Mrs. Vanderstein's jewels

And then it struck him that he had not done much for the Verterexes after all, beyond nearly arresting Mr. Verterex by mistake for a murder he had not committed.

Gimblet laughed.

Then his thoughts reverted lazily to the pleasures of loafing.

“I think I shall give up work,” he said to himself. “Why not? I have enough money put by to keep me, with economy, in moderate comfort. Not quite so many strawberries perhaps,” he added regretfully, taking another mouthful, “but what I want is leisure. Yes. I am decided I will do no more work. Let the police catch its own burglars!”

He spoke aloud, and defiantly, addressing himself to the picture.

At that moment his servant came into the room.

“A gentleman very anxious to see you, sir,” he said. “I have shown him into the library.”

“Ask him to come in here if he’s in a hurry,” said Gimblet. “I haven’t finished lunch.”

A minute later the man opened the door again, announcing:

“Major Sir Gregory Aberhyn Jones.”

Major Sir Gregory Aberhyn Jones was a little man with a pink complexion and a small brown moustache. He was short and rather plumper than he could wish, but carried himself very uprightly and with a great sense of his own importance, glaring at those who might be so obtuse as not immediately to recognise it with such concentrated disapproval that it was usual for the offenders to realise their mistake in the quickest possible time. Behind a fussy, self-satisfied exterior he hid a fund of kindness and good nature seldom to be met with. Sir Gregory prided himself on his youthful appearance, was, in his turn, a source of some pride to one of the best tailors in London, took remarkable interest in his ties and boots, trained his remaining hair in the way it should go, and, though he was sixty-five, flattered himself that he looked not a day over fifty-nine.

“I am in luck to find you, Mr. Gimblet,” he said, advancing with outstretched hand as Gimblet rose to receive him. “But this is a sad occasion, a very sad occasion, I fear.”

“Dear me,” said Gimblet, “I’m sorry to hear that. But won’t you sit down? I thought as my man said you were in a hurry you would rather come in here than wait for me. May I offer you some strawberries? No? I’m sorry I can’t give you any wine, but I’m a teetotaller, you know. Don’t have any in the house. Afraid you’ll think me faddy. And now that the servant has gone, may I ask what is the sad event which has given me the pleasure of seeing you?”

“Bad habit, drinking water,” commented Sir Gregory, seating himself in an arm-chair by the fire-place. “But nowadays young men have no heads. They can’t stand it, that’s what it is. Show them three or four glasses of port and they say it gives them a headache. Absurd, sir! The country is rotten through and through. The men can’t eat, they can’t drink, they can’t even dance! They stroll about a ball-room now in a way that would make you sick. In my days we used to valse properly. But they don’t dance the deux-temps any more, I’m told. They say it makes them giddy! Giddy! Rotten constitutions, that’s what we suffer from nowadays. It’s the same with all this talk of reforming the army. Compulsory service indeed,” the major snorted. “What should we want compulsory service for? In my day one Englishman was as good as twenty Germans or any kind of foreigner. At least he would have been if we’d had a European war, which as it happened was not the case while I was in the Service. But now there are actually people who think that if it comes to a fight it would be an advantage for us to have as many men as the enemy. They ought to be ashamed of themselves, if there’s any truth in it. No, no, the army doesn’t need reforming, take my word for it. There are a few alterations which I could suggest in the uniforms which would make all the difference in the world, but except for that, what I say is, let sleeping dogs lie.”

Having delivered himself of these remarks, Sir Gregory felt in his pocket, drew forth a cigar case, selected a cigar and asked for a match.

“Did you come to persuade me to your views on compulsory service?” asked Gimblet pleasantly as he continued to devour his strawberries, which were now nearly all gone. “Because I’m afraid it’s no good. You can’t possibly convince me that its adoption is not a vital necessity to the nation.”

“I’m sorry to hear you think that,” said the other, “for I have the highest opinion of your intellect. Believe me, when you discovered the frauds that were being perpetrated at the Great Continental Bank last year, I marked you down, Mr. Gimblet, as the man I should consult in case of need. And it is to consult you that I am here. I said it was a sad occasion. Well, it is sad for me, but I am not yet, as a matter of fact, quite sure whether or no it is desperately so. What has happened, in a word, is this. A lady to whom I am deeply attached has disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” said Gimblet, pushing back his chair. He had eaten the last of the strawberries. “May I ask who the lady is – a relation of yours?”

