Paul Campenhaye, Specialist in Criminology/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI.
MRS. DUQUESNE.
THERE was nothing much to occupy my attention at the office that June afternoon, and I was just thinking of spending the rest of it at Lord’s, where a particularly interesting match was in progress between Middlesex and Yorkshire, when my clerk brought in a telegram, the wording of which caused me to make an immediate alteration in my plans. The phraseology of that message was somewhat old-fashioned; I smiled as I read it:
“The Duke of Saxonstowe presents his compliments to Mr. Paul Campenhaye, and will be greatly obliged if Mr. Campenhaye will come to Saxonstowe by the 3.15 train from Marylebone, as he wishes to consult him on an affair of the most serious and urgent importance. The Duke will meet Mr. Campenhaye at Elmford Station, at 5.30, unless Mr. Campenhaye replies to this message in the negative.”
To seize a telegraph form and dash off an affirmative answer was the work of a moment; to get out a portmanteau which I always kept at the office, packed ready for any emergency, the task of another; within five minutes I was off to the Great Central Railway, and at the time when I might have been in the pavilion at Lord’s, was rushing through the London suburbs towards the North. I had leisure to wonder a little why I was being summoned in such haste.
Oddly enough, the Duke of Saxonstowe—Henry John Domfreville, twenty-first Duke of Saxonstowe, and holder of at least half a dozen titles, of Saxonstowe Park, in Nottinghamshire, 175, Berkeley Square, in London, and Domfreville Castle, in Scotland—was one of the very few English great peers with whom I was not even acquainted by sight. That was probably because his Grace was very young, and had been little known or seen about town. There was no need, however, for me to turn up the “Debrett” which I always carried in my hand-bag—it was my business to know all about the members of the peerage. The Duke of Saxonstowe, I therefore reminded myself, was at that time twenty-four years of age. He had been educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford. After leaving Oxford with a more than usually good degree, he had travelled a great deal in North and South America. He was understood to be studious and reserved; no one had ever heard of him in connection with either the ladies of the chorus or the gentlemen of the money-lending profession. If he was not a multi-millionaire, he was, at any rate, very rich; and if he had no very great reputation as a sportsman, he was making one as a collector of books and pictures. I was prepared, therefore, to meet a young gentleman who was inclined to the passive rather than to the active side of life.
However, when I left the train—specially stopped for my benefit—at the little roadside station of Elmford, I found myself greeted by what most people would call the beau-ideal of a youthful country squire. The duke was a sandy-haired, fresh-coloured, tallish young man, dressed in a well-worn tweed suit, an old cap, and stout boots; he carried an ash-plant stick, and was attended by two business-like fox-terriers. His hand was as big and strong as a blacksmith’s, and his smile ready and kindly. But I saw at once that he was greatly troubled in mind about something, and that he would be uncommonly glad to make me his father-confessor.
“It is awfully good of you to come down at such short notice, Mr. Campenhaye,” said his Grace, gripping my hand. “I’m much obliged to you. Now, as it’s such a delightful evening, and there’s lots of time before dinner, perhaps you won’t mind if we walk home across the park? Then—then I can talk to you quietly. There’s a dog-cart outside for your luggage,” he added. “Can you manage a two-mile walk?”
I laughingly replied that I was equal to a ten-mile walk if he wished it, and we presently crossed the road and, passing through a small lodge, entered a park which spread away as far as the eye could reach, and was remarkable at first sight for its ancient oaks and spreading beeches, beneath which a vast quantity of deer and cattle moved slowly in the afternoon sunshine. Far away in the remote distance, I caught a glimpse of high gables; that, I supposed to be the house. It was a fair and eminently English prospect, and one to be proud of.
“Mr. Campenhaye,” said the duke, as we set out across the park, “I have heard of you as a man in whom the fullest confidence can be reposed. That is why I sent for you. I am face to face with a very great trouble.”
“If your Grace will be good enough to confide in me,” I said, “I think you will not regret it. Let me hear everything. That is the only stipulation I make with all my clients.”
