The Victorian Rogues MEGAPACK ™: 28 Classic Tales Read online

  When I arrived at the Deux Mondes I found the poor little curate and his wife both greatly agitated. They had sat up all night, they said, with their invalid sister; and the sleeplessness and suspense had certainly told upon them after their long railway journey. They were pale and tired, Mrs. Brabazon, in particular, looking ill and worried—too much like White Heather. I was more than half ashamed of bothering them about the diamonds at such a moment, but it occurred to me that Amelia was probably right—they would now have reached the end of the sum set apart for their Continental trip, and a little ready cash might be far from unwelcome.

  I broached the subject delicately. It was a fad of Lady Vandrift’s, I said. She had set her heart upon those useless trinkets. And she wouldn’t go without them. She must and would have them. But the curate was obdurate. He threw Uncle Aubrey still in my teeth. Three hundred?—no, never! A mother’s present; impossible, dear Jessie! Jessie begged and prayed; she had grown really attached to Lady Vandrift, she said; but the curate wouldn’t hear of it. I went up tentatively to four hundred. He shook his head gloomily. It wasn’t a question of money, he said. It was a question of affection. I saw it was no use trying that tack any longer. I struck out a new line. “These stones,” I said, “I think I ought to inform you, are really diamonds. Sir Charles is certain of it. Now, is it right for a man of your profession and position to be wearing a pair of big gems like those, worth several hundred pounds, as ordinary sleeve-links? A woman?—yes, I grant you. But for a man, is it manly? And you a cricketer!”

  He looked at me and laughed. “Will nothing convince you?” he cried. “They have been examined and tested by half a dozen jewellers, and we know them to be paste. It wouldn’t be right of me to sell them to you under false pretences, however unwilling on my side. I couldn’t do it.”

  “Well, then,” I said, going up a bit in my bids to meet him, “I’ll put it like this. These gems are paste. But Lady Vandrift has an unconquerable and unaccountable desire to possess them. Money doesn’t matter to her. She is a friend of your wife’s. As a personal favour, won’t you sell them to her for a thousand?”

  He shook his head. “It would be wrong,” he said. “I might even add, criminal.”

  “But we take all risk,” I cried.

  He was absolute adamant. “As a clergyman,” he answered, “I feel I cannot do it.”

  “Will you try, Mrs. Brabazon?” I asked.

  The pretty little Scotchwoman leant over and whispered. She coaxed and cajoled him. Her ways were winsome. I couldn’t hear what she said, but he seemed to give way at last. “I should love Lady Vandrift to have them,” she murmured, turning to me. “She is such a dear!” And she took out the links from her husband’s cuffs and handed them across to me.

  “How much?” I asked.

  “Two thousand?” she answered, interrogatively. It was a big rise, all at once; but such are the ways of women.

  “Done!” I replied. “Do you consent?”

  The curate looked up as if ashamed of himself.

  “I consent,” he said slowly, “since Jessie wishes it. But as a clergyman, and to prevent any future misunderstanding, I should like you to give me a statement in writing that you buy them on my distinct and positive declaration that they are made of paste—old Oriental paste—not genuine stones, and that I do not claim any other qualities for them.”

  I popped the gems into my purse, well pleased.

  “Certainly,” I said, pulling out a paper. Charles, with his unerring business instinct, had anticipated the request, and given me a signed agreement to that effect.

  “You will take a cheque?” I inquired.

  He hesitated.

  “Notes of the Bank of France would suit me better,” he answered.

  “Very well,” I replied. “I will go out and get them.”

  How very unsuspicious some people are! He allowed me to go off—with the stones in my pocket!

  Sir Charles had given me a blank cheque, not exceeding two thousand five hundred pounds. I took it to our agents and cashed it for notes of the Bank of France. The curate clasped them with pleasure. And right glad I was to go back to Lucerne that night, feeling that I had got those diamonds into my hands for about a thousand pounds under their real value!

  At Lucerne railway station Amelia met me. She was positively agitated.

  “Have you bought them, Seymour?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I answered, producing my spoils in triumph.

  “Oh, how dreadful!” she cried, drawing back. “Do you think they’re real? Are you sure he hasn’t cheated you?”

