THE GILLINGHAM RUBIES

Otago Witness, Issue 3102, 27 August 1913, Page 62

THE GILLINGHAM RUBIES

By EDGAR JEPSON,

THE NOVELIST.

(Pcnt.ISIIKD BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT. J

Author of “The Girl’s Head,” “Tae Passion of Romance,” “The Lady Noggs—Peeress,” “The Admirable Tinker,” etc., etc.

[Copyright.]

CHAPTER XlX.—Continued.)

HE left Absalom a good deal JSpSfflP cheered; but when an hour (IwMlal later he started for London he was gloomy enough. The jgjjyjSyL future looked very dark to him. Without Barbara the world seemed of very little TDIt is beyond doubt that * Absalom’s burning desire to punish Jasper Forbes and Ferdinand Ferrer for encouraging Barbara to make her attempt on the Gillingham rubies quickened greatly the healing of his arm. He derived no little relief from dwelling on the retribution that was coming to them; it distracted his mind from its brooding on Barbara. He wrote to M. Vaillant for a description of Ferdinand Ferrer, and was pleased to learn that he was of such a build that his chastisement would do n’o more than provide a little gentle exercise—for himself, not for M. Ferrer—which might prove beneficial rather than harmful to his healing arm. On the ninth day he felt that the time had come to give it the benefit of that gentle exercise, and drove down to Dover in his car. The car was put on board the steamer; and from Calais he motored quietly to Paris. He reached it too late to perform his task that night; but he ate his dinner with a very good appetite, and went to bed in excellent spirits. Ferdinand Ferrer came to his office the next morning in spirits quite as excellent as those in which Absalom went to bed, for the world was going very well with him. The Society for the Preservation of Domestic - Felicity had informed Madame Ferrer, through its amiable and accomplished agent, M. Vaillant, that she might be easy in mind about the relations bo tween her husband- and Miss Kitty Meredith ; that those relations were merely business relations, and there was no reason to fear that they would prove other than advantageous to M. Ferrer. M. Vaillant had thought it well that M. Ferrer’s suspicions that the secret of the attempt on the Gillingham rubies was known to interested outsiders should not be awakened, for M. Vaillant believed not in the prevention, hut in the detection, of crime. Madame Ferrer had not apologised I'o her unhappy spouse for her unjust suspicions, for she did not think that apologies were good for M. Ferrer. But she had treated him with kindness and a reserve which permilied him to sleep at night; and he was well on the way already to recover his natural embonpoint.

M. Ferrer then was much cheered not only bv the cessation of his domestic worries, hut also hv the fact that he must he on the point of receiving the Gillingham rubies. He knew how swiftly Kitty Meredith worked when once she had begun an enterprise: and he knew that the house-partv at Gillingham Castle was to gather together some ten days earlier. At anv moment the door of his office might open to admit Kit,tv Meredith or her emissary, hearing rubies, out ’of which he looked to make a million francs profit. It was no wonder that he felt that the world was going very well with him.

Then the door did open, and it admitted a very large young man with very red hair and a rod beard. Ferdinand Ferrer’s face brightened at the mere sight of his red hair; red hair, in his mind, was associated always with the sale of diamonds at a profit. The young man carried a hand-bag and a whip, a stout riding-whip ; and M. Ferrer’s swift mind leapt at once to the conclusion that he was a sportsman, and so much the easier to sell diamonds to at a profit.

“Bonjour, Monsieur Ferrer !” said the young man, smiling broadly all over his simple and ingenuous face. “Are we alone ?”