“Oh, yes!” he answered. “Yes, of course, I shall tell you everything. Let me begin at the beginning. I may as well say, Mr. Campenhaye, that I have no great love for London in spring and summer, and that I prefer this to anything London can give me. That is why I am here during the season. But I am not a hermit, and now and then I gather small parties of friends round me. I have just had one such party staying with me, and out of that the trouble has arisen. I must give you the names of the people. There was, and is, my aunt, Lady Louisa Ashe, who has acted as hostess; then Professor Ridsdale, of Oxford, and his wife; then Colonel Polkard, with whom I was travelling last year in Patagonia; my cousin, Horace Dalrymple—he and I were at school and college together—and my friends, Mrs. Duquesne and Miss Manning.”
I noticed that he gave me some indication of who or what all the members of this house-party were, with the exception of the last-named two ladies; I also observed that he spoke their names with some hesitation.
“And who,” I asked, “are Mrs. Duquesne and Miss Manning?”
Before replying he drew out a cigar-case and offered it to me. He took out a cigar himself when I had got one, and as he lighted it I saw that his fingers trembled a little.
“Mrs. Duquesne,” he answered, “is the widow of Stephen Duquesne, the famous Orientalist. I knew them well before his death.”
“I have heard of him,” said I. “How old is Mrs. Duquesne?”
“I should think about twenty-seven,” he replied; “but really I do not know.”
“And Miss Manning is” I enquired.
“The daughter of my old tutor at Oxford, now dead,” he answered. “She is only a girl—nineteen.”
“Proceed, if your Grace pleases,” I said.
“I suppose I had better go straight to the heart of the matter now,” he said, with evident reluctance. “Well, Mrs. Duquesne is the possessor of some famous jewels which her husband collected in the East. Amongst them is a very fine opal, set in diamonds, in a ring. I had often seen it; none of my guests had, because Mrs. Duquesne never wears it, believing it to be unlucky. One night—ten days ago, to be precise—I happened to mention it at dinner; later on, Mrs. Duquesne showed it to all of us. The next afternoon she came to me and told me that the ring had been stolen from her jewel-case. She had placed it in its usual place, in her maid’s presence, on retiring the previous night; having occasion to look in the jewel-case next day, she found that it had disappeared.”
I made no comment, and the duke, having walked a little way in silence, resumed his story.
“I dare say you have had this sort of thing brought before your notice a good many times, Mr. Campenhaye,” he said. “I never had until then, and I was very much upset. I did not know what to do. Before I could do anything, Mrs. Duquesne took action. She communicated that very night with the authorities of Scotland Yard.”
“Ah!” I said, “sending them, no doubt, a full description of the ring.”
“Just so,” replied the duke, looking at me as if he were a little surprised that I should think of that. “She did; and the result was that the Scotland Yard people found that the ring had been pledged that very morning, at half-past ten o’clock, with a firm named Leiter & Nott, who are, I understand, very well-known pawnbrokers in London.”
“Quite so,” I said. “And by whom had the ring been pledged?”
We were just then in a very lonely part of the park, but the duke looked around him and lowered his voice, as if he were afraid of even the red deer hearing what he was about to say.
“It had been pledged,” he replied, “by Arthur Manning—the brother of Miss Manning, of whom I have spoken. And—I am to tell you the whole ugly truth, Mr. Campenhaye—it had been sent to Arthur Manning by his sister, by registered post, the previous night, from our local post office. There, Mr. Campenhaye, that is the truth—and my trouble!”
I stopped and regarded him searchingly. He met my gaze with steady, grief-stricken eyes.
“Why,” I said at last, “why is it your Grace’s particular trouble?”
He threw out one hand with an instinctive gesture and his face flushed. “Why?” he exclaimed. “Why, because I love Miss Manning with my whole heart, and unless she is cleared of this I shall never know a moment’s happiness in life! That’s why, Mr. Campenhaye, that’s why?”
The duke was so obviously moved that I refrained from asking him more at the moment. We walked some little distance in silence; at last he resumed the subject himself.
“I had better finish the wretched story up to this present time, Mr. Campenhaye,” he said. “The officer who had been placed in charge of the matter by the Scotland Yard authorities communicated at once with Arthur Manning, who is a subaltern in one of the Guards regiments, and in consequence of this they both came down to Saxonstowe immediately to see Miss Manning. Now, I beg you to observe, Mr. Campenhaye, that both Manning and his sister have been most candid, most straightforward, most anxious to keep nothing back. They have told all they could. Their story is this: A few days before the disappearance of the opal ring, Arthur Manning—who is only a boy—lost more money at cards than he could afford to pay, for he and his sister are by no means well off. He was very much upset about this, and he wrote to Stella—to Miss Manning. Miss Manning possesses a valuable diamond ring—which was quite recently left to her by a distant relative. Anxious to help her brother out of his difficulties, she sent him this ring, and told him to raise sufficient money on it to pay his debts. Arthur Manning received, not that ring, but Mrs. Duquesne’s ring”
“Pardon me,” I said, interrupting him. “Did Mr. Manning know that his sister’s ring was set with diamonds?”
