The Tenth Emerald

Taranaki Daily News, 24 December 1935, Page 13

The Tenth Emerald

By

Lindsay Hamilton

CHAPTER FIVE (continued). Ralph’s jaunty grin faded. “All right. Go easy!” he muttered uncomfortably. “I don’t know that I’m proud of it either, Arnold. Same father, and what a swine! Left his wife and me a nipper of five to starve in the slums of Liverpool. Married a Greek and did the same by her. Well, we’ve got something in common, you and me, Arnold. I’m glad enough to forget that half though. Mortimer—the name stinks. Denny is good enough for me, and always will be.” Something strangely like sympathy flickered in Mortimer’s eyes and was gone. It was not altogether out of curiosity that he had searched long and diligently for this unknown half-brother years ago. A queer tie to bind two such opposites, the vulgar rake and the dandified man of culture, this common hatred of a profligate father. “Have you ever dropped a hint?” asked Mortimer anxiously. “Not on your life,” answered the other, and Mortimer knew that he was speaking the sober truth. ' “Well,” he began with a little more cordiality in his voice. “What is it you want?” Ralph’s jaunty air had returned. "It’s this Silchester job,” he explained airily. “The caretaker’s daughter has expensive tastes.” He winked. “Seeing life in the West End. I z want fifty quid. Simon’s away, you know. That’s why I had to come here. Can’t spoil the lay for the sake of a pint of bubbly.” Mortimer made no comment, but took out his note-case and counted out four five-pound notes. “Here’s twenty. You’ll have to make that do.” Ralph cocked his eye impudently at Mortimer. “Well, now, that’s a pity. I didn’t want to pawn my lucky emerald, but—” “You damned fool!” snapped Mortimer. “I’d never have given you it if I had thought you were crazy enough to try and dispose of it.” “Make it fifty,” said Ralph, and grinned maliciously. “Can’t be done. You’ll have to wait till Monday evening at Simon’s.” Ralph accepted defeat nonchalantly. “I suppose I’ll have to make it do.”' He flashed Mortimer a grin. “I was only pulling your leg. You always sit up and beg for it, Arnold. You can take it as said that I wouldn’t part with my lucky emerald for anything—not for all -.the wenches in creation.” “A mascot?” Mortimer was amused and contemptuous. “Why not? Emeralds are my lucky stone.” Mortimer frowned. “You don’t carry it about with you?” “Don’t I though. But not where you’d find, it, nor all Scotland Yard for that matter.” And Ralph winked knowingly. Mortimer looked at his watch. “Now clear out,” he snapped. “And get clear without being seen.” Ralph went to the door. He had it half open when the x bell of the flat shrilled a sudden warning. Mortimer went to answer it, leaving Ralph lurking behind the door. The waiter had arrived, and was already in the vestibule. A gentle, elderly person, flat-footed, and stooping of shoulder. In other clothes he might have been taken for a clerical gentleman of retiring ways. “Oh, it’s you, Phelps.” Mortimer

