THE BANMAMTYME SAPPHIRES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 779, 27 September 1929, Page 5

THE BANMAMTYME SAPPHIRES

BY

FRANK HIRD

CHAPTER XXI. "That's what frightens me, Maxwell! He -.old me Lord Claverton gave him the finger-marks and that he had kept them.” “But that proves nothing.” Jilia Wryce had apparently moved, for her voice sounded fainter and farther away, but it was still quite clear. “It might, here, at Brentland. I hadn't a chance to get indiarubber gloves when I watched Alice and Patrick; put the necklace away on the night of the ball. It was a case of seizing a moment that might never come again. So there are my finger marks, and Hartwell’s, too, on that bookcase! And on the dummy book as well! I took it down, and he put it back again while I was cramming the necklace into my bag. ■‘Suppose this Grelkiu finds our fin-ser-marks. You know Bartwell was at Ossingford. He told me they had just the same game of finger-marks m ihe servants’ hall, and you may be sure Grelkin has kept those as well.” "What's there to be frightened abort?” “Oh, Maxwell, don’t you see? You and I are guests at Ossingford, and Bartwell is a footman there, when Lady Claverton’s jewels disappeared. Tot and I are guests here, and Bartwell is footmaD, the last time Alice Barnautyne wore her necklace. And there are my fingerprints and Bartwe'l’s on the hiding-place where she kept it! Won’t a man like Grelkin Put two and two together?” "He may, but he can prove nothing.” “Tes, I know, but Maxwell, you’ve always said the one thing we must avoid was suspicion. Grelkin, I'm convinced, suspects us. I felt it all through my bones when he .was talking to me.” "This is the nastiest jar we’ve ever had,” came Wryce’s voice after a Pause. "But Grelkin can do nothing on the finger-marks in the game at Ossingford and the same finger-marks on the place where Alice Bannantyne kept her necklace —nothing. The only thing that rather rattles me is, are >ou sure nobody saw you and Barth'eli go to her sitting room?” "I'm certain nobody did. As I told Vou, on the night of the ball for Patticia and Guy Meredith, Bartwell and J were in Henry's gun room. It was the only chance I had to get his rePott, and the only place where nobody was likely to come. He'd spied ond searched everywhere, but all he oould find out was that that Alice Bannantyne didn't keep the necklace m her bedroom. As usual he made love to ( her maid, and she told him so. "When he went out of the room he didn’t close the door behind him. Tbe winute after he had gone I heard "|tce and Patricia talking, just out- » e t * le door, about the necklace, and Alice saying that she kept it in her itting room and must put it away belore she went to bed. You know how 1 onept to the door of the sitting room and watched them work the secret springs. When Bartwell and I went there ater and got the necklace there was °DOdy anywhere near the room, ana. jjaywa)*, i locked the door. So you eedn t be rattled about that.”

4. . * * * And you needn’t worry stbout Grel* trt° all the same, what he said 10 >o u shows we ll have to be very

careful. We’d better be doggo for a bit.” Wryce’s voice tailed off in a yawn. There was a silence. The basket chair creaked as if Julia Wryce was moving about in it nervously. Meredith looked up at the beam of light striking across the chimney, straining his ears, and after a little while Maxwell Wryce’s voice came clearly. “We can’t stop, Julia, until I make up that fifty thousand I had to pay Guy through Leofalda. Damn Guy and the Sangolanto people! I’m certain that one or the other found out we’d struck oil in our secret borings on old Daynesford’s property.” “I’m not sure Guy didn’t know. Patricia told me that he stuck out because Leofalda was so insistent, and went on bidding against the Sangolanto people.” “I was too certain he wouldn’t get the money for the taxes. If I’d told Leofalda to offer £IO,OOO instead of £5,000 that afternoon I sent him to Guy after he had been lunching with us, and had asked me for a loan for the taxes, I believe Guy would have made the bargain on the spot. And in the end I’ve had to pay £50,000. That’s upset all my calculations.” “Oh, Maxwell, can’t we stop now? The way Grelkin spoke to me tonight terrified me. Surely we have enough? And if we were found out —oh! I can t bear to think of it—what would be the use of all this money then?” “All this money! Do you know, Julia, getting that £50,000 in a hurry for Guy—damn him!—practically cleared Leofalda and me of liquid cash.” “What'S £50,000?” Julia Wryce asked, her voice slightly raised, “in comparison with the risk of being found out?” “It's £2,500 a year at 5 per cent., and a good deal more if it's invested in South America.” “Maxwell, I'm certain it isn’t worth it For God's sake,-let us stop now!” “Now, old girl, don’t upset yourself,” Wryce spoke soothingly. “But you’re right, Julia. We’ve always pulled things off because we took no risks. We’ll give England a rest and see what we can pick up in America. “Thank God!” exclaimed the sister, adding with fervour, “That’s a load off my mind. Now I shall be able to Sl “ffho knows,” said Wryce, “if I get o top price for the Mexican propel ty, perhaps we needn’t have to trouble people’s safes and jewel-boxes over 1 “Then I hope to goodness you will get a top price, Maxwell. I m certain this Grelkin business is a warning, and we ought to stop, not only here, but everywhere. Maxwell, lets give up the American idea, too.” “Oh that’s a long way ahead. Plenty of time to discuss that when we see how much the stuff from Ajaccio will fetch.” This was followed by an odd booming sound down the chimney. It came again, Wryce was yawning. “Good-night, old girl, I’m awfully sleepy. By the way, have you seen Patricia. “No I went to her room, but the door was locked and she wouldn’t let m “/ I saw Guy downstairs. It’s all over j between them and the Bannantynes. j

