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The Box with Broken Seals (Strange Case of Mr. Jocelyn Thew), a novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim |
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Chapter 21 |
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_ CHAPTER XXI Crawshay, about half an hour later, piloted his companion to the table which he had engaged in the restaurant with all the _savoir faire_ of a redoubtable man about town. She was, in her way, an exceedingly striking figure in a black satin gown on which was enscrolled one immense cluster of flowers. Her neck and arms, very fully visible, were irreproachable. Her blue-black hair, simply arranged but magnificent, triumphed over the fashions of the coiffeur. The transition from Fourteenth Street to her present surroundings seemed to have been accomplished without the slightest hitch. She leaned forward to smell the great cluster of white roses which he had ordered in from the adjoining florist's. "The one flower I love," she sighed. "I always fall for white roses." Crawshay's eyes twinkled as he took his place. "Do you remember your English history?" he asked. "This is perhaps destined to become a battle of red and white roses--red roses at Claridge's and white roses here." "Which won--in history?" she asked indifferently. "That I won't tell you," he said, "in case you should be superstitious. At the same time, I am bound to confess that if we could both of us hear exactly what Jocelyn Thew is saying to-night across those red roses, I think perhaps that I should back the House of York." "So that's the stunt, is it?" she remarked coolly. "You want to make me jealous of Katharine Beverley?" "The cleverest and hardest men in the world," Crawshay observed, "generally meet with their Waterloo at the hands of your sex. So far as I am concerned, I am myself in distress. I am jealous of Jocelyn Thew." "You're bearing up!" "I am bearing up," Crawshay rejoined, "because I am hoping that with kindness and consideration, and with opportunity to prove to you what a domestic and faithful person I am, you will perceive that of the two men I am the more worthy." "Think something of yourself, don't you?" she observed. "I have cultivated this confidence," he told her. "In my younger days I was over-diffident." "Guess you're older than I thought you, then." "I am thirty-seven years old," he declared, "and I was well brought up." "Jocelyn Thew," she said reflectively, "is forty." "I did not bring you here," he declared, "to discuss the age of my unworthy rival. I brought you to tell me whether you consider that this _Lobster Americaine_ reminds you at all of Delmonico's, and to prove to you that we can, if we put our minds to it and speak plain and simple words to the _sommelier_, serve our champagne as iced even as you like it." Nora was not wanting in appreciation. "It's the best thing I've had to eat since I left New York, and for some time before that," she assured him. "There hasn't been much Delmonico's for me during the last few months. Too many of your lot poking about Fourteenth Street." He nodded. "After all," he said, "that was bound to come to an end when America declared war. You people did the only wise thing--brother to San Francisco, eh, your father to Chicago, and you over here?" "You do know things," she laughed. "I am a perfect dictionary as to your movements," he assured her. "Have you anything to do with the fact that my rooms have been searched by the police?" she asked abruptly. "Indirectly I fear so," he confessed. "You see, up to the present we haven't the least idea as to what has become of all those documents and plans which Mr. Jocelyn Thew so very cleverly brought over to this country." "Don't know where he's tucked them away, eh?" she enquired. "That's a fact," Crawshay confessed. "We discovered, a trifle too late, how they were brought over, but what has become of them since Jocelyn Thew's arrival in London we do not know. Every one concerned has been searched, no deposit has been made at any hotel or in any of the ordinary places where one might conceal securities. They have momentarily vanished." The girl's eyes twinkled. "Well," she exclaimed, "he does put it over you, doesn't he? I wonder whether you think that I am going to be any use to you--that you'll trap Jocelyn Thew through me?" "Not now," he answered. "I used to think so once." "Why have you changed your mind?" "Because," he told her bluntly, "I used once to think that you and he cared for one another." "And now?" "I have changed my mind," he admitted. "You know him so well that I need not remind you that where women are concerned he seems to have shown few signs of weakness. Personally, I have a theory that the time has come when he is likely to go the way of all other men." She leaned across the table. Those wonderful brown eyes of hers were lit with an indescribable interest. Crawshay for a moment lost the thread of his thoughts. They were certainly the most beautiful eyes he had ever looked into. "You think there is anything between those two--Katharine Beverley and him?" "The consideration of that point," Crawshay continued, resuming his usual manner, "although it lies off the track of my present investigation, presents some points of interest. She can be of no further use to him in his present scheme. She certainly would not aid him in the concealment of any of his spoils, nor could she become an intermediary in forwarding them to their destination. Yet he has sent her roses every day she has been in England, and dined with her two nights following. You, who know him better than I do, will agree that such a course is unusual with him." "But Dick Beverley is with them to-night, you told me," she reminded him. "That scarcely alters the situation," Crawshay pointed out, "because his coming was quite unexpected. If anything, it rather strengthens my point of view. Beverley is very much a young man of the world, and he probably knows Jocelyn Thew's reputation. He certainly would not consent to meet him in this friendly fashion, in company with his sister, unless the latter insisted." "She doesn't need to insist," Nora said, watching the champagne poured into her glass. "Unless you're kidding me, you don't seem to be able to see much further than your nose. Katharine Beverley didn't come across the Atlantic for her health, and Dick Beverley didn't join that little dinner party for