Mrs. Vanderstein's jewels. Bryce Charles

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СКАЧАТЬ have been if we’d had a European war, which as it happened was not the case while I was in the Service. But now there are actually people who think that if it comes to a fight it would be an advantage for us to have as many men as the enemy. They ought to be ashamed of themselves, if there’s any truth in it. No, no, the army doesn’t need reforming, take my word for it. There are a few alterations which I could suggest in the uniforms which would make all the difference in the world, but except for that, what I say is, let sleeping dogs lie.”

      Having delivered himself of these remarks, Sir Gregory felt in his pocket, drew forth a cigar case, selected a cigar and asked for a match.

      “Did you come to persuade me to your views on compulsory service?” asked Gimblet pleasantly as he continued to devour his strawberries, which were now nearly all gone. “Because I’m afraid it’s no good. You can’t possibly convince me that its adoption is not a vital necessity to the nation.”

      “I’m sorry to hear you think that,” said the other, “for I have the highest opinion of your intellect. Believe me, when you discovered the frauds that were being perpetrated at the Great Continental Bank last year, I marked you down, Mr. Gimblet, as the man I should consult in case of need. And it is to consult you that I am here. I said it was a sad occasion. Well, it is sad for me, but I am not yet, as a matter of fact, quite sure whether or no it is desperately so. What has happened, in a word, is this. A lady to whom I am deeply attached has disappeared.”

      “Disappeared?” said Gimblet, pushing back his chair. He had eaten the last of the strawberries. “May I ask who the lady is – a relation of yours?”

      “Not exactly. She is a Mrs. Vanderstein, for whom, as I have just said, I have a great regard, I may say an affection. In fact,” said Sir Gregory, leaning forward and speaking in confidential tones, “I don’t mind telling you that she is the lady I have chosen to be the future Lady Aberhyn Jones.”

      “Indeed. You are engaged to marry her?”

      “Not precisely engaged,” admitted Sir Gregory, with a slightly troubled look.

      As a matter of strict accuracy, he had proposed to Mrs. Vanderstein about three times a year ever since the death of her husband; but Mrs. Vanderstein, although tempted by his title, had already been the wife of one man twice her age and did not intend to repeat the experiment. Still, his friendship was dear to her; he was the only baronet of her acquaintance and she liked to have him about the house. He had been a director on the board of one of her husband’s companies, and, when introduced by him, her pretty face and amiable disposition had quite captured Sir Gregory’s heart, so that he had cultivated Mr. Vanderstein’s society to such good purpose as to become a constant habitué of the house in Grosvenor Street.

      After Mr. Vanderstein’s death he lost no more time than decency demanded in proposing to his widow; and, though she refused to marry him, and refused over and over again, yet she did it in so sympathetic a manner and was so kind in spite of her obstinacy that Sir Gregory believed her absence of alacrity in accepting his hand to be prompted by anything rather than a lack of affection. She treated him as her best friend and consulted him on every question of business, to the wise conduct of which her own shrewdness was a far better guide, and had imperceptibly fallen into the habit of never making a decision of any importance without first threshing out the pros and cons in conversation with him. Nothing so strengthened her faith in the soundness of her own judgment as his disapproval of any course she intended to adopt.

      “For some reason,” Sir Gregory continued after a pause, “Mrs. Vanderstein has never consented to an actual engagement. It is that which makes me so uneasy now. Can it be – Mr. Gimblet, I give you my word I feel ashamed of mentioning such a suspicion even to you – but can it be that she has fled with another?”

      He uttered the last words in such a tragic tone that Gimblet, though he felt inclined to smile, restrained the impulse, and, summoning up all the sympathy at his command, inquired again:

      “Will you not explain the circumstances to me a little more fully? When did the lady vanish? Have you any reason to think she did not go alone? Was there some kind of understanding between you, and what did it amount to?”

      “I will be perfectly frank with you,” said Sir Gregory, “much the best thing in these cases is to be absolutely candid. You agree with me there? I thought you would. At the same time where a lady is concerned – you follow me? One must avoid anything that looks like giving her away. But in this case there is really no reason why I should conceal anything from you. Mrs. Vanderstein has never accepted my proposals. On the contrary she has refused to marry me on each of the occasions when I have suggested it to her. You ask me why? My dear sir, I cannot reply to that question. Who can account for a woman’s whims? Not I, sir, not I. Nor you either; if you will allow me to say so.” Sir Gregory’s hands and eyes were uplifted in bewilderment as he considered the inexplicable behaviour of woman in general and of Mrs. Vanderstein in particular. “But I have no doubt that in time she would have reconsidered her decision,” he went on puffing at his cigar, “that is to say I had no doubt until this morning.”

      “And what happened then?” asked the detective.

      “I came up from Surrey, where I had been paying a week-end visit,” pursued his visitor, “arriving at my rooms at midday. My servant at once informed me that Mrs. Vanderstein had sent a telephone message yesterday evening, begging me to go immediately to see her and adding that it was most important. I only waited to change into London clothes, Mr. Gimblet, before I hurried to her house in Grosvenor Street. And when I got there, what did I hear? ’Pon my soul,” exclaimed Sir Gregory, taking his cigar out of his mouth, “you might have knocked me down with a feather!”

      “You heard that the lady had disappeared?”

      “Exactly. Not been seen or heard of since last night. Drove away from her own door, they tell me, in her own motor car; and has never come back from that hour to this.”

      “Did she leave no word as to where she was going?”

      “None whatever. She dined early, of course, on account of the opera.”

      “The opera! In that case what makes you think she didn’t go there?”

      “Of course she went. Didn’t I say so? She drove off to Covent Garden and that’s the last that’s been heard of her.”

      “You interest me,” said Gimblet. “Was she not seen to leave the opera house?”

      “I don’t know about that,” said Sir Gregory. “I found the servants very much disturbed; and very glad they were, I may say, to see me.”

      “She has probably met with some accident and has been taken to a hospital,” suggested Gimblet. “Have any inquiries been made?”

      “I rather think they have been telephoning to the hospitals, but I told them not to communicate with the police till I had seen you. Wouldn’t do, you know. She would dislike it extremely, especially if it turns out as I fear and she has gone off with some other man.”

      “I can’t see why she should have done that,” said Gimblet. “She was her own mistress, I suppose, and had no need to conceal her movements. Depend on it,” he went on, for the anxiety on Sir Gregory’s face moved him to pity, “she will be found at one of the hospitals; and I advise you to make inquiries at them. A woman, alone as she was, would be carried to one of them if she were taken ill or met with a slight accident that prevented her for the moment from giving her address.”

      “But she was not alone,” urged Sir Gregory. “Miss Turner, her companion, was with her, of course.”

      “Indeed,” СКАЧАТЬ