Part 24 (1/2)

”That would be impossible. I locked the door the instant Sir Mawson left me.”

”Ah, then, of course! Another question, please. Sir Mawson has spoken of there being 'one single minute' when the necklace was not directly under your eyes. When was that?”

”When I left the room, Mr. Cleek.”

”Oho! Then you did leave it, eh?”

”Yes. It was thoughtless of me, of course; but I only ran down to the foot of the staircase, when I remembered, and ran back in a perfect panic. Still I had locked the door in going out even then and the key was in my hand. It was still locked when I returned, but in that one single minute the necklace had disappeared. I was gratifying my woman's vanity by holding it up to my throat and viewing myself in the gla.s.s just an instant before, and I remember perfectly, laying it down on the velvet lining of its open case at the time I recollected the matter which caused me to leave the room.”

”May I ask what that matter was?”

”Yes. A service I had promised to perform for Miss Eastman.”

”Miss Eastman? Who is she?”

”My son's fiancee. She and her father are visiting us at present.

Curzon met and became engaged to Miss Eastman on the occasion of her last visit to England, and this time her father is accompanying her.”

”Her last _visit?_ Then the lady and her father are not English?”

”Oh, dear, no--Americans. They came over less than a week ago.

Pardon? No, I do not at the moment recall the name of the vessel, Mr. Cleek, but whichever one it was it seems to have been a very ill-conditioned affair and gave them a very bad crossing, indeed.

That is why I had to render Miss Eastman the service of which I spoke--the sudden recollection of which caused me to lay down the necklace and hurry from the room. I had forgotten all about it until I happened to see the roll of lint on my dressing-table.”

”Lint, Lady Leake? What on earth had lint to do with the matter?”

”I had bought it for Miss Eastman when I was in town this morning.

She asked me to, as she had used her last clean bandage yesterday.

She had a very bad fall on s.h.i.+pboard, Mr. Cleek, and injured her left hand severely!”

Narkom made a curious sort of gulping sound, whipped out his handkerchief and began to dab his bald spot, and looked round at Cleek out of the tail of his eye. But Cleek neither moved nor spoke nor made any sign--merely pushed his lower lip out over his upper one and stood frowning at the stable door.

And here--just here--a strange and even startling thing occurred.

With just one hoa.r.s.e ”Toot-toot!” to give warning of its coming, a public taxi swung round the curve of the road, jerked itself up to a sudden standstill within a rope's cast of the spot where the four were standing, and immediately there rang forth a rollicking, happy youthful voice crying out, as the owner of it stood up and touched an upright forefinger to his numbered cap, in jolly mimicry of the Hanson cabman of other days: ”Keb, sir? Keb, mum? Keb! Keb!” and hard on the heels of that flung out a laughing, ”Hullo, mater?

Hullo, dad? you dear old Thunder Box! I say! 'How does this sort of thing get you?' as Katie Eastman says. b.u.t.tons all over me, like a blooming Bobby! What?”

And it needed no more than that to a.s.sure Cleek and Mr. Narkom that in the bright-eyed, bonny-faced, laughing young fellow who jumped down from the driver's seat at this, and stood up straight and strong, and displayed his taxicabman's livery unabashed and unashamed, they were looking upon Sir Mawson Leake's eldest son and--heir!

”Henry!” The voice was Lady Leake's, and there was pain and surprise and joy and terror all jumbled up in it curiously, as she ran to him.

”Henry! Is it really _you?_”

”'Sure thing!'--to quote Katie again. Just took a spin over to show myself off. Plenty of bra.s.s tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs! What? I thought, dad, you'd like to be sure that I really am done with the clubs at last.

Not because they blacklisted me--for they didn't--but because--oh well, _you_ know. No taxicabmen need apply--that sort of thing.

I'll be invited to resign from every blessed one of them to-morrow, and there's not a chap connected with any one of 'em who'd be seen taking a match from me to light his cigarette with after this.

All the same, though, I go out of them with a clean slate, and that's all I cared about. I did get that two hundred after all, pater. Curzon and Katie raised it for me between them--out of their own private accounts, you know--and as driving a car is the only thing I really do understand, I'm earning the money to pay them back this way.”