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He and Patricia are leaving tomorrow morning early. Grelkin was a blundering ass, wasn’t he, to let Henry go so far against Patricia? Imagine him not inquiring at Yestborough’s what sort of necklace it was she pawned!” “Perhaps he did inquire and said nothing about it.” “What on earth for?” “To keep Henry’s suspicions from us. I believe Grelkin knew all along that the necklace Patricia pawned wasn’t Alice’s, but said nothing just to put Henry on the wrong scent.” “I never thought of that,” said Wryce. “Well, if you’re right he’ll have to wait and wait and wait, because we’re going to be reformed characters in England. Good-night, old girl!” “Good-night.” Meredith heard the closing of a door, followed by the click of an electric light switch. The ray of light across the chimney-shaft suddenly disappeared. In stooping to come from beneath the canopy Meredith hit his foot sharply against some hard object. It shot across the hearth stone, hit the stone kerb, and bounced out on to the hearth-rng. It was a small red brick, the side lying uppermost covered with soot. Here, he realised, was the explanation of the ray of light across the chimney-shaft. A brick broken away from the mortar —and this was the brick —had fallen from out of the fireplace in Maxwell Wryce’s room, into his own fireplace. And by one of those mysterious laws which govern sound, and of which we know no more than we know of the origin of electricity, the hole the brick had left in Maxwell Wryce's fireplace had served as a sort of microphone for his snores, and for the amazing talk between the brother and sister. Meredith sat down on his bed, looking at a sooty mark on his red leather slipper where he had kicked the brick. Then he pinched both his legs, hard, through his pyjamas; pinched harder still. The pinches hurt. Yes, he was awake! He hadn’t been dreaming! CHAPTER XXII. It was broad daylight when Meredith fell asleep, still too amazed to realise the full import of the conversation between Maxwell and Julia Wryce that had come to him so curiously. How long he sat on his bed, staring at his pink pyjama legs, he did not know. What the brother and sister had said to one another seemed impossible, incredible. He must have been dreaming. Then came the wailing sound of Maxwell Wryce’s snore once again from the big open chimney piece behind him. No, unfortunately, it was not a dream. Something, he thought vaguely, would have to be done. But what? It was difficult to think about anything under this devastating and allunconscious confession of the Wryce’s. But a natural carefulness, and his training in Gervase Daynesford’s office asserted themselves, although he felt half-stunned, as if someone had hit him violently on the head. He sat down at the writing-table, and wrote out on many sheets of the Brentland notepaper a full account of all that he had heard. Then he went to bed, but he could not sleep. He wondered whether he ought not to go to Henry Bannantyne and tell him what he had heard. Common sense said that would be no good—foolish. If Henry came to him with such a story, he himself would not believe it. So why should Henry believe him? Still, there was Grelkin. Julia Wryce had said she was sure the man suspected them. Yes, there was Grelkin . . . perhaps he could help . . . something ought to be done. Hei'e Meredith fell into a troubled

sleep, from which he was awakened by a footman telling him his bath was ready, and breakfast would be in half an hour. In the bright sunshine which flooded the room, all that he had heard the night before appeared uttedly unreal. Maxwell and Julia Wryce jewel thieves? And Maxwell Wryce actually the buyer through Leofalda of the Mexican No, it was too fantastical. As he stooped down to imt on his slippers after getting out of bed, he noticed the charred heap of paper lying at the side of the fireplace, where he had pushed it the night before. On the other side, and close to the stone kerb, was the brick he had kicked against when he came from beneath the canopy, its uppermost* side thickly coated with soot. If the brick had not fallen from the back of the fireplace in Maxwell Wryce’s room he would have heard nothing. But there was the brick—the incontestable proof.

