by Berta Ruck
CHAPTER XXI
AN UNEXPECTED INVASION!
I HAD scarcely been in the room ten minutes. I was putting fresh waterinto the tall glass jar that held the sheaf of red carnations, whenthere came yet another tap at the white door that I have had to openseveral times already to-day, but never to any messenger with tidings ofmy missing mistress!
This time, to my amazement, it was quite a group of men who asked foradmittance to Miss Million's room!
There was first the frock-coated manager; then a very stout andblack-eyed and fleshy-nosed Hebrew gentleman whom I hadn't seen before;then a quiet-looking man with a black tie whom I recognised as the onewho had been pointed out to me by the telephone girl as a Scotland Yardplain-clothes detective; then the young American in the light-greytweeds.
I wondered if I were dreaming as this quartette proceeded to walk calmlyin.
Such an invasion!
What could they all want?
The manager turned to me with a smile. He spoke in quite as pleasant avoice as he had spoken before; it was, indeed, quite conciliating! Butthere was an order behind it!
"Now, Miss Smith, I am very sorry to have to disturb you. We're allvery sorry, I'm sure," with a glance at the other three men.
The detective looked polite and blank; the Jew man seemed fussing andfuming over something; the young American glanced interestedly about theroom, taking everything in, down to the carnations in my hand. He smiledat me. He had a friendly face.
"Not at all," I said, wishing my heart would not beat with suchunreasonable alarm. "Is there anything--is it anything about mymistress?"
"Oh, no. Miss Smith. It's a mere formality we're asking you to submitto," said the manager. "All our own staff have complied, without raisingany objection. And we think it advisable to apply the same thing toother--er--to other people employed about the place. It's as much foryour own sake as for ours, you know?"
"What is?" I asked, feeling distinctly more fluttered.
"I am sure you're far too reasonable to make any demur," the managerwent on soothingly. "The last young lady, our Miss Mackenzie, raised noobjection at all."
Mackenzie is the sandy-haired chamber-maid.
"Objection to what?" I asked, with as much dignity as I could possiblysummon up.
"Why, to having us go through her boxes, Miss Smith," said the managerwith great suavity. "The fact is an article of value is missing fromthis hotel. The property of Mr. Rattenheimer here," with a turn towardsthe obese Hebrew, "and it would be a satisfaction to him and to all ofus to prove that no suspicious can be attached to anybody in the place.So----"
So that was it!
They wanted to search my things to see if I were a thief!
Yes, they actually wanted to search my trunks! Just as if I were asuspected servant in a country house where one of the guests finds adiamond bar missing!
Here was a nice predicament for Aunt Anastasia's niece, and for my poorfather's child, to say nothing of Lady Anastasia's great-granddaughter!It was so absurd that I nearly laughed. At all events, I suppose theanxious expression must have left my face for the moment.
The manager rubbed his hands, and said in a pleased voice: "Ah, I knewyou were sensible, and would make no fuss! When people have clearconsciences I don't suppose they mind who goes looking through theirthings. I am sure I should not mind anybody in the world knowing whatwas inside my boxes. Now, Miss Smith, I think your room is No. 46, is itnot? So if you will be kind enough to give me your keys, and----If youwould not mind stepping with us across the corridor----"
Here I found voice.
"You really mean it?" I said. "You want to search my trunks?"
"Merely as a matter of form," repeated the manager a little moreinsistently. "I am sure a young lady like you would not mind who knewwhat was in her trunks."
I stood there, one hand still full of the red carnations that I wasrearranging, the other gripping the end of the pink couch. I wasthinking at lightning speed even as the frock-coated, shrewd-eyed,suave-voiced manager was speaking.
My trunks?
Well, as far as that went, I had only one trunk to my name! For I hadgiven Mackenzie, the sandy-haired chamber-maid, all the luggage whichhad known me in Putney.
When she asked me what she was to do with it, I told her she could giveit to the dustman to take away, or cut it up for lighting the fireswith, or anything she liked. She had said, "Very good" in a wooden tonethat I knew masked surprise and wonderment unceasing over theinhabitants of Nos. 44, 45, and 46. Consequently I had, as I say, onlyone single trunk in the whole wide world.
