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The Gem Collector

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"Oh, that was Mr. Galer. A New York friend of father's."

"Did you know him out in New York?"

"I didn't. But he seems to know father very well."

"What's his name, did you say?"

"Galer. Samuel Galer. Did you ever hear of him?"

"Never. But there were several people in New York I didn't know. How
did your father meet him over here?"

"He was stopping at the inn in the village, and he'd heard about the
abbey being so old, so he came over to look at it, and the first
person he met was father. He's going to stay in the house now. The
cart was sent down for his things this afternoon. Did you feel a spot
of rain then? I wish you'd paddle back."

"Not a drop. That storm's not coming till to-night. Why, it's a
gorgeous evening."

He turned the nose of the boat toward the island, which lay, cool and
green and mysterious, in the middle of the lake. The heat was intense.
The sun, as if conscious of having only a brief spell of work before
it, blazed fiercely, with the apparent intention of showing what it
could do before the rain came. The air felt curiously parched.

"There!" said Molly. "Surely you felt something, then."

"I did."

"Is there time to get back before it begins?"

"No."

"We shall get soaked!"

"Not a bit of it. On the other side of the island there is a handy
little boat-house sort of place. We will put in there."

The boathouse was simply a little creek covered over with boards and
capable of sheltering an ordinary rowing boat. Jimmy ran the canoe in
just as the storm began, and turned her broadside on so that they
could watch the rain, which was sweeping over the lake in sheets.

"Just in time," he said, shipping the paddle. "Snug in here, isn't
it?"

"We _should_ have got wet in another minute! I hope it won't last
long."

"I hope it will, because I've got something very important to say to
you, and I don't want to have to hurry it. Are you quite comfortable?"

"Yes, thanks."

"I don't know how to put it exactly. I mean, I don't want to offend
you or anything. What I mean to say is--do you mind if I smoke?
Thanks. I don't know why it is, but I always talk easier if I've got a
cigarette going."

He rolled one with great deliberation and care. Molly watched him
admiringly.

"You're the only man I've ever seen roll a cigarette properly, Jimmy,"
she said. "Everybody else leaves them all flabby at the ends."

"I learned the trick from a little Italian who kept a clothing store
in the Bowery. It was the only useful thing he could do."

"Look at the rain!"

Jimmy leaned forward.

"Molly----"

"I wonder if poor Mr. Wesson got indoors before it began. I do hope he
did."

Jimmy sat back again. He scowled. Every man is liable on occasion to
behave like a sulky schoolboy. Jimmy did so.

"You seem to spend most of your time thinking about Wesson," he said
savagely.

Molly had begun to hum a tune to herself as she watched the rain. She
stopped. A profound and ghastly silence brooded over the canoe.

"Molly," said Jimmy at last, "I'm sorry."

No reply.

"Molly."

"Well?"

"I'm sorry."

Molly turned.

"I wish you wouldn't say things like that, Jimmy. It hurts--from you."

He could see that there were tears in her eyes.

"Molly, don't!"

She turned her head away once more.

"I can't help it, Jimmy. It hurts. Everything's so changed. I'm
miserable. You wouldn't have said a thing like that in the old days."

"Molly, if you knew----"

"It's all right, Jimmy. It was silly of me. I'm all right now! The
rain has stopped. Let's go back, shall we?"

"Not yet. For God's sake, not yet! This is my only chance. Directly we
get back, it will be the same miserable business all over again; the
same that it's been every day since I came to this place. Heavens!
When you first told me that you were living at the abbey, I was
absolutely happy, like a fool. I might have known how it would be.
Every day there's a crowd round you. I never get a chance of talking
to you. I consider myself lucky if you speak a couple of words to me.
If I'd known the slow torture it was going to be, I'd have taken the
next train back to London. I can't stand it. Molly, you remember what
friends we were in the old days. Was it ever anything more with you?
Was it? Is it now?"

