Collected works of j s f.., p.897
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 897
“I can get the Bishop’s key, sir,” he said. “His Lordship’s away, but his chaplain will give it to me if I say the Dean wants it.”
“Do,” said Lampard, “it may save time.”
Left alone, he bent over the glass top of the case, examining the ancient things within it. There was nothing there that was not hundreds of years old — books, scraps of vellum, bits of metal work, fragments of glass and stone — all were old. But suddenly Lampard caught sight of something half hidden by the edge of a crumpled parchment deed which was not old. That something was a bit of enamelled gold, a pendant such as those which hang from a woman’s bracelet, and Lampard’s sharp eyes knew that it was a modern bauble which had no rightful place amongst those hoary antiquities.
“Ah,” he murmured, “now, how came that in there — that which more rightly belongs to Bond Street and a jeweller’s shop than to this musty old spot? Dropped, of course! And — by whom?”
Wilkins was back within a few minutes — the episcopal palace of Selchester adjoins the cathedral. He handed a key to Lampard, who immediately made an excuse to get rid of him.
“Haven’t you got a register of your visitors?” he asked. “Just let me look at it then. I’d like to see the recent entries.”
Wilkins, who knew Lampard as the Dean’s solicitor, went obediently away, and Lampard hastily opened the case, withdrew the bit of enamelled gold, and saw that a link which had evidently attached it to something else had snapped. He realized the significance of his discovery at once. Some thieving hand — a woman’s without doubt — had purloined the Missal while no one was looking, and in the very act had dropped this tiny pendant from a bracelet.
CHAPTER II
THE DEAN AND the verger came back into the library together — the verger carrying a big book, the Dean hot and fidgety.
“Extraordinary!” he exclaimed. “I can’t find that key anywhere. I’ve searched high and low. I must have dropped it, and in that case — oh, you’ve found it, eh?” he went on as Lampard, having pocketed the pendant, turned the Bishop’s key in the lock. “I dropped it here, then?”
“No,” answered Lampard, “this is the Bishop’s. Wilkins borrowed it from his Chaplain. But you’ve no doubt lost yours, and the thief must have picked it up and made use of it. Just let me glance at the register of visitors, and then—”
“But how could the thief get in here?” demanded the Dean. “The whole thing is more puzzling than before. Suppose—”
Lampard rapidly glanced at the last page of the register, and closed the book with a decisive bang.
“Mr. Dean,” he said quietly, but emphatically, “we mustn’t trifle with this. There is only one thing to do. You must come at once with me to the police.”
The Dean being himself a man of authority, recognized that in this case he must yield obedience to his solicitor, and he accordingly accompanied Lampard across the cathedral square in the direction of the police station. But he made many faces of dislike, muttered more than once that there was nothing he disliked so much as the dragging of the affair into publicity.
“My notion was a quiet, unobtrusive inquiry,” he said, as they turned in at the official portals. “If we could have recovered the Missal without letting the public know that it had ever been — er — appropriated, don’t you know, eh?”
“Mr. Dean,” said Lampard with professional severity, “the Selchester Missal is, so to speak, public property, though nominally, I suppose it belongs to the Dean and Chapter. You can’t afford to leave any stone unturned — and,” he added, with dark significance, “you don’t know what’s afoot nor what machinations have been going on. This may be the work of an unscrupulous and designing gang.”
The Dean and his companion found no difficulty in procuring an immediate interview with the Chief Constable. They were ushered into his private office at once, and there, evidently in close consultation with him, was the great magnate of that neighbourhood, the Earl of Maxbury, chairman of the local bench of magistrates. He and the Dean exchanged nods, and the Earl, with a sharp glance at the ecclesiastic’s countenance, at once brusquely asked what ailed him.
“The matter,” answered the Dean, who had been prompted by Lampard, “is that my solicitor and I have come to report a most serious theft. The Selchester Missal has been stolen — at least it has disappeared under most mysterious circumstances. Mr. Lampard, here, says it must have been stolen. I suppose — yes, I suppose it really has been stolen.”
The Earl and the Chief Constable exchanged glances; then the Earl turned sharply on the Dean.
“When was this?” he demanded.
“I should think Saturday,” replied the Dean. “It appears to have been on Saturday. The circumstances are these,” he went on, and gave his hearers a complete account.
“Between one o’clock on Saturday and early on Monday — to-day, anyway. The important fact is that it’s gone. Do you think you can help me?” he concluded, turning to the Chief Constable. “The Missal is, of course, priceless.”
The Earl and the Chief Constable once more looked at each other; then the Earl smote his hands together. He was a big, bucolic sort of man, who looked very much like a respectable farmer, and his manners were vigorous.
