Part 13 (1/2)

Nevertheless, as he still glared at his enemy, Melrose suddenly realized that the man was right. He would have to submit. For many reasons, he could not--at this moment in particular--excite any fresh hue and cry which might bring the whole countryside on his back. Unless the doctor were lying, and he could get another of the craft to certify it, he would have to put up--for the very minimum of time--with the intolerable plague of this invasion.

He turned away abruptly, took a turn up and down the only free s.p.a.ce the room contained, and returned.

”Perhaps you will kindly inform me, sir--since you have been good enough to take this philanthropic business on yourself--or rather to shovel it on to me”--each sarcastic word was flung like a javelin at the doctor--”whether you know anything whatever of this youth you are thrusting upon me? I don't imagine that he has dropped from the skies! If you don't know, and haven't troubled yourself to find out, I shall set the police on at once, track his friends, and hand him over!”

Undershaw was at once all civility and alacrity.

”I have already made some inquiries at Keswick, Mr. Melrose, where I was this morning. He was staying, it appears, with some friends at the Victoria Hotel--a Mr. and Mrs. Ransom, Americans. The hotel people thought that he had been to meet them at Liverpool, had taken them through the Lakes, and had then seen them off for the south. He himself was on his way to Scotland to fish. He had sent his luggage to Pengarth by rail, and chose to bicycle, himself, through the Vale of St. John, because the weather was so fine. He intended to catch a night train on the main line.”

”Just as I supposed! Idle scapegrace!--with nothing in the world to do but to get himself and other people into trouble!”

”You saw the card that I left for you on the hall table? But there is something else that we found upon him in undressing him which I should greatly prefer, if I might, to hand over to your care. You, I have no doubt, understand such things. They seem to be valuable, and neither the nurses nor I at all wish to have charge of them. There is a ring”--Undershaw searched his pockets--”and this case.”

He held out two small objects. Melrose--still breathing quick with anger--took them unwillingly. With the instinctive gesture of the collector, however, he put up his eyegla.s.s to look at the ring. Undershaw saw him start.

”Good heavens!”

The voice was that of another man. He looked frowning at Undershaw.

”Where did you get this?”

”He wore it on his left hand. It is sharp as you see, and rather large, and the nurse was afraid, while he is still restless and sometimes delirious, he might do himself some hurt with it.”

Melrose opened the case--a small flat case of worn green leather some six inches long; and looked at its contents in a speechless amazement. The ring was a Greek gem of the best period--an Artemis with the towered crown, cut in amethyst. The case contained six pieces,--two cameos, and four engraved gems--amethyst, cornelian, sardonyx, and rock crystal; which Melrose recognized at once as among the most precious things of this kind in the world! He turned abruptly, walked to his writing-table, took out the gems, weighed them in his hand, examined them with a magnifying gla.s.s, or held them to the light, muttering to himself, and apparently no longer conscious of the presence of Undershaw.

Recollections ran about his brain: ”Mackworth showed me that Medusa himself last year in London. He bought that Mars at the Castellani sale.

And that's the Muse which that stupid brute Vincent had my commission for, and let slip through his fingers at the Arconati sale!”

Undershaw observed him, with an amus.e.m.e.nt carefully concealed. He had suspected from the beginning that in these possessions of the poor stricken youth means might be found for taming the formidable master of the Tower. For himself he scorned ”la curiosite,” and its devotees, as mere triflers and sh.e.l.l-gatherers on sh.o.r.es bathed by the great ocean of science. But like all natural rulers of men he was quick to seize on any weakness that suited his own ends; and he said to himself that Faversham was safe.

”They are valuable?” he asked, as Melrose still sat absorbed.

”They are,” was the curt reply.

”I am glad they have fallen into such good hands. They show I think”--the speaker smiled amicably--”that we have not to do with any mere penniless adventurer. His friends are probably at this moment extremely anxious about him. I hope we may soon get some clue to them. Now”--the voice sharpened to the practical note--”may I appeal to you, Mr. Melrose, to make arrangements for the nurses as soon as is convenient to you. Their wants are very simple--two beds--plain food--small amount of attendance--and some means of communicating without too much delay with myself, or the chemist. I promise they shall give as little trouble as possible!”

Melrose rose slowly without replying. He took a bunch of keys from is pocket, and opened one of the drawers in the Riesener table. As he did so, the drawer, under a stream of sunset light from the window beyond it, seemed to give out a many-coloured flash--a rapid Irislike effect, lost in a moment. The impression made on Undershaw was that the drawer already contained gems like those in the case--or jewels--or both.

Melrose seemed to have opened the drawer in a fit of abstraction during which he had forgotten Undershaw's presence. But, if so, the act roused him, and he looked round half angrily, half furtively at his visitor, as he hastily relocked the drawer.

Then speaking with renewed arrogance, he said:

”Well, sir, I will see to these things. For to-night, I consent--for to-night only, mind you--reserving entirely my liberty of action for to-morrow.”

Undershaw nodded, and they left the room together.

Dixon and Mrs. Dixon were both waiting in the pa.s.sage outside, watching for Melrose, and hanging on his aspect. To their amazement they were told that a room was to be got ready for the nurses, a girl was to be fetched to wait on them from the farm, and food was to be cooked.

The faces of both the old servants showed instant relief. Dixon went off to the farm, and Mrs. Dixon flew to her kitchen. She was getting old, and the thought of the extra work to be done oppressed her.

Nevertheless after these years of solitude, pa.s.sed as it were in a besieged camp--Threlfall and its inmates against the world--this new and tardy contact with humanity, this momentary return to neighbourly, kindly ways brought with it a strange sweetness. And when night fell, and a subdued, scarcely perceptible murmur of life began to creep about the pa.s.sages of the old house, in general so dead and silent, Mrs. Dixon might have been heard hoa.r.s.ely crooning an old song to herself as she went to and fro in the kitchen. All the evening she and Dixon were restless, inventing work, when work was finished, running from yard to house and house to yard, calling to each other without reason, and looking at each other with bewildered eyes. They were like beetles under a stone, when the stone is suddenly lifted.