waited until the man was safely at woik in the sitting-room, and then signed to Ralph to make his escape. But hardly had Ralph emerged when the telephone rang, and with astonishing promptitude, Phelps appeared at the door of the sitting-room, and announced with gentle deference: “I think that is your ’phone, sir.” Ralph had vanished as swiftly and silently as a streak of light. If the ' waiter had seen him it could have been no more than a glimpse—not sufficient to recognise him again. The telephone was in the sitting-room. Mortimer unhooked the receiver. His caller was Clive Eden, and he was very apologetic and concerned. He had been summoned back to Paris on urgent business and must leave by plane in the morning. In the circumstances the deal in emeralds must wait indefinitely. Impossible to say when he would be able to get over again. It was very aggravating, very disappointing, too. He had so looked forward to this chance of adding to his collection. But Mortimer would understand —business first, pleasure after. This was a turn of events not at all to Mortimer’s liking. The deal had been almost as good as completed, and safely at that. If it fell through now there would be the same waiting and the same elaborate business to begin all over again. “Could you manage to call this evening?” he suggested. Eden responded that he could, and would be delighted. He had hesitated to make the suggestion himself lest he should be asking too much. “But if it won’t upset your plans in any way—” Business before pleasure was one of Mortimer’s axioms, too. But whenever possible he believed in combining the two to his own advantage. “On 1 the contrary,” he said. “We shall be delighted if you will join us. We dine at seven, quite a small party. We can discuss the stones before going on to the theatre.” “If you mean it I’ll snap that very generous invitation up at once.” “Splendid! Then we shall expect you about seven.” He hung up the receiver. “Another to dinner,” he told the waiter. “And by the way, while I think of it, you needn’t appear again after bringing in the coffee. You understand?” “Perfectly, sir.” But as he turned his back on Mortimer, he was no longer a paid automaton without feelings to express. A look of very human curiosity and lively excitement was on his face. Had Mortimer seen it he might have been less sure of Ralph’s safe getaway. But Mortimer could not read backs. CHAPTER FIVE.. Ann was the, first to arrive. Mortimer, had meant her to be when he sent the car for her. He had no regular chauffeur, but hired a man for these special occasions. He met her in the vestibule, a ravishing figure in green. The fluffy white collar of her cloak might have been love itself the way it snuggled close to caress her cheek. Her lips were parted in a smile of carefree happiness. Mortimer’s heart had leapt at the sight of her. It was still racing, and the hot suffocating sensation in his throat made speech difficult. Ann, though she saw the flame in his eyes and the dull flush mounting to his temples, remained unembarrassed and wholly at ease. “It was nice of you to send the car,” she said. He waved the acknowledgement aside as though it irritated him. Why would she persist in accepting his homage as just the sort of attentions a man would pay to any attractive girl? “What else would you expect?” he answered reproachfully. The corner of a shabby bag protruded fromi her arm, he noticed, a hateful object against her fresh loveliness. Poverty and shabbiness, how she must detest its contact. “You’ll want to take your things off,” he added aloud. A few minutes later she joined him in the sitting-room. Its colourful eastern luxury appealed to the senses: Chinese carpet, Persian rugs draped over large divans, a multitude of vivid-hued cushions, eastern tapestries, little tray-tables of beaten brass; and in the centre a long refectory table, its highly polished surface a rich setting for the white dinner-mats, crystal wineglasses, and gleaming silver. No restful colour scheme here, but clamouring contrasts of colour - that still achieved a vivid harmony. It was a large room, much longer than broad, with its three doors all on the one side, the central one opening into the vestibule, the two on either side communicating with office and bedroom respectively. Between bedroom and vestibule doors the entire wall-space was taken up by a massive sideboard. On the centre of it an amazing silver stand, supported dishes pyramidwise,' and they were piled hi; '.i with a variety of fruits. What caught Ann’s eyes at once was the bunches of luscious grapes. She remembered Johnny with a pang. Mortimer had his' eyes glued to her as she halted for a moment to look around. The slender supple figure in sea-green organdie with twin billows like foam at her shoulders, stirred all the sensuouness of his nature. The slight movement, of the girdle low on her hips fascinated him. In its rise and fall was all the mystery and appeal of womankind. The whiteness of her throat and, the lights of dull gold from the ripples in her hair stole into his senses till the soul of him quivered in a fervour of worship that was agonising. He came over to her, held her away from him at arm’s length, and looked down at her with eyes on fire. “Ann,” he said huskily, “your loveliness is a torture. If you only knew what it is to love like this. But you don’t. How can you? I tell you and you are amused; yes; amused, and a little curious. You think it’s a sweet sort of rapture, I suppose; scent of roses, a trance, a dream.” His soft voice was latent with violence. “Shall I tell you what it’s like, Ann? Something more terribly alive than the rest of creation; it’s a vicious thing, tearing at, your reason and squeezing at your heart till it feels it must burst.” Melodramatic, Ann told herself; words blown out big with vapuors of the imagination. But in spite of herself she was moved. It was the force behind the words that disquieted her. She tried hard to keep her gaze steady and smile. But she failed. (To be continued).