“Not exactly. She is a Mrs. Vanderstein, for whom, as I have just said, I have a great regard, I may say an affection. In fact,” said Sir Gregory, leaning forward and speaking in confidential tones, “I don’t mind telling you that she is the lady I have chosen to be the future Lady Aberhyn Jones.”

“Indeed. You are engaged to marry her?”

“Not precisely engaged,” admitted Sir Gregory, with a slightly troubled look.

As a matter of strict accuracy, he had proposed to Mrs. Vanderstein about three times a year ever since the death of her husband; but Mrs. Vanderstein, although tempted by his title, had already been the wife of one man twice her age and did not intend to repeat the experiment. Still, his friendship was dear to her; he was the only baronet of her acquaintance and she liked to have him about the house. He had been a director on the board of one of her husband’s companies, and, when introduced by him, her pretty face and amiable disposition had quite captured Sir Gregory’s heart, so that he had cultivated Mr. Vanderstein’s society to such good purpose as to become a constant habitué of the house in Grosvenor Street.

After Mr. Vanderstein’s death he lost no more time than decency demanded in proposing to his widow; and, though she refused to marry him, and refused over and over again, yet she did it in so sympathetic a manner and was so kind in spite of her obstinacy that Sir Gregory believed her absence of alacrity in accepting his hand to be prompted by anything rather than a lack of affection. She treated him as her best friend and consulted him on every question of business, to the wise conduct of which her own shrewdness was a far better guide, and had imperceptibly fallen into the habit of never making a decision of any importance without first threshing out the pros and cons in conversation with him. Nothing so strengthened her faith in the soundness of her own judgment as his disapproval of any course she intended to adopt.

“For some reason,” Sir Gregory continued after a pause, “Mrs. Vanderstein has never consented to an actual engagement. It is that which makes me so uneasy now. Can it be – Mr. Gimblet, I give you my word I feel ashamed of mentioning such a suspicion even to you – but can it be that she has fled with another?”

He uttered the last words in such a tragic tone that Gimblet, though he felt inclined to smile, restrained the impulse, and, summoning up all the sympathy at his command, inquired again:

“Will you not explain the circumstances to me a little more fully? When did the lady vanish? Have you any reason to think she did not go alone? Was there some kind of understanding between you, and what did it amount to?”

“I will be perfectly frank with you,” said Sir Gregory, “much the best thing in these cases is to be absolutely candid. You agree with me there? I thought you would. At the same time where a lady is concerned – you follow me? One must avoid anything that looks like giving her away. But in this case there is really no reason why I should conceal anything from you. Mrs. Vanderstein has never accepted my proposals. On the contrary she has refused to marry me on each of the occasions when I have suggested it to her. You ask me why? My dear sir, I cannot reply to that question. Who can account for a woman’s whims? Not I, sir, not I. Nor you either; if you will allow me to say so.” Sir Gregory’s hands and eyes were uplifted in bewilderment as he considered the inexplicable behaviour of woman in general and of Mrs. Vanderstein in particular. “But I have no doubt that in time she would have reconsidered her decision,” he went on puffing at his cigar, “that is to say I had no doubt until this morning.”

“And what happened then?” asked the detective.

“I came up from Surrey, where I had been paying a week-end visit,” pursued his visitor, “arriving at my rooms at midday. My servant at once informed me that Mrs. Vanderstein had sent a telephone message yesterday evening, begging me to go immediately to see her and adding that it was most important. I only waited to change into London clothes, Mr. Gimblet, before I hurried to her house in Grosvenor Street. And when I got there, what did I hear? ’Pon my soul,” exclaimed Sir Gregory, taking his cigar out of his mouth, “you might have knocked me down with a feather!”

“You heard that the lady had disappeared?”

“Exactly. Not been seen or heard of since last night. Drove away from her own door, they tell me, in her own motor car; and has never come back from that hour to this.”

“Did she leave no word as to where she was going?”

“None whatever. She dined early, of course, on account of the opera.”

“The opera! In that case what makes you think she didn’t go there?”

“Of course she went. Didn’t I say so? She drove off to Covent Garden and that’s the last that’s been heard of her.”

“You interest me,” said Gimblet. “Was she not seen to leave the opera house?”

“I don’t know about that,” said Sir Gregory. “I found the servants very much disturbed; and very glad they were, I may say, to see me.”