And that was the brand-new masterpiece of the trunkmaker's art, boughtin Bond Street, and handed over to me for my use by Miss Million on theill-fated day when we first arrived at the Cecil.
As for what was in it----
Well, in one of Miss Million's own idioms, "It was full of emptiness"!
There was not a thing in it but the incorporate air and theexpensive-smelling perfume of very good new leather!
As the luggage of a modest lady's-maid it was really tooeccentric-looking to display to the suspicious eyes of the four men whowaited there in Miss Million's sitting-room confronting me. I protestedincoherently: "Oh, I don't think I can let you----"
"Ah!" said the stout Jewish gentleman, with a vicious glance from me tothe Scotland Yard detective, "this don't seem a case of a very clearconscience!"
The manager put up a deprecating hand.
"A little quietly, sir, if you please. I am sure Miss Smith will seethat it is quite as much for her own benefit to let us just give a bitof a look through her things."
Her "things!" There, again, was something rather embarrassing. The factwas I had so ridiculously few things. No dress at all but the well-cut,brand-new gown that I stood up in; one hat, one jacket, and two pairs ofexpensive shoes, three changes of underclothes, and silk stockings. Allwere good, but all so obviously just out of the shop! There wasabsolutely nothing about them to link their owner to any past before shecame to the hotel!
For the fact is that when I sent my boxes and hold-all away I had alsorepudiated every stitch of the very shabby clothing that had been minewhile I was not Miss Million's maid, but her mistress. The ne'er-do-wellserge skirts, the makeshift "Jap" silk blouses with no "cut" about them,the underclothes, all darned and patched, the much-mended stockings,once black cashmere but now faded to a kind of myrtle-green--all, allhad gone to swell two bulky parcels which I had put up and sent off toThe Little Sisters of the Poor!
I had heaved a sigh of delight as I had handed those parcels over thepost-office counter. It had been the fulfilment of the wish of years!
I expect every hard-up girl knows that impulse, that mad longing thatshe could make a perfectly clean sweep of every single stitch shepossesses to wear! How rapturously she would send it all, all away! Oh,her joy if she might make an entirely new start--with all fresh clothes;good ones, pretty ones, becoming ones! Clothes that she would enjoywearing, even if there were only so very few of them!
In my case they were so few that I really did not feel that they couldsupport any sort of kit-inspection. Especially under the eyes of meremale men, who never do understand anything that has to do with ourattire.
There I stood, in the only frock I had got, in the only other apron andcap (all exquisite of their kind, mind you!), and I said falteringly: "Iam very sorry to be disobliging! But I cannot consent to let you searchmy things, or open my boxes."
"Looks very bad, indeed, that's all I can say," broke out the stoutHebrew gentleman excitedly. "Afraid we shall be obliged to do so,officer, whether this young woman wants to let us or not."
"You can't," I protested. "Nobody can search a person's box againsttheir will!"
I remember hearing from Million, in the old days of heart-to-heartconfidences about her "other situations," that this was "The law of theland."
No mistress had the right of opening the trunk o
f a reluctant maid onher, the mistress's, own responsibility!
"We might find ourselves obliged to do so, Madam," put in the ScotlandYard man in a quiet, expressionless voice. "We might take steps toenable us to examine this young lady's belongings, if we find itnecessary."
"Very well, then, charge me! Get an order, or whatever it's called," Isaid quietly but firmly. I meditated swiftly. "Getting an order" mighttake time, quite a lot of time! Anything to do with "the law" seems totake such ages before it happens! In that time Miss Million would, Ihope to goodness! have turned up again. If she were here I should notfeel so helpless as I do now--a girl absolutely "on her own," with allher visible means of support (notably her heiress-mistress) taken fromher!
"Oh, we hope that it will not be found necessary," persisted themanager, who, I suspect, thought he was being very nice about theaffair. "I am sure Miss Smith will only have to think the matter over tosee the reasonableness of what is being asked her. Here we are, in thisbig hotel, all sorts of people coming and going----"
"Coming and going" rather described my absent mistress's procedure. "Andwe find suddenly that a piece of very valuable jewellery is missing."
