The Blue Diamond (28 page)

“I dare say she couldn't!” Mr. Gore sniffed. “I wonder you can be so simple, Mavis! She might tell me she had suddenly remembered that her father was the Shah of Persia if she pleased; I should want a little more proof than her assertion. Here Arthur comes! I have a good mind to tell him what I think of his conduct without more ado. I had no idea of the depths of his folly until your mother told me about the affair just now. She tells me your father's brother refused to come down altogether, and I am not surprised to hear it. I shall—”

“Oh, please don't say anything to-night, Uncle Robert!” Mavis entreated in alarm. “We—things are all wrong somehow, and Arthur is not very good- tempered as it is; we do want to-night to pass off without any bother.”

Sir Arthur certainly did not look in the best of tempers as he strolled towards them, one of his favourite orchids in his buttonhole, but his face brightened as Lady Laura, with Hilda and Dorothy, came into the room; Lady Laura turned to her brother, Dorothy joined Garth and Arthur drew Hilda aside.

The girl was looking her best to-night. Arthur had insisted that she should wear the gown that had been ordered for the dance from Mavis's dressmaker; it was of her favourite pale blue, and its long straight lines showed every curve of her rounded figure, while the colour threw up in high relief her brilliant complexion and the sheen of her golden hair. At her breast she wore a cluster of delicate orchids, and round her firm white throat a string of pearls, exquisite in shape and colour—Sir Arthur's latest gift.

Arthur's gaze never left her face as they chatted in low tones. More than once the others, as if compelled by her beauty and charm, paused in their conversation to look at her; but it was obvious that the girl was nervous and ill at ease.

“You are not afraid of my uncle, surely, dearest?” asked Arthur as he bent nearer to her.

“Your uncle?'' Hilda repeated vaguely; then she started. “Oh, I beg your pardon, Arthur. I was thinking —yes, I believe I am a little afraid of your uncle. He looks rather formidable.''

“Oh, he only wants knowing! He will love you like everybody else directly,” Arthur finished with cheerful optimism.

Despite their best efforts the dinner-party was a dreary affair: the shadow that lay over the house seemed to affect the spirits of every one, and no one was sorry when the evening came to an end.

In the hall Dorothy caught Mavis's arm.

“I—I am going to sleep with you to-night, Mavis. I can't help remembering the scream I heard. If I stayed in my own room I know I should hear it again.”

Mr. Gore buttonholed his nephew.

“Come on, Arthur, you and I must have a long talk over matters.”

Arthur turned towards the smoking-room with him unwillingly. Fresh from the contemplation of Hilda's beauty, he was in no mood to listen to his uncle's remonstrances patiently. Mr. Gore soon found that he was doing more harm than good, and he reluctantly concluded that he must leave the matter until he was in a position to present his argument more forcibly.

Little attention as Arthur paid to his uncle's words, they served to irritate his nerves, already overstrung by the events of the preceding week, and his dreams were haunted by forebodings of some calamity yet to come. It was with a feeling that his presentiments were about to be fulfilled that he woke up suddenly with a sense of having been called. He sat up in bed and waited.

There was a low tapping at his door, and he recognized that this was the sound that had roused him.

“Who is there?” he called out.

The answer came in a whisper.

“It is I—Mavis. Be as quiet as you can, Arthur. I think—I am sure there are burglars in the house.”

“Burglars!” Arthur ejaculated as he threw himself out of bed. “Go back to your room, Mavis, like a good girl, and lock your door. I will see to this.”

He hurried on his clothes and opened the door, to find Mavis still outside with Dorothy clinging to her.

“Now, where are the burglars?” he said in a reassuring tone. “I expect it is all fancy, but still—”

“It is not fancy. Dorothy could not sleep; she was nervous and worried last night, so she came into my room. As she was tossing about she thought she heard some one opening the side door which you can just see from my window, so she got out of bed, and looked out. Dark as it was she could distinguish figures outside, and they came in—somebody let them in. They—they have gone towards the strong-room, Arthur!”