"I was very fond of you, Jimmy." He could hardly hear the words.

"Was it ever anything more than that? Is it now? That was three years
ago. You were a child. We were just good friends then. I don't want
friendship now. It's not enough. I want you--_you_. You were right a
moment ago. Everything _has_ changed. For me, at least. Has it for
you? Has it for you, Molly?"

On the island a thrush had begun to sing. Molly raised her head, as if
to listen. The water lapped against the sides of the canoe.

"Has it, Molly?"

She bent over, and dabbled one finger in the water.

"I--I think it has, Jimmy," she whispered.




CHAPTER XII.


The Honorable Louis Wesson, meanwhile, having left the water side, lit
a cigarette, and proceeded to make a moody tour of the grounds. He
felt aggrieved with the world. One is never at one's best and sunniest
when a rival has performed a brilliant and successful piece of
cutting-out work beneath one's very eyes. Something of a jaundiced
tinge stains one's outlook on life in such circumstances. Mr. Wesson
did not pretend to himself that he was violently in love with Molly.
But he certainly admired her, and intended, unless he changed his mind
later on, to marry her.

He walked, drawing thoughtfully at his cigarette. The more he reviewed
the late episode, the less he liked it. He had not seen Jimmy put
Molly in the canoe, and her departure seemed to him a deliberate
desertion. She had promised to play tennis with him, and at the last
moment she had gone off with this fellow Pitt. Who _was_ Pitt? He
was always in the way--shoving himself in.

At this moment, a large, warm raindrop fell on his hand. From the
bushes all round came an ever-increasing patter. The sky was leaden.

He looked round him for shelter. He had reached the rose garden in the
course of his perambulations. At the far end was a summerhouse. He
turned up his coat collar and ran.

As he drew near, he heard a slow and dirgelike whistling proceeding
from the interior. Plunging in out of breath, just as the deluge
began, he found Spennie seated at the little wooden table with an
earnest expression on his face. The table was covered with cards.

"How Jim took exercise," said Spennie, glancing up. "Hello, Wesson. By
Jove, isn't it coming down!"

With which greeting he turned his attention to his cards once more. He
took one from the pack in his left hand, looked at it, hesitated for a
moment, as if doubtful whereabouts on the table it would produce the
most artistic effect; and finally put it down, face upward.

Then he moved another card from the table, and put it on top of the
other one. Throughout the performance he whistled painfully.

Wesson regarded him with disfavor. "That looks damned exciting," he
said. He reserved his more polished periods for use in public. "What
are you playing at?"

"Wha-a-a'?" said Spennie abstractedly, dealing another card.

"Oh, don't sit there looking like a frog," said Wesson irritably.
"_Talk_, man."

"What's the matter? What do you want? Hello, I've done it. No, I
haven't. No luck at all. Haven't brought up a demon all day."

He gathered up the cards, and began to shuffle. "Ah, lov'," he sang
sentimentally, with a vacant eye on the roof of the summerhouse,
"could I bot tell thee how moch----"

"Oh, stop it!" said Wesson.

"You seem depressed, laddie. What's the matter? Ah, lov', could I bot
tell thee----"

"Spennie, who's this fellow Pitt?"

"Jimmy Pitt? Pal of mine. One of the absolute. Ay, nutty to the core,
good my lord. Ah, lov', could I bot tell----"

"Where did you meet him?"

"London. Why?"

"He and your sister seem pretty good friends."

"I shouldn't wonder. Knew each other out in America. Bridge, bridge,
ber-ridge, a capital game for two. Shuffle and cut and deal away, and
let the lo-oser pay-ah. Ber-ridge----"

"Well, let's have a game, then. Anything for something to do. Curse
this rain! We shall be cooped up here till dinner at this rate."

"Double dummy's a frightfully rotten game," said Spennie. "Ever played
picquet? I could teach it to you in five minutes."

