Christopher Quarles Part 26

"I don't think so," said Quarles. "As a convict, these men, who have been convicts themselves, or will be, would have had sympathy with him. They hadn't any. They were afraid of him. They felt it was strange that Glider should have confided in him, and could only find an explanation by supposing that Glider had sized him up and taken his chance for the sake of the missus. We may a.s.sume, therefore, that Glider had trusted a man no one would expect him to trust. This suggests urgency, and I fancy a man, nicknamed Glider, has recently died in one of His Majesty's prisons--Portland I should guess.

Probably our adventurers sailed from Weymouth. Now, Glider could not have been in Portland long. A year last February he was free to do the job with which this expedition is connected, and of which I should imagine he is not suspected by the police. Probably he was taken for some other crime soon after he had committed this one. He had no opportunity to dig up the treasure he had buried, which he certainly would have done as soon as possible. Yet Glider must have been long enough in prison to size up the dead man yonder--a work of some time, I fancy. You noticed his hands. Did they show any evidence of his having worked as a convict? You saw the mark across the forehead. That was made by a stiff cap worn constantly until a day or two ago. I think we shall find there is a warder missing from Portland."

"A warder!"

The idea was startling, yet I could pick no hole in the professor's argument.

"Even a warder is not free from temptation, and I take it this man was tempted, and fell. Glider, no doubt, told him of the captain and his mate. He had worked with them before, probably, and trusted them; also, he might think they would be a check upon the warder. I shouldn't be surprised if the warder were the only one of the three who insisted that the widow should have her share, and so came by his death. The flaw in the riddle keeps the treasure safe. Perhaps I shall solve it during the day. By the way, Wigan, it must be getting near low-water."

It was a beastly morning, persistent rain from a leaden sky. The tide was out, only a thin strip of water separating the yacht from the mud.

"I fear there will be no golfers on the links to-day to whom we might signal," said Quarles; "and I could not even swim that."

"I can," I answered.

"It would be better than spending another night here," said the professor. "Send a boat round for me, and inform the police. I am afraid the captain and his mate have got too long a start; but don't leave Lingham until we have had another talk. While I am alone I may read the riddle."

The ducking I did not mind, and the swim was no more than a few vigorous strokes, but I had forgotten the mud. As I struggled through it, squelching, knee-deep, Quarles called to me:

"They must have landed him at high-water yesterday, Wigan, and then crossed over and taken the direction from him. I thought he was feeling about with the flag when we first saw him on the green. No doubt he made some sign to the others across the creek to lie low when he saw us coming. They marked the place in daylight and went at night to dig."

I sank at least ten inches deeper into the mud while he was speaking.

He got no answer out of me. I felt like hating my best friend just then.

After changing my clothes at the hotel, where I accounted for my condition by a story, original but not true, I told Zena shortly what had happened, then sent a boat for the professor. I then told the Lingham police, who wired to the police at Colchester, and I also telegraphed to Scotland Yard and to Portland Prison.

I did not see Quarles again until the afternoon.

"Have you solved the riddle?" I asked.

"I think so. We'll go to that ninth hole at once. The police are continuing the excavations begun by our friends. I've had a talk to the professional at the golf club. They move the position of the holes on a green from time to time, you know, Wigan; and with the professional's help I think we shall be able to find out where it was a year last February. He is a methodical fellow. That will give us a different direction on the north bank of the creek. It was a natural oversight on the convict's part. Were I not a golfer I might not have thought of the solution."

We found the treasure a long way from where the other digging had been done. It consisted of jewels which, in the early part of the previous year, had been stolen from Fenton Hall, some two miles inland. The theft, which had taken place when the house was full of week-end visitors, had been quickly discovered, and the thief, finding it impossible to get clear away with his spoil, had buried it on the desolate bank of the creek, marking the spot by a mental line drawn through the chained pile and the flag on the golf course. He must have known the neighborhood, and knew this was the ninth hole, or link as he called it, or as the warder had written it down. For Quarles was right, a warder was missing from Portland, and was found dead in that aft cabin.

The yacht was known at Weymouth, and belonged to a retired seaman, a Captain Wells, who lived at a little hotel when he was in the town. He was often away--sometimes in his yacht, sometimes in London--and there was little doubt that his boat had often been used to take stolen property across to the Continent. Neither the captain nor his mate could be traced now, but it was some satisfaction that they had not secured the jewels.

As I have said, I did manage to get some moonlight walks with Zena, but not many, for a week after we had recovered the Fenton Hall jewels I was called back to town to interview Lord Leconbridge.

CHAPTER X

THE DIAMOND NECKLACE SCANDAL

I never heard Lord Leconbridge address the House of Lords, but it has been said that every sentence he uttered required half a dozen marginal notes, that his speeches were the concentrated essence of his vast knowledge, and, without annotation, were quite incomprehensible to those who were less familiar with the subject. I understood the truth of this when I was brought in contact with him over the affair of the diamond necklace, a sensation which set fas.h.i.+onable London gossiping all the season, and, according to some people, has never been cleared up satisfactorily.