“She has probably met with some accident and has been taken to a hospital,” suggested Gimblet. “Have any inquiries been made?”

“I rather think they have been telephoning to the hospitals, but I told them not to communicate with the police till I had seen you. Wouldn’t do, you know. She would dislike it extremely, especially if it turns out as I fear and she has gone off with some other man.”

“I can’t see why she should have done that,” said Gimblet. “She was her own mistress, I suppose, and had no need to conceal her movements. Depend on it,” he went on, for the anxiety on Sir Gregory’s face moved him to pity, “she will be found at one of the hospitals; and I advise you to make inquiries at them. A woman, alone as she was, would be carried to one of them if she were taken ill or met with a slight accident that prevented her for the moment from giving her address.”

“But she was not alone,” urged Sir Gregory. “Miss Turner, her companion, was with her, of course.”

“Indeed,” said Gimblet, “you said nothing of there being anyone with her. And what has Miss Turner to say on the subject?”

“She’s not there. She’s vanished too.”

“Really,” said the detective. “This is getting interesting. That two ladies should set out for Covent Garden opera house on a gala night and never return from it, is, to say the least, slightly unconventional. Now, before we go any further,” he went on quickly, “what do you wish me to do in the matter?”

“I want you to find Mrs. Vanderstein, naturally,” returned Sir Gregory, staring at him in astonishment; “I feel the greatest anxiety on her account, the more so since you consider her likely to have met with an accident.”

“But if, as you seem to suspect, the lady has gone off deliberately, will she not be annoyed at our seeking her out? Will she not be angry with you for trying to discover her movements if she wishes them unknown?”

“I daresay she’d think it dashed impertinent. But I can’t help that. She may be in need of me; in fact,” cried Sir Gregory with sudden recollection, “I know she is! Don’t I tell you she telephoned for me last night? A most urgent message. That proves she wishes for my help in some matter of importance to her, and how can I assist her without knowing where she is?”

“As you say,” said Gimblet, “it does look as if she did not wish to leave you unacquainted with her whereabouts. Well, I have nothing to do just now and if you wish me to make inquiries I will do so with pleasure, though I do not think it will prove to be an affair altogether in my line.”

“Thank ’ee. Thank ’ee,” mumbled the old soldier with his cigar between his teeth. “That’s what I want. Now, how are you going to set about it?”

“I am going to ask you a few questions first. You have not yet furnished me with that comprehensive clear account in which the trivial details which look so unimportant and may yet be of such moment are never omitted: the lucid narrative so dear to the detective’s heart. I do not think, if you will pardon my saying so, that I am likely to get it from you, Sir Gregory.”

Sir Gregory glared, but said nothing; and Gimblet continued, with a smile:

“To begin with, who is Mrs. Vanderstein?”

“The widow of a Jewish money-lender.” Sir Gregory spoke somewhat shortly. He considered Gimblet’s remarks disrespectful.

“Rich, then?”

“Yes.”

“Does she live alone in Grosvenor Street?”

“A young lady, Miss Barbara Turner, lives with her.”

“And who is she?”

“She is the daughter of an old pal of Vanderstein’s. A man who used to train his racehorses at Newmarket. He was a bad lot and had to fly the country long ago. Dead now, I believe.”

“Has Miss Turner any money of her own?”

“Old Vanderstein left her a good large sum, £30,000 I think it is, but Mrs. Vanderstein has a life interest in it. The girl has nothing as long as she lives with Mrs. Vanderstein, who, however, I have no doubt, is most generous to her.”

“I suppose you know Miss Turner well? What is she like?”

“Oh, she’s a very ordinary girl, rather pretty some people think, apparently. I don’t admire the robust, muscular type that is fashionable nowadays. Mrs. Vanderstein is very fond of her.”

“That means you don’t like her yourself?”

Sir Gregory hesitated. It was not in him, really, to dislike anyone without very much provocation, but he always had an idea that Barbara was laughing at him, and he cherished his dignity.

“I don’t suppose there’s any harm in the girl,” he grunted at last.

“Has Mrs. Vanderstein the full control of her fortune?” asked Gimblet, after a quick look at him.

“I believe she has, absolutely. But if you think I was after her for her money,” exclaimed Sir Gregory in an angry tone and half rising as he spoke, “you’re dashed well mistaken!”

Gimblet hastened to reassure him on this point and he sat down again, still grumbling.

