"I know the true version of the story. And I expect you and Violet to listen to it."

"We can't listen to anything further now, dear boy. We've more important--I beg your pardon--we've more _pressing_ things to attend to," said Violet. "You've a right to your point of view, and we don't want to hurt your feelings. But I don't think you ought to want _us_ to go against our convictions, unless to be civil, for your sake, and avoid scandal. We'll do our best, I told you; you must be satisfied with that. And really, we _can't_ talk about this any longer, because just before you came we'd a telegram from Drivenny to say he and Combes and Blackburn will be here an hour earlier than the appointment. That will land them on us at any instant; and I don't care to be agitated, please!"

"Drivenny is the great jewel expert," Haslemere condescended to enlighten my amateurish intelligence. "Combes is the Scotland Yard man, as you know: and Blackburn is the famous detective from New York who's in London now. We don't understand why they come before their time, but no doubt they've an excellent reason and we shall hear it soon. You shall see them, if you like. You're interested in detectives."

"It sounds like a plot," I remarked, so angry with my brother and his wife that I found a mean pleasure in trying to upset them. "You'd better make jolly well sure that the right men come. As you are responsible for the jewels----"

Haslemere laughed. "You talk as if you were a detective in a boy's story paper! Not likely I should be such a fool as to hand the boodle over to men I didn't know by sight! They have been here before, in a bunch, Drivenny judging the jewels, the detectives----"

"My lord, the three gentlemen from London have arrived in a motor-car,"

announced a footman. "They wished to send their cards to your lordship." He presented a silver tray with three crude but business-like cards lying on it.

"Show them in at once," said Haslemere. He stood in front of a bookcase containing the works of George Eliot, Charles d.i.c.kens and Sir Walter Scott. I knew that bookcase well, and the secret which it so respectably hid. Behind, was the safe in which our family had for several generations placed such valuables as happened to be in the house. Haslemere slid back with a touch a little bronze ornament decorating a hinge on the gla.s.s door. In a tiny recess underneath was the head of a spring, which he pressed. The whole bookcase slipped along the wall and revealed the safe. Haslemere opened this, and took out a despatch box. While Violet received the box from his hands and laid it on a table near by, my brother closed the safe, and replaced the bookcase. A moment later, the three important visitors were ushered into the room, their names p.r.o.nounced with respect by the servant: "Mr. Drivenny: Mr. Blackburn: Mr. Combes."

Haslemere met his guests with civility and honoured them consciously by presenting the trio to Violet. "This is my brother, back from a military mission to America," he indicated me casually, without troubling to mention my name.

The three men looked at me, and I at them. It struck me that they would not have been sorry to dispense with my presence. There was just a flash of something like chagrin which pa.s.sed across the faces: the thin, aquiline face of Drivenny, spectacled, beetle-browed, clean-shaven: the square, puffy-cheeked face of Combes: the red, round face of the American, Blackburn. The flash vanished as quickly as it came, leaving the three middle-aged countenances impa.s.sive; but it made me wonder. Why should the jewel-expert and the two detectives object to the presence of another beside Lord and Lady Haslemere, when that other was a near relative of the family? Surely it was a trifling detail that I should witness the ceremony of their taking over the contents of the tin box?

Whatever their true feelings might have been, by tacit consent I was made to realise that I counted for no more in the scene than a fly on the wall, to Haslemere and Violet. No notice was taken of me while Haslemere unlocked the despatch box, and Violet--as the organiser of the scheme--took out the closely piled jewel-boxes it contained. This done, she proceeded to arrange them on the long oak table, cleared for the purpose. I stood in the background, as one by one the neatly numbered velvet, satin or Russia-leather cases were opened, and the description of the jewels within read aloud by Haslemere from a list.

Each of the three new-comers had a duplicate list, and there was considerable talk before the cases were closed, and returned to the despatch box. Most of this talk came from Violet and Haslemere, both of whom were excited. As for Drivenny, Blackburn and Combes, it seemed to me that, in their hearts, they would gladly have hastened proceedings. They were polite but intensely business-like, and as soon as they could manage it the box was stuffed into a commonplace brown kitbag which the footman had brought in with the visitors. The three had motored from London to Hasletowers; and they smiled drily when Violet asked if they "thought there was danger of an attack on the way back."

"None whatever," replied the square-faced Combes. "We've made sure of that. There's too much at stake to run risks."

"Don't you remember I told you, Violet, what Mr. Combes said before?"

Haslemere reminded his wife: "that the road between here and Christie's would swarm with plain clothes men in motors and on bicycles. If every gang of jewel-thieves in England or Europe were on this job, they'd have their trouble for their pains."

"I remember," Violet admitted, "but there's been such a lot about this affair in the papers! Thieves are so clever----"

"Not so clever as our friends," Haslemere admonished her, with one of his slightly patronising smiles for the jewel-expert and the detectives. "That's why they've got the upper hand; that's why we've asked their co-operation."

