The Gem Collector, P. G. Wodehouse [best english novels to read .TXT] 📗

id="id01108">"Be quiet," he said. "Confound you, sir, will you stop that noise?"

Sir Thomas, unaccustomed to this style of address, checked the flood for a moment.

"Now," said Jimmy, "you see the situation. At present, you and I are the only persons alive, to the best of our knowledge, who know about this. Stay, though, there must be one other. The real necklace must have been stolen. It is impossible to say when. Years ago, perhaps. Well, that doesn't affect us. The thief, whoever he is, is not likely to reveal what he knows. So here you have it in a nutshell. Let me go, and don't say a word about having found me here, and I will do the same for you. No one will know that the necklace is not genuine. I shall not mention the subject, and I imagine that you will not. Very well, then. Now, for the alternative. Give me up, give the alarm, and I get—well, whatever they give me. I don't know what it would be, exactly. Something unpleasant. But what do you get out of it? Lady Blunt, if I may say so, is not precisely the sort of lady, I should think, who would bear a loss like this calmly. If I know her, she will shout loudly for another necklace, and see that she gets it. I should fancy you would find the expense unpleasantly heavy. That is only one disadvantage of the alternative. Others will suggest themselves to you. Which is it to be?"

Sir Thomas suspended his operation of glaring at the paste necklace to glare at Jimmy.

"Well?" said Jimmy. "I should like your decision as soon as it's convenient to you. They will be wanting me on the stage in a few minutes. Which is it to be?"

"Which?" snapped Sir Thomas. "Why, go away, and go to the devil!"

"All in good time," said Jimmy cheerfully. "I think you have chosen wisely. Coming downstairs?"

Sir Thomas made no response. He was regarding the necklace moodily.

"You'd better come. You'll enjoy the show. Charteris says it's the best piece there's been since 'The Magistrate'! And he ought to know. He wrote it. Well, good-by, then. See you downstairs later, I suppose?"

For some time after he had gone Sir Thomas stood, motionless. Then he went across the room and picked up the necklace. It occurred to him that if Lady Blunt found it lying in a corner, there would be questions. And questions from Lady Blunt ranked among the keenest of his trials.

* * * * *

"If I had gone into the army," said Jimmy complacently to himself, as he went downstairs, "I should have been a great general. Instead of which I go about the country, scoring off dyspeptic baronets. Well, well!"

CHAPTER XIX.

The evening's entertainment was over. The last of the nobility and gentry had departed, and Mr. McEachern had retired to his lair to smoke—in his shirt sleeves—the last and best cigar of the day, when his solitude was invaded by his old New York friend, Mr. Samuel Galer.

"I've done a fair cop, sir," said Mr. Galer, without preamble, quivering with self-congratulation.

"How's that?" said the master of the house.

"A fair cop, sir. Caught him in the very blooming act, sir. Dark it was. Oo, pitch. Fair pitch. Like this, sir. Room opposite where the jewels was. One of the gents' bedrooms. Me hiding in there. Door on the jar. Waited a goodish bit. Footsteps. Hullo, they've stopped! Opened door a trifle and looked out. Couldn't see much. Just made out man's figure. Door of dressing room was open. Showed up against opening. Just see him. Caught you at it, my beauty, have I? says I to myself. Out I jumped. Got hold of him. Being a bit to the good in strength, and knowing something about the game, downed him after a while and got the darbies on him. Took him off and locked him in the cellar. That's how it was, sir."

"Good boy," said Mr. McEachern approvingly. "You're no rube."

"No, sir."

"Put one of these cigars into your face."

"Thank you, sir. Very enjoyable thing, a cigar, sir. 'Specially a good un. I have a light, I thank you, sir."

"Well, and who was he?"

"Not the man you told me to watch, for. 'Nother chap altogether."

"That red-headed——"

"No, sir. Dark-haired chap. Seen him hanging about, suspicious, for a long time. Had my eye on him."

Mr. Galer chuckled reminiscently.

"Rummest card, sir, I ever lagged in my natural," he said.

"How's that? inquired Mr. McEachern amiably.

"Why," grinned Mr. Galer, "you'll hardly believe it, sir, but he had the impudence, the gall, if I may use the word, the sauce to tell me he was in my own line of business. A detective, sir! Said he was going into the room to keep guard. I said to him at the time, I said, it's too thin, cocky. That's to say——"

Mr. McEachern started.

"A detective!"

"A detective, sir," said Mr. Galer, with a chuckle. "I said to him at the time——"

"The valet!" cried Mr. McEachern.

"That's it, sir. Sir Thomas Blunt's valet, he was. That's how he got into the house, sir."

Mr. McEachern grunted despairingly.

"The man was right. He is a detective. Sir Thomas brought him down from London. He niver travels without him. Ye've done it. Ye've arristed wan of the bhoys."

Mr. Galer's jaw dropped slightly.

"He was? He really was——"

"Ye'd better go straight to where it was ye locked him up, and let him loose. And I'd suggest ye hand him an apology. G'wan, mister. Lively as you can step."

"I never thought——"

"That's the trouble with you fly cops," said his employer caustically.
"Ye niver do think."

"It never occurred to me——"

"G'wan!" said the master of the house. "Up an alley!"

Mr. Galer departed.

