The Strand Magazine/Volume 1/Issue 6/Three Birds on a Stile
Three Birds on a Stile.
LEARNED bishop has declared that the night before men and women are married should be spent in solitude, and devoted to prayer, repentance, and meditation; but a bishop may be very learned, and yet deficient in common sense. Miss Adelaide Dorr, who was to be married to-morrow to Mr. Arthur Gooch, had several sisters, two brothers, and the usual number of parents. With all these around her, popping in and out, asking questions, making remarks, laughing, crying, teasing, and kissing, and trying on things, you may imagine the state she was in. Arthur had put in an appearance, but he had gone away early, he had so much to do to complete his arrangements for to-morrow. There was, of course, a tender leave-taking in the passage, from which Adelaide came in rather quieter than usual, but she was not allowed to be quiet long. The entire house was in a flutter of excitement, and had the charming girl expressed a desire for solitude, for the purpose of following the learned bishop's advice, it would instantly have been feared that the prospect of approaching bliss had turned her head. She had no wish for solitude, and as to her having anything to repent, the idea was monstrous and absurd. There is little doubt that before she fell asleep on this important night in her young life she would breathe a prayer, but it would not be exactly such a prayer as the bishop had in view. And it is true she thought a great deal of Arthur; indeed, she thought of little else—a statement, perhaps, which my female readers will dispute when they take into consideration the wedding dress and the trousseau. All I can advance in proof of my assertion is that Adelaide was very much in love, and that there are circumstances—rare, I grant—in which dress does not occupy the first place in a woman's mind.
Neither did Arthur Gooch, who was as much in love as Adelaide, spend the last night of his bachelor existence in solitude and repentance. When he left Adelaide, he jumped into a hansom, and was driven to his chambers, where he expected to find a letter of pressing importance. He was not a man of fortune; he had good prospects, which were almost certain of realisation, and he had a little investment or two which paid him fair interest, and which could not, without loss, be turned immediately into cash. Now, the expenses of the coming wedding, and the furnishing and decoration of a house he had taken on lease, had made more serious inroads on his bank balance than he expected. Calculating the expenses of the honeymoon trip on the Continent, he found that he would run short of money, and in this dilemma he applied to a friend, Jack Stevens by name, for a loan of seventy-five pounds, which, with seventy-five of his own, which he had by him, would carry him and his pretty bride comfortably through. It was Jack Stevens' answer to his letter asking for the loan that he was expecting as he rode to his chambers with the image of Adelaide in his mind. What a dear girl she was! Was there ever such another? Was he not the happiest man in the world? And so on, and so on. Who is not familiar with a true lover's rhapsodies? Arthur was the sort of man who would have rivalled Orlando, had the positions been similar. He would have carved Adelaide's name on every tree.
Running up to his rooms, which were at the top of the house, he found half a dozen letters in his letter box, and among them one from his friend. It may be mentioned that Jack Stevens would have been his best man, had it not been that his presence was imperatively demanded in another part of the country on the day of the wedding. It was provoking, but it could not be helped. "Dear Arthur," said Jack Stevens in his letter, "certainly you can have the money, and more if you want it. As time is so short, I do not care risking it through the post, and a crossed cheque might not suit you. I have to catch an early train in the morning for Manchester, as you know, but I shall be at Lady Weston White's 'At Home' between eleven and twelve o'clock to-night. I saw a card for the crush stuck in your looking glass. Look me up there, and I will hand you the notes. I am awfully sorry to give you the trouble, but I can't come to you, and I am anxious to be certain that you are properly furnished before you and your bride start for Paradise. Always yours, dear boy, Jack."
"Always yours-Jack."