A look of almost awe came into Wesson's face, the look of one who sees
a miracle performed before his eyes. For years he had been using all
the large stock of diplomacy at his command to induce callow youths to
play picquet with him and here was this admirable young man, this
pearl among young men, positively offering to teach him. It was too
much happiness. What had he done to deserve this? He felt as a
toil-worn lion might have felt if an antelope, instead of making its
customary bee line for the horizon, had expressed a friendly hope that
it would be found tender and inserted its head between his jaws.

"I--it's very good of you. I shouldn't mind being shown the idea."

He listened attentively while Spennie explained at some length the
principles which govern the game of picquet. Every now and then he
asked a question. It was evident that he was beginning to grasp the
idea of the game.

"_What_ exactly is repicquing?" he asked, as Spennie paused.

"It's like this," said Spennie, returning to his lecture.

"Yes, I see now," said the neophyte.

They began playing. Spennie, as was only to be expected in a contest
between teacher and student, won the first two hands. Wesson won the
next.

"I've got the hang of it all right, now," he said complacently. "It's
a simple sort of game. Make it more exciting, don't you think, if we
played for something?"

"All right," said Spennie slowly, "if you like."

He would not have suggested it himself, but after all, hang it, if the
man simply _asked_ for it--It was not his fault if the winning of a
hand should have given the fellow the impression that he knew all that
there was to be known about picquet. Of course, picquet was a game
where skill was practically bound to win. But--After all, Wesson had
plenty of money. He could afford it.

"All right," said Spennie again. "How much?"

"Something fairly moderate. Ten bob a hundred?"

There is no doubt that Spennie ought at this suggestion to have
corrected the novice's notion that ten shillings a hundred was fairly
moderate. He knew that it was possible for a poor player to lose four
hundred points in a twenty-minute game, and usual for him to lose two
hundred. But he let the thing go.

"Very well," he said.

Twenty minutes later, Mr. Wesson was looking somewhat ruefully at the
score sheet. "I owe you eighteen shillings," he said. "Shall I pay
you, now, or shall we settle up in a lump after we've finished?"

"What about stopping now?" said Spennie. "It's quite fine out."

"No, let's go on. I've nothing to do till dinner, and I'm sure you
haven't."

Spennie's conscience made one last effort. "You'd much better stop,
you know, Wesson, really," he said. "You can lose a frightful lot at
this game."

"My dear Spennie," said Wesson stiffly, "I can look after myself,
thanks. Of course, if you think you are risking too much, by all
means--"

"Oh, if _you_ don't mind," said Spennie, outraged, "I'm only too
frightfully pleased. Only, remember I warned you."

"I'll bear it in mind. By the way, before we start, care to make it a
sovereign a hundred?"

Spennie could not afford to play picquet for a sovereign a hundred, or
anything like it; but after his adversary's innuendo it was impossible
for a young gentleman of spirit to admit the humiliating fact. He
nodded.

* * * * *

"It's about time, I fancy," said Mr. Wesson, looking at his watch an
hour later, "that we were going in to dress for dinner."

Spennie made no reply. He was wrapped in thought.

"Let's see, that's twenty pounds you owe me, isn't it?" continued Mr.
Wesson. "No hurry, of course. Any time you like. Shocking bad luck you
had."

They went out into the rose garden.

"Jolly everything smells after the rain," said Mr. Wesson. "Freshened
everything up."

Spennie did not appear to have noticed it. He seemed to be thinking of
something else. His air was pensive and abstracted.




CHAPTER XIII.


The emotions of a man who has just proposed and been accepted are
complex and overwhelming. A certain stunned sensation is perhaps
predominant. Blended with this is relief, the relief of a general who
has brought a difficult campaign to a successful end, or of a member
of a forlorn hope who finds that the danger is over, and he is still
alive. To this must be added a newly born sense of magnificence, of
finding oneself to be, without having known it, the devil of a fellow.
We have dimly suspected, perhaps, from time to time that we were
something rather out of the ordinary run of men, but there has always
been a haunting fear that this view was to be attributed to a personal
bias in our own favor. When, however, our suspicion is suddenly
confirmed by the only judge for whose opinion we have the least
respect, our bosom heaves with complacency, and the world has nothing
more to offer.