“It was Vanderstein’s expressed wish that all the money should ultimately be left to his nephew, young Joe Sidney,” he explained, “and I am sure his widow would not disregard his ideas on that point.”

The dining-room faced south-west, and the afternoon sun, creeping round, already shone full on the small square panes of the casement windows, so that the temperature of the room was rapidly rising to an intolerable warmth. Gimblet thought of the train that was to have carried him to the golf links. It would have been unbearably hot in it, he told himself. And the disappearance of a wealthy lady from her house in London was sufficiently unusual to excite his curiosity. Already his vivid imagination was seething with guesses and speculations. His resolution to do no more detective work was utterly forgotten.

“What is Mrs. Vanderstein like to look at?” he asked abruptly.

“She is quite young,” began Sir Gregory, “about your own age, I should say. She is not very tall and has dark hair and a perfect figure, not one of those great maypoles of women one sees about so much now, but beautifully proportioned and just right in every way. She has wonderful brown eyes and a smile for every one. I think she is most beautiful,” concluded her old friend simply.

Gimblet got up.

“I will give instructions about having inquiries made at the hospitals,” he said, “though it does seem hardly likely that both ladies should have been hurt, without some news of it having come before now. And then let us go round to the house. I should like to see the servants and hear what they may have to tell. I hope there may, even now, be some tidings awaiting you there.”

CHAPTER X

There was no news of the missing ladies in Grosvenor Street; but Gimblet interviewed all the servants and heard several facts, which gave him food for thought.

It was from Blake, the butler, that he received most information. It was Blake himself, looking heartily scared, with half his usual pompousness driven out of him by his anxiety, who opened the door to them and, on hearing from Sir Gregory who it was that accompanied him, begged Gimblet to allow him to speak to him for a few moments. They went into the morning-room, a cheerful white-walled apartment, gay with books and flowers, and Blake addressed himself to the detective.

“I’m very glad you’ve come, sir, I am indeed. Sir Gregory will have told you, sir, that Mrs. Vanderstein and Miss Turner, who lives here with her, went out last night to the opera and have not returned. I have been very uneasy about them and at a loss to know what to do, sir, for Mrs. Vanderstein mightn’t like me to inform the police if so be that she’s gone away on purpose. But I never knew her to go away without informing me of the fact or without any luggage and leaving no address, though she does go off very sudden sometimes to spend a week or so in foreign parts, Dieppe being her favourite, I may say.”

“Indeed,” said Gimblet, “was Mrs. Vanderstein in the habit of going abroad at a moment’s notice?”

“She went very sudden, when the fancy took her, sir, but not so sudden as this. I’ve known her say at lunchtime to Miss Turner, ‘My dear, we will go to Boulogne by the 2.20 from Charing Cross,’ which, lunch being at one o’clock, didn’t leave much time for packing, sir.”

“No, it wouldn’t,” agreed Gimblet.

“But in such cases,” continued Blake, “the maid would often be left to follow with the luggage, the ladies taking no more than what they required for the night. But nothing was said to the maid yesterday on the subject, and I can’t think Mrs. Vanderstein would ever go off like that anywhere, sir, in her evening dress and diamonds.”

“Of course, it being a gala night at the opera, she would be wearing jewels,” Gimblet assented.

“Yes, sir, and that’s partly what makes me feel so upset, sir; I’ve never known Mrs. Vanderstein to wear so many jewels on one occasion. It would have been well worth anyone’s while to rob her last night, sir.”

“Really. What was she wearing? Had she valuable jewels?”

“Indeed, yes,” broke in Sir Gregory, “the Vanderstein jewels were famous.”

“Yes, sir,” repeated Blake; “beautiful jewellery indeed. A great responsibility, sir, in a household. But I have them always in a safe in the pantry, where I sleep myself, and if I go out in the daytime it’s never without one of the footmen stays in the room all the time I’m away. At night we have a night watchman always on the premises, sir, and it was him that first alarmed me this morning. He came to my door about five o’clock and knocked me up. ‘What’s the matter?’ I called out, thinking at first what with sleep and one thing and another that the house was on fire. ‘She haven’t come in yet,’ he said, and it was a few minutes before I understood what he was driving at. And then I didn’t really feel anxious; though we’d all thought it very strange last night, when Thomas, the second footman, who had gone with the motor to Covent Garden, came back saying that he’d received orders that the car wasn’t to go back to fetch the ladies at all.”

