The Tinted Venus: A Farcical Romance, F. Anstey [best novels in english txt] 📗

of the goddess; her face, thanks to Leander's pigments, glowing lifelike under her hood, and the gold ring gleaming on her outstretched hand.

"Leander," said the goddess, in her low musical accents, "come away."

"Upon my word!" cried Mrs. Collum. "Who is this person?"

He could not speak. There seemed to be a hammer beating on his brain, reducing it to a pulp.

"Perhaps," said Miss Tweddle—"perhaps, young lady, you'll explain what you've come for?"

The statue slowly pointed to Leander. "I come for[Pg 213] him," she said calmly. "He has vowed himself to me; he is mine!"

Matilda, after staring, incredulous, for some moments at the intruder, sank with a wild scream upon the sofa, and hid her face.

Leander flew to her side. "Matilda, my own," he implored, "don't be alarmed. She won't touch you; it's me she's come after."

Matilda rose and repulsed him with a sudden energy. "How dare you!" she cried, hysterically. "I see it all now: the ring, the—the cloak; she has had them all the time!.... Fool that I was—silly, trusting fool!" And she broke out into violent hysterics.

"Go away at once, hypocrite!" enjoined her mother, addressing the distracted hairdresser, as he stood, dumb and impotent, before her. "Do you want to kill my poor child? Take yourself off!"

"For goodness' sake, go, Leandy," added his aunt. "I can't bear the sight of you!"

"Leander, I wait," said the statue. "Come!"

He stood there a moment longer, looking blankly at the two elder women as they bustled about the prostrate girl, and then he gave a bitter, defiant laugh.

His fate was too strong for him. No one was in the mood to listen to any explanation; it was all over! "I'm coming," he said to the goddess. "I may as well; I'm not wanted here."

And, with a smothered curse, he dashed blindly from the room, and out into the foggy street.[Pg 214]

[Pg 215]

[Pg 216]

AN APPEAL XII.

"If you did know to whom I gave the ring,
If you did know for whom I gave the ring,
And how unwillingly I left the ring,
You would abate the strength of your displeasure."

Merchant of Venice.

Leander strode down the street in a whirl of conflicting emotions. At the very moment when he seemed to have prevailed over Miss Parkinson's machinations, his evil fate had stepped in and undone him for ever! What would become of him without Matilda? As he was thinking of his gloomy prospects, he noticed, for the first time, that the statue was keeping step by his side, and he turned on her with smothered rage. "Well," he began, "I hope you're satisfied?"

"Quite, Leander, quite satisfied; for have I not found you?"

"Oh, you've found me right enough," he replied, with a groan—"trust you for that! What I should like to know is, how the dickens you did it?"

"Thus," she replied: "I awoke, and it was dark, and you were not there, and I needed you; and I went forth, and called you by your name. And you, now that you have hearkened to my call, you are happy, are you not?"[Pg 217]

"Me?" said Leander, grimly. "Oh, I'm regular jolly, I am! Haven't I reason?"

"Your sisters seemed alarmed at my coming," she said. "Why?"

"Well," said Leander, "they aren't used to having marble goddesses dropping in on them promiscuously."

"The youngest wept: was it because I took you from her side?"

"I shouldn't wonder," he returned gruffly. "Don't bother me!"

When they were both safely within the little upper room again, he opened the cupboard door wide. "Now, marm," he said, in a voice which trembled with repressed rage, "you must be tired with the exercise you've took this evening, and I'll trouble you to walk in here."

"There are many things on which I would speak with you," she said.

"You must keep them for next time," he answered roughly. "If you can see anything, you can see that just now I'm not in a temper for to stand it, whatever I may be another evening."

"Why do I suffer this language from you?" she demanded indignantly—"why?"

"If you don't go in, you'll hear language you'll like still less, goddess or no goddess!" he said, foaming. "I mean it. I've been worked up past all bearing, and I advise you to let me alone just now, or you'll repent it!"

"Enough!" she said haughtily, and stalked proudly into the lonely niche, which he closed instantly. As he did so, he noticed his Sunday papers lying still folded on his table, and seized one eagerly.

"It may have something in it about what Jauncy was[Pg 218] telling me of," he said; and his search was rewarded by the following paragraph:—

"Daring Capture of Burglars in Bloomsbury.—On the night of Friday, the —th, Police-constable Yorke, B 954, while on duty, in the course of one of his rounds, discovered two men, in a fainting condition and covered with blood, which was apparently flowing from sundry wounds upon their persons, lying against the railings of Queen Square. Being unable to give any coherent account of themselves, and housebreaking implements being found in their possession, they were at once removed to the Bow Street Station, where, the charge having been entered against them, they were recognized by a member of the force as two notorious housebreakers who have long been 'wanted' in connection with the Camberwell burglary, in which, as will be remembered, an officer lost his life."

The paragraph went on to give their names and sundry other details, and concluded with a sentence which plunged Leander into fresh torments:—

"In spite of the usual caution, both prisoners insisted upon volunteering a statement, the exact nature of which has not yet transpired, but which is believed to have reference to another equally mysterious outrage—the theft of the famous Venus from the Wricklesmarsh Collection—and is understood to divert suspicion into a hitherto unsuspected channel."

What could this mean, if not that those villains, smarting under their second failure, had denounced him in revenge? He tried to persuade himself that the passage would bear any other construction, but not very successfully. "If they have brought me in," he thought, and it was his only gleam of consolation, "I should have heard of it before this."[Pg 219]

And even this gleam vanished as a sharp knocking was heard below; and, descending to open the door, he found his visitor to be Inspector Bilbow.