“They have! Well, they will find they have a pretty hard nut to crack there,” Arthur remarked philosophically, “one they will not manage in a minute or two. I shall have time to take you girls back to your room. Have you told Uncle Robert?”

“No; we came to you first.” Dorothy ventured to lay her hand on his arm. “You—you will be careful, Arthur? You will take care of yourself?”

“I shall be all right, never fear, Dorothy,” he said. “Lock your door; I must call the men.”

So absorbed were they that none of them heard a door softly open farther down the passage, not one of them caught a glimpse of a white face peering forth.

Sir Arthur stole softly along the passages to the men's quarters, catching a glimpse of light as he passed through the swing-doors that told him that the girls' story was no mere fabrication. Very softly he roused Jenkins and the footmen and told them what was wanted. Then, arming himself with his revolver, while the men provided themselves with other weapons, the four crept down the stairs. As they reached the bottom flight they became aware for the first time of a low, filing sound. They paused in indecision. At the same moment a tall, dark figure, cloaked and thickly veiled, that had been softly stealing after them, slipped deftly behind a statue at the bend of the staircase.

One of the men looked up.

“I—I almost thought I heard something above, Sir Arthur. If they should be going upstairs—”

“No, no! It is the strong-room!” Jenkins said, with a moan, going a step or two in advance. “They have the outer door open—and all my silver! Oh, dear!”

“They will not get much farther,” Arthur said beneath his breath as they tiptoed down the passage.

A moment later he found that he had made a mistake. Through the half-open door of the strong-room he saw that the intruders were well inside the second compartment, and he realized that the filing sound he had heard had been caused by the cutting of the electric alarm. The safe itself, with the lock of whose ingenuity the Hargreaves had been so proud, and of whose absolute impenetrability they had boasted, was wide open, and before it two men were standing.

They carried dark lanterns and were evidently masked, but Sir Arthur fancied there was something oddly familiar about one of them as he watched them peering into the safe. Nearer to the silent watchers, behind among the shadows, a third dark figure was stealing up to them. Suddenly, before Sir Arthur had formulated his plan of action, one of the men bending over the safe turned. Arthur barely suppressed an exclamation of consternation, for in his hand he held the famous Blue Diamond; his comrades and he gazed at it with a murmur of satisfaction, and while their attention was thus occupied Jenkins leaned towards his master.

“I will pull the door to and lock them in, Sir Arthur.”

He dashed forward and caught the door, but the contingency had been thought of and guarded against by the burglars: the door did not yield—it was fastened back.

The sound Jenkins made had reached the ears of the men in the inner room; they turned, and with a snarl like a wild cat at bay one of them sprang forward.

Pistol in hand, Sir Arthur advanced.

“It is all over!” he cried. “Put the Blue Diamond back in its case!” he commanded.

The man upon whom his eyes were fixed—the one holding the Blue Diamond—hesitated and made a backward motion.

“Lay the case in the safe and hold up your hands!” Arthur's clear imperious tone rang through the little chamber, and sullenly his opponent obeyed.

Arthur made a step or two forward, his pistol still pointed.

“Now unfasten this door!” But he was reckoning without his host. As he came into the room, keeping his eyes fixed on the man whom he took to be the leader, the other, standing farther in the safe, raised his hand; simultaneously a loud shriek rang through the room and echoed through the house, and the veiled figure which had been creeping behind sprang forward right before Arthur. There was a flash, a report. Arthur had a vision of a loved, familiar face; then, as the smoke cleared away and the men rushed in, they saw that he was standing upright apparently unhurt, but with a dazed, horror-stricken look on his white face, while at his feet lay a huddled-up heap, all undistinguishable, brown, save for one long tress of golden hair that caught the light of the lantern.

Gazing at it with distended eyes, Sir Arthur stooped in a slow, benumbed fashion, but before he could reach it the man who had fired, dropping his pistol, rushed past him, and pushing him backwards threw himself beside the prostrate form on the floor.

“Oh, Hilda, Hilda! Speak to me, Hilda!” he cried.

T
HE CRY
and the shot had roused the house; the loud clanging of the alarm-bell could be heard above the tumult; the grooms and stable-men admitted by the women rushed to their master's assistance and one of the burglars was soon overpowered.