“That settles it!” he exclaimed. “It’s a regular put-up job; it’s a gang! I was dead certain of that when I came in here. A London gang, of course, and deuced clever!”
“I don’t understand,” said the Dean feebly.
“Clear enough!” retorted the Earl. “You lost your old book on Saturday; I’ve lost my medal — Sunday! The famous Maxbury medal, you know; unique, world-famous. Given to one of my ancestors, either the eight or ninth Earl — hanged if I remember which! — by a King of Spain — don’t know which, either — for something or other the old boy did for him. Great feat, anyhow. King had a special gold medal struck for him; only one in existence, of course. Famous, that Maxbury medal. People used to ask for that when they came round sightseeing — used to ask for it first of all. Used to lend it out sometimes — police to guard it, don’t you know, and all that sort of thing. Very well, it’s gone! There last night, and gone this morning. Fact! And, of course, it’s all a piece with your Missal. Gang of London thieves. Selchester Missal, Saturday; Maxbury medal, Sunday. Good haul, and deuced clever!”
The Dean, who had sat blinking his eyes and twiddling his thumbs during this speech, found his voice at last.
“Do I understand you to say that somebody has stolen the Maxbury medal?” he asked.
The Earl, who was calmly smoking a cigar, nodded and blew away a wisp of smoke.
“That’s it,” he answered. “Gone, vanished, faded away like that, only more so!”
“What are you going to do about it?” asked the Dean.
“Don’t know; ask Kilburn, here,” replied the Earl, waving a hand at the Chief Constable. “What would you do?” he went on, twisting round on Lampard. “Lawyer, ain’t you? Know your name, of course. What do you think about it? Rum business, eh?”
“I should like to know what your Lordship can tell about the circumstances under which the famous medal was stolen,” answered Lampard.
“Circumstances, eh?” responded the Earl. “Oh, ah, well, very ordinary, I should think. That medal, now, was kept in a cabinet of curiosities in the south drawing-room at Maxbury. I saw it lateish last night myself. This morning, early, house steward comes to tell me — gone! And a window in the room open. That’s all!”
“Was that cabinet locked, as a usual thing?” asked Lampard.
“Can’t say,” replied the Earl. “Don’t believe it was, now I come to think of it. It wasn’t locked last night, anyhow, because I took that medal out myself to show to some people.”
“You have guests staying at Maxbury?” inquired Lampard.
“House full of ’em,” said the Earl. “No thieves among those, anyhow; know every Jack and Jill of ’em. But I say,” he exclaimed, his ruddy face suddenly lighting up with new interest— “I say, what an extraordinary thing that these people should go in for that old prayer-book and my medal! What value is there in a Missal and a medal the size of half-a-crown? None, so to speak. Deuced mysterious, what?”
“The Selchester Missal,” observed the Dean gravely, “is worth many, many thousands of pounds. An American person of wealth — a man who traded, I believe, in preserved meats — offered my predecessor ten thousand pounds for it.”
“Then your predecessor was an old ass for not taking it,” exclaimed the Earl, heartily and irreverently. “I wish somebody’d even offered me half of that for the Maxbury medal. But then,” he added, relapsing into gloom, “I couldn’t have sold it, don’t you know. It’s a beastly heirloom!”
The four men looked silently at each other for a minute; then the Dean brightened.
“I see it all!” he exclaimed. “At least, I think I see it. This is, no doubt, the work of a clever thief, or thieves, as Lord Maxbury suggests. I incline to the one-man theory. A thief with a penchant for valuable curiosities. Yes, I see it; oh, quite plainly!”
“Hanged if I do,” muttered the Earl, with a wink at Lampard. “But I’m open to argument; always keep an open mind — best thing. What’s the theory, then?”
The Dean balanced his eyeglasses and swung one leg over the other.
“This,” he said. “The thief heard of these two objects — the famous Missal, the famous medal. He determined to acquire them — for what purpose, only his guilty conscience knows. He came here — he may probably have come attired as a gentleman, and put up at the Angel and Sceptre Hotel. He obtained access to the cathedral library. He was probably hidden there when I took my party round on Saturday morning; it would be easy to hide there. And I fear that he saw me drop my key. I must have dropped it on the floor of the library. And, of course, after that nothing could be easier for him than to abstract the Missal, make his way out of the cathedral at a convenient moment, and—”
“Hang round a bit, and then come on to Maxbury to lift my medal,” broke in the Earl. “Good notion! Well,” he continued, rising and turning to the Chief Constable, as he prepared to lounge out, “same old game, I suppose, eh, Kilburn? Detectives — search for traces — finger-prints — and all the rest of it. Leave it to you, anyway.”
With that, the Earl of Maxbury went off, and the Dean and his solicitor, after a little desultory conversation with the Chief Constable, also departed, and walked moodily back to the deanery.