Lady Weston White was not one of Arthur's intimate friends, but he was on her list, and he generally received cards from her three or four times in the course of the year. He had not intended to go to her house in Grosvenor-street on this occasion, but Jack's letter settled it, and he got out his swallow-tail. The money he must have, and there was no other way of getting it. There were letters to write, and a lot of things to be attended to which he calculated would keep him up till one o'clock in the morning. Well, he would have to stop up another hour or so, that was all. At half-past eleven he was in Grosvenor-street, engulphed in one of those London crowds of ladies and gentlemen which contribute to the success of a London season. The beautiful house was literally packed; to ascend a staircase was a work of several minutes, and to find his friend Jack in such a vast assemblage a matter of considerable difficulty. It was a notable gathering; the élite of society were present, distinguished men and fair women, and Arthur, as he squeezed his way along, thought he had never seen so wonderful a profusion of diamonds and lovely dresses. The ladies seemed to vie with each other in the display of jewels. They glittered in the hair, round the necks, in the ears, on the arms and bosoms, on shoes, and fans, and ravishing gowns; and Arthur observed that a new fashion was coming into vogue, diamond buttons on ladies' gloves. "If any of the light-fingered fraternity were here," thought Arthur, "they could gather a fine harvest." And said aloud, "Allow me." A lady had dropped her fan, and Arthur managed to rescue it from the crush of feet. It sparkled with diamonds. At length Arthur reached the hostess, who held out two fingers to him.
Lady Weston White was a woman of great penetration, and, as became a society leader, of perfect self-possession. She never forgot a face or a circumstance, and, busy as she was at present in the performance of her arduous duties, she remembered that Arthur Gooch was to be married within a few hours; she remembered, also, that to her R. S. V. P. she had received a line from him regretting he could not accept her kind invitation. She said nothing, however, but gave him rather a questioning look as he passed on to allow other guests behind him to pay their respects to their hostess. The look puzzled him somewhat; it seemed to ask, "What brings you here?" He had quite forgotten that he had declined her invitation. At length, after much polite squeezing and hustling, after dropping his handkerchief and picking it up again, to the annoyance of some neighbours who had become fixtures and could scarcely move for the crush, he saw Jack Stevens in the distance. They were both tall men, and communication being established between them they made simultaneous efforts to get to each other. This accomplished, Arthur hooked Jack's arm, and said:
"Let us get out of this as quick as we can."
It happened that Lady Weston White was close enough to hear the words, of which fact Arthur was oblivious, but as they moved on he turned in her direction, and caught another strange look from her. "What on earth does she look at me in that manner for?" he thought. "One might suppose I came without an invitation." He and Jack got their hats and coats, and going from the house, stopped at the corner of a street a few yards off.
"I haven't a moment to spare, Arthur," said Jack, "nor have you, I should imagine. I had almost given you up; it is a mercy we met each other in that crowd." He took out his pocket-book. "I would walk home with you, old fellow, if I had time; you must take the will for the deed."
"All right, old man," said Arthur; "it was very good of you to take all this trouble for me. I don't know how it was I miscalculated my finances so stupidly."
"Oh, these accidents happen to all of us. Feel nervous about to-morrow?"
"It makes me rather serious, you know."
"Of course. Wish I could be there. Now, no nonsense, Arthur. Will seventy-five be enough? Isn't it cutting it rather close? Don't spoil the honeymoon for a ha'porth of tar. You can have a couple of hundred if you like. I've got it by me."
"Well, make it a hundred," said Arthur. "It will be safer perhaps. Adelaide might take a fancy to a new bonnet."
"Or to some chocolate creams, or to the moon and stars," said Jack, with a good-humoured smile, "and you'd get them for her. Say a hundred and fifty."
"All right. A hundred and fifty."
"Let us get out of this as quick as we can."
Jack Stevens, shaded by his friend's tall form—for several persons passed them as they were talking—counted out thirty five-pound Bank of England notes, and slipped them into Arthur's hand.
"Thank you, Jack."
"Not necessary. Good night, old fellow, and good luck to you. Kiss the pretty bride for me, and give her my love."
"I will, old man."
A few minutes afterwards Arthur Gooch was in his chambers, "clearing up," as he called it. He wanted to leave things as orderly as he could, and in the accomplishment of this laudable design there was a great deal to do. All the time he was writing and tearing up papers and burning them, and packing bags and portmanteaux, he was thinking of Adelaide.
"Dear little woman! I wonder if she is asleep. She hasn't left things to the last as I have done. Altogether too tidy for that. While I am fussing about in this musty room—what a cosy nest we shall come home to after the honeymoon!—there she lies, with a smile on her pretty mouth, dreaming of me. Your health, my darling!"
He had opened a bottle of champagne, of which he had already drunk a glass, and now he poured out another, and as he held it up to the light he saw Adelaide's bright eyes amid the sparkling bubbles.
"Your health, my darling, and God bless you!"
He drained the glass, and set it down.
