Part 14 (2/2)

Constance flushed, and then turned pale. She had found her match; she was cornered, mastered, but she must give one last scratch.

”Having divined so much,” she said bitterly. ”I suppose you intend to find them too?”

He drew himself up haughtily. ”I am a detective, madam, not a spy; so long as your diamonds give _you_ no uneasiness they have no interest for me. When you need my services they are yours. I do not investigate mysteries from mere curiosity.”

Constance felt a twinge of self-reproach. ”I am behaving like a fool,”

she thought, in severe condemnation. ”I am losing my own ident.i.ty; this man is a friend to rely on, an enemy to fear. He will not bow to my whims and caprices. What has come over me? Let me try and redeem myself.”

She had been musing with downcast eyes; now she looked up, straight into her companion's face. It had undergone a sudden change; the eyes, a moment since so full of fire and subtlety, were dull and expressionless.

The face was vague to apathy, the mouth looked the incarnation of meekness or imbecility; even his hands had taken on a helpless feebleness in the clutch in which he held his worn-out hat. Before she could withdraw her gaze or open her lips in speech, he said in a low guarded tone:

”Some one is approaching. Look behind me, Miss Wardour, and carefully, not to excite suspicion.”

She turned her gaze cautiously in the direction indicated, and saw coming slowly toward them, Mr. Belknap and Mrs. Aliston.

”It is Mr. Belknap,” she said, nodding easily at the new comers as she spoke, ”and my aunt. Have no fears, sir tramp, everything shall be as you wish. I will engage you, I think.”

Constance was herself again.

”Aunt Honor,” she said, as the two came within hearing distance, ”you find me at my old tricks.”

”Old tricks indeed!” replied her aunt, with more subtlety of meaning than she often employed.

Constance arose and swept past the supposed tramp, without bestowing a glance upon him.

”What would you do aunt?” she said, with an air of honest anxiety that would have done credit to an actress, ”here is this man again. You know I promised to try and help him when he was here before. Simon needs an a.s.sistant, he tells me; would you try him as under gardener?”

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”Here is this man again.”]

Thoroughly drilled in the art of aiding and abetting her niece, Mrs.

Aliston proved equal to the emergency.

”It couldn't do any harm,” she said surveying the gentleman tramp somewhat superciliously. ”He looks quite respectable, for that sort of a person.”

Constance stifled an inclination to laugh as she said, briskly:

”Then we will try him, and I'll just take him to the kitchen, and tell cook what to do with him until Simon comes.”

”Now just let me do that Con.,” remonstrated Mrs. Aliston, ”Mr. Belknap wishes to talk with you about the servants; remain here, and I will attend to this person.”

”Very well,” responded Constance, indifferently, at the same time realizing the expediency of allowing the detective an instant opportunity for dropping a word of warning in the ear of her relative.

”Tell the cook to give him something to eat, and now Mr. Belknap, you and I may walk on.”

”Just follow me, my man,” called Mrs. Aliston, in a tone of loftiest patronage, and the newly appointed under gardener, beaming with grat.i.tude, pa.s.sed by Miss Wardour and Mr. Belknap, and followed the portly figure kitchenward with eager alacrity.

Meantime, Constance, eager to engross Mr. Belknap's attention, turned toward him a smiling face, and said:

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