The Burglars' Club Part 30

"Yes; Jones is a beautiful name," she replied. "Have you decided to pick to-night, Mr. Jones?"

"I should like to."

"You wish me to leave that window open?"

"If you will."

"And what do you give me, if you please?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"What am I going to have of it all?"

"'All.' That is rather a big word for the little mushroom I shall take away; but if you would like some memento of the occasion, what shall it be? A bracelet?"

"A bracelet? _Comment!_ Absurd! With my help, _m'sieu_, it will not be a little mushroom, _point du tout_. For me myself I demand fifty pounds."

Maxwell-Pitt stared at her blankly.

"What is it now?" she cried angrily. "_Mais_, you are too stupid--more stupid than the ordinary Englishman. Miss Richards has some fine pearls, and her diamonds are _magnifiques_, and I can give them to you. This is not to be another Wedderburn mistake."

"Ah, quite so--quite so," replied Maxwell-Pitt, who was absolutely nonplussed by the turn the conversation had taken. Then he drew his bow at a venture. "Wedderburn made a bit of a mistake, didn't he?" he said.

She looked at him sharply. "'He.' Who's 'he'? You know precisely that I speak of the burglary at Wedderburn 'Ouse last week, where you were not very clever."

"Oh, of course, of course. I understand," said Maxwell-Pitt.

"Of course you do understand. Why do you so pretend to me? I knew it was you when I saw you seeking round our 'ouse. I saw you were big and dark, with a long moustache, like the butler at Wedderburn 'Ouse said. How else did you think I could have known you were a burglar? You are to look at only like a gentleman?"

"Ah, I see--I see," said Maxwell-Pitt, the light at last breaking in upon him. "It seems that I have done friend Marvell an injustice."

"I do not know who your friend is, nor what you talk about," said Mademoiselle Adele. "I must return at once. Is it to be a bargain or not? Fifty pounds is little compared to your share."

"Mademoiselle," said Maxwell-Pitt, "you are not only an accomplished thought-reader, but you appear to have the business instinct strongly developed as well. You can quite understand that when I planned this--er--botanical expedition I did not antic.i.p.ate such a drain on my resources. In plain words, I haven't fifty pounds on me."

"You can get it, and come to-morrow night instead."

"There will still be time," said Maxwell-Pitt thoughtfully.

"Of course there will. Now I go. It is settled?"

"Yes; I'll come to-morrow night and bring fifty pounds with me."

"In gold sovereigns, please."

"In gold, if you wish it."

"Good. And I'll have the jewellery ready. The pearl necklace cost more than a thousand sovereigns. There will be no need to take anything else, I hope. That big mushroom should satisfy you enough."

"Amply. I don't want any more jewels, but where does Captain Richards keep his decorations--his Victoria Cross, for instance?"

"You don't want that?"

"I do."

"It is only worth a few centimes--not half a franc, they tell me."

"Never mind its value. I am a collector of such trifles, and want this specimen particularly."

"He won it in battle. It would be cruel--abominable--to take it. You cannot have it."

"Mademoiselle Adele, your scruples do you credit; but, after all, are mushroom-pickers the people to talk about scruples? Here you are planning what is, in plain English, the robbery of your employer, so why stick at a trifle like that?"

"_ecoutez_, Mr. Jones. You are only a burglar, so your opinion is no matter, but I shall tell you why I do this thing. I come to your country to get riches. I am clever, but there are no riches, even for clever people, in my own valley of the Durance. First I was maid to one lady with a t.i.tle so long," and she extended her arms to their full width. "I was 'appy. Then I met an aeronaut--you understand, one who makes ascensions in a balloon--who talked my language like myself. He persuades me to leave my place and marry him. I was idiot to do so. Then one day he goes up in his balloon at--what you call it?--Birmingham, for a brief voyage. But he disappears in the clouds. He sends me postcard from Ostend to tell me that he is landed all-right. Then I never found him again."

She paused dramatically. Maxwell-Pitt felt that something was demanded of him, and hastened to murmur some words of sympathy, but she did not listen.