“No,” replied the duke, “he did not; more’s the pity! He knew that a valuable ring had been bequeathed to his sister, but did not know whether it was of diamonds, pearls, or what. In her letter to him, Miss Manning merely said that she sent him Mrs. Trevarthen’s ring, and begged him to pledge it in such a way that he and she could redeem it between them. He, finding an opal ring in the registered packet which his sister sent him, naturally concluded that it was the ring to which she referred.”
“Quite so,” said I. “Your Grace has more to tell me yet?”
“Yes,” he replied, with a sigh, “there is more. All this came out before my aunt, Lady Louisa Ashe, and Mrs. Duquesne. I am sorry to say that Mrs. Duquesne took a very strong line. She immediately accused Miss Manning of having stolen her ring. It then turned out that Mrs. Duquesne had been conducting some investigations on her own part, and that she had found that one of the maids had seen Miss Manning enter Mrs. Duquesne’s room during the afternoon on which the ring was stolen. At that time Mrs. Duquesne and the other ladies of the house-party were all on the lawn, playing croquet. She had also discovered that Miss Manning had taken the trouble to walk to Saxonstowe village to register her packet; our usual plan with such things is to hand them to the postman, who calls at six o’clock. And Mrs. Duquesne was, I am sorry to say, indignant, and perhaps somewhat unreasonable.”
“What followed?” I asked.
The duke shook his head sorrowfully.
“What I should like to forget,” he answered, “and what I want you to clear up. Miss Manning—who had acknowledged that she went into Mrs. Duquesne’s room to fetch a book which had been promised to her, and stayed there several minutes because she could not readily find it—protested that the ring which she sent to her brother was her own. Mrs. Duquesne thereupon dared her to produce the case in which Miss Manning usually kept the ring—dared her, I mean, to send for it there and then, and open it before us without previous interference from herself. Miss Manning accepted this challenge at once.”
“Readily? Without demur?” I asked.
“With the utmost readiness, with the greatest alacrity!” replied the duke. “At her special request, I fetched her jewel-case myself, and opened it with a key which she handed to me. ‘It is impossible that the ring which Mrs. Trevarthen left me should be there,’ she said, ‘because I posted it to Arthur myself.’ But on opening the case, Mrs. Trevarthen’s ring was there!”
“Just so,” said I. “Now, what did Miss Manning say or do?”
“She was naturally much distressed,” he answered. “She protested most emphatically that she had placed Mrs. Trevarthen’s ring in a cardboard box packed with cotton wool, and had sent it with a covering letter to her brother. How it came about that it was found in her own jewel-case, and that Mrs. Duquesne’s ring was delivered to Arthur Manning, she could not explain. And that, Mr. Campenhaye, is all. Do you see any gleam of light; do you?”
“Patience! Patience!” I said. “It is early yet. I suppose Mrs. Duquesne did not give Miss Manning in charge?”
“Oh, no, no!” exclaimed the duke. “No, indeed! The man from Scotland Yard went back to London, and Arthur Manning took his sister to the vicarage at Saxonstowe—the vicar and his wife are old friends of the family. They are both there now—Arthur has got short leave.”
“And nothing has happened to enlighten you?” I said.
“Nothing,” he replied dolefully. “Nothing! That is why I wired for you, Mr. Campenhaye. Something must be done. It is impossible that Stella Manning could have done this thing—impossible! I have wondered?”
“Yes?” I said encouragingly.
“I have wondered if by any possible chance the rings could have become exchanged the night that Mrs. Duquesne exhibited hers?” he said. “It seems hardly likely, seeing that one was an opal ring, the other a diamond. And yet I cannot think of any other theory—and”
“Oh, we may have half a dozen theories yet!” I said, smiling. “Now, I want your Grace to tell me a few things before we reach the house. The Mannings are at Saxonstowe Vicarage, where I will call upon them this evening. Where is Mrs. Duquesne?”