  “Certain of it,” I replied, examining them. “No one can take me in, in the matter of diamonds. Why on earth should you doubt them?”

  “Because I’ve been talking to Mrs. O’Hagan, at the hotel, and she says there’s a well-known trick just like that—she’s read of it in a book. A swindler has two sets—one real, one false; and he makes you buy the false ones by showing you the real, and pretending he sells them as a special favour.”

  “You needn’t be alarmed,” I answered. “I am a judge of diamonds.”

  “I shan’t be satisfied,” Amelia murmured, “till Charles has seen them.”

  We went up to the hotel. For the first time in her life I saw Amelia really nervous as I handed the stones to Charles to examine. Her doubt was contagious. I half feared, myself, he might break out into a deep monosyllabic interjection, losing his temper in haste, as he often does when things go wrong. But he looked at them with a smile, while I told him the price.

  “Eight hundred pounds less than their value,” he answered, well satisfied.

  “You have no doubt of their reality?” I asked.

  “Not the slightest,” he replied, gazing at them. “They are genuine stones, precisely the same in quality and type as Amelia’s necklet.”

  Amelia drew a sigh of relief. “I’ll go upstairs,” she said slowly, “and bring down my own for you both to compare with them.”

  One minute later she rushed down again, breathless. Amelia is far from slim, and I never before knew her exert herself so actively.

  “Charles, Charles!” she cried, “do you know what dreadful thing has happened? Two of my own stones are gone. He’s stolen a couple of diamonds from my necklet, and sold them back to me.”

  She held out the rivière. It was all too true. Two gems were missing—and these two just fitted the empty places!

  A light broke in upon me. I clapped my hand to my head. “By Jove,” I exclaimed, “the little curate is—Colonel Clay!”

  Charles clapped his own hand to his brow in turn. “And Jessie,” he cried, “White Heather—that innocent little Scotchwoman! I often detected a familiar ring in her voice, in spite of the charming Highland accent. Jessie is—Madame Picardet!”

  We had absolutely no evidence; but, like the Commissary at Nice, we felt instinctively sure of it.

  Sir Charles was determined to catch the rogue. This second deception put him on his mettle. “The worst of the man is,” he said, “he has a method. He doesn’t go out of his way to cheat us; he makes us go out of ours to be cheated. He lays a trap, and we tumble headlong into it. Tomorrow, Sey, we must follow him on to Paris.”

  Amelia explained to him what Mrs. O’Hagan had said. Charles took it all in at once, with his usual sagacity. “That explains,” he said, “why the rascal used this particular trick to draw us on by. If we had suspected him he could have shown the diamonds were real, and so escaped detection. It was a blind to draw us off from the fact of the robbery. He went to Paris to be out of the way when the discovery was made, and to get a clear day’s start of us. What a consummate rogue! And to do me twice running!”

  “How did he get at my jewel-case, though?” Amelia exclaimed.

  “That’s the question,” Charles answ
ered. “You do leave it about so!”

  “And why didn’t he steal the whole rivière at once, and sell the gems?” I inquired.

  “Too cunning,” Charles replied. “This was much better business. It isn’t easy to dispose of a big thing like that. In the first place, the stones are large and valuable; in the second place, they’re well known—every dealer has heard of the Vandrift rivière, and seen pictures of the shape of them. They’re marked gems, so to speak. No, he played a better game—took a couple of them off, and offered them to the only one person on earth who was likely to buy them without suspicion. He came here, meaning to work this very trick; he had the links made right to the shape beforehand, and then he stole the stones and slipped them into their places. It’s a wonderfully clever trick. Upon my soul, I almost admire the fellow.”

  For Charles is a business man himself, and can appreciate business capacity in others.

  How Colonel Clay came to know about that necklet, and to appropriate two of the stones, we only discovered much later. I will not here anticipate that disclosure. One thing at a time is a good rule in life. For the moment he succeeded in baffling us altogether.