It was really a love match, of which there are more in this prosaic world than cynics will admit. These young people were all the world to each other, and if anything had occurred to prevent the wedding coming off their hearts would have been broken.
Arthur set the glass upon the table with a tender light in his eyes, and as he did so he heard a ring at the street door below. As has been stated, his chambers were at the top of the house, but everything was very quiet, and that is why he heard the bell so plainly. The window of the room in which he was working looked out upon the street. He took no notice of the ringing, and proceeded dreamily with his packing. The wine he had drunk intensified his sentimental mood, and he paused many times to gaze upon the portrait of his darling which stood in the centre of the mantelpiece. It was a speaking likeness of the beautiful face; the eyes seemed to look at him with looks of love; the lovely lips seemed to say, "I love you, I love you." And Arthur pressed his lips to the sweet face, and murmured in response, "I love you, I love you! With all my heart and soul, I love you, and will be true to you."
"Your health, my darling!"
Suddenly it occurred to him that the street door bell continued to ring. The sound jarred upon his ears. Throwing up his window he leaned forward, and at the top of his voice inquired who it was that continued to ring so pertinaciously.
"I have come to see Mr. Arthur Gooch," was the answer.
"To see me?" he cried in wonder.
"Yes, you, if you are Mr. Gooch."
"What for?"
"On most particular business."
Wondering more and more, the young man ran down the stairs and opened the street door. In the dim light he saw the figure of a gentleman with whose face he was not familiar.
"What do you want with me?" he asked.
"It will be best for us to speak privately," replied the stranger. "It is a most delicate matter."
"A most delicate matter!" stammered Arthur.
"A most delicate matter!" repeated the stranger in a grave tone.
The young man did not reflect upon the imprudence of asking a stranger up to his rooms at such an hour of the night. With the exception of the housekeeper, who occupied the basement, and who had been heard to declare that nothing less than an earthquake would wake her, once she was asleep, Arthur Gooch was the only night resident in the house. All the chambers, with the exception of his, were let as offices, and were tenanted only during the day. It is scarcely probable, however, if Arthur had given the matter a thought, that he would have acted differently. Here was a stranger paying him a visit, at an untimely hour it was true, but upon a delicate matter, which had best be disclosed in private. Arthur was a man of muscle, and stood six feet and half an inch in his stocking feet. The man who had intruded himself upon him was about five feet eight, a weed of a man in comparison with him. There was, moreover, no lack of physical courage in Arthur—a quality, it may be remarked, very different indeed from moral courage, in which respect a pigmy may be superior to a giant.
"Come up," said Arthur, and the two men ascended the stairs. "Now," he said, when they were together in his room, with the door closed, "you see that I am very busy. Explain your errand as briefly as possible. What is this delicate matter you speak of? I have not the pleasure of your acquaintance. Oh," he said, looking at a card presented by his visitor, "Mr. P. Foreman. Your name is as strange to me as your face. Who are you? What are you?"
"I am a private detective," said Mr. P. Foreman.
"A private detective!" cried Arthur, with an ominous frown. "And what business can you have with me at this hour of the night? I've a mind to pitch you out of window."
"Don't try it," said Mr. P. Foreman. "I should be bound to resist, and my shouts would be certain to bring someone to my assistance. As to my business, it is, as I have informed you, of a delicate nature."
"Speak in plain English if you have any regard for yourself."
"It is a very simple affair," said Mr. P. Foreman, "and it rests with you whether I shall take my leave of you with an apology, or adopt other measures. You were at Lady Weston White's 'At Home' a couple of hours ago."
"I was. What of it?"
"I am employed by her ladyship," proceeded Mr. P. Foreman. "She has given other 'At Homes' this season."
"Don't try it."
"She has, and I have been present at them."
"So I understand. Very serious things have occurred at those parties of her ladyship's at which you were present. Some of her guests have made complaints to her, and it is only at great expense and trouble that these complaints, and their very serious nature, have been kept out of the society papers."
"What has all this rhodomontade to do with me?" demanded Arthur, impatiently.
"I am about to tell you. Valuable diamonds have been lost at her ladyship's 'At Homes,' and have not been recovered. Her ladyship is naturally anxious to put a stop to this, and to bring the—" (Mr. P. Foreman hesitated, and chose another word than the one he intended to use)—"the offenders to justice."
"Quite proper," said Arthur. "Go on, and cut it short."