“She is still here,” answered the duke, glancing towards the house, which was by now in sight.
“Oh!” I said. “And the rest of the house-party?”
“My aunt, of course is still here,” he said. “But the Ridsdales and Colonel Folkard are gone. My cousin, Mr. Dalrymple, is here yet.”
“Now for some questions of a more personal nature,” I said. “Your Grace has treated me with your confidence as regards your affection for Miss Manning. That, I suppose, is quite a secret matter?”
“Oh, quite, quite!” he replied hurriedly.
“Yet your liking for Miss Manning may have been made evident,” I remarked. “Women are naturally very sharp-eyed and sharp-eared in those matters. Now, I want to ask your Grace frankly—do you think Mrs. Duquesne has a prejudice against Miss Manning?”
The duke stopped and stared at me hard. I recognised then that he was a very simple-minded young man, and quite guileless.
“But why should she, Mr. Campenhaye?” he asked.
I shook my head and smiled.
“Mrs. Duquesne is a young and doubtless a charming woman,” I said.
“She is certainly charming—and beautiful,” he acknowledged. “And, of course, she is young.”
“Mrs. Duquesne may aspire to the rank of a duchess?” I said.
The duke flushed as hotly as any schoolgirl.
“Oh, no, no!” he exclaimed. “I—I do not think—surely you do not mean to suggest, Mr. Campenhaye, that”
“I don’t mean to suggest anything at present,” I answered, and as we were just then entering the gardens, I began to talk about the cultivation of roses, and endeavoured to take my companion’s thoughts away from the theft of the ring. On that matter I had already formed what I called a possible theory, of which I was going to say nothing—just then, at any rate.
The duke himself took me to the rooms which had been prepared for me, and later presented me to his aunt. Lady Louisa Ashe was a well-preserved lady of between fifty and sixty, who was palpably dubious as to how she ought to treat me—whether as a superior policeman or a professor of legerdemain. Finding that I was quite an ordinary person, who moved and spoke like all other persons, she became easier in her manner and gave me a cup of tea.
“Oh, I didn’t tell you that Helena had flown!” she suddenly exclaimed, turning to the duke.
“Helena! Flown?” he said. “Where and when?”
“A telegram came for her soon after you set off to meet Mr. Campenhaye,” replied Lady Louisa. “Somebody wanted her that instant in town. So she looked out the trains and motored to Nottingham. She was sorry to go off so hurriedly.”
“Hum!” said the duke. “Lady Louisa is speaking of Mrs. Duquesne,” he added, turning to me. “It’s a pity she has gone so suddenly. By the by, that is a photograph of her—a very good one.”
But I had already seen it. And I had some notion that the flight of Mrs. Duquesne from the ducal roof was not unconnected with the fact of my arrival, for I had recognised the photograph as that of a lady with whom I was acquainted. Only—I did not know her as Mrs. Duquesne.
There was very little to do at Saxonstowe Park in respect to the theft of Mrs. Duquesne’s opal ring. While the daylight lasted, I examined the room from which the ring had been taken, and had a conversation with the maid who had seen Miss Manning enter it in Mrs. Duquesne’s absence. There was not much to be gained from her or from staring at the room; I was much more interested in the thought of interviewing Miss Manning and her brother. And after dinner the duke took me across the park by a short cut which led to the vicarage garden. There he left me, thinking it best that I should see the young people by themselves; but it needed little observation to see that he would have been very glad to enter the vicarage with me.
The duke had previously sent over a note to advise Miss Manning and her brother of my coming, and I was at once taken to them in the vicar’s study, which the good man had kindly given up for our conference. I had never had any thought of the young lady as a guilty party; if I had, any such thought would have been dispelled as soon as I set eyes on her. She was a handsome, healthy, English girl, with clear, honest eyes, a firm grip of the hand, and a ready confidence which was almost childish—about as likely to steal other women’s fallals as she was to write a book on Greek verbs. As for the brother, he was the typical subaltern, reminiscent yet of Sandhurst, and trying hard to give himself the bearing and firmness of a man. They both looked very troubled and very shy, and were evidently awestruck at the notion of interviewing and being interviewed by the great Paul Campenhaye—who was not quite so clever, perhaps, as they thought him.