"Then I took a place again as lady's maid," she went on. "There was trouble over some jewels. They blamed me. Bah! I was innocent. But they say 'No,' and 'You go at once,' and 'No character.' So I am alone in England, with no money and _mon mari_ gone. I come here, and I think this lady so kind to take me without a character written. Then I find the ones who have the characters written will not stay with her--not one month--so that is why she takes me. She is black slave-driver, and her temper--_mon Dieu_, it is dis-graceful! It is a horrible time here. Then there is Alphonse, who is waiter at the elysee Palace, who wants me to marry him and a.s.sist him to found a restaurant, and I must continually tell him 'Wait.'

"When I see you, Mr. Jones, I see my way to escape from it all. It came at one jump--the thought, 'I will help him, and he will give me fifty gold sovereigns, and I shall go to Belgium at once. My 'usband is either dead, or I find him and tell him what I think of him, and get a divorce, and then return and marry the good Alphonse, who adores me.' So you see that I am no common thief. Bah! As for madame's jewellery, _ca ne fait rien_. She is rich. I shall be glad to have annoyed her. But at once I tell you, you shall not have the Victoria Medal. That is not to be. Captain Richards is the only man in this miserable country who has been kind to me. And he is a brave soldier. I shall not permit that you annoy him."

"I promise to return it."

"Then for why do you take it?"

"That is my affair. I will bring the fifty pounds to-morrow night, but I must have the cross whether you help me to get it or not. Where does he keep it?"

"Keep it? _Attendez._ Oh, I know. In the strong box locked in his bedroom. He is a man to shoot certain, and he always has his pistol to hand. You will give me the money instantly you are in the 'ouse, for if you go upstairs you will be a dead man at once. I tell you so myself."

"That is an extremely unpleasant prospect. I must see my lawyer--my _notaire_, mademoiselle--in the morning, and arrange my affairs. Which window will you unlatch for me?"

"The one at the front, the nearest to where you stood when I saw you. If you will come at one o'clock I will be in the room with the beautiful pearls. Now I must fly. _Bon soir, cher_ Mr. Jones."

On the following morning Maxwell-Pitt paid his hotel bill and went up to town. In the evening he returned with his bicycle, getting out at the station beyond Bamburn. At a few minutes to one o'clock he entered the grounds of Burgoyne Lodge, and made his way stealthily to the window fixed on. It open noiselessly, and he clambered through. Mademoiselle Adele was not there. Perhaps she was reading Sir Walter Scott to Miss Richards. He would wait for half an hour, at any rate, before making any move. Perhaps Adele had thought better of her determination about the cross, and would bring it with her rather than risk trouble.

He sat down and mused. A queer life, that of a burglar. Reminiscences of detective tales came back to him. He thought of Sherlock Holmes. The doings of the Burglars' Club would have puzzled him at first. Then there was his great predecessor, Poe's Dupin, the detective of The Murders in the Rue Morgue, of The Mystery of Marie Roget, and The Purloined Letter.

Ah, The Purloined Letter! They were searching for that all over, probing every inch of s.p.a.ce in the house for it, and there it was all the time, underneath their noses, hanging in a card-rack beneath the mantelpiece.

Maxwell-Pitt rose and flashed his light over the mantelpiece. There was the usual a.s.sortment of odds and ends, but the V.C. was not there. No; it was too much to expect. Where did Richards keep it? Adele had hesitated before replying that it was in the strong box in his bedroom.

It might be--or it might not. Here, at any rate, were obvious traces of its owner--his letters and pipe on a side table, his service magazines on the chair. If the V.C. wasn't on the mantelpiece, it might be elsewhere in the room.

There was a bookcase with a cupboard and drawers. He opened the bookcase, but closed it quickly at the sight of the serried ranks of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica." He had no better luck in the cupboard, but in the first drawer he pulled out, his eye was at once caught by two small cases. He eagerly opened one, to find the South African Medal, but in the second--ye G.o.ds! It was the Victoria Cross!

Maxwell-Pitt's fingers closed over it. At this moment the door opened gently.

"Who is there?" whispered a voice.

By this time he had moved to the table. He turned his light on again.

Adele was there--pale and excited. From a pocket which she must have specially constructed she produced a large case. She opened it, disclosing a necklace of large pearls.