With some accepted suitors there is an alloy of apprehension in the
metal of their happiness; and the strain of an engagement sometimes
brings with it even a faint shadow of regret. "She makes me buy new
clothes," one swain, in the third quarter of his engagement, was
overheard to moan to a friend. "Two new ties only yesterday." He
seemed to be debating within himself whether human nature could stand
the strain.

But, whatever tragedies may cloud the end of the period, its beginning
at least is bathed in sunshine. Jimmy, regarding his lathered face in
the glass as he dressed for dinner that night, called himself the
luckiest man on earth, and wondered if he were worthy of such
happiness. Thinking it over, he came to the conclusion that he was
not, but that all the same he meant to have it.

No doubt distressed him. It might have occurred to him that the
relations between Mr. McEachern and himself offered a very serious bar
to his prospects; but in his present frame of mind he declined to
consider the existence of the ex-constable at all. In a world that
contained Molly there was no room for other people. They were not in
the picture. They did not exist.

There are men in the world who, through long custom, can find
themselves engaged without any particular whirl of emotion. King
Solomon probably belonged to this class; and even Henry the Eighth
must have become a trifle blasé in time. But to the average man, the
novice, the fact of being accepted seems to divide existence into two
definite parts, before and after. A sensitive conscience goads some
into compiling a full and unexpurgated autobiography, the edition
limited to one copy, which is presented to the lady most interested.
Some men find a melancholy pleasure in these confessions. They like to
draw the girl of their affections aside and have a long, cozy chat
about what scoundrels they were before they met her.

But, after all, the past is past and cannot be altered, and it is to
be supposed that, whatever we may have done in that checkered period,
we intend to behave ourselves for the future. So, why harp on it?

Jimmy acted upon this plan. Many men in his place, no doubt, would
have steered the conversation skillfully to the subject of the eighth
commandment, and then said: "Talking about stealing, did I ever tell
you that I was a burglar myself for about six years?" Jimmy was
reticent. All that was over, he told himself. He had given it up. He
had buried the past. Why exhume it? It did not occur to him to confess
his New York crimes to Molly any more than to tell her that, when
seven, he had been caned for stealing jam.

These things had happened to a man of the name of Jimmy Pitt, it was
true. But it was not the Jimmy Pitt who had proposed to Molly in the
canoe on the lake.

The vapid and irreflective reader may jump to the conclusion that
Jimmy was a casuist, and ought to have been ashamed of himself.

He will be perfectly right.

On the other hand, one excuse may urged in his favor. His casuistry
imposed upon himself.

To Jimmy, shaving, there entered, in the furtive manner habitual to
that unreclaimed buccaneer, Spike Mullins.

"Say, Mr. Chames," he said.

"Well," said Jimmy, "and how goes the world with young Lord Fitz
Mullins? Spike, have you ever been best man?"

"On your way! What's that?"

"Best man at a wedding. Chap who stands by the bridegroom with a hand
on the scruff of his neck to see that he goes through with it. Fellow
who looks after everything, crowds the crisp banknotes onto the
clergyman after the ceremony, and then goes off and marries the first
bridesmaid, and lives happily ever after."

"I ain't got no use for gettin' married, Mr. Chames."

"Spike, the misogynist! You wait, Spike. Some day love will awake in
your heart, and you'll start writing poetry."

"I'se not dat kind of mug, Mr. Chames," protested Spike. "Dere _was_
a goil, dough. Only I was never her steady. And she married one of de
odder boys."

"Why didn't you knock him down and carry her off?"

"He was de lightweight champion of de woild."