“Now, Miss Manning,” I said in my cheeriest manner, as soon as we had all sat down, “the first thing for you to do is for you to keep up your spirits. I have heard all about this business, and, of course, I am sure you did not take Mrs. Duquesne’s ring. Equally, of course, the Duke of Saxonstowe doesn’t think so, either, and never did.”
The girl’s face flushed, and I saw a very suspicious moisture start into her eyes. The boy flushed, too, and his lips were compressed for a moment.
“Thank you, sir,” he said. “This is a terrible business, though, and we both feel it awfully. And it’s all my fault—if I hadn’t been such an ass I should never had got Stella into this mess. However, I’ve sworn I’ll never touch a card again as long as I live.”
“Well, that’s a good resolution, anyway,” I said, smiling. “Now, I want to ask you both some simple questions, and I hope you both have good memories. Miss Manning, I’ll begin with you. You received your brother’s letter, telling you of his little difficulties, on the morning of the seventh June?”
“Yes, it was the seventh,” she answered.
“And, naturally, you immediately began to consider ways and means of helping him, and as a result decided to send him the diamond ring, which had been bequeathed to you by Mrs. Trevarthen?” said I.
“Yes,” she replied.
“Now, I want you to tell me exactly what you did about sending that ring,” I continued. “I don’t suppose I am far wrong in thinking that you set about it soon after breakfast?”
“No, you are not at all wrong,” she answered, smiling. “I went to my room almost immediately after breakfast. I wrote to Arthur, telling him that I was enclosing the ring; that I was quite sure he could easily raise the money he needed on it, and asking him to do it in such a way that we could redeem it. Then I put the ring in a small cardboard box in which I had placed a layer of cotton wool, folded the letter round the box, and put box and letter into a registered envelope which I happened to have in my writing-case. That was all.”
“All up to that point,” said I. “Then I suppose you addressed the envelope? Well, what did you do with it, then?”
“I placed it in the drawer of my writing-table,” she replied.
“Did you lock the drawer?” I asked.
She shook her head rather guiltily.
“No,” she answered. “I didn’t.”
“Well, what did you do after that?” I asked. “How did you spend the rest of the morning—for instance, up to lunch?”
“I was playing golf the whole morning with the duke,” she replied.
“What were the other ladies of the house-party doing—so far as you know?” I enquired.
“I don’t know,” she answered. “Lady Louisa used to write letters in the mornings; Mrs. Wridsdale usually read or worked on the lawn; Mrs. Duquesne used to spend a good deal of time on the lake. Sometimes we played croquet with Professor Wridsdale.”
“Now, what time did you see your registered packet again?” I said.
“Very soon after tea,” she replied. “That would be about half-past five. I went upstairs to get it, intending to take it to Saxonstowe myself.”
“Was it where you had placed it? Did it look as if it had been tampered with?” I inquired.
“It was exactly where I had left it, lying on a glove-box, and I saw nothing to show that it had been tampered with,” she replied.
“So you went straight off and registered it?” said I.
She nodded her assent and waited to hear my next question.
“Where did you leave your keys while you were playing golf that morning, Miss Manning?” I asked.
She smiled and looked rather guilty.
“I’m afraid I have a bad habit of leaving my keys about,” she said. “I daresay I left them on the writing-table or on the dressing-table that morning—I cannot be sure.”
“Quite so,” said I. “Then the probability is that you did. Now, Mr. Manning, a question or two with you. When you received the registered letter, did you notice anything to make you think it had been tampered with?”
“Oh, no!” he answered. “I noticed nothing.”
“What did you do with the registered envelope and the cardboard box in which the ring was enclosed?” I asked.
“Threw them in my waste-paper basket,” he replied.
“That’s equivalent to saying they’re lost, then,” I said. “And I’m sorry, for I should have liked to carefully examine them.”
His face brightened suddenly.
“By Jove, you can do that, sir!” he exclaimed. “The basket had not been emptied when I got leave and came away, and I know nobody’s been in my room since, because I have the key. I’m going to town by the first train in the morning, Mr. Campenhaye, and I’ll find both envelope and box, and send them to you.”