“Bonjour, monsieur; but certainly we are alone,” said M. Ferrer, and he rubbed his hands softly together at the auspicious opening of the interview. The large young man seemed desirous that they should remain alone, for he locked the door. Then he came very close to M. Ferrer, and in a tone of mystery and with a mysterious air, he said : “The Gillingham rubies. Have you the receipt ready?” And he opened the handbag. Just, one swift wave of wonder at the simple agent Kitty Meredith employed swept through Ferdinand Ferrer’s mind; and then his eyes flamed with the burning desire to see the rubies which should bring him a million francs profit. “Where ace they? Show them to me!” he cried. “Thank you, Monsieur Ferrer; that was all I wanted to know,” said Absalom in a very different tone, and the simplicity faded from his face, leaving it uncommonly threatening. “You have been encouraging a young lady of my acquaintance to commit a crime; and I’m going to give you the worst hiding you ever dreamt of !” M. Ferrer opened his mouth to yell for help. He was not a man of action, but of intellect, and Absalom's quick and able hand closed on his throat before the yell came through. Then M. Ferrer hardly knew what was hap]>ening to him, so great was the shock to his sensitive nerves of Absalom’s violent handling. But when he did awake to a complete realisation of his condition, he found himself gagged, with his pudgy hands tightly and painfully bound in front of him. Absalom, having been as nuiek as a cat when quickness was needed, went about the rest of the transaction in a very leisurely fashion. He shoved the desk into one corner of the room and kicked the chairs into another. Then he kicked the amazed M. Ferrer into the middle of the space he had cleared. “You quite understand. Monsieur Ferrer. You’re going fo be punished for corrupting the young—an offence for which the Athenians executed Socrates —a gentleman of whom you have probably never heard, though his was not such an aggravated case. And now. Monsieur Ferrer, exercise and retribution —exercise and retribution !” With that he gave M. Ferrer a stinging cut. and. as he had expected. M. Ferrer jumped and ran. Absalom took his stand in the middle of the room and whipped M. Ferrer round and round it, keeping him at the circumference of the circle in which he ran, and at the distance to get the greatest sting from the whip, by an occasional punch from his left fist, since his left arm had healed to the point at which gentle exercise was good for it. Absalom was sorry that he was having the spectacle all to himself, for the fleeting fence, giving a curious kid-like skip to each cut froni the whip presented a sight to gratify to the extreme the sense of humour of a multitude. The sweat poured off the diamond-merchant’s brow, and the tears streamed from his eyes, and the protector of youth and avenger of society flbgged away. To a man of Absalom’s strength there was little exertion in wielding the whip, and he could give his whole attention to lengthening M. Ferrer's stride and quickening his pace. He succeeded to a marvel in both. M. Ferrer had not run so far or so fast since, as an agile boy, he ran about the Cydades. Absalom was really pleased to find M. Ferrer’s wind last so long. Ho ran hard, jumping to each cut for nearly five minutes before he fell down. Absalom was of the opinion that it was rather Jack of breath than of muscle which caused the diamond merchant to pause mi tiie floor ; and he let him lie there for three minuter,. Then he jerked him to his feet and set him going again. M. Ferrer ran another three minutes before he collapsed. Then Absalom perceived that it was a collapse, that the diamond merchant would not run for at least a fortnight. For several days would find even lying and sitting attended with a painful inconvenience. He could only trust that he had made him a tenderer one. He left him lying on the floor, and came cut of the office much easier in mind. The clerk of the important air was writing hard at his desk; and .Absalom qnietlv locked tbe door of M. Ferrer s private office behind him. He thought it well that he should have a quiet hour to reflect on liis offence and it* punishment before those wholesome reflections were interrupted by ministering d’oetors. On his way hack to his hotel he stepped into a quiet alley, removed his red beard, and put it into' the hand-bag which M. Ferrer had fcndlv believed contained the Gillingham rubies. Then be walked briskly to his hotel, found his car. with his luggage already in it, waiting in the courtyard, and took the road to Brussels with his heart warm with the consciousness of having performed a meritorious deed with uncommon thoroughness.

CHAPTER XX.—THE RUBIES ARE STOLEN. The Marquess had been rendered uneasv hv Absalom’s confident assnranee that if he did not make haste to pet the rubies out of the .safe, when lie did come to cret them out he would find them pone. But he found it quite inconsistent with his dipnity that his uneasiness should spur him to sneedy action. Moreover, he wished to believe that the whole store of Kitty Meredith’s attempt on the rubies was a mare’s nest of Absalom Homme s discovery. But his uneasiness prew and prew, while his dhpuity remained a constant nnanlity ; and he was relieved when the day came on which he found that it has been sufficient! v consulted hv dclav. He wrote to a London firm of safemokere to send down a skilled mechanic to Gillingham Castle to open the safe. As - the Marquess had feared, the mechanic apneared to he a man of a ouite unsympathetic type. He was, indeed, a Social Democrat. He examined the machinery which opened the panel door of the secret room with a supercilious air