"The display to-night was brilliant, and knowing that it would be so her ladyship employed me and one or two others to keep watch upon suspicious persons. As you see"—he unbuttoned his light overcoat—"I am in evening dress. I was supposed to be present as a guest, but I was really there in my professional capacity, keeping my eyes open. Had it been regular pickpockets whom her ladyship suspected I should have found it an easy job, as I know most of them, but it was not. She suspected certain gentlemen upon her list, to whom she was in the habit of sending cards."
Mr. P. Foreman spoke in a significant tone, and there was no mistaking his meaning. Arthur laughed.
"Does her ladyship do me the honour to suspect me?"
"I am not at liberty to say; my orders are to speak not one word that might compromise her ladyship."
"A very prudent instruction. Well?"
"Certain articles of jewellery have been lost to-night in her ladyship's house. A crescent diamond brooch, another with the device of three birds on a stile, and a pin of brilliants with a pearl in the centre. There may be other articles missing, but we have not heard of them. Of the three ornaments I have mentioned the one most easily traced is the three-birds-on-a-stile brooch. The birds are perched upon a stile of gold; one is set with sapphires, one with brilliants, and one with rubies. I remarked to her ladyship that it was a pretty device. She is quite determined to make the matter public, and to bring the—the offenders to justice without an hour's delay, if we are fortunate enough to track them down."
"I infer," said Arthur, glaring at his visitor, "from the very guarded answer you gave to a question I put to you that her ladyship really does suspect me. I am greatly obliged to her ladyship." He recalled the strange looks which Lady Weston White had given him, and believed that he could now interpret them. He strode to the door and threw it open. "If you have any regard for your bones, you will now take your departure. I give you just one minute."
"If you send me away unsatisfied," said Mr. P. Foreman, composedly, "I shall, in accordance with instructions received, have you arrested the first thing in the morning, and brought before a magistrate on a distinct charge."
Arthur's heart seemed suddenly to cease beating. There was no mistaking that the man was in deadly earnest, and would carry out his threat. What! To be arrested on the very morning of his wedding! True, the charge was false and monstrous, but it would take time to prove it so, and meanwhile—
"Go on, and cut it short."
Yes, meanwhile, there was Adelaide in her bridal dress waiting for her bridegroom. Indignant as he was he could not but inwardly acknowledge that his best course would be to hush up the affair if possible not for his own sake, but for Adelaide's. The shock to her feelings would be too great; she might never recover from it, and the happiness of her life might be for ever destroyed. Mr. P. Foreman, standing rather timidly near the open door, kept his eyes fixed upon Arthur's face. He shrank back as Arthur approached him.
"I am not going to hurt you," said the young man. "Come in and shut the door." Mr. P. Foreman obeyed. "You said at the commencement of this interview that it rested with me whether you would take leave of me with an apology, or adopt other measures. By other measures you meant my arrest." Mr. P. Foreman nodded. "But how do you propose to arrive at the apology?"
"It is entirely in your hands," replied Mr. P. Foreman. "You have only to prove your innocence, and I apologise. Her ladyship trusts everything to me, and will be guided entirely by the report I present to her."
"I have only to prove my innocence!" exclaimed Arthur. "But how can that be done if you will not take my word. for it? I swear to you that I am innocent, and I declare this to be a foul and monstrous charge, for which, if I am put to any inconvenience or annoyance, I will make her ladyship and all concerned in it suffer. Now are you satisfied?"
"That is not what I meant," said Mr. P. Foreman, quietly. "What I require is proof of your innocence. I cannot take your word. Any other gentleman would say as much."
Arthur could not help admitting that this was true. "Again I ask you," he cried, "how can I prove my innocence, except by my word?"
"It is very easily done. You have not changed your clothes. You have on your dress trousers and waistcoat; your dress coat hangs upon the back of that chair. If none of the missing articles are in the pockets I will offer you the completest apology in my power, and shall sincerely regret that I have caused you so much uneasiness."
Mr. P. Foreman was a private detective, but he certainly spoke like a gentleman. Throughout the interview he had conducted himself with moderation; there was even a sadness in his manner which, now that so reasonable a course was suggested, impressed itself upon Arthur.
"He shrank back as Arthur approached."
"I am quite willing," he said, "to do what you ask, though I dispute your right, mind."
"I understand that," said Mr. P. Foreman.