"The Rattenheimer ruby! Not another like it in the world!" cried thestout and excited Jew. "I won't tell you how much I gave for that stone!My wife wears it as a pendant, unmounted, just pierced so as to hold ona gold chain.... I won't let that be lost, I can tell you! I will searcheverywhere, everything, everybody. I tell you, young woman, you need notimagine that you can get out of having your boxes overhauled, if ittakes all Scotland Yard to do it!"
Here the pleasant, rather slow voice of the American with the unfamiliarnote in boots and clothes and thick, mouse-coloured hair broke in uponthe other man's yapping. "Ca'm yourself, Rats. Ca'm yourself. You keepquite ca'm and easy. You won't get anything out of a young lady likethis by your film-acting and your shouts!"
"I tell her I'll have her searched."
"Not with my consent," I said, feeling absolutely determined now. "Andto do it without my consent you have to wait."
"I shall go through the other girl's things, then, first," snorted theexcited Jew. "What's the name of the girl this one's alleged to beworking for?" In every look and tone the man voiced his conviction thatpoor little Million and I were two notorious, practised jewel thieves ina new disguise.
"This woman who calls herself Million, I will go through her things."
"You will not," I said stiffly. "My mistress is out. I will not allowany of her things to be touched during her absence. That is my duty."
"That's so," said the young American softly.
The excited Jew man almost grimaced with rage. Loudly he demanded: "Out,is she? 'Out'? Where may that be?"
How ardently I wished that I knew, myself!
But all I said was: "I fail to see that it has got anything to do withyou."
"Probably," said the manager soothingly, "probably when Miss Millionreturns she will persuade Miss Smith to be more reasonable."
"They are in league together! It is a put-up job! These two girls ...Half the hotel's talking about them.... There is something fishy aboutthem. I will find out what it is," the fat Jew was bubbling, while theyoung American took him by the arm and walked him quietly towards thedoor. The Scotland Yard man had already unobtrusively disappeared. Lastof all the manager went, with quite a pleasant nod and quite a friendly,"Well, Miss Smith, I expect you will think better of it presently."
I know that all four of them suspects me! They think that Million and Iknow something about this wretched Rattenheimer ruby, or whatever it is.Perhaps they think that we are in communication with gangs of jewellerythieves all over Europe? Perhaps they imagine that I am left here tomount guard over some other loot while Million has gone over for a tripto Hamburg or Rotterdam, or wherever it is that people do go with stolenjewels?
And for all I know she may be doing something just as idiotic--the sillygirl, getting her head turned and her hair decorated by moon-calves ofyoung lords!... Oh! I wish there was any one to whom I could turn foradvice! There is not a soul.
That nice, sensible, reliable Mr. Brace is by this time in Paris. Out ofreach! As for Mr. Burke, he is gallivanting at Brighton, and, of course,one could not depend upon him, anyhow!
I feel I must go out.
It's evening, which means that Million has been away from the hotel fortwenty-four hours. I have not left it except for that flying visit tothe "Thousand and One" Club.
Get a breath of fresh air before dinner I simply must. My head seemswhirling round and round, and my nerves feel as if something in them hassnapped with a loud twang like a violin string. I shall go out--if theywill let me, but I should not be at all surprised if the manager of thehotel and the Rattenheimer creature between them did not mean to let mestir out of their sight.
Still, I shall try. I shall take a little turn on the Embankment, andwatch the barges on the river. That ought to have a soothing influence.
How perfectly terrible if I am stopped in the vestibule!...
I was not stopped.
Nobody seemed to see me go out.
But when I got out into the Strand, with its summer evening crowds ofpeople, I happened to glance across the street, and beheld some one thatI had just seen in my room--namely, the quiet-faced man from ScotlandYard. How awful! I was being shadowed! It was a horrible feeling. Sohorrible that I am sure it could not have been any worse if I had reallytaken the Rattenheimer ruby, and had it fastened securely inside myblack coat at the moment!
I felt as if I had. I wondered if the man would come across and dog myfootsteps!
I turned down one of the little quiet streets on the right that lead tothe river, and then I did hear footsteps behind me. They werefollowing--positively following--me!
"Good evening!" said a quite friendly but un-English voice. It was notthe Scotland Yard detective, then, after all. I turned. It was the youngAmerican.