Miss Million's Maid Part 31

I had heaved a sigh of delight as I had handed those parcels over the post-office counter. It had been the fulfilment of the wish of years!

I expect every hard-up girl knows that impulse, that mad longing that she could make a perfectly clean sweep of every single st.i.tch she possesses to wear! How rapturously she would send it all, all away! Oh, her joy if she might make an entirely new start--with all fresh clothes; good ones, pretty ones, becoming ones! Clothes that she would enjoy wearing, even if there were only so very few of them!

In my case they were so few that I really did not feel that they could support any sort of kit-inspection. Especially under the eyes of mere male men, who never do understand anything that has to do with our attire.

There I stood, in the only frock I had got, in the only other ap.r.o.n and cap (all exquisite of their kind, mind you!), and I said falteringly: "I am very sorry to be disobliging! But I cannot consent to let you search my things, or open my boxes."

"Looks very bad, indeed, that's all I can say," broke out the stout Hebrew gentleman excitedly. "Afraid we shall be obliged to do so, officer, whether this young woman wants to let us or not."

"You can't," I protested. "n.o.body can search a person's box against their will!"

I remember hearing from Million, in the old days of heart-to-heart confidences about her "other situations," that this was "The law of the land."

No mistress had the right of opening the trunk of a reluctant maid on her, the mistress's, own responsibility!

"We might find ourselves obliged to do so, Madam," put in the Scotland Yard man in a quiet, expressionless voice. "We might take steps to enable us to examine this young lady's belongings, if we find it necessary."

"Very well, then, charge me! Get an order, or whatever it's called," I said quietly but firmly. I meditated swiftly. "Getting an order" might take time, quite a lot of time! Anything to do with "the law" seems to take such ages before it happens! In that time Miss Million would, I hope to goodness! have turned up again. If she were here I should not feel so helpless as I do now--a girl absolutely "on her own," with all her visible means of support (notably her heiress-mistress) taken from her!

"Oh, we hope that it will not be found necessary," persisted the manager, who, I suspect, thought he was being very nice about the affair. "I am sure Miss Smith will only have to think the matter over to see the reasonableness of what is being asked her. Here we are, in this big hotel, all sorts of people coming and going----"

"Coming and going" rather described my absent mistress's procedure. "And we find suddenly that a piece of very valuable jewellery is missing."

"The Rattenheimer ruby! Not another like it in the world!" cried the stout and excited Jew. "I won't tell you how much I gave for that stone!

My wife wears it as a pendant, unmounted, just pierced so as to hold on a gold chain.... I won't let that be lost, I can tell you! I will search everywhere, everything, everybody. I tell you, young woman, you need not imagine that you can get out of having your boxes overhauled, if it takes all Scotland Yard to do it!"

Here the pleasant, rather slow voice of the American with the unfamiliar note in boots and clothes and thick, mouse-coloured hair broke in upon the other man's yapping. "Ca'm yourself, Rats. Ca'm yourself. You keep quite ca'm and easy. You won't get anything out of a young lady like this by your film-acting and your shouts!"

"I tell her I'll have her searched."

"Not with my consent," I said, feeling absolutely determined now. "And to do it without my consent you have to wait."

"I shall go through the other girl's things, then, first," snorted the excited Jew. "What's the name of the girl this one's alleged to be working for?" In every look and tone the man voiced his conviction that poor little Million and I were two notorious, practised jewel thieves in a new disguise.

"This woman who calls herself Million, I will go through her things."

"You will not," I said stiffly. "My mistress is out. I will not allow any of her things to be touched during her absence. That is my duty."

"That's so," said the young American softly.

The excited Jew man almost grimaced with rage. Loudly he demanded: "Out, is she? 'Out'? Where may that be?"

How ardently I wished that I knew, myself!

But all I said was: "I fail to see that it has got anything to do with you."

"Probably," said the manager soothingly, "probably when Miss Million returns she will persuade Miss Smith to be more reasonable."

"They are in league together! It is a put-up job! These two girls ...

Half the hotel's talking about them.... There is something fishy about them. I will find out what it is," the fat Jew was bubbling, while the young American took him by the arm and walked him quietly towards the door. The Scotland Yard man had already un.o.btrusively disappeared. Last of all the manager went, with quite a pleasant nod and quite a friendly, "Well, Miss Smith, I expect you will think better of it presently."

I know that all four of them suspects me! They think that Million and I know something about this wretched Rattenheimer ruby, or whatever it is.

Perhaps they think that we are in communication with gangs of jewellery thieves all over Europe? Perhaps they imagine that I am left here to mount guard over some other loot while Million has gone over for a trip to Hamburg or Rotterdam, or wherever it is that people do go with stolen jewels?

And for all I know she may be doing something just as idiotic--the silly girl, getting her head turned and her hair decorated by moon-calves of young lords!... Oh! I wish there was any one to whom I could turn for advice! There is not a soul.

That nice, sensible, reliable Mr. Brace is by this time in Paris. Out of reach! As for Mr. Burke, he is gallivanting at Brighton, and, of course, one could not depend upon him, anyhow!

I feel I must go out.

It's evening, which means that Million has been away from the hotel for twenty-four hours. I have not left it except for that flying visit to the "Thousand and One" Club.

Get a breath of fresh air before dinner I simply must. My head seems whirling round and round, and my nerves feel as if something in them has snapped with a loud tw.a.n.g like a violin string. I shall go out--if they will let me, but I should not be at all surprised if the manager of the hotel and the Rattenheimer creature between them did not mean to let me stir out of their sight.

Still, I shall try. I shall take a little turn on the Embankment, and watch the barges on the river. That ought to have a soothing influence.

How perfectly terrible if I am stopped in the vestibule!...

I was not stopped.

n.o.body seemed to see me go out.

But when I got out into the Strand, with its summer evening crowds of people, I happened to glance across the street, and beheld some one that I had just seen in my room--namely, the quiet-faced man from Scotland Yard. How awful! I was being shadowed! It was a horrible feeling. So horrible that I am sure it could not have been any worse if I had really taken the Rattenheimer ruby, and had it fastened securely inside my black coat at the moment!

I felt as if I had. I wondered if the man would come across and dog my footsteps!

I turned down one of the little quiet streets on the right that lead to the river, and then I did hear footsteps behind me. They were following--positively following--me!

"Good evening!" said a quite friendly but un-English voice. It was not the Scotland Yard detective, then, after all. I turned. It was the young American.

CHAPTER XXII

HER COUSIN TO THE RESCUE

"GOOD evening," I said, coldly looking up at the young man, with a glance that said as plainly as possible, "What do you want?"

"I hoped you might be kind enough to allow me to escort you on this little stroll of yours, Miss Smith," said the young American politely, lifting his grey felt hat. "See here, I guess I'd better introdooce myself. I'm Hiram P. Jessop, of Chicago."

"You are a detective, too, I suppose," I said, still more coldly. We were standing by the railings of the old London churchyard close to the river. The dark-green leaves of the plane-trees rustled above us. "I suppose you are following me to find out if I'm taking Mr.

Rattenheimer's ruby to a p.a.w.nshop?"

The young American smiled cheerfully down at me.

"Nix on the detective racket here," he said, in his queer, slow, pleasant accent. "You can cut out that about Rats and his ruby, I guess.

I don't care a row o' beans where his old ruby has gann to. What I wanted to ask you about was----" He concluded with a most unexpected two words--