as Knight had said: the dull, deaf man was as completely out of the picture in that house party as an owl among peac.o.c.ks; for he was an inarticulate person and could not talk interestingly even on his own subject, jewels. His idea of conversation with women was a discussion of the weather, contrasting that of England with that of America, or perhaps touching upon politics. He was afraid of questions about jewels lest he should allow himself to be pumped, and the information he might inadvertently give away be somehow "used."

But he was by birth and education a gentleman; and his relationship to Archdeacon Smith, whom everybody liked, was a pa.s.sport to people's kindness.

d.u.c.h.esses and countesses were of no particular interest to Ruthven Smith, but their adornments were fascinating. At Valley House one d.u.c.h.ess and several countesses were a.s.sembled for the Easter party, and they were women whose jewels were famous. Most of these were family heirlooms, but their present owners had had the things reset, and no queen of fairyland or musical comedy could have owned more becoming or exquisitely designed tiaras, crowns, necklaces, earrings, dog-collars, brooches, bracelets, and rings than these great ladies.

For this reason the ladies themselves were interesting to Ruthven Smith, and he might have been equally so to them if he would have told them picturesquely all he knew about the history of their wonderful diamonds, pearls, emeralds, and rubies. It was too bad that he wouldn't, for there was not a famous jewel in England or Europe of which Ruthven Smith had not every ancient scandal in connection with it at his tongue's end.

But on his tongue's end it stayed, even when, for the sake of his own pleasure if nothing else, his hosts and hostesses tried to draw him out.

Nevertheless, he was not sorry that he had come. There was an element of joy in seeing, met together, and sparkling together, those exquisite, historic beauties of which he had read.

It had been a bother to Lady Annesley-Seton and her cousin Anne to decide how Ruthven Smith should be put at table. In a way, he was an outsider, the only one among the guests without a t.i.tle or military rank which mechanically indicated his place in relation to others. Besides, no woman would want to have him to scream at.

Fortunately, however, there were two women asked on account of their husbands, and so--according to Connie's code--of no importance in themselves. Providence meant them to be pushed here and there like p.a.w.ns on a chessboard; and they were pushed to either side of Ruthven Smith at the dinner-table on Sat.u.r.day night.

Both had been placated by being told beforehand what a wonderful man he was, with frightfully exciting things to say, if he could tactfully be made to say them. But only one of the two had courage or spirit to rise to the occasion--the woman he was given to take in, a Lady Cartwright, married to Major Sir Elmer Cartwright, who was always asked to every house whenever the d.u.c.h.ess of Peebles was invited.

Lady Cartwright was Irish, wrote plays, had a sense of humour, and was not jealous of the d.u.c.h.ess. Because she wrote plays, she was continually in search of material, digging it up, even when it looked unpromising.

"I have heard such charming things about you," she began.

"I _beg_ your pardon!" said Ruthven Smith, unable to believe his ears.

And because he was somewhat deaf himself, he could not gauge the inflections of his own voice. Sometimes he spoke almost in a whisper, sometimes very loudly. This time he spoke loudly, and several people, surprised at the sound rising above other sounds like spray from a flowing river, paused for an instant to listen.

"What a wonderful expert in jewels you are," Lady Cartwright replied in a higher tone, realizing that she had a deaf man to deal with. "And that you have been one of the sufferers from that gang of thieves Scotland Yard can't lay its hands on."

Ruthven Smith was on the point of shrinking into himself, as was his wont if any personal topic of conversation came up, when it flashed into his mind that here was an opportunity. If he did not take it, so easy a one might not occur again. He braced himself for a supreme effort.

"Oh, yes, yes, I was robbed," he admitted. "A serious loss! Some fine pearls I had been buying--not for myself, but for the Van Vrecks. I seldom collect valuables for myself. I only wish these things had been mine. I should not have that sense of being an unfaithful servant--though I did my best----"

"Of course you did," Lady Cartwright soothed him. "But these thieves--if it's the same gang, as we all think--are too clever for the cleverest of us. As for the police, they seem to be nowhere. I haven't suffered yet, but each morning when I wake up, I'm astonished to find everything as usual. Not that it wouldn't _seem_ as usual, even if the gang had paid us a visit and made a clean sweep of our poor possessions. They appear to be able to leak through keyholes, as nothing in the houses they go to is ever disturbed."

"Anyhow, they have latchkeys," retorted Ruthven Smith, with what for him might be considered gaiety of manner. "The thief or thieves who relieved me of my pearls--or rather, my employer's pearls--apparently walked in as a member of the household might have done."

Among those who had involuntarily suspended talk to hear what Ruthven Smith was saying about jewels and jewel thieves was Annesley. Though the party would never have been but for Knight and herself, d.i.c.k and Constance were playing host and hostess with all the outward responsibility of those parts. Lord Annesley-Seton had a d.u.c.h.ess on his right, a countess on his left; Lady Annesley-Seton was fenced in by the duke and the count pertaining to these ladies; Mrs. Nelson Smith sat between two less important men, who liked the dinner provided by the American millionaire's miraculous new chef, and they could safely be neglected for a moment.

Annesley felt that Ruthven Smith was, in a way, her special guest, and she was anxious that he should not be the failure Knight had prophesied.

She wanted him not to regret that he had flung himself on the tender mercies of this smart house party, and almost equally she wanted his two neighbours not to be bored by him. Knight would hate that. He attached so much importance to amusing the people whom he invited!