and a sarcastic smile, and then regarded the forty-year-old safe ■with a contempt he made no effort to conceal. None the less it was no little ot a business to drill round the lock and cu it away; and he had been at work for nearly' three hours before he sent word to the Marquess that he was ready to open the safe. _ . ~ The Marquess came with a mind quite at ease. During the course of the moin_ ing he had once more convinced himselt that he had nothing whatever to tear, that he would find the rubies m their cases in the safe. When the mechanic, with an air of some triumph, threw back the door of the safe, the Marquess picked up the nearest case with entire carelessness. , . , But he had hardly lifted it from the shelf when a sudden uneasiness filled ms face. He felt that it was uncommonly light. He opened it swiftly, and gazed at the red velvet which alone met his eye, with an expression of the last horro . He snatched up the next case, and the next, and tore them open. Nothing but red velvet met his anguished eye. me thief had made a clean srveep. The restraint of years was swept aside; and the mechanic later told his London friends that the language of the Marquess “fair gave him the creeps.” When the indignant nobleman recovered the calm of his caste he said to the mechanic: , , “The safe has been opened, and some jewels stolen. How was it done. How was the lock forced? ’ The mechanic looked at the lock carefully, and said; “This lock amt been forced. It’s as good as new. “It must have been forced. cried the Marquess. “How else _ could the thieves have opened the safe ?” . , “Well, if you’re askin’ my professional opinion, my lord, I should say as how they’d opened the lock bv turning the 19 said the unsympathetic mechanic sarcastically, for he was nettled bv the contradiction. _ The Marquess hurried away to the library His intention was to inform Scotland Yard and set its admirable and complicated machinery to work to ca-'cn the thieves and recover the jewels. He had actually written the telegram, and was on the'point of ringing for a .footman to despatch it lo its destination, when the thought of the newspapers made him pause. The newspaper, the modern newspaper, was one of the Marquess s many bugbears, one of the crumpled roseleaves under the many feather-beds on which he lived his sheltered life. He could not bear to think of the sacrosanct precincts of Gillingham t.astle invaded bv active and unsnubbable reporters. It was enough that there should be an_ unsympathetic and impertinent mechanic from London hi the secret room of his ancestors. Yet, if he put the case into the hands of Scotland Yard, the newspapers would presently ccme to hear about it . and the privacy of Gillingham t.astle would be a thing of the past. On the other hand, the loss of the famous rubies, the pride of the Gil mghams, was not to be endured, ihey must be recovered. The Marquess, after spending most of an easy life in having to choose between two goods except in matter of the debts of his heir, m which he had no choice at all. suddenly lound himself in the painful position of having to choose between two evils, and he was torn bv indecision and ravaged by indignation‘against irreverent Fate. He could not lose the rubies; and he could not bear a newspaper scandal. Then the thought of Absalom Gommc sprang into his mind. Absalom was the middle way between the newspaper hcylla and the Gharybdis of loss. It was true that he had been insolently frank, that he had displayed his disbelief, openly, «n the intelligence of a man who had once been a Cabinet Minister. But allowances must he made for the young man; he was an American. It was matter of common knowledge that Americans were without reverence or respect for many of the most sacred Kuropcan institutions. Also thev suffered from a lack of the politeness which should have induced them to keen this irreverence and disrespect to themselves. Since he wanted something out of him and wanted it badly, the Marquess was ready and eager to make every possible allowance for Absalom. The more he thought about him, the more clearly the Marquees saw that Absalom was the man to come to his aid in his dreadful nlight. Absalom had been right all through. He had been right in the first place in his information that Kitty Meredith was going to make an attempt on the rubies; he had been right, in saying that the keva of the safe had been stolen ; and he had been right in bidding him get the safe opened quickly, or he would find the iewels gone. Absalom was the non to recover the rubies. He had so thoroughly satisfied himself that Absalom’s plain-sneaking \\p,~ not a matter to he resented, because it was merely a national custom, that not a single kick came from his dignity as he wrote out the telegram which summoned him to his aid.

In thin wav it came about that when Absalom reached his flat on his return from his satisfactory and successful trip to Paris, he found the telegram from the Marmiess awaiting him. It ran : Did you an injustice: jewels gone please conic at once.— Oit.i.ingham. In addition to his other and more striking virtues, it was Absalom's invariable habit, to us 3 the most refined language. He had even abandoned, save in moments; of emotion, the racy idioms with which his countrymen are wont to enrich the tongue of the Anglo-Saxons. Tint when his horror-stricken mind had grasped the import of that telegram, he swore under his breath. Here was a pretty kettle of fish. In spite of her pliwlcnT suffering Thu ara had retained sufficient of h t fine, undaunted spirit to carry through her enterprise. She had cut. She was a little wonder. Fnfl of sand. i>ut, what was to be done? He had failed to prevent (ho

theft of the Gillingham rubies; it was up to him to recover them. Well, it could be done. Whoever had stolen the rubies had them still. From his trip to Paris he had not only brought back a very pleasant sense of having vindicated the sanctity of property, and punished one of the scoundrels who had encouraged Barbara to disregard that sanctity, but also he had brought back the certain knowledge that the Gillingham rubies had not yet reached Ferdinand Ferrer.

Where were they? Absalom dropped into an easy chair, relaxed every muscle and let his mind play freely about this new problem. He was sure that he had prevented the theft on the night of the first attempt. It was no less clear that Barbara herself had not carried it through. He had been hearing from Lady Sarratt; and he knew that Barbara was still unable to leave her bed. Slowly it grew plain to him that she had sent the keys to Jasper Forbes and he had succeeded where she had failed.

Well, it was up to him to recover the rubies. But was it? There was no moral compulsion on him. His warning had been disregarded; that the jewels were gone was entirely the fault of the Marquess. He ought to pay for it. The only person Absalom had to consider was Barbara ; at least she was the only person he was going to consider. Now, suppose that she could not, or would not, forgive him; then she was in a very bad way indeed. She was a cripple, or at least she would be" crippled for mouths, and she would soon be penniless. Her share of the proceeds of the rubies was her only resource. She must have it. He dared not take the risk of her losing it. He would not recover the rubies; and he would not give anyone else any help in recovering them. It might not be right; in fact, according to the accepted standards, it was wrong. But for him Barbara came first. That was his decision. He did not like it; but he would abide by it. He sat still for a while considering it with a frowning face. Then a happy thought came to him. There was a way. He would himself buy the rubies from Jasper Forbes and restore them to he Marquess. He wired to him : On the track of the rubies.— Go.mme. (To be concluded.)