Meredith stepped beneath the stone canopy of the chimney. Far above his head a pale ray of light shot across the darkness, vaguely showing the bricks on the other side of the shaft. Maxwell Wryce, he knew, always slept with his curtains open and blinds up. He always said he liked waking in the daylight. Here was incontestable proof again. The sunshine in the room above was filtering through the hole in the fireplace left by the brick, just as the electric light had shone the night before. Now, what was to be done?

A pale and unhappy Patricia met him at breakfast. She confessed she had slept badly. “It is hateful to leave Brentland like this," she said, clinging to Meredith as he kissed her after the butler had left the room. “It seems just as if one was walking out of one’s own home, never to come back. I’ve had an upsetting letter from Alice. Read it. It’s her answer to me. I couldn’t go without sending her a word.”

Meredith took the letter. Mrs. Bannantyne’s handwriting was clear and distinct, with a suspicion of primness in the equal spacing between tbe words and the careful formation of each letter. But this letter was little more than a scrawl. Obviously it had been written in the stress of hurry and emotion.

“It is unbelievable, my dearest Patricia, that you could ever have* left Brentland like this, but I understand fully. It is inconceivable, too, that anybody could have had such a suspicion of you. Henry is utterly miserable about it now. I blame the detective for it all. If he could find out from a pawnbroker that you pawned a necklace, why couldn’t he find out the kind of necklace? Then there would have been none of this hideous business, and you and Guy getting married in this hole-and-corner way—everything all so utterly different from what I had hoped and planned.Much as I loved it, I wish now I had never seen the necklace. “Don’t go away from me for always, darling child. I can’t bear the thought of it. Write to me and tell me your plans. And some time later on perhaps you will be able to forgive Henry. Do, do try.—Your heart-broken Alice.” P.S.—Always remember I think you are right in leaving this house. I should do exactly the same thing myself. There’s nothing else to be done; but, oh, I do pray it won’t be be for always. “Of course there’s nothing else to be done,” Meredith said, handing back the letter, “but I’m sorr3 r for Alice.” “Yes.” said Patricia, “so am I.”

Thej' were half-way to the station when it suddenly occurred to Meredith that he and Patricia might not have a carriage to themselves. To wait until they got to London before he could tell her of the amazing hap!ienines of last night would be intolerable. Besides, they couldn't possibly cross to Paris that day. Something must be done. So he said to Patricia: “I’m going to be extravagant. We’ll cut the train and go on to London in the taxi.” Patricia protested. “Ohj&Guy, that really is unnecessary.’’ “You won’t think so when you have hea.rd what I’m going to tell you,” he answered, as he put his head out of the window and gave the driver the order. . i Meredith was glad he had written down the conversation between Maxwell and Julia Wryce. In the broad daylight, speeding past the hedges, with a wide open space of country stretching all round them he himself felt his story move incredible than ever. Patricia couldn’t believe it. “Oh, Guy,” she cried, “you must have had an awful nightmare and dreamt the whole thing!” “I only wish I had,” he replied. “I wrote it all down before I went to bed. Read it.” He took the many sheets of Brentland notepaper from his dressing-case and gave them to her. Patricia read them through eagerly, with now and then an exclamation. “What's that?” asked Meredith, after a prolonged “Oh!” “Bartwell coming out of the gunroom on the night of the ball. I saw him. Oh, Guy, I believe it’s true after all!” “Horribly true, I’m afraid. Go on, and you’ll see how Leofalda comes into it,” he answered. Patricia read on, handing each sheet to Meredith as she finished it. “Then Maxwell sent Leofalda to you?” she cried. “Yes, yes, I did tell Julia you stuck out because Leofalda was so insistent—those were my very words- And it was really Maxwell all the time!” When Patricia had read to the end she leant back and closed her eyes, gripping Meredith’s hand. Maxwell and Julia Wryce . . . her friends, Guy’s friends, Henry Bannantyne’s friends, the friends of almost everybody she knew . . . just preying on everybody they could. Living by robbery! All the appearance of wealth . . . the house in Curzon Street with its perfect servants, its equally perfect little luncheons and dinners; the yacht; the villa at Ajaccio, where she and Alice Bannatyne had stayed in the winter . . . everything existed through a subtle and well-planned knavery. She felt stunned. “Wliat do you think we ought to do?” Meredith’s voice seemed to come from very far away. “I don’t see how we can leave things like this.” he added when she did not answer. But Patricia was trying to recollect how many friends and acquaintances of the Wryees had been robbed of their jewels in the last few years. (To be continued tomorrow.!