"It is only," continued Arthur, "because I am to be married in the morning, and wish to spare a young lady's feelings, that I submit."
There was a deeper sadness in Mr. P. Foreman's voice as he observed, "To be married in the morning! I must be mistaken.". He took a step towards the door.
"No, you don't go now," exclaimed Arthur. "I insist upon your stopping, and being completely satisfied. There's my coat. Search the pockets."
But Mr. P. Foreman would not touch the garment. "If you insist," he said, you must go through the formality yourself. I should be ashamed to have a hand in it."
"You are a good fellow, after all," said Arthur, with a great sigh of relief. Will you have a glass of champagne?"
"Thank you," said Mr. P. Foreman. Arthur filled two glasses. "Your health," he said.
"Your health," said Mr. P. Foreman. "Allow me to wish you joy and happiness."
"Now you shall see," said Arthur, in a gay tone. "Come a little nearer; I might be a master of legerdemain."
A melancholy smile crossed Mr. P. Foreman's mouth, and he stood, apparently unconcerned, while Arthur turned out the pockets of his waiscoat and trousers.
"Nothing there," he said.
"Nothing there," said Mr. P. Foreman, and again moved towards the door.
"Stop a moment," said Arthur, "there is my coat."
He turned out the pockets upon the table; from the breast pocket he produced the bank notes he had received from his friend, Jack Stevens; from the tail pockets a handkerchief and gloves. Nothing more. He laughed aloud, and lifted the handkerchief from the table. The laugh was frozen in his throat. As he lifted the handkerchief there fell from it a jewelled brooch, the device a stile of gold, with three birds perched thereon, one of sapphires, one of rubies, one of brilliants.
"My God!" he gasped, and sank into a chair.
Mr. P. Foreman did not break the silence that ensued. With sad eyes he gazed upon the crushing evidence of guilt. At length Arthur found his voice.
"You do not, you cannot," he cried in an agonised tone, "believe me guilty!"
Mr. P. Foreman uttered no word. Arthur's face was like the face of death. A vision of his ruined life rose before him, and in that vision the image of his fair young bride, stricken with despair.
"What am I to do?" moaned the unhappy man. "What am I to do? As I hope for mercy in heaven, I swear that I am innocent!"
Mr. P. Foreman in silence pointed to the brooch on the table. It was an eloquent sign, but he seemed to sympathise with the hapless man before him. Arthur rose to his feet, trembling in every limb.
"Have mercy upon me!" he murmured, stretching forth his hands. Before God I am innocent!"
"I am sorry for the young lady," said Mr. P. Foreman, "deeply, deeply sorry. I have a daughter of my own, whom I hope one day to see happily married. But she is in delicate health."
"He gasped, and sank into a chair."
There was a plaintiveness in his voice, and Arthur, overwhelmed as he was, caught at the despairing hope which presented itself to his distracted mind. He and the man who held his fate in his hands were alone; there were no witnesses, and not a sound reached them from house or street.
"Save me!" implored Arthur. "As you hope for your daughter's happiness, save an innocent man—save an innocent girl from despair and death!"
Mr. P. Foreman put his hands before his eyes. "My duty!" he murmured.
"You owe a duty elsewhere," said Arthur, in a rapid, feverish voice. "The lady who has employed you trusts you implicitly, and will receive your report without question."
"I do not grasp your meaning," said Mr. P. Foreman.
"Your daughter is in delicate health, you say," continued Arthur. "You hope to see her one day happily married. You are not rich?"
"I am very poor," said Mr. P. Foreman. "Do you think I would otherwise follow this miserable occupation? Fortune has been against me all my life."
"It smiles upon you now," pursued Arthur, desperately; "it offers you a chance. You speak like a gentleman; you have a soul above your station. See here. There are a hundred and fifty pounds in bank notes. Take them; they are yours and keep my secret, guiltless as I am. You are not a young man; you have had experience of the world; you must know the voice of innocence when you hear it. Could a guilty man plead as I am pleading? By all your hopes of happiness, save me! No one is near; no one knows but you and I. It is so easy, so easy!—and I shall bless you all my life!"
"You tempt me sorely," said Mr. P. Foreman. "My daughter is ordered abroad for her health, ar 1 I have no means to take her."
"You have means here, at your hand. Take the money—it is yours; I give it to you freely. No one will be the wiser, and you will be an instrument in the hands of Providence to save two innocent lives!"