"And I asked them," said Mr. McEachern, "I asked them particularly not to send me a rube!"

He lit another cigar, and began to brood over the folly of mankind.

He was in a very pessimistic frame of mind when Jimmy curveted into the room, with his head in the clouds and his feet on air.

"Can you spare me a few minutes, Mr. McEachern?" said Jimmy.

The policeman stared heavily.

"I can," he said slowly. "What is ut?"

"Several things," said Jimmy, sitting down. "I'll take them in order.
I'll start with our bright friend, Galer."

"Galer!"

"Of New York, according to you. Personally, I should think that he's seen about as much of New York as I have of Timbuctoo. Look here, McEachern, we've known each other some time, and I ask you, as man to man, do you think it playing the game to set a farmer like poor old Galer to watch me? I put it to you?"

The policeman stammered. The question chimed in so exactly with the opinion he had just formed, on his own account, of the human bloodhound who was now in the cellar making the peace with his injured fellow worker.

"Hits you where you live, that, doesn't it?" said Jimmy. "I wonder you didn't have more self-respect, let alone consideration for my feelings. I'm surprised at you."

"Ye're——"

"In fact, if you weren't going to be my father-in-law, I doubt if I could bring myself to forgive you. As it is, I overlook it."

The policeman's face turned purple.

"Only," said Jimmy, with quiet severity, taking a cigar from the box and snipping off the end, "don't let it occur again."

He lit the cigar. Mr. McEachern continued to stare fixedly at him. So might the colonel of a regiment have looked at the latest-joined subaltern, if the latter, during mess, had offered to teach him how to conduct himself on parade.

"I'm going to marry your daughter," said Jimmy.

"You are going to marry me daughter!" echoed Mr. McEachern, as one in a trance.

"I am going to marry your daughter."

The purple deepened on Mr. McEachern's face.

"More," said Jimmy, blowing a smoke ring. "She is going to marry me. We are going to marry each other," he explained.

McEachern's glare became frightful. He struggled for speech.

"I must congratulate you," said Jimmy, "on the way things went off tonight. It was a thorough success. Everybody was saying so. You're the most popular man in the county. What would they say of you at Jefferson Market, if they knew? By the way, do you correspond with any of the old set? Splendid fellows, they were. I wish we had some of them here tonight."

Mr. McEachern's emotions found relief in words. He rose, and waved a huge fist in Jimmy's face. His great body was shaking with rage.

"You!" shouted the policeman. "You!"

The fist was within an inch of Jimmy's chin.

Outwardly calm, inwardly very much alive to the fact that at any moment the primitive man in him might lead his prospective father-in-law beyond the confines of self-restraint, Jimmy sat still in his chair, his eyes fixed steadily on those of his relative-to-be. It was an uncomfortable moment. Mr. McEachern, if he made an assault, might regret it subsequently. But he would not be the first to do so. The man who did that would be a certain James Pitt. If it came to blows, the younger man could not hope to hold his own with the huge policeman.

"You!" roared McEachern. Jimmy fancied he could feel the wind of moving fist. "You marry me daughter! A New York crook. The sweepings of the Bowery. A man who ought to be in jail. I'd like to break your face in."

"I noticed that," said Jimmy. "If it's all the same to you, will you take your fist out of my mouth? It makes it a little difficult to carry on a conversation. And I've several things I should like to say."

"Ye'll listen to me!"

"Certainly. You were saying?"

"Ye come here. Ye worm yourself into my house, crawl into it——"

"I came by invitation, and in passing, not on all fours. Mr.
McEachern, may I ask one question?"

"What is ut?"

"If you didn't want me, why did you let me stop here?"

The policeman stopped as if he had received a blow. There came flooding back into his mind the recollection of his position. In his wrath, he had forgotten that Jimmy knew his secret. And he looked on Jimmy as a man who would use his knowledge.

He sat down heavily.

Jimmy went on smoking in silence for a while. He saw what was passing in his adversary's mind, and it seemed to him that it would do no harm to let the thing sink in.

"Look here, Mr. McEachern," he said, at last, "I wish you could listen quietly to me for a minute or two. There's really no reason on earth why we should always be at one another's throats in this way. We might just a well be friends, as we should be if we met now for the first time. Our difficulty is that we know too much about each other. You knew me in New York, and you know what I did there. Naturally, you don't like the idea of my marrying your daughter. You can't believe that I'm not simply an ordinary yegg, like the rest of the crooks you used to know. I promise you, I'm not. Can't you see that it doesn't matter what a man has been? It's what he is and what he means to be that counts. Mr. Patrick McEachern, of Corven Abbey, isn't the same as Constable McEachern, of the New York police. Well, then, I have nothing to do with the man I was when you knew me first. I have disowned him. He's a back number. I am an ordinary English gentleman now. My uncle has left me more than well off. I am a baronet. And is it likely that a baronet—with money, mind you—is going to carry on the yegg business as a side line? Be reasonable. There's really no possible objection to me now. Let's shake, and call the fight off. Does that go?"

The policeman was plainly not unmoved by these arguments. He drummed his fingers on the table, and stared thoughtfully at Jimmy.

"Is Molly—" he said, at length, "does Molly——"

"Yes," said Jimmy. "And I can promise you I love