Jennie Baxter, Journalist, Robert Barr [i want to read a book .txt] 📗

of my husband, I should deny having either owned or worn them. I should like to see Don's amazed look when the other glove drops out of my letter, which was a bulky package and cost ever so much in postage. I think the sending of the glove was an inspiration. I fancy his lordship will be now completely deluded, and that you need have no further fear of his finding you."

Jennie read this letter over once or twice, and in spite of her friendly feeling for the Princess, there was something in the epistle that jarred on her. Nevertheless she wrote and thanked the Princess for what she had done, and then she tried to forget all about everything pertaining to the ball. However, she was not allowed to erase all thought of Lord Donal from her mind, even if she could have accomplished this task unimpeded. There shortly arrived a brief note from the Princess enclosing a letter the young diplomatist at St. Petersburg had written.

"DEAR PRINCESS" (it ran),--"I am very much obliged to you for the companion glove, as I am thus enabled to keep one and use the other as a clue. I see you not only know who the mysterious young lady is, but that you have since met her, or at least have been in correspondence with her. If the glove does not lead me to the hand, I shall pay a visit to you in the hope that you will atone for your present cruelty by telling me where to find the owner of both glove and hand."

With regard to this note the Princess had written, "Don is not such a fool as I took him to be. He must have improved during the last few years. I wish you would write and tell me exactly what he said to you that evening."

But with this wish Jennie did not comply. She merely again urged the Princess never to divulge the secret.

For many days Jennie heard nothing more from any of the actors in the little comedy, and the episode began to take on in her thoughts that air of unreality which remote events seem to gather round them. She went on with her daily work to the satisfaction of her employers and the augmentation of her own banking account, although no experience worthy of record occurred in her routine for several weeks. But a lull in a newspaper office is seldom of long duration.

One afternoon Mr. Hardwick came to the desk at which Jennie was at work, and said to her,--

"Cadbury Taylor called here yesterday, and was very anxious to see you. Has he been in again this afternoon?"

"You mean the detective? No, I haven't seen him since that day at the Schloss Steinheimer. What did he want with me?"

"As far as I was able to understand, he has a very important case on hand--a sort of romance in high life; and I think he wants your assistance to unravel it; it seems to be baffling him."

"It is not very difficult to baffle Mr. Cadbury Taylor," said the girl, looking up at her employer with a merry twinkle in her eye.

"Well, he appears to be in a fog now, and he expressed himself to me as being very much taken with the neat way in which you unravelled the diamond mystery at Meran, so he thinks you may be of great assistance to him in his present difficulty, and is willing to pay in cash or in kind."

"Cash payment I understand," said the girl, "but what does he mean by payment in kind?"

"Oh, he is willing that you should make a sensational article out of the episode. It deals entirely, he says, with persons in high life--titled persons--and so it might make an interesting column or two for the paper."

"I see--providing, of course, that the tangled skein was unravelled by the transcendent genius of Mr. Cadbury Taylor," said the girl cynically.

"I don't think he wants his name mentioned," continued the editor; "in fact, he said that it wouldn't do to refer to him at all, for if people discovered that he made public any of the cases intrusted to him, he would lose his business. He has been working on this problem for several weeks, and I believe has made little progress towards its solution. His client is growing impatient, so it occurred to the detective that you might consent to help him. He said, with a good deal of complacency, that he did not know you were connected with the _Bugle_, but he put his wits at work and has traced you to this office."

"How clever he is!" said Jennie, laughing; "I am sure I made no secret of the fact that I work for the _Daily Bugle_."

"I think Mr. Taylor will have no hesitation in agreeing with you that he is clever; nevertheless, it might be worth while to see him and to assist him if you can, because nothing so takes the public as a romance in high life. Here is his address; would you mind calling on him?"

"Not at all," replied the young woman, copying the street and number in her note-book.



CHAPTER X. JENNIE ASSISTS IN SEARCHING FOR HERSELF.

Next day Jennie Baxter drove to the address the editor had given her, and she found Mr. Cadbury Taylor at home, in somewhat sumptuous offices on the first floor. Fastened to his door was a brass plate, which exposed to public view the carven words--


CADBURY TAYLOR,
Private Enquiry Agent.


The detective was quite evidently very glad to see her.

"I intended calling to-day at the office of the _Bugle_ on the chance of finding you," he said; "but I am delighted to meet you here, because we can talk without fear of interruption. Has the editor told you anything of this case?"