I can give the story Lord Leconbridge told me in a few lines:

With his wife and Mr. Rupert Lester, his son by his first marriage, he attended a reception at the d.u.c.h.ess of Exmoor's, in Park Lane. Lady Leconbridge was wearing the famous diamonds. He was about to present Jacob Hartman, the banker, to his wife, when he noticed that the necklace was gone. His wife was quite unconscious of the fact till that moment. A search was inst.i.tuted, but without result, and in the few hours which had elapsed between the time of the loss and my interview with him nothing had been heard of the jewels.

The story, as I told it three days later to Christopher Quarles, was an edition with marginal notes, the result of investigation and questions put to many people.

"I am interested in Lord Leconbridge," said the professor; "he is one of the few men who count. Whether I shall get interested in his family jewels is another matter. Still, we happen to be in the empty room, and Zena is here to ask absurd questions; so tell your story, Wigan."

"When Lady Leconbridge came down to dinner that evening she was wearing pearls. As she entered the drawing-room her husband admired her appearance and her dress, but suggested that the diamonds would be more suitable than the pearls. She questioned his taste, and appealed to her stepson. This only appeared to make her husband more determined, and Lady Leconbridge went upstairs and changed the pearls for the diamonds. The jewels were certainly not lost on the way to Park Lane, for the d.u.c.h.ess of Exmoor noticed them five minutes before they were missing. The loss was discovered by Lord Leconbridge when he was about to present Jacob Hartmann to his wife. The reception was a semi-political one; a footman says he knew everyone who pa.s.sed through the hall; and I have ascertained that the known thieves, who might be able to deal with such stones as these, were not at work that night. A curious story comes from a housemaid. On the chance of catching a glimpse of some of the guests, she was looking down from a dark corner of the stairs on to a corridor which was only dimly lighted, not being used much that evening, when she heard the low voices of a man and woman talking eagerly. The woman was either afraid or angry, and the man seemed excited. Then she saw a man come quickly along the corridor, and the next moment there was the sound of broken gla.s.s.

She did not know who he was, and the woman she did not see at all. The servant thought no more of the incident until she heard that the diamonds were missing. The window of a small room opening out of this corridor was found broken, and I find ample evidence that it was broken from inside. A thief might have escaped that way, but it would be a difficult task."

"Who first told you that Lady Leconbridge was wearing pearls when she went down to dinner?" asked Quarles.

"Her maid."

"Lord Leconbridge did not mention this fact?"

"No; but later he corroborated the maid's story; as did also his wife and his son."

"What is Lord Leconbridge's att.i.tude?" asked Quarles.

"He is extremely irritated, rather at the annoyance caused to his wife than at the loss of the jewels, I fancy."

"Were I Lady Leconbridge I should be something more than annoyed,"

Zena remarked.

"Ah! that's not the point, my dear," and the professor picked up an evening paper. "At the end of a column of stuff dealing with this robbery there is this paragraph: 'Before her marriage Lady Leconbridge was Miss Helen Farrow, an actress, who was rapidly making a reputation. Not long ago, it will be remembered, she played Lady Teazle at a command performance of Sheridan's masterpiece. Her last part was that of Mrs. Clare in Brickell's play, which was such a success at the St. George's Theater, and her charming impersonation of the heroine will be fresh in the public mind. Her marriage came as a great surprise, both to the theatrical and social world.'

"A short paragraph," Quarles went on, "but with a sting in the tail of it. People talked a great deal at the time of the marriage three years ago. Leconbridge was called an old fool for going to the stage for a second wife, and it was suggested that, if he must marry an actress, he might have made a better choice. When this kind of thing is said about a beautiful woman there are plenty of evil-minded persons to make the worst of it. You see, Zena, there is some reason for Lord Leconbridge's irritability."

"I do not believe there was the slightest foundation for the gossip,"

I said. "Lady Leconbridge is a most charming person."

"I know nothing about her," said Quarles, tapping the paper; "but I am certain that this affair will revive the old gossip."

"I wonder why the d.u.c.h.ess noticed the diamonds so particularly that evening," said Zena.

"Probably because she had not seen them before," I answered. "Mr.

Lester told me they were seldom worn--suggested, indeed, that their size and setting were so conspicuous as to make them rather vulgar."

"I did not know that famous family jewels could be considered vulgar,"

she returned; "but, if so, why was Lord Leconbridge so anxious that his wife should wear them on this occasion?"

Quarles nodded and looked at me.

"A whim," I said; "hardening into a firm determination when his son opposed him. Men are like that."

"Are father and son not on good terms, then?"

"It has been said that Lord Leconbridge wors.h.i.+ps his son," I returned.

"What age is Rupert Lester?" Zena asked.