She listened and thought that Mr. Ruthven Smith and Lady Cartwright seemed to have begun well. Then, as she turned to Lady Cartwright's handsome husband (the d.u.c.h.ess of Peebles was talking to d.i.c.k Annesley-Seton just then), she caught the word "latchkey."

It seized her attention. She knew they were speaking of the burglary at Mrs. Ellsworth's house. She heard Ruthven Smith go on to explain in his high-pitched voice that the two woman servants had been suspected, but that their characters had "emerged stainless" from the examination.

"Besides," he continued, "neither of them had a latchkey to give to any outside person. The two women slept together in one room. At the time of the robbery there was no butler----"

Annesley heard no more. Suddenly the door of her spirit seemed to close.

She was shut up within herself, listening to some voice there.

"_What became of your latchkey?_" it asked.

The blood streamed to her face and made her ears tingle, as it used to do when she had been scolded by Mrs. Ellsworth. If any one had looked at her then, it must have been to wonder what Sir Elmer Cartwright or Lord John Dormer had said to make Mrs. Nelson Smith blush so furiously.

She was remembering what she had done with her latchkey. She had given it to Knight to open the front door, and so escape from the two watchers who had followed them in a taxi to Torrington Square. She had never thought of it from that moment to this. Could it be possible that some thief had stolen the latchkey from Knight, and used it when Mrs. Ellsworth's house was robbed?

Her thoughts concentrated violently upon the key. Had her neighbours spoken she would not have heard; but they did not speak. She was free to let her thoughts run where they chose. They ran back to the first night of her meeting with Nelson Smith, and her arrival with him at the house in Torrington Square. She recalled, as if it were a moment ago, putting the key into his hand, which had been warm and steady, despite the danger he was in, while hers had been trembling and cold. She said to herself that she must ask Knight, as soon as they were alone together, what he had done with the key, whether he had left it in the house or flung it away.

But of course he must have left it in the house, or close by, otherwise no thief would have known where it belonged. That made her feel guilty toward Ruthven Smith. She ought not to have been so utterly absorbed in her own affairs that night. She ought to have asked to have the key back, and then to have laid it where it could be found by Mrs. Ellsworth in the morning.

Perhaps, indirectly, _she_ was responsible for the burglary at that house. And, now she thought of it, what a queer burglary it had been! The thieves must certainly have known something about Mrs. Ellsworth, or else, in helping themselves to her valuables, it would not have occurred to them to scrawl a sarcastic message.

That message had delighted Knight when he heard of it. He had laughed and said, "I like those chaps! They can have _my_ money when they want it!"

Since then they _had_ had his money, and other possessions. If the theory of the police were right, that a gang of foreign thieves was "working"

London, Annesley was glad that she and Knight had been robbed. It made her feel less to blame for her carelessness in the matter of that latchkey.

At least, she had suffered, too, and so had Knight.

Could it be, she asked herself, that the _watchers_ were somehow mixed up in the business? Were _they_ members of the supposed gang? That did not seem likely, for how could a man like Knight have got involved with thieves? Yet it seemed, from what he had said that night at the Savoy--and never referred to again--as if he were somehow in their power.

How curiously like one of them Morello had been! She remembered thinking so, with a shock of fear. Then she had lost the feeling of resemblance, and told herself that she must have imagined it.

The two faces came back to her now, and again she saw them alike. She was glad that Knight had never invited Morello to call, and glad that when grudgingly she had asked one day after the two men who had witnessed their marriage, Knight had said, "Gone out of England. We just caught them in time."

As for the watchers, she had heard no more of them. Knight ignored the episode, or the part of it connected with those men. The memory of them was shut up in the locked box of his past, and he never left the key lying about, as apparently he had left the key of Mrs. Ellsworth's house.

Suddenly, while Annesley listened to Ruthven Smith, she became conscious that, as he talked to Lady Cartwright, his eyes had turned to her.

"This proves," the fancy ran through her head, "that if you look at or even think of people, you attract their attention."

She glanced away, and at her neighbours. They were both absorbed for the moment; she need not worry lest they should find her neglectful. She took some asparagus which was offered to her, and began to eat it; but she still had the impression that Ruthven Smith was looking at her. She wondered why.

"He can't be expecting me to scream at him across the table," she thought.

"Yes," he was saying to Lady Cartwright, "it was a misfortune to lose those pearls. Two I had selected to make a pair of earrings can scarcely be duplicated. But none of the things stolen from me compared in value to those our agent lost on board the _Monarchic_. I suppose you read of that affair?"

"Oh, yes," said Lady Cartwright, her voice raised in deference to her neighbour's deafness. "It was most interesting. Especially about the clairvoyant woman on board who saw a vision of the thief in her crystal, throwing things into the sea attached to a life-belt with a light on it, or something of the sort, to be picked up by a yacht. One would have supposed, with that information to go upon, the police might have recovered the jewels, but they didn't, and probably they never will now."

"I'm not sure the police pinned their faith to the clairvoyante's visions," replied Ruthven Smith, with his dry chuckle.

"Really? But I've understood--though the name wasn't mentioned then, I believe--that the woman was that wonderful Countess de Santiago we're so excited about. She is certainly extraordinary. n.o.body seems to doubt _her_ powers! I rather thought she might be here."

Ruthven Smith showed no interest in the Countess de Santiago. Once on the subject of jewels, it was difficult to shunt him off on another at short notice. Or possibly he had something to say which he particularly wished not to leave unsaid at that stage of the conversation.