“Thanks,” I said, “but you needn’t. I am going to town myself by the midnight mail, and I will call on you—Wellington Barracks, I think?—at noon to-morrow. Now, Mr. Manning, until I come keep a jealous eye on that waste-paper basket. Don’t let your servant remove it; don’t touch it yourself. Leave it for me to examine. Now, I am going. The next time I see you, Miss Manning, which will, I hope, be within twenty-four hours—I trust to tell you that I have solved the mystery.”
I thought those two young people would have wrung my hand off as I said good-night to them. I walked across the park thinking of my schemes for the morrow, and was still developing them when I walked into the house. There a quiet domestic scene met my eyes. Lady Louisa was steadily progressing through a game of Patience, the duke was reading the Fortnightly Review, Dalrymple, a sporty young gentleman who had quietly eaten a very big dinner, was asleep in a deep chair with the Field on his knees. The duke looked up and smiled—and I think he half winked.
“Perhaps you can offer professional consolation to my aunt, Mr. Campenhaye,” he said. “She has lost something.”
“I hope nothing of value, Lady Louisa?” I said.
“Oh, it’s nothing, nothing!” answered Lady Louisa, a little testily. “Dear me, duke, why do you make such a fuss about it?”
“Why, my dear aunt,” said the duke, “you’ve been turning half the house upside down about it!”
“Then it must be of value,” I remarked.
Lady Louisa looked annoyed.
“No, no!” she said. “Merely a little trinket—an amulet which I wore on a platinum chain. No value at all—but it was a keepsake. It’s really of no consequence—no consequence!”
So I sat down, merely remarking to myself that if Lady Louisa Ashe had known as much of the world as I did, she would have been aware that everything is of great consequence.
I was in town again by three o’clock in the morning, and I went to bed for exactly four hours. At eight o’clock I was at the corner of a certain small but fashionable street on the north of Hyde Park, and was greeting my faithful clerk, Killingley, to whom I had sent a long telegram of instructions in my private cypher from Saxonstowe Park soon after my arrival there.
“Well, Killingley?” said I.
“We have kept a strict observance on the house since the receipt of your wire, sir,” replied Killingley, reeling off his report with his usual automatic-like precision. “The lady went out at seven last night, dined at the Ritz, went on to the Haymarket Theatre, and drove straight home from there. She has not been out since.”
“Very good, Killingley,” said I. “Remain here until I return.”
Proceeding to the house which had been indicated to me by the Duke of Saxonstowe as Mrs. Duquesne’s town address, I rang the bell, and handed to the sleepy-looking footman, who seemed much astonished and disgusted to see me, a note in which I informed Mrs. Duquesne that it was necessary that I should see her at once, and asking her to name her own time within the next two hours. As I had anticipated, I had not long to wait. Ere many minutes a smart French maid tripped downstairs into the hall.
“Madame will see monsieur at precisely nine o’clock,” she announced, regarding me closely.
“Tell madame that I will wait upon her at that hour,” I replied, and went away to dismiss Killingley and take a walk in the park. There was no need to keep Mrs. Duquesne under observation; I knew that, having made an appointment with me, she would keep it. It would not have paid her to do otherwise.
At one minute after nine I was in Mrs. Duquesne’s boudoir, and Mrs. Duquesne herself was confronting me in a wonderful morning-gown. She was a very beautiful woman, but her expression just then was not quite pleasant to look at—she looked as hard as steel, and utterly defiant.
“I had an idea that you would visit me after your visit to Saxonstowe, Mr. Paul Campenhaye,” she said. “I knew what conclusion anybody of your acumen and skill would come to, and I judged that the duke would send you to me to ask for mercy. And so I may as well tell you that I shall have none—I am going to take out a warrant this morning. That is what I came to town for.”
I could scarcely believe my ears. What did the woman mean? My objects and intentions in visiting her were of a very different nature to what she was thinking of. Then I suddenly conceived the notion that she was trying to bluff me. I smiled.
“We seem to be at cross-purposes, Mrs.. But how am I to call you?” I said.
“My name, Mr. Campenhaye, is Mrs. Duquesne,” she answered. “If I chose to spend a few weeks at Monte Carlo under another name, and to become unfortunately and unavoidably involved in a matter into which you were brought”
“Professionally,” I said. “Professionally.”
“That has nothing to do with this matter,” she concluded. “I am Mrs. Duquesne. Perhaps,” she continued suddenly, “perhaps you think I left Saxonstowe because you were coming there?”
“I think it extremely likely,” I answered.