"That makes a difference, doesn't it? But away with melancholy, Spike!
I'm feeling as if somebody had given me Broadway for a birthday
present."

"Youse to de good," agreed Spike.

"Well, any news? Keggs all right? How are you getting on?"

"Mr. Chames." Spike sank his voice to a whisper. "Dat's what I chased
meself here about. Dere's a mug down in de soivant's hall what's a
detective. Yes, dat's right, if I ever saw one."

"What makes you think so?"

"On your way, Mr. Chames! Can't I tell? I could pick out a fly cop out
of a bunch of a thousand. Sure. Dis mug's vally to Sir Thomas, dat's
him. But he ain't no vally. He's come to see dat no one don't get busy
wit de jools. Say, what do you t'ink of dem jools, Mr. Chames?"

"Finest I ever saw."

"Yes, dat's right. De limit, ain't dey? Ain't youse really----"

"No, Spike, I am not, thank you _very_ much for inquiring. I'm never
going to touch a jewel again unless I've paid for it and got the
receipt in my pocket."

Spike shuffled despondently.

"All the same," said Jimmy, "I shouldn't give yourself away to this
detective. If he tries pumping you at all, give him the frozen face."

"Sure. But he ain't de only one."

"What, _more_ detectives? They'll have to put up 'house full' boards
at this rate. Who's the other?"

"De mug what came dis afternoon. Ole man McEachern brought him. I seed
Miss Molly talking to him."

"The chap from the inn? Why, that's an old New York friend of
McEachern's."

"Anyhow, Mr. Chames, he's a sleut'. I can tell 'em by deir eyes and
deir feet, and de whole of dem."

An idea came into Jimmy's mind.

"I see," he said. "Our friend McEachern has got him in to spy on us. I
might have known he'd be up to something like that."

"Dat's right, Mr. Chames."

"Of course you may be mistaken."

"Not me, Mr. Chames."

"Anyhow, I shall be seeing him at dinner. I can get talking to him
afterward. I shall soon find out what his game is."

For the moment, Molly was forgotten. The old reckless spirit was
carrying him away. This thing was a deliberate challenge. He had been
on parole. He had imagined that his word was all that McEachern had to
rely on. But if the policeman had been working secretly against him
all this time, his parole was withdrawn automatically. The thought
that, if he did nothing, McEachern would put it down complacently to
the vigilance of his detective and his own astuteness in engaging him
stung Jimmy. His six years of burglary had given him an odd sort of
professional pride. "I've half a mind," he said softly. The familiar
expression on his face was not lost on Spike.

"To try for de jools, Mr. Chames?" he asked eagerly.

His words broke the spell. Molly resumed her place. The hard look died
out of Jimmy's eyes.

"No," he said. "Not that. It can't be done."

"Yes, it could, Mr. Chames. Dead easy. I've been up to de room, and
I've seen de box what de jools is put in at night. We could get at
them easy as pullin' de plug out of a bottle. Say, dis is de softest
proposition, dis house. Look what I got dis afternoon, Mr. Chames."

He plunged his hand into his pocket, and drew it out again. As he
unclosed his fingers, Jimmy caught the gleam of precious stones.

He started as one who sees snakes in the grass.

"What the----" he gasped.

Spike was looking at his treasure-trove with an air of affectionate
proprietorship.

"Where on earth did you get those?" asked Jimmy.

"Out of one of de rooms. Dey belonged to one of de loidies. It was de
easiest old t'ing ever, Mr. Chames. I went in when dere was nobody
about, and dere dey were on de toible. I never butted into anyt'ing so
soft, Mr. Chames."

"Spike."

"Yes, Mr. Chames?"

"Do you remember the room you took them from?"

"Sure. It was de foist on de----"

"Then just listen to me for a moment. When we're at dinner, you've got
to go to that room and put those things back--all of them, mind
you--just where you found them. Do you understand?"