  However, we followed him on to Paris, telegraphing beforehand to the Bank of France to stop the notes. It was all in vain. They had been cashed within half an hour of my paying them. The curate and his wife, we found, quitted the Hôtel des Deux Mondes for parts unknown that same afternoon. And, as usual with Colonel Clay, they vanished into space, leaving no clue behind them. In other words, they changed their disguise, no doubt, and reappeared somewhere else that night in altered characters. At any rate, no such person as the Reverend Richard Peploe Brabazon was ever afterwards heard of—and, for the matter of that, no such village exists as Empingham, Northumberland.

  We communicated the matter to the Parisian police. They were most unsympathetic. “It is no doubt Colonel Clay,” said the official whom we saw; “but you seem to have little just ground of complaint against him. As far as I can see, messieurs, there is not much to choose between you. You, Monsieur le Chevalier, desired to buy diamonds at the price of paste. You, madame, feared you had bought paste at the price of diamonds. You, monsieur the secretary, tried to get the stones from an unsuspecting person for half their value. He took you all in, that brave Colonel Caoutchouc—it was diamond cut diamond.”

  Which was true, no doubt, but by no means consoling.

  We returned to the Grand Hotel. Charles was fuming with indignation. “This is really too much,” he exclaimed. “What an audacious rascal! But he will never again take me in, my dear Sey. I only hope he’ll try it on. I should love to catch him. I’d know him another time, I’m sure, in spite of his disguises. It’s absurd my being tricked twice running like this. But never again while I live! Never again, I declare to you!”

  “Jamais de la vie!” a courier in the hall close by murmured responsive. We stood under the verandah of the Grand Hotel, in the big glass courtyard. And I verily believe that courier was really Colonel Clay himself in one of his disguises.

  But perhaps we were beginning to suspect him everywhere.

  Colonel Clay in THE EPISODE OF THE OLD MASTER, by Grant Allen

  Like most South Africans, Sir Charles Vandrift is anything but sedentary. He hates sitting down. He must always “trek.” He cannot live without moving about freely. Six weeks in Mayfair at a time is as much as he can stand. Then he must run away incontinently for rest and change to Scotland, Homburg, Monte Carlo, Biarritz. “I won’t be a limpet on the rock,” he says. Thus it came to pass that in the early autumn we found ourselves stopping at the Métropole at Brighton. We were the accustomed nice little family party—Sir Charles and Amelia, myself and Isabel, with the suite as usual.

  On the first Sunday morning after our arrival we strolled out, Charles and I—I regret to say during the hours allotted for Divine service—on to the King’s Road, to get a whiff of fresh air, and a glimpse of the waves that were churning the Channel. The two ladies (with their bonnets) had gone to church; but Sir Charles had risen late, fatigued from the week’s toil, while I myself was suffering from a matutinal headache, which I attributed to the close air in the billiard-room overnight, combined, perhaps, with the insidious effect of a brand of soda-water to which I was little accustomed; I had used it to dilute my evening whisky. We were to meet our wives afterwards at the church parade—an institution to which I believe both Amelia and Isabel attach even greater importance than to the sermon which precedes it.

  We sat down on a glass seat. Charles gazed inquiringly up and down the King’s Road, on the look-out for a boy with Sunday papers. At last one passed. “Observer,” my brother-in-law called out laconically.

  “Ain’t got none,” the boy answered, brandishing his bundle in our faces. “’Ave a Referee or a Pink ’Un?”

  Charles, however, is not a Refereader, while as to the Pink ’Un, he considers it unsuitable for public perusal on Sunday morning. It may be read indoors, but in the open air its blush betrays it. So he shook his head, and muttered, “If you pass an Observer, send him on here at once to me.”

  A polite stranger who sat close to us turned round with a pleasant smile. “Would you allow me to offer you one?” he said, drawing a copy from his pocket. “I fancy I bought the last. There’s a run on them today, you see. Important news this morning from the Transvaal.”

  Charles raised his eyebrows, and accepted it, as I thought, just a trifle grumpily. So, to remove the false impression his surliness might produce on so benevolent a mind, I entered into conversation with the polite stranger. He was a man of middle age, and medium height, with a cultivated air, and a pair of gold pince-nez; his eyes were sharp; his voice was refined; he dropped into talk before long about distinguished people just then in Brighton. It was clear at once that he was hand in glove with many of the very best kind. We compared notes as to Nice, Rome, Florence, Cairo. Our new acquaintance had scores of friends in common with us, it seemed; indeed, our circles so largely coincided, that I wondered we had never happened till then to knock up against one another.