"Oh, of course!" exclaimed Violet. They all spent the next sixty seconds in compliments: and at the end of that time Mr. Combes announced that he and his companions had better be off. It would be well to complete the business. Mr. Drivenny asked Haslemere if he would care to go to Christie's in the car with them, as a matter of form, and Haslemere replied that he considered it unnecessary. The valuables, in such hands, were safe as in the Bank of England. The three men were invited to have drinks, but refused: and Haslemere himself accompanied them to their car. Violet and I stared at it from the window. It was an ordinary-looking grey car, with an ordinary-looking grey chauffeur.

When Haslemere came back to the library, I took up the subject which the arrival of the men had made me drop.

What did my brother and sister-in-law intend to do, to atone to my wife? Apparently they intended to do nothing: could not see why they should do anything: resented my a.s.sertion that they had done wrong in the past, and were not accustomed to being accused or called to account.

My heart had been set on obtaining poetic justice for Maida; but I knew she wouldn't wish me to plead. That would be for us both a new humiliation added to the old; an Ossa piled upon Pelion. Losing hope, I indulged myself by losing also my temper.

"Very well," I said. "Maida will be a success without help from you.

As for me----"

"Mr. Drivenny, Mr. Blackburn and Mr. Combes," announced a footman--not the same who had made the announcement before.

"What--they've come _back_!" Violet and Haslemere exclaimed together.

"Show them in."

Evidently something had gone wrong! Even I, in the midst of my rage, was p.r.i.c.ked to curiosity.

The three men came in: thin, aquiline Drivenny, square, puffy-faced Combes, and red, round Blackburn. It was not more than half an hour since they had gone, yet already they had changed their clothes. They were all dressed differently, not excepting boots and hats: and Combes had a black kitbag in place of the brown one. Even in their faces, figures and bearings there was some subtle change.

"Good gracious! What's happened?" Violet gasped.

The men seemed surprised.

"We're a little before our time, my lady," said Combes, "but----"

Haslemere s.n.a.t.c.hed the words from his mouth. "But you telegraphed.

You came here----"

"We didn't telegraph, my lord," the detective respectfully contradicted him.

Violet gave a cry, and put her hands up to her head, staring at the trio so subtly altered. As before, I was a back-ground figure. I said nothing, but I thought a good deal. The trick jokingly suggested by me had actually been played.

At first neither Violet nor Haslemere would believe the dreadful thing.

It was too bad to be true. These, not the other three, were the impostors! Violet staggered towards the bell to call the servants, but Combes showed his police badge: and between the trio it was soon made clear that the Marquis and Marchioness of Haslemere had let themselves be utterly bamboozled. They had of their own free will handed over to a pack of thieves nearly one hundred thousand pounds worth of famous jewels: not even their own, but other people's jewels entrusted to them for charity!

There was, however, not a moment to waste in repinings. The local police were warned by telephone; the escaping car and chauffeur were described, and the genuine detectives, with the jewel-expert, dashed off in pursuit of their fraudulent understudies. Meantime, while the others talked, I reflected; and an astonishing idea began to crystallise in my brain. When Violet was left crying on Haslemere's shoulder (sobbing that she was ruined, that she would kill herself rather than face the blame of her friends) I made my voice heard.

"I know you and Haslemere always hated my detective talents--if any.

But they might come in useful now, if I could get an inspiration," I remarked.

Violet caught me up.

"_Have_ you an inspiration?"

"Perhaps."

"For heaven's sake what is it?"

"If I have one, it's my own," I drily replied. "I don't see why I should give it away. This is _your_ business--yours and Haslemere's.

Why should I be interested? Neither of you are interested in mine."

"You mean, your ideas are for sale?" Haslemere exclaimed, in virtuous disgust, seizing my point.

"My _help_ is for sale--at a price."

"The price of our receiving your wife, I suppose!" he accused me bitterly.

"Oh, it's higher than that! I may have guessed something. I may be able to do something with that guess; but I'm hanged if I'll dedicate a thought or act to your service unless you, Haslemere, personally ask Maida's forgiveness for the cruel injustice you once did without stopping to make sure whether you were right or wrong: unless you, Violet, ask my wife--_ask_ her, mind you!--to let you present her to the King and Queen at the first Court after the war."

"We'll do anything--anything!" wailed Violet. "I'll crawl on my knees for a mile to your Maida, if only you can really get the jewels back before people find out how we've been fooled."

"I don't want you to crawl," said I. "You can walk, or even motor to Maida--or come out in a boat to the yacht where she's waiting for me and my news. But if I can do any useful work, it will be to-night."

"Do you think you can--oh, do you _think_ you can?" Violet implored.

"That's just what I must do. I must think," I said. "Perhaps meanwhile the police will make a lucky stroke If so, you'll owe me nothing. If they don't----"

"They won't--I feel they won't!" my sister-in-law sobbed.