Spike's jaw had fallen.

"Put dem back, Mr. Chames!" he faltered.

"Every single one of them."

"Mr. Chames!" said Spike plaintively.

"You'll bear it in mind? Directly dinner has begun, every one of those
things goes back where it belongs. See?"

"Very well, Mr. Chames."

The dejection in his voice would have moved the sternest to pity.
Gloom had enveloped Spike's spirit. The sunlight had gone out of his
life.




CHAPTER XIV.


Spennie Blunt, meanwhile, was not feeling happy. Out of his life, too,
had the sunshine gone. His assets amounted to one pound seven and
fourpence and he owed twenty pounds. He had succeeded, after dinner,
in borrowing five pounds from Jimmy, who was in the mood when he would
have lent five pounds to anybody who asked for it, but beyond that he
had had no successes in the course of a borrowing tour among the
inmates of the abbey.

In the seclusion of his bedroom, he sat down to smoke a last cigarette
and think the thing over in all its aspects. He could see no way out
of his difficulties. The thought had something of the dull persistency
of a toothache. It refused to leave him. If only this had happened at
Oxford, he knew of twenty kindly men who would have rallied round him,
and placed portions of their fathers' money at his disposal. But this
was July. He would not see Oxford again for months. And, in the
meantime, Wesson would be pressing for his money.

"Oh, damn!" he said.

He had come to this conclusion for the fiftieth time, when the door
opened, and his creditor appeared in person. To Spennie, he looked
like the embodiment of Fate, a sort of male Nemesis.

"I want to have a talk with you, Spennie," said Wesson, closing the
door.

"Well?"

Wesson lit a cigarette, and threw the match out of the window before
replying.

"Look here, Spennie," he said, "I want to marry Miss McEachern."

Spennie was in no mood to listen to the love affairs of other men.

"Oh!" he said.

"Yes. And I want you to help me."

"Help you?"

"You must have a certain amount of influence with her. She's your
sister."

"Stepsister."

"Same thing."

"Well, anyhow, it's no good coming to me. Nobody's likely to make
Molly do a thing unless she wants to. I couldn't, if I tried for a
year. We're good pals, and all that, but she'd shut me up like a knife
if I went to her and said I wanted her to marry some one."

"Not being a perfect fool," said Wesson impatiently, "I don't suggest
that you should do that."

"What's the idea, then?"

"You can easily talk about me to her. Praise me, and so on."

Spennie's eyes opened wide.

"Praise you? How?"

"Thanks," said Wesson, with a laugh. "If you can't think of any
admirable qualities in me, you'd better invent some."

"I should feel such a silly ass."

"That would be a new experience for you, wouldn't it? And then you can
arrange it so that I shall get chances of talking to her. You can
bring us together."

Spennie's eyes became rounder.

"You seem to have mapped out quite a programme for me."

"She'll listen to you. You can help me a lot."

"Can I?"

Wesson threw away his cigarette.

"And there's another thing," he said. "You can queer that fellow
Pitt's game. She's always with him now. You must get her away from
him. Run him down to her. And get him out of this place as soon as
possible. You invited him here. He doesn't expect to stop here
indefinitely, I suppose? If you left, he'd have to, too. What you must
do is to go back to London directly after the theatricals are over.
He'll have to go with you. Then you can drop him in London and come
back."

It is improbable that Wesson was blind to certain blemishes which
could have been urged against this ingenious scheme by a critic with a
nice sense of the honorable; but, in his general conduct of life, as
in his play at cards, he was accustomed to ignore the rules when he
felt disposed to do so. He proceeded to mention in detail a few of the
things which he proposed to call upon his ally to do. A delicate pink
flush might have been seen to spread over Spennie's face. He began to
look like an angry rabbit. He had not a great deal of pride in his
composition, but the thought of the ignominious rôle which Wesson was
sketching out for him stirred what he had to its shallow depths.

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