  “And Sir Charles Vandrift, the great African millionaire,” he said at last, “do you know anything of him? I’m told he’s at present down here at the Métropole.”

  I waved my hand towards the person in question.

  “This is Sir Charles Vandrift,” I answered, with proprietary pride; “and I am his brother-in-law, Mr. Seymour Wentworth.”

  “Oh, indeed!” the stranger answered, with a curious air of drawing in his horns. I wondered whether he had just been going to pretend he knew Sir Charles, or whether perchance he was on the point of saying something highly uncomplimentary, and was glad to have escaped it.

  By this time, however, Charles laid down the paper and chimed into our conversation. I could see at once from his mollified tone that the news from the Transvaal was favourable to his operations in Cloetedorp Golcondas. He was therefore in a friendly and affable temper. His whole manner changed at once. He grew polite in return to the polite stranger. Besides, we knew the man moved in the best society; he had acquaintances whom Amelia was most anxious to secure for her “At Homes” in Mayfair—young Faith, the novelist, and Sir Richard Montrose, the great Arctic traveller. As for the painters, it was clear that he was sworn friends with the whole lot of them. He dined with Academicians, and gave weekly breakfasts to the members of the Institute. Now, Amelia is particularly desirous that her salon should not be considered too exclusively financial and political in character: with a solid basis of M.P.’s and millionaires, she loves a delicate under-current of literature, art, and the musical glasses. Our new acquaintance was extremely communicative: “Knows his place in society, Sey,” Sir Charles said to me afterwards, “and is therefore not afraid of talking freely, as so many people are who have doubts about their position.” We exchanged cards before we rose. Our new friend’s name turned out to be Dr. Edwar
d Polperro.

  “In practice here?” I inquired, though his garb belied it.

  “Oh, not medical,” he answered. “I am an LL.D. don’t you know. I interest myself in art, and buy to some extent for the National Gallery.”

  The very man for Amelia’s “At Homes”! Sir Charles snapped at him instantly. “I’ve brought my four-in-hand down here with me,” he said, in his best friendly manner, “and we think of tooling over tomorrow to Lewes. If you’d care to take a seat I’m sure Lady Vandrift would be charmed to see you.”

  “You’re very kind,” the Doctor said, “on so casual an introduction. I’m sure I shall be delighted.”

  “We start from the Métropole at ten-thirty,” Charles went on.

  “I shall be there. Good morning!” And, with a satisfied smile, he rose and left us, nodding.

  We returned to the lawn, to Amelia and Isabel. Our new friend passed us once or twice. Charles stopped him and introduced him. He was walking with two ladies, most elegantly dressed in rather peculiar artistic dresses. Amelia was taken at first sight by his manner. “One could see at a glance,” she said, “he was a person of culture and of real distinction. I wonder whether he could bring the P.R.A. to my Parliamentary ‘At Home’ on Wednesday fortnight?”

  Next day, at ten-thirty, we started on our drive. Our team has been considered the best in Sussex. Charles is an excellent, though somewhat anxious—or, might I say better, somewhat careful?—whip. He finds the management of two leaders and two wheelers fills his hands for the moment, both literally and figuratively, leaving very little time for general conversation. Lady Belleisle of Beacon bloomed beside him on the box (her bloom is perennial, and applied by her maid); Dr. Polperro occupied the seat just behind with myself and Amelia. The Doctor talked most of the time to Lady Vandrift: his discourse was of picture-galleries, which Amelia detests, but in which she thinks it incumbent upon her, as Sir Charles’s wife, to affect now and then a cultivated interest. Noblesse oblige; and the walls of Castle Seldon, our place in Ross-shire, are almost covered now with Leaders and with Orchardsons. This result was first arrived at by a singular accident. Sir Charles wanted a leader—for his coach, you understand—and told an artistic friend so. The artistic friend brought him a Leader next week with a capital L; and Sir Charles was so taken aback that he felt ashamed to confess the error. So he was turned unawares into a patron of painting.