nothing to-night. They both of them did as they were told, and they had to do it." "This, I must confess," Crawshay murmured, smoothly and mendaciously, "puzzles me. Your idea is, then, that Jocelyn Thew has some hold over them?" She laughed at him a little contemptuously. "You are not going to make me believe," she said, "that you are not wise about that. It isn't clever, you know, to treat me as a simpleton." "I am afraid," he confessed humbly, "that it is I who am the simpleton. You think, then, that the red roses are more emblematic of warfare than of love?" Nora shrugged her shoulders and was silent for several moments. Her companion changed the subject abruptly, pointed out to her several theatrical celebrities, told her an entertaining story, and talked nonsense until the smile came back to her lips. It was Nora herself who returned to the subject of the Beverleys, reopening it with a certain abruptness which showed that it had never been far from her thoughts. "See here, Mr. Crawshay," she said, "you seem to me to be wasting a lot of time worrying round a subject, when I don't know whether a straightforward question wouldn't clear it up for you. If you want to know what there is between those three, Jocelyn Thew and the two Beverleys, I don't know that I mind telling you. It's probably what you asked me to dine with you for, anyway." "My dear Miss Sharey!" Crawshay protested, with genuine earnestness. "I can assure you that I had only one object in asking you to spend the evening with me." She smiled at him over the glass which she had just raised to her lips. "And that?" "The pleasure of talking to you--of being with you." "You're easily satisfied." "Perhaps not so easily as I seem," he whispered, leaning a little forward in his place. "If only I were sure that you were not in love with Jocelyn Thew!" "If you think that I am," she observed, "why are you always slinging that Beverley girl at me?" "Perhaps," he said coolly, "to make you jealous. All's fair in love and war, you know." "I see. Then what you really want is to make love to me yourself? I'm sitting here and taking notice. Go right ahead." Crawshay let himself go for a few moments, and his companion listened to him approvingly. "It sounds quite like the real thing," she sighed, "but I never trust you Englishmen. You seem to acquire the habit of talking love to us girls just as easily as you drink a cocktail. You know that if I were to put my little hand in yours this moment across the table, you wouldn't know what to do with it." "Try me," Crawshay begged. She held it out--a long, rather thin, capable woman's hand, manicured a few hours ago in the latest fashion, but ringless. Crawshay promptly raised it to his lips. She snatched it away, half amused, half vexed, and glanced furtively around. "If you did that in an American restaurant," she told him, "you'd stand some chance of getting yourself laughed at." "It's quite the custom over here and on the Continent," he assured her equably. "It means--well, just as much as you want it to mean." She sighed and looked at her fingers reflectively. "What you'd like me to tell you, then," she suggested, raising her eyes and looking at him thoughtfully, "is that I've never wasted a thought on Jocelyn Thew, but that Mr. Reginald Crawshay is it with a capital 'I'?" "It would make me very happy," he assured her with much conviction. She laughed at him very softly. Little sparks seemed to flash from her eyes, and her teeth were wonderful. "You're very nice, anyway," she declared, "although I am not sure that I believe in you as much as I'd like to. I'll just tell you as much as I know. It really doesn't amount to anything. It was just after Jocelyn Thew had come back from Nicaragua and Dick Beverley was having a flare-up of his own in New York. They came together, those two, when Dick was in a tight corner. I don't know the story, but I know that Jocelyn Thew played the white man. Dick Beverley owes him perhaps his life, perhaps only his liberty, and his sister knows it. That's how those three stand to one another." "I ought to have puzzled that out myself," Crawshay said humbly. "I am not so sure," she retorted drily, "that you didn't, long ago." "Surmises are of very little interest by the side of facts," he reminded her. "I like to have something solid to build upon." She smiled at him appreciatively. "If I were a sentimental sort of girl," she declared, "I could take a fancy to you, Mr. Crawshay." "Now you're laughing at me," he protested. "However, I'm going right on with it and then we will dismiss all serious subjects. Miss Beverley has certainly quit herself of any obligation to Jocelyn Thew. Richard Beverley is no longer free. Besides, he has only a couple of days in England, so there's very little chance of his being of use. Yet," he continued impressively, "I happen to know that every hour just now is of the greatest importance to Jocelyn Thew. Why does he spend another entire evening with these two?" "Say, which of us is the detective--you or me?" she demanded. "Professionally, I suppose I am," he admitted. "Just now, however, I consider myself as indulging in the relaxation of private life." She leaned across the table towards him, her chin supported by her clenched hands. "Then relax all you want to," she begged, with a smile of invitation. "We'll drop the other stunt, if you don't mind. And please remember, though I've never enjoyed a dinner more in my life, that we don't want to be too late for the Empire." Crawshay returned to his rooms about one o'clock the next morning, with his hat a little on the back of his head, and wearing, very much against his prejudice, a white rose in his buttonhole. Brightman, who was awaiting him there, looked up eagerly at his entrance. "Any luck, Mr. Crawshay?" Crawshay laid his hat and coat upon the table and mixed himself a whisky and soda. "I am not sure," he replied thoughtfully. "Are you any good at English history, Brightman?" "I won an exhibition in my younger days," the detective replied. "I used to consider myself rather great on history." "Who won the Wars of the Roses?" "The Lancastrians, of course." Crawshay nodded. "They were the chaps with the red roses, weren't they?" he observed. "Brightman, I fancy we are going to reverse that. I am laying five to one that I've found out how Jocelyn Thew counts on getting his spoils into Germany." _ |
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