Soldiers of the Queen Part 25

These and other questions followed each other in rapid succession. A robbery at Brenlands! The thing seemed impossible; and yet here was the empty case to prove it. The watch had disappeared, and no one had the slightest notion what could have become of it.

"There's something in this lock," said Valentine, who had been peering into the keyhole. "Lend me your crochet needle, Helen, and I'll get it out."

With some little difficulty the obstacle was removed, and on examination proved to be a fragment of a broken key.

"Hallo!" said Raymond, "here's a clue at any rate. Don't lose it; put it in that little jar on the mantelpiece."

The remainder of the morning was pa.s.sed in an excited discussion regarding the mysterious disappearance of the gold timepiece.

"I can't think any one can have stolen it," said Queen Mab. "How should they have known about it? and, besides, if any one broke into the house last night, how is it they didn't take anything else--that little silver box, for instance?"

"It's stolen, right enough," said Raymond. "It couldn't have been Joe Crouch, could it?"

"Not a bit of it," answered Jack decisively. "He wouldn't do a thing like that. He stole some fruit once, but he's honest enough now."

"Could the servant have taken it?"

"Oh, no!" answered Queen Mab. "I could trust Jane with anything."

During the afternoon the weather cleared, but no one seemed inclined to do anything; a feeling of gloom and uneasiness lay upon the whole company.

Jack was sitting in a quiet corner reading, when his aunt called him.

"Oh, there you are! I wanted to speak to you alone just for a minute.

Helen told me about your quarrel with Raymond, and I want you to make it up. He's going away to-night, and I shouldn't like you to part, except as friends."

The boy frowned. "I don't want to be friends," he answered impatiently. "He's played me some very shabby tricks, and I think the less we see of him the better."

"Perhaps so; but I'm so sorry that you should have actually come to blows, and that while you were staying here with me at Brenlands."

"I'm not sorry! I wish I'd hit him harder!"

"Oh, you 'ugly duckling!'" answered the lady, smiling, and running her fingers through his crumpled hair. "You'll find out some day that 'punching heads,' as you call it, isn't the most satisfactory kind of revenge. However, I don't expect you to believe it now, but I think you'll do what I ask you. Go to Raymond, and say you're sorry you forgot yourself so far as to strike him, and ask his pardon. There, I don't think there is anything in that which need go against your conscience, or that it is a request that any gentleman need be ashamed to make."

Jack complied, but with a very bad grace. If the suggestion had come from any one but Queen Mab, he would have scouted the idea from the first.

He found Raymond swinging in a hammock under the trees.

"I say," he began awkwardly, "I'm sorry I hit you when we had that row.

Aunt Mabel wished me to tell you so."

"Hum! You'll be sorrier still before long. I suppose now you want to 'kiss and be friends'?"

"No, I don't."

"Then if you don't want to be forgiven," returned the other with a sneer, "why d'you come and say you're sorry?"

Jack turned away in a rage, feeling that he had at all events got the worst of this encounter, and that it was entirely his own fault for having laid himself open to the rebuff.

He felt vexed with Helen for telling his aunt what had taken place, and with the latter for influencing him to offer Raymond an apology.

Altogether the atmosphere around him seemed charged with discomfort and annoyance, and even the merry tinkle of the tea-bell was not so welcome as usual.

"Where's Raymond?" asked Queen Mab.

"I think he's putting his things in his bag," answered Valentine.

"Shall I go and call him?"

At that moment the subject of their conversation entered the room. He walked round to his place in silence, pausing for a moment to take something down from the mantelpiece.

"Who owns a key with a sc.r.a.p of steel chain tied on to it?"

"I do," answered Jack. "It belongs to my play-box."

"Well, here it is," returned the other. "I picked it up among the bushes. Do you notice anything peculiar about it?"

"No."

"You don't? Well, here's something belonging to it," and so saying, the speaker flipped across the table the little metal fragment which had been taken from the lock in the cupboard door.

"Confound it!" said Jack. "The thief must have used my key!"

"_Faugh_!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Raymond, bitterly.

Jack looked up quickly with an expression of anger and astonishment.

"What's the matter?" he cried. "D'you mean to say I took the watch?"

"I've said nothing of the kind," answered the other coldly; "though I remember you did say you'd a good mind to steal it. I've simply given you back your key."

If a thunderbolt had fallen in the middle of the pretty tea-table, it could not have caused more astonishment and dismay than this last speech of Raymond's. Every one for the moment was too much taken aback to speak.

The smouldering fire of Jack's wrath had only needed this breeze to set it into a flame. His undisciplined spirit immediately showed itself in an outburst of ungovernable anger.

"You are a cad and a liar!" he said. "Wait till I get you outside."

"Hus.h.!.+ hus.h.!.+" interrupted Miss Fenleigh, fearing a repet.i.tion of the previous encounter. "I can't have such words used here. Perhaps Raymond may be mistaken."

The last words were spoken thoughtlessly, in the heat of the moment.

Jack in his anger resented that "may" and "perhaps," as implying doubt as to his honesty, and regarded the silence of the others as a sign that they also considered him guilty. In his wild, reckless manner he dashed his knife down upon the table, and with a parting glare at his accuser, marched straight out of the room.

Valentine rose to follow him.

"No, Val," said Miss Fenleigh, in an agitated voice. "Leave him to himself for a little while. He'll be calmer directly."

Ten minutes later the front door closed with a bang.

"He's going out to get cool, I suppose," said Raymond scornfully. "He didn't seem to relish my finding his play-box key. However, perhaps he'll explain matters when he comes back."