The Pagan Madonna Part 42

"No, no!" shouted Cleigh. "The big one first!" as Dennison laid one of the smaller cases on the floor. "Benson, where the devil is the claw hammer?"

The butler foraged in the coat closet and presently emerged with a prier.

Cleigh literally s.n.a.t.c.hed it from the astonished butler's grasp, pried and tore off a board. He dug away at the excelsior until he felt the cool gla.s.s under his fingers. He peered through this gla.s.s.

"Denny, it's the rug!"

Cleigh's voice cracked and broke into a queer treble note.

Jane shook her head. Here was an incurable pa.s.sion, based upon the specious argument that galleries and museums had neither consciences nor stomachs. You could not hurt a wall by robbing it of a painting--a pa.s.sion that would abide with him until death. Not one of these treasures in the casings was honourably his, but they were more to him than all his legitimate possessions. To ask him to return the objects to the galleries and museums to which they belonged would be asking Cleigh to tear out his heart. Though the pa.s.sion was incomprehensible, Jane readily observed its effects. She had sensed the misery, the anxiety, the stinging curiosity of all these months. Not to know exactly what had become of the rug and the paintings! Not to know if he would ever see them again! There was only one comparison she could bring to bear as an ill.u.s.tration: Cleigh was like a man whose mistress had forsaken him without explanations.

She was at once happy and sad: happy that her faith in Cunningham had not been built upon sand, sad that she could not rouse Cleigh's conscience.

Secretly a charitable man, honest in his financial dealings, he could keep--in hiding, mind you!--that which did not belong to him. It was beyond her understanding.

An idea, which had been nebulous until this moment, sprang into being.

"Father," she said, "you will do me a favour?"

"What do you want--a million? Run and get my check book!" he cried, gayly.

"The other day you spoke of making a new will."

Cleigh stared at her.

"Will you leave these objects to the legal owners?"

Cleigh got up, brus.h.i.+ng his knees.

"After I am dead? I never thought of that. After I'm dead," he repeated.

"Child, a conscience like yours is top-heavy. Still, I'll mull it over. I can't take 'em to the grave with me, that's a fact. But my ghost is bound to get leg-weary doing the rounds to view them again. What do you say, Denny?"

"If you don't, I will!"

Cleigh chuckled.

"That makes it unanimous. I'll put it in the codicil. But while I live!

Benson, what did these men look like? One of them limp?"

"No, sir. Ordinary trucking men, I should say, sir."

"The infernal scoundrel! No message?"

"No, sir. The man who rang the bell said he had some cases for you, and asked where he should put them. I thought the hall the best place, sir, temporarily."

"The infernal scoundrel!"

"What the d.i.c.kens is the matter with you, Father!" demanded Dennison.

"You've got back the loot."

"But how? The story, Denny! The rogue leaves me 'twixt wind and water as to how he got out of this hole."

"Maybe he was afraid you still wanted his hide," suggested Jane, now immeasurably happy.

"He did it!" said Cleigh, his sense of amazement awakening. "One chance in a thousand, and he caught that chance! But never to know how he did it!"

"Aren't you glad now," said Jane, "that you let him go?"

Cleigh chuckled.

"There!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands. "Just as he said! He prophesied that some day you would chuckle over it. He found his pearls.

He knew he would find them! The bell!" she broke off, startled.

Never had Benson, the butler, witnessed such an exhibition of undignified haste. Cleigh, Jane, and Dennison, all three of them started for the door at once, jostling. What they found was only a bedraggled messenger boy, for it was now raining.

"Mr. Cleigh," said the boy, grumpily, as he presented a letter and a small box. "No answer."

"Where is the man who sent you?" asked Jane, tremendously excited.

"De office pushed me on dis job, miss. Dey said maybe I'd git a good tip if I hustled."

Dennison thrust a bill into the boy's hand and shunted him forth into the night again.

The letter was marked Number One and addressed to Cleigh; the box was marked Number Two and addressed to Jane.

Mad, thought Benson, as he began to gather up the loose excelsior; quite mad, the three of them.

With Jane at one shoulder and Dennison at the other, Cleigh opened his letter. The first extraction was a chart. An atoll; here were groups of cocoanut palm, there of plantain; a rudely drawn hut. In the lagoon at a point east of north was a red star, and written alongside was a single word. But to the three it was an Odyssey--"Sh.e.l.l." In the lower left-hand corner of the chart were the exact degrees and minutes of longitude and lat.i.tude. With this chart a landlubber could have gone straight to the atoll.

Next came the letter, which Cleigh did not read aloud--it was not necessary. With what variant emotions the three pairs of eyes leaped from word to word!

Friend Buccaneer: Of course I found the sh.e.l.l. That was the one issue which offered no odds. The sh.e.l.l lay in its bed peculiarly under a running ledge. The ordinary pearler would have discovered it only by the greatest good luck. Atherton--my friend--discovered it, because he was a sea naturalist, and was hunting for something altogether different. Atherton was wealthy, and a coral reef was more to him than a pearl. But he knew me and what such a game would mean. He was in ill health and had to leave the South Pacific and fare north. This atoll was his. It is now mine, pearls and all, legally mine. For a trifling sum I could have chartered a schooner and sought the atoll.

But all my life I've hunted odds--big, tremendous odds--to crush down and swarm over. The only interest I had in life. And so I planted the crew and stole the _Wanderer_ because it presented whopping odds. I selected a young and dare-devil crew to keep me on edge. From one day to another I was always wondering when they would break over. I refused to throw overboard the wines and liquors to make a good measure.

And there was you. Would you sit tight under such an outrage, or would your want of revenge ride you? Would you send the British piling on top of me, or would you make it a private war? Suspense!

d.i.c.k Cunningham would not be hard to trace. Old Slue Foot. The biggest odds I'd ever encountered. Nominally, I had about one chance in a thousand of pulling through.

The presence of Mrs. Cleigh--of course she's Mrs. Cleigh by this time!--added to the zest. To bring her through with nothing more than a scare! Odds, odds! Cleigh, on my word, the pearls would have been of no value without the game I built to go with them. Over the danger route! Mad? Of course I'm mad!

Four-year-old sh.e.l.l, the pearls of the finest orient! The sh.e.l.l alone--in b.u.t.tons--would have recouped Eisenfeldt. He was ugly when he saw that I had escaped him. Threatened to expose you. But knowing Eisenfeldt for what he is, I had a little sword of Damocles suspended over his thick neck. The thought of having lost eight months'

interest will follow him to Hades.

The crew gave me no more trouble. They've been paid their dividends in the Great Adventure Company, and have gone seeking others. But I'll warrant they'll take only regular berths in the future.

And now those beads. I'm sorry, but I'm also innocent. I have learned that Morrissy really double-crossed us all. He had had a copy made in Venice. The beads you have are forgeries. So the sixty thousand offered by the French Government remains uncalled for. Who has the originals I can't say. I'm sorry. Morrissy's game was risky. His idea was to make a sudden breakaway with the beads--lose them in the gutter--and trust to luck that we would just miss killing him, which was the case.

Leaving to-night. Bought a sloop down there, and I'm going back there to live. Tired of human beings. Tired of myself. Still, there's the chart. Mull it over. Maybe it's an invitation. The lagoon is like turquoise and the land like emerald and the sky a benediction.