“What? the car was not to go back after the performance?” exclaimed Gimblet.

“No, sir, orders were given to that effect. Still, I thought possibly they were coming home with some friends, and even this morning I said to myself that perhaps they were staying the night at a friend’s house, having for some reason not been able to get a cab home. I had no doubt I should get a telephone message at any moment, which would explain the whole of the circumstances. But the morning passed away without our hearing anything whatever, and by the time Sir Gregory called I was just about getting ready to go out and make inquiries at the police station.”

Gimblet considered in silence for a few moments.

“Have you noticed anything unusual of late,” he asked, “in the habits or demeanour of anyone in the house?”

“No, nothing unusual beyond the fact that Mrs. Vanderstein seemed to be enjoying uncommonly good spirits. I also thought, but it might be it was only my fancy, that you couldn’t say the same of Miss Turner. Yesterday she appeared to be very much down on her luck.”

“Did the idea of an accident occur to you?” asked Gimblet. “Have you inquired at any of the hospitals?” “I telephoned to St. George’s, sir, but with no result. I didn’t know where else to make inquiries.”

“I understand,” said the detective presently, “that Mrs. Vanderstein has relatives and friends living in London. Did you communicate with any of them this morning?”

“No, sir, I did not. I had already telephoned to Sir Gregory last night and heard he was out of town.”

“Is there no one else to whom you could have appealed for advice? I understand that Mrs. Vanderstein has a nephew or nephew by marriage. Does he live in London?”

“No, sir, his regiment is quartered in the north of England. But it is true,” Blake stammered, with some appearance of reluctance, “that Mr. Sidney is off and on in London, according as he is able to obtain leave, and I believe he is up at the present moment.”

“I should have thought you would have telephoned to him to-day. Did it not occur to you to do so?”

Blake hesitated again. He looked from Gimblet to Sir Gregory, then let his eyes roam to the window and round the room as if help might be hoped for from some unlikely source. Finally, they once more encountered those of the detective and, under that compelling gaze, he spoke.

“I did think of it,” he faltered, “I should have done so if it had not been for one thing. Mr. Sidney came to the house yesterday afternoon and, I don’t like to mention it, sir, but I am afraid that he had words with his aunt. I have no idea what it was about, sir, but he only stayed a few minutes and as soon as he was gone Mrs. Vanderstein called me and gave me strict orders not to allow him to enter the house in future. She seemed very much put out about something and I am sure she wouldn’t like me to have any communications with Mr. Sidney now. It isn’t my place to allude to such a thing at all, but in the peculiar circumstances, sirs, I hope you will excuse my saying that Mrs. Vanderstein appeared to me to be very much put out indeed.”

“Quite so,” said Gimblet, “in the peculiar circumstances your proper course is to tell me everything you can, whether it bears on Mrs. Vanderstein’s failure to return home or not. I shall be less likely to go astray after some false scent if I have a thorough knowledge of the private affairs of these ladies, and there is no knowing what trifling detail may not turn out to be useful. Now about these jewels, can you tell me what your mistress wore last night? I should also like to see the place you keep them in.”

Blake conducted them to the pantry. A small safe let into the wall contained a quantity of jewel cases, for the most part empty. The butler gave Gimblet a list of what they had contained.

“I never knew Mrs. Vanderstein to wear so many ornaments at once,” he repeated. “She would mostly wear her pearls and a necklace and perhaps a tiara and a few bracelets and rings, but last night besides these she had the two diamond necklaces sewn on to her dress, and the emerald set, which takes to pieces so as to make one big ornament, was sewn on it too. I don’t suppose there were many ladies at the gala performance,” said Blake, with some pride, “who wore better jewels than she did – unless it was the Queen herself.”

Gimblet requested to be taken over the house, and in the various sitting-rooms he hunted for some evidence of a documentary character to show that Mrs. Vanderstein had not intended to return on the previous evening. He looked on the mantelpieces for an invitation which should have been stuck up there, on the writing tables for something of the same kind. But though cards for different entertainments were not wanting – most of them bearing well-known Jewish names and conveying invitations to musical parties – there was nothing suggesting that the ladies were to attend one on Monday night. He noticed the subtle odour that hung about the rooms, and his scrutinising eyes noted with delight the many beautiful and rare objects of Mr. Vanderstein’s collection.