She burst into ironical laughter. I watched her in silence. She suddenly became cold and hard again.
“Well, what do you want?” she asked.
I had to speak then, to show my hand, to draw my sword.
“Mrs. Duquesne,” I said, “I do not think I should like to be obliged to tell the Duke of Saxonstowe what my own belief is respecting the exact share which the lady whom I knew as Madame de St. Croix had in the Monte Carlo affair.”
She looked at me defiantly.
“There you are wrong,” she said. “You would like to tell the duke. If you spoke the truth—and I wish you would—what you really mean is that you think I should not like the matter raked up. Well, perhaps I shouldn’t. But what has that got to do with the fact that Stella Manning stole my ring, and deserves to be punished like any other thief?”
Now, I knew a little more—perhaps a good deal more than Mrs. Duquesne was aware about the Monte Carlo matter, and for that reason I was not going to mince my words, having my knowledge in reserve. Accordingly, I put on my severest air.
“Mrs. Duquesne,” I said, “I do not believe that Miss Manning stole your ring. I believe that you, anxious to prejudice the Duke of Saxonstowe against Miss Manning, opened the packet addressed to her brother, substituted your ring for hers, and placed hers in its usual place. You did this because with your unusually sharp eyes you had seen that the young and fascinating Duke of Saxonstowe was deeply in love with Miss Manning.”
She turned white to the lips, but she stared at me with eyes in which there was more surprise than fear.
“You—believe—that?” she said. “You?”
“Yes, I do believe it,” I answered. “It was a clever trick, but you gave yourself away when you told the Scotland Yard people to make immediate inquiry of the leading London pawnbrokers. You had read Miss Manning’s letter to her brother, and you knew that he was to pledge the ring. So by your knowledge you made certain of the whereabouts of your property, and at the same time you struck your rival a deadly blow.”
She stared at me in silence. Her lips twitched, and I could not tell whether she was going to burst into more ironical laughter or into tears. Suddenly she moved to the door.
“What are you going to do, Mrs. Duquesne?” I asked.
“I am going to have that warrant taken out,” she answered, with a look which only a vindictive woman could give. “Whether Stella Manning stole my ring or not, all the evidence is that she did. She shall be arrested, anyway.”
Now was the time to play my big card. I stopped Mrs. Duquesne with a gesture, and going up to her whispered a few words into her ear which made her start back against the wall with staring eyes and trembling hands. She was terrified, and she showed it.
“You understand,” I said significantly. “One more step of yours in this matter, and the Monte Carlo business will be reopened. You know best what that will mean.”
Then I left her, still white and trembling, and set off for the Wellington Barracks to call on Arthur Manning.
The young officer had only just arrived at his quarters, and the room in which I found him looked as if it would greatly profit by a thorough sweeping and dusting. He himself was keeping watch over the waste-paper basket, which I saw at the first glance to be full of odds and ends of all sorts.
“No one has touched anything, Mr. Campenhaye,” he said, as we shook hands. “There’s the basket, just as I left it.”
“Very good,” said I. “Now, tell me, where were you standing or sitting when you received and opened your sister’s registered packet, and what did you do?”
“I was sitting here!” he answered, indicating an easy-chair by the hearth. “I opened the envelope, drew out and read the letter, took the ring from the cardboard box, and threw box and envelope into the basket here.”
“All right,” I said; “now I’ll examine the contents of the basket here.”
“I have to go across to the orderly room for a few minutes,” he remarked. “I shall not be long.”
Drawing off my gloves, I proceeded to examine the odds and ends one by one. There were torn-up letters, tradesmen’s bills, circulars, catalogues; at last I came across the registered envelope, addressed in a pretty, feminine handwriting. Near it lay the cardboard box, which, it appeared, had originally contained curling pins. And close by me a thickish wad of cotton wool; that, of course, in which the ring had been enclosed.
Now, my object in securing the envelope and the cardboard box was to subject both to microscopic investigation. I did not want the cotton-wool; nevertheless, I picked it up. And suddenly I saw something hanging to it, the mere sight of which made me jump to my feet with a sharp exclamation, which was caught by Arthur Manning, who was just then re-entering the room.
“What is it?” he said, staring at me, no doubt seeing that I looked excited. “Found anything, Mr. Campenhaye?”