"Very little; he didn't seem to know much about it himself."

"It was impossible for me to go into full particulars with him. I could only give him a hint or two in order to convey to him some idea of the interest which the mystery, when solved, might have from a newspaper standpoint. Of course I wished to gain his assistance so that he might, perhaps, persuade you to help me in this matter."

"He seems to be quite willing that I should lend what aid I can," said Jennie; "but I must have full details before I promise. I have a good deal of work on hand, and, unless this case is interesting from a newspaper point of view, as you have just said, I don't think that I should care to touch it."

"Oh, you will find it of great interest," the detective assured her with much eagerness. "It relates to the sudden and hitherto unexplained disappearance of a woman. That of itself is absorbing, for I may tell you, as one having a large experience, that there is nothing more difficult in this world than for any person, and more especially for a woman, to disappear entirely and leave no trace behind."

"I should have thought it quite easy," said Jennie, "especially in a large city like London."

"You have given expression to the universal opinion, but I pledge you my word that a completely successful disappearance is one of the most rare events that we detectives have to meet with in our line of investigation."

"Please tell me the story," said the girl; "then we can speak more understandingly about it."

The detective selected a packet of papers, one of many which occupied the end of his table. He slipped from it a rubber band which held the documents together.

"The first act of the drama, if we may call it so, began at the Duchess of Chiselhurst's ball."

"The Duchess of Chiselhurst's ball!" echoed Jennie, with a shudder. "Oh, dear!"

The detective looked up at her.

"Why do you say 'Oh, dear'?" he asked.

"Because," said the girl wearily, "I am tired hearing of the Duchess of Chiselhurst's ball; there seems to have been nothing else in the papers for weeks past."

"It has excited a great deal of comment," assented the detective; "and, by the way, the _Daily Bugle_ had one of the best accounts of it that was printed in any newspaper."

"So I have heard," said Jennie carelessly, "but I most confess that I didn't read that copy of the _Bugle_."

"You amaze me! I should have thought that would have been the first part of the paper to which any lady would turn. However, the report of the ball has nothing to do with what we have in hand. Now, you remember the Princess von Steinheimer, at whose castle I first had the pleasure of meeting you?"

"You had the pleasure of meeting me before that," said Jennie, speaking without giving thought to what she said.

"Really!" cried the detective, dropping his papers on the table; "and where was that?"

"Oh, well, as you have just said--it has nothing to do with this case. Perhaps I was wrong in saying you saw me; it would be more correct to say that I saw you. You must remember that you are a public character, Mr. Taylor."

"Ah, quite so," said the detective complacently, turning to his documents again. "Now, the Princess von Steinheimer was invited to the Duchess of Chiselhurst's ball, but she did not attend it."

"Are you sure of that?" said the girl. "I thought her name was among the list of those present."

"It was in the list, and that is just where our mystery begins. Someone else attended the ball as the Princess von Steinheimer; it is this person that I wish to find."

"Ah, then you are employed by the Duke of Chiselhurst?"

"No, I am not, for, strangely enough, I believe the Duke thinks it was actually the Princess who attended the ball. Only one man knows that the Princess was not present, one man and two women. Of the latter, one is the Princess von Steinheimer, and the other, the lady who impersonated her. The one man is Lord Donal Stirling, of the Diplomatic Service, whose name is no doubt familiar to you. Lord Donal has done me the honour to place the case in my hands."

"Why does his lordship wish to find this--this--fraudulent person?" asked Jennie, speaking slowly and with difficulty.

"Because," said the detective, with the air of a man who knows whereof he speaks, "he is in love with her."

"What makes you think that?"

"I don't think it, I know it. Listen to his description of her."

The detective chose a paper from among his pile of documents, folded, labelled, and docketed for reference.

"'The girl is of average height, or perhaps a trifle taller than the average; carries herself superbly, like a born duchess. Her eyes are of a deep, velvety black--'"

"Dear me!" cried the girl, "he describes her as if she were a cat!"

"Wait a moment," said the detective.

"I don't see much trace of love in that," continued Jennie breathlessly.

"Wait a moment," repeated the detective. "'They light up and sparkle with merriment, and they melt into the most entrancing tenderness.'"

"Good gracious!" cried Jennie, rising, "the conceit of the man is illimitable. Does he mean to intimate that he saw tenderness for himself in the eyes of a woman he had met for an hour or two?"

"That's just it," said the detective, laughing.