Meanwhile Arthur, whose energy, whose very senses, appeared for the time to be paralysed, still leaned against the wall, where the force of the burglar's impact had sent him, his eyes fixed in a terrible, incredulous stare upon the form lying upon the ground. Jenkins and one of the footmen had secured the other man, and then Jenkins turned to the one who, oblivious of everything apparently but the quiet form over which he was bending, was holding a white hand to his lips, and still beseeching in hoarse, broken accents:

“Hilda! Hilda! Speak to me!”

Jenkins gave one glance at the pale face from which the hood had fallen back, at the golden hair, then with a horrified start he turned to his master.

“Sir Arthur, do you see as it is—”

“Hush!” Sir Arthur broke in fiercely. “Don't say it! It is not true! It is only a dreadful mistake. It—it can't be, Jenkins, you know—”

“Begging your pardon, Sir Arthur, I can't see as there can be any mistake,” Jenkins said stolidly. “I could take my oath that it is—”

He was interrupted by the tramp of feet along the passage. Superintendent Stokes, accompanied by his men, roused by the alarm-bell, had arrived on the scene.

The superintendent instantly took command of the situation; one of the intruders was still held between the first footman and a groom. With a wave of his hand the superintendent ordered him into safer custody. Then he went forward and surveyed the other couple without manifesting any surprise.

“What in the world is all this about?”

Mr. Gore stood in the passage, peering over the shoulders of the crowd surrounding the strong-room door. Hearing his voice, the bystanders made way for him, and he advanced somewhat gingerly.

“What is the matter, Arthur? An attempt to steal the Blue Diamond, I suppose? Why don't you speak, boy?” Then in a different tone as Arthur turned his dull, heavy eyes upon him and apparently tried to answer, for his lips moved though no words were audible, “You are ill—wounded?”

Sir Arthur shook his head.

“No,” he said in a rough, broken tone, evidently only with difficulty made articulate. “No, I was saved. She —she saved me!”

His uncle's gaze travelled farther; then he went forward, uttered a quick exclamation of astonishment, and, straightening himself, looked at the superintendent.

“Surely that is the girl without a memory? What was she doing down here?”

“That has got to be found out, sir,” replied the superintendent. “But,” with a significant glance round, “I dare say I could make a pretty good guess at it. I can't say as I'm much surprised, though I hardly thought matters were quite as bad as this. Hist! She is recovering,” as there was a faint flutter of the white eyelids. “And, just in the nick of time, here is Dr. Grieve. Your work is here, doctor.”

“I thought it might be! I was driving home from Overdeen when I heard the alarm-bell.” The doctor bustled in and put Mr. Gore unceremoniously aside. “One moment, my dear sir, you must leave the patient to me, please,” with a keen glance at the masked man who was evidently unwilling to obey him. “At once, please!” the doctor went on. “I can see that there is no time to be lost.”

With a silent gesture of despair the man moved aside and was instantly secured by the police. He made no resistance as they snapped the handcuffs on his wrists, but, as if hardly conscious what they were doing, stood motionless, the bright dark eyes, which were all that could be seen beneath the mask, fixed on the doctor as he went about his ghastly task with professional precision.

Presently, shaking his head, Dr. Grieve turned round.

“She will get better, doctor?”

For a moment Dr. Grieve looked up in surprise, not recognizing the hoarse, changed tones as Sir Arthur's.

Then as he saw the young man's haggard face he understood.

“I am not all-powerful, Sir Arthur,” he said gravely. “And nothing but a miracle could save this poor girl now. She has been shot right through the lungs and there is internal haemorrhage; she may, in fact she will probably have a conscious interval, but it is only a question of a very short time.”

He knelt down and contrived to force a few drops of some stimulant between the pallid lips, and in a few moments there was a little fluttering gasp and the deep-blue eyes opened once more.

“Hilda!” The handcuffed man sprang forward, dragging his guardians with him. “Hilda, you must live —it cannot be that I have killed you—I who love you so! For my sake, Hilda!”