“Never mind,” said I, hastily smuggling what I had found into my trousers pocket. “Hum!—well, I have finished with your waste-paper basket. Now, are you staying in town, or returning to Saxonstowe?”
“Returning to Saxonstowe,” he answered. “I have arranged more leave. Of course, I must be with my sister until this affair is cleared up.”
“Then we will go down together by the next train,” I said.
We were at Elmford station in the middle of the afternoon. I set out across the park; young Manning went off to the vicarage, where I asked him to remain with his sister until I came over for them. I said nothing to him of what was going to happen, but I think he guessed that I had discovered something in Miss Manning’s favour.
The Duke of Saxonstowe was out when I reached the house; he had motored to some adjacent town on business. But Lady Louisa was at home, and I asked to see her, and in due course was ushered into her sanctum. I do not think she was particularly pleased to know that I had returned, or to be asked for; ladies of her temperament are always doubtful of people who live by their brains—or, as they term it, wits.
“Oh, I had no idea that you would return so soon!” she said. “The duke is away for the afternoon.”
“So I have recently been informed,” I replied. “But I did not wish to see his Grace—at least, not just now. I returned specially from town to see you, Lady Louisa.”
Lady Louisa’s colour rose; she looked at me speculatively, perhaps a little haughtily. After all, she was still regarding me as no more than a superior sort of detective officer.
“Oh!” she said. “But—really, I don’t know why you want to see me, Mr.—er—Campenhaye.”
“No,” I said. “Well, you see, Lady Louisa, I am one of those men who deal in strange reasons for their doings. I wanted to see you in reference to the amulet which you and the duke spoke of last night—the amulet which you recently lost.”
“You don’t mean to say you have found it!” she exclaimed.
“The amulet is a very small opal, set in curious old gold work,” I said, watching her narrowly.
“Yes, yes!” she said.
“I have found it, Lady Louisa,” I said.
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “How clever of you! But where?—I suppose somewhere in the house or about the grounds. I always feared that I should lose it from that chain.”
I am afraid that it was a desire to impress her, and to introduce a little theatrical effect that made me walk across to the door, open it a little way, glance outside, close it carefully, and then address her in low tones.
“Lady Louisa,” I said gravely, “I went specially to town last night to examine the cardboard box in which Mrs. Duquesne’s opal ring was forwarded to Mr. Arthur Manning. The box had been thrown away, but it had never been touched. The cotton-wool wrapping was in it. And here is the identical cotton-wool, and attached to it is—your once lost amulet.”
The blow came so unexpectedly, so suddenly, that it might have been a physical one. Lady Louisa gasped, fell back; her blanched face proclaimed her agitation and her guilt. She stared at me as if I were something possessed of the power of seeing through stone.
“Now, Lady Louisa,” said I, “the thing is very plain. When you worked out, and carried out this wicked plot, this amulet, unnoticed by you, slipped amongst the folds of the cotton wool, and you, all unsuspectingly, packed it up with the ring. Am I right in believing you guilty? Ah! of course, Lady Louisa, I am an extremely inquisitive man—why did you do this?”
She glared angrily at me for a moment, but she knew that I had the whip-hand, and at last she answered my straightforward question.
“I didn’t want the duke to marry the Manning girl,” she muttered. “I wanted him to marry one of my own girls—his cousins. And I knew that Helena Duquesne would make a row—she hates Stella Manning! And so”
“I quite understand,” I said, and bowed myself out of the room.
When I left Saxonstowe Park next day the Duke of Saxonstowe and Stella Manning were engaged to be married, and I had an invitation to the wedding. I did not think much about that just then; I had to see Mrs. Duquesne. And when I found myself alone with her, I went straight to the point.
“Mrs. Duquesne,” I said, “I have come to ask your pardon. I accused you yesterday of being the author of what we will call the ring mystery. I have discovered that you are absolutely and entirely innocent. I humbly beg your pardon.”
Mrs. Duquesne eyed me keenly.
“Of course, you know who did it?” she remarked coolly.
“Oh, of course I do!” said I.
“Not Stella Manning?” she said.
“Most certainly not Miss Manning,” I replied. Then, after an interval of silence, I added softly: “Miss Manning is to be married to the Duke of Saxonstowe very shortly.”
Mrs. Duquesne turned away from me and picked up her fancy-work.
“Good-day!” she said. “You can find your way out.” I found it.