"Evening, Tweddle," said the Inspector, quietly. "I've come to have another little talk with you."

Leander thought he would play his part till it became quite hopeless. "Proud to see you, Mr. Inspector," he said. "Will you walk into my saloon? and I'll light the gas for you."

"No, don't you trouble yourself," said the terrible man. "I'll walk upstairs where you're sitting yourself, if you've no objections."

Leander dared not make any, and he ushered the detective upstairs accordingly.

"Ha!" said the latter, throwing a quick eye round the little room. "Nice little crib you've got here. Keep everything you want on the premises, eh? Find those cupboards very convenient, I dare say?"

"Very," said Leander (like the innocent Joseph Surface that he was); "oh, very convenient, sir." He tried to keep his eyes from resting too consciously upon the fatal door that held his secret.

"Keep your coal and your wine and spirits there?" said the detective. (Was he watching his countenance, or not?)

"Y—yes," said Leander; "leastways, in one of them. Will you take anything, sir?"

"Thank 'ee, Tweddle; I don't mind if I do. And what do you keep in the other one, now?"

"The other?" said the poor man. "Oh, odd things!" (He certainly had one odd thing in it.)

After the officer had chosen and mixed his spirits and water, he began: "Now, you know what's brought me here, don't you?"[Pg 220]

("If he was sure, he wouldn't try to pump me," argued Leander. "I won't throw up just yet.")

"I suppose it's the ring," he replied innocently. "You don't mean to say you've got it back for me, Mr. Inspector? Well, I am glad."

"I thought you set no particular value on the ring when I met you last?" said the other.

"Why," said Leander, "I may have said so out of politeness, not wanting to trouble you; but, as you said it was the statue you were after chiefly, why, I don't mind admitting that I shall be thankful indeed to get that ring back. And so you've brought it, have you, sir?"

He said this so naturally, having called in all his powers of dissimulation to help him in his extremity, that the detective was favourably impressed. He had already felt a suspicion that he had been sent here on a fool's errand, and no one could have looked less like a daring criminal, and the trusted confederate of still more daring ruffians, than did Leander at that moment.

"Heard anything of Potter lately?" he asked, wishing to try the effect of a sudden coup.

"I don't know the gentleman," said Leander, firmly; for, after all, he did not.

"Now, take care. He's been seen to frequent this house. We know more than you think, young man."

"Oh! if he bluffs, I can bluff too," passed through Leander's mind. "Inspector Bilbow," he said, "I give you my sacred honour, I've never set eyes on him. He can't have been here, not with my knowledge. It's my belief you're trying to make out something against me. If you're a friend, Inspector, you'll tell me straight out."

"That's not our way of doing business; and yet, hang it, I ought to know an honest man by this time! Tweddle, I'll drop the investigator, and speak as man to man.[Pg 221] You've been reported to me (never mind by whom) as the receiver of the stolen Venus—a pal of this very Potter—that's what I've against you, my man!"

"I know who told you that," said Leander; "it was that Count and his precious friend Braddle!"

"Oh, you know them, do you? That's an odd guess for an innocent man, Tweddle!"

"They found me out from inquiries at the gardens," said Leander; "and as for guessing, it's in this very paper. So it's me they've gone and implicated, have they? All right. I suppose they're men whose word you'd go by, wouldn't you, sir—truthful, reliable kind of parties, eh?"

"None of that, Tweddle," said the Inspector, rather uneasily. "We officers are bound to follow up any clue, no matter where it comes from. I was informed that that Venus is concealed somewhere about these premises. It may be, or it may not be; but it's my duty to make the proper investigations. If you were a prince of the blood, it would be all the same."

"Well, all I can say is, that I'm as innocent as my own toilet preparations. Ask yourself if it is likely. What could I do with a stolen statue—not to mention that I'm a respectable tradesman, with a reputation to maintain? Excuse me, but I'm afraid those burglars have been 'aving a lark with you, sir."

He went just a little too far here, for the detective was visibly irritated.

"Don't chatter to me," he said. "If you're innocent, so much the better for you; if that statue is found here after this, it will ruin you. If you know anything, be it ever so little, about it, the best thing you can do is to speak out while there's time."

"I can only say, once more, I'm as innocent as the[Pg 222] drivelling snow," repeated Leander. "Why can't you believe my word against those blackguards?"

"Perhaps I do," said the other; "but I must make a formal look round, to ease my conscience."

Leander's composure nearly failed him. "By all means," he said at length. "Come and ease your conscience all over the house, sir, do; I can show you over."

"Softly," said the detective. "I'll begin here, and work gradually up, and then down again."

"Here?" said Leander, aghast. "Why, you've seen all there is there!"

"Now, Tweddle, I shall conduct this my own way, if you please. I've been following your eyes, Tweddle, and they've told me tales. I'll trouble you to open that cupboard you keep looking at so."

"This cupboard?" cried Leander. "Why, you don't suppose I've got the Venus in there, sir!"

"If it's anywhere, it's there! There's no taking me in, I tell you. Open it!"

"Oh!" said Leander, "it is hard to be the object of these cruel suspicions. Mr. Inspector, listen to me. I can't open that cupboard, and I'll tell you why.... You—you've been young yourself.... Think how you'd feel in my situation ... and consider her! As a gentleman, you won't press it, I'm sure!"

"If I'm making any mistake, I shall