"Let me think a moment," said Mr. P. Foreman, and he turned his head. Arthur awaited his decision in an agony of despair. Presently he spoke again. "I will express no opinion of your guilt or innocence, but you have offered what I cannot resist. I will take the money, and will keep your secret, for the sake of the lady you are about to marry, for the sake of my poor daughter. It may be the means of restoring her to health. As for this brooch—"
Take it," cried Arthur, impetuously, "and do what you will with it. It is one of my conditions. Heaven bless you—Heaven bless you!"
"Take the money—it is yours!"
"We are accomplices in a transaction that must not be spoken of," said Mr. P. Foreman, who had put the money and the brooch into his pocket. "I pity and despise you, as I pity and despise myself."
He did not wish Arthur good night; seemingly ashamed of the bargain they had made, he went downstairs, accompanied by Arthur, who closed the street door upon him.
Dazed and bewildered, the young man returned to his room, and with great throbbings of his breast at the mysterious danger he had escaped, completed his preparations for the wedding and the honeymoon. Before he threw himself upon his bed in the vain attempt to seek oblivion for an hour or two, he wrote a letter to his friend Jack Stevens, saying he had unfortunately lost the money that had been lent to him, and begging for another loan, which was to be forwarded to a hotel in Paris where he intended to stop with his young wife for a few days.
There is no need to describe the wedding. Everything passed off well, and everybody in church declared they had never seen a lovelier bride; but they observed, at the same time, that the bridegroom appeared far from happy, and one of the spectators remarked that he looked several times over his shoulder, with the air of a man who feared that a ghost was standing behind him. His own people and his relatives, being in a state of excitement, did not take the same view of it; they said he was nervous, which was quite natural on such an occasion. Adelaide was tremblingly happy, and she and her lover-husband departed on their honeymoon amid the usual showers of rice and hurling of old slippers. In Paris, Arthur received from Jack Stevens a draft for another hundred and fifty pounds; but in the letter which accompanied the welcome draft Jack said he could not understand how Arthur had managed to lose the money. "I saw you," wrote Jack, "put the money in the side pocket of your dress coat, and button your overcoat over it. How could you have lost it? Did you have an adventure, and are you keeping it from me? Make a clean breast of it, old fellow. I should like to know. And if there is anything I can do for you while you are away, do not fail to call upon me. I am in London for good, and am entirely at your service." Arthur pondered over this letter, and pondered deeply, also, over the events which had occurred on the night before the wedding; and the more he pondered the more he was dissatisfied. Once his young wife, who had noticed that something was weighing on her hero's spirits, said to him:
"Arthur, dear, are you happy?"
"Very happy, darling."
"But quite happy, Arthur?"
"Yes, darling, quite happy. Why do you ask?"
"I don't know—only you seem so melancholy sometimes."
"All your fancy, darling."
"I suppose so, Arthur, dear."
But the young bride was not satisfied for all that. She was sure that her hero was keeping something disagreeable from her. However, like a sensible little woman, she did not worry him; no bride could expect greater attention and devotion than he showed towards her, and she lectured herself, and said that she could not expect to know everything about her husband all at once. "I shall have to study him," she said, "and when I know him thoroughly I will make him perfectly, perfectly happy."
On the eighth day of the honeymoon something curious happened. They had travelled from Paris to Geneva, and they put up at the Grand Hôtel de la Paix. The first time they dined in the hotel, Arthur, looking up, saw exactly opposite to him the forms of Mr. P. Foreman and a lady. He turned red and white, and his heart beat furiously. There appeared, however, to be no cause for apprehension; Mr. P. Foreman looked him straight in the face, and evinced no sign of recognition. Perceiving this, Arthur took courage, and glanced at the lady. Again he turned red and white. On the bosom of the lady's dress was affixed a beautiful brooch—a stile of gold, with its three little birds of rubies, sapphires, and brilliants.
"Did you think the lady opposite to us was very pretty, Arthur?" asked Adelaide, as she and her husband stood close together after dinner, looking into the clear waters of the lake.
"I did not take particular notice, dear," replied Arthur, awkwardly.
"Oh, Arthur! I saw your eyes fixed upon her."
