The Case of the Two Pearl Necklaces (Musaicum Vintage Mysteries). Dorothy Fielding

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СКАЧАТЬ eyes, the subtle brain. Kitty had felt quite certain that Ann meant to get triumphantly between Arthur and Violet Finch, that she had secretly tried hard to do this during the week they had all spent together at the Walsh's place in the country.

      For when Arthur wrote that he was bringing his fiance down for a week's visit, his aunt had promptly asked Ann to come down, too. Ann, with whom Arthur had been so madly in love, in the days when Gerald was still at home. Handsome, careless, undependable Gerald. The days when Arthur, though well off, was still only the younger son. There was no entail in the family. The Colonel could leave his really big fortune as he liked, but it was natural to expect that the elder would get the lion's share. Also, Ann, at that time, was all out to marry Lord Wilverstone. But there, too, she failed. Lord Wilverstone married an old love of his, despite Ann's cleverest counter-diplomacy. Kitty happened to know, however, that Ann had nearly succeeded there.

      Again her thoughts returned, now, to her present problem, as she distantly heard the sound of Ann Lovelace's quiet but "carrying" voice, speaking evidently with what, for Ann, amounted to vehemence. Nor were the sounds misleading. For, inside, Father Ambrose and Ann were facing each other dynamically at the two ends of his mantelshelf. The Reverend Ambrose Walsh was solidly built, physically, and something about his face, with its strongly-marked features, suggested a character also firmly built. Pale of face, with a beak of a nose, 'a flexible, long upper lip and firm jaw—his brilliant and keenly-penetrating eyes were fastened searchingly on his visitor's.

      "It's a bad, sad business," he said regretfully when she stepped speaking. His own voice had irrepressible warm undertones. It suggested subdued but strong passions underneath. Just as his face did. "A very bad, very sad business," he repeated, half to himself. "But if it breaks his engagement to such a character it may prove a blessing to him yet."

      "It won't break it!" Ann said decisively. "Nothing can do that. It's as if she had Arthur under a witch's spell."

      "I wonder what his father, my uncle, will say," murmured Ambrose Walsh reflectively.

      "Oh, Arthur will swear to him by all his gods that Violet's an innocent dove, that it's I, not she, that is the guilty one."

      A very penetrating glance flashed for a second from Father Ambrose's eyes, but Ann's were fastened on her gloves, as she wrinkled and smoothed their gauntlets. "He once trusted and liked me," she continued composedly; "but Violet Finch holds him, as I said, just as though he were under some spell. He can't seem to see or hear the truth, where she's concerned. You met her, I remember, one afternoon down at Friar's Halt. Did you see anything in her to account for such an infatuation?"

      The priest made no answer and Ann moved towards the door.

      "I wanted you to know all the facts, Father, so as to be able to explain things to your uncle, Colonel Walsh." Ann had not come for that reason at all. But she knew that Ambrose Walsh was against the marriage; and she hoped that, learning from her what more than sufficient reason he had for his opposition—he would increase his personal pressure on Arthur to persuade him to give up the girl. After all, Arthur, too, was a Catholic. Like all the Walshes, at one time, he had been quite under his cousin's influence.

      Father Ambrose showed her out by a door that did not lead back into the common sitting-room where Kitty sat impatiently counting the minutes. Then he gravely welcomed his second visitor. His eyes lit up as they shook hands, for he liked Kitty sincerely. And whenever he saw her he saw not the charming young woman, but his romping child cousin. Saw himself, too, again a mischievous schoolboy making her walk the plank into a tub of water and getting soundly thrashed for it afterwards, as well as in a score of childhood's scenes.

      He led her into his own little sitting-room and closed the door. "Well, Kit? What brings you for the first time to see me here?"

      "I oughtn't to have come," she said to that. "Really, Ambrose, I shouldn't take up your time, but I'm bewildered...and frightened. Ann Lovelace has just left, hasn't she? Oh, never mind," as he made no reply. "I know she has been here. I'm come on the same matter...That accusation against Violet Finch about the pearls—"

      "You don't think the charge of fraud is true?" he questioned.

      "No, I don't," she replied promptly. "Partly because Ann Lovelace is making it, and also because it's absolutely incredible It makes Arthur's fiance just a common thief!"

      "Nevertheless, it would be the best thing that could happen to Arthur if it could be shown to be true," Ambrose said in his authoritative, crisp way. "I didn't say that to Ann, and I shan't say it to Arthur, probably. But it's stern facts, Kit. I have met Miss Finch, have talked with her, studied her. And I tell you candidly—and confidentially—that if Arthur marries her—he's doomed!"

      "Why—!" Kitty demanded. But she knew how uncannily right Ambrose's summing up of people and consequences used to prove in the end.

      "Because she's devoted, soul and body, to the World and the Flesh—if not to the Devil. And because Arthur is only too much inclined that way himself."

      "You always wanted Arthur to be a priest, too!" Kitty said resentfully.

      He gave her a steely look. "Catherine"—Ambrose only called her that when he wished to emphasise the fact that he was speaking with authority—"stand aside! Have nothing to do with the woman or the affair of her pearls. It is just possible that Providence may be going to take a hand—to save Arthur from damnation."

      "Marriage with Violet Finch doesn't mean damnation—necessarily," she protested indignantly. "I wish, of course, that she were one of us. But she may come to be—given time and fair play."

      Ambrose looked very much the priest. His face stiffened, his look grew inscrutable. He was clearly not taken with the notion of a converted Violet.

      There was a short silence. Kitty felt done. She had come for nothing. Ambrose had no light to shed on this matter. Or if he had, he was keeping it for his own use. But she stood to her guns.

      "Ambrose, Ann, of course, has told you her version—"

      "I think she's told me the truth," he said deliberately, dispassionately. "I questioned her closely."

      "I don't think she has!" Kitty blazed out. "Not by a long, long lot! Ann Lovelace would do anything to get her knife into Violet, to get Arthur from her—for herself!"

      Her cousin, Ambrose, seemed, on this, to have grown very chilling, very distant, as he looked down at her with eyes veiled and inscrutable.

      "At least, whatever may be her faults, she is a lady and a religious woman at heart," he answered sternly.

      "Oh, stuff, Ambrose!" Kitty said hotly, throwing off the awe of the priest. "That's her cloak. She's just a—" But she stopped herself. For the Reverend Ambrose Walsh did not seem to hear her. She recognised clearly that his mind was definitely closed to any further discussion of Violet's case.

      "Evidently you're on Ann's side," she concluded coldly.

      And at that Father Ambrose gave a fleeting smile as he said calmly, "I'm on her side, certainly, if she can rightly prevent Arthur's disastrous marriage to Miss Finch."

      Kitty rose to leave. Coldly asking, as she glanced at his writing-table overflowing with papers and books: "What is your coming book about?"

      "The Church Militant," he said in a ringing tone. "There's far too much talk of converts slithering from the Anglican Church into ours as though there were small difference between them. I want the gates, on the contrary, СКАЧАТЬ