Arthur did not dare confess that it was the brooch he was staring at, and not at the lady, so he diverted Adelaide's thoughts by means of those tender secret caresses which render young brides supremely happy. But he thought very seriously, nevertheless. The lady who accompanied Mr. P. Foreman seemed to be in perfect health, and she was not young enough to be his daughter, by a good many years. The dreadful position in which he had stood upon the occasion of Mr. P. Foreman's nocturnal visit to his chambers weighed terribly upon him. He knew himself to be innocent; but the brooch which his accuser had now appropriated was found in his pocket; he had taken it out himself. How had it got there? That was the mystery that was perplexing him, and he felt that he could not be at peace with himself until it was solved. That night he wrote to Jack Stevens, and made a full confession of how he had lost the money, and in his letter he gave a very faithful description of Mr. P. Foreman.
"If you can clear up the mystery," he said in his letter, "for Heaven's sake do so. I do not advise you to go to Lady Weston White to make inquiries, for that might result in attracting attention which, as things stand, I wish to avoid; but do what you can for me, and act as you think best, for the sake of your old and unhappy friend, Arthur." He directed Jack to reply to him at the Hôtel Victoria, Interlaken, where he proposed to take Adelaide after a stay in Geneva. He made his visit to this beautiful city shorter than he intended, so anxious was he to receive Jack's reply. It was not there when he arrived, but on the following mid-day it was delivered to him.
"My dear Arthur," (Jack wrote), "my dear simple friend, my timid love-stricken swain, your letter astonished me, and in your interests I set to work at once. I have a friend who is a real detective—a real one, mark you—and when I entrusted him with your precious secret, and read to him the careful description you have given of your saviour, Mr. P. Foreman, he first looked at me in blank amazement, and then burst into a fit of laughter. 'By Jove!' he cried, when he got over his fit, 'that is my friend Purdy. He's been at his tricks again.' 'Who is your friend Purdy,' I inquired, 'and what are the particular tricks you refer to?' He did not favour me with an answer, but stipulated that I should pay an immediate visit to Lady Weston White, and ask whether the jewels lost in her house on the night before your wedding had been recovered. I did as he bade me, and learned from her ladyship—what do you think? Why, that there were no jewels lost in her house, and never had been, to her knowledge. I did not enlighten her, old fellow, having some regard for your reputation for shrewdness. I went straight from her to my friend the real detective. Learn from me, O wise young bridegroom, that Mr. P. Foreman, alias Purdy, is no more a detective than I am, that he must have slipped the brooch (all false stones, my boy) himself into your pocket, having previously ascertained that you were to be married in a few hours, and that he practised upon you a rather clever trick which he has practised successfully upon other victims as simple as yourself. Now I come to think of it, I shouldn't wonder if he was one of the men who passed us when I gave you the thirty five-pound notes at the corner of the street. My friend the real detective tells me that Purdy is one of the best actors he has ever seen, and that his skill would beat the devil himself. Let us hope he will soon have the chance of trying it on with his Satanic majesty. Anyways, he is enjoying himself on the Continong with your money and mine, and, as he has cast a cloud over the first fortnight or so of your honeymoon, I should recommend you to lengthen it by just as many days of happiness as he has robbed you of. And here is another recommendation, my dear, simple, old fellow. Tell your little wife all about it, and tell her at the same time that I have given an order for a brooch, of which I shall beg her acceptance, with the very original design of a gold stile and three little birds perched atop of it. Give her my love, and accept the same from yours ever and ever."
"By Jove!" he cried, "that is my friend Purdy."
Arthur danced about the room when he read this comforting letter. Adelaide looked from a novel in which she had been absorbed.
"Why, whatever is the matter with you," she cried, "you dear old goose?'
"Never mind the dear old goose," said Arthur. "Let us have a waltz round the room, you dear young darling!"
A waltz they had, and they made some glasses on the table jingle so that a chambermaid knocked at the door, and asked whether her services were required.
"Not at all," replied Arthur, in very indifferent German. "I am only giving madame a lesson."
At the end of which lesson Arthur related to his bride what it was that had been disturbing him. How she pitied him! The tears ran down her pretty face as she took his between her little hands, and gave him kisses which he returned with interest. Of that you may be sure.
"Oh, Arthur," said Adelaide, with the fondest of looks, "I am glad I married you; because, you know, you do want someone to look after you."
As for the rest of the honeymoon, I leave you to imagine it. All I will say is, that I wish no newly married young couple a happier.