“You’re coming in to lunch, of course?” said the Dean. “Bless me, it’s nearly two o’clock! We’re late! Well, this is a sad, a terrible business. Perhaps some new idea may occur to us.”
Lampard had no particular desire for new ideas. He had one already, and he kept it to himself — at any rate, until he had refreshed himself at the Dean’s table. But when lunch was over he contrived to draw the Dean’s daughter, Margaret, aside, and to lead her into a quiet corner of the deanery gardens. He and Margaret had known each other since their pinafore days, and there was the fellow feeling and confidence of youth between them.
“Look here,” said Lampard, once they were safely hidden amongst the trees and shrubs, “you can keep a secret as well as anybody. This is a big secret. I’ve got something to show you. You’re not to say a word of it until I give you leave. Look at this,” he continued, as he drew out the bit of enamelled pendant and held it out to her on the palm of his hand. “Have you ever seen this before? Do you know to whom it belongs?”
He saw at once that the girl had seen and did know. Her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkled.
“Why, where did you find that?” she exclaimed. “Of course I know it. It’s a pendant which Mrs. Vanderkiste lost from a pet bracelet. She was looking for it all Saturday afternoon. Did you pick it up in the garden?”
“Who is Mrs. Vanderkiste?” demanded Lampard.
“She was staying here all last week,” replied Margaret. “She is a woman we knew in London—”
“Has Mrs. Vanderkiste gone back to London?” asked Lampard.
“No; she left on Saturday evening for Maxbury,” said Margaret. “She’s gone there for a week. Lord Maxbury’s got a big house-party for steeplechases, to-morrow and Wednesday. Why all these questions?”
Lampard put the pendant in his pocket, and seized Margaret by the wrist. He gave her a dark and meaning look.
“Now, I will tell you all about it later on,” he whispered. “There’s a mystery. Gunpowder Plot was nothing to this. Meanwhile not a word, a look, a sigh. Utter silence — and confidence.”
He left her then, and walking swiftly into the house, roused the Dean, who had retreated into his study and gone to sleep over the last number of the “Quarterly Review,” with a handkerchief thrown over his head.
CHAPTER III
“MR. DEAN,” SAID Lampard firmly, “you must come with me at once to Maxbury. I have just learned something very important, and you and I must see Lord Maxbury immediately. Now I’ll order your motor car, and it will be at the door in five minutes. This is — urgent.”
In the course of his six years’ experience as a highly respectable family solicitor, Guy Lampard had known some strange things and seen some queer spectacles. But he had never known or seen anything stranger or queerer than the effect on the Earl of Maxbury and the Dean of Selchester when closeted with them in the Earl’s own special sanctum — a small room, chiefly devoted to guns, fishing-rods, cricket bats, sporting literature, and choice French fiction — he told them all he had to tell, produced the pendant, and summed up his conclusion. Peer and cleric stared at him with open mouths and dropping jaws, and their faces expressed resentment and disapproval. And when they spoke they were unanimous in the opinion, if not in the choice of language.
“Rot!” exclaimed the Earl. “Letty Vanderkiste! Pooh! Known her for lord knows how long. She’s straight enough — as things go. Come off it, dear boy. You’re on the wrong horse.”
The Dean rose from his chair, and shook his head gravely and with evident displeasure.
“My own sentiments,” he said. “But, of course, in different phraseology. I quite agree with Lord Maxbury. It is utterly impossible that my dear friend, Mrs. Vanderkiste could — oh, it is ridiculous! I have known Mrs. Vanderkiste ever since she was young. She was married by me. Since she lost her husband she has been a regular attendant at my old sphere of labour in London. Something, perhaps, of a rather worldly woman; the fact that she is fond of society and of — er—”
“Bridge!” interrupted Lampard, who had had another five minutes’ talk with Margaret while the Dean’s car was being pulled out. “And racing and theatre-going, and the latest fashions, and all the rest of the things which cost money. Very well. I have told you what I have discovered, and if you don’t mean to pursue the matter further—”
He rose and walked towards the door.
“What then?” asked the Earl, while the Dean raised a supplicating hand. “What are you up to?”
“Then I shall go and tell the Chief Constable of Selchester,” said Lampard. “It’s my duty.”
The Dean groaned miserably, and the Earl plunged his hands into his pockets and stretched his legs across the hearthrug.
“What a beastly nuisance!” he growled. “Of course, we’ll have to ask her how it is that some of her property is found in that case at Selchester.”
“You certainly will,” replied Lampard. “Further,” he added, with a look at the greatly disturbed Dean, “You’ll have to ask her what she’s done with your property!”
The Earl glanced at the lawyer with a new expression.
“Er — I say!” he remarked drily. “Ain’t you rather condemning the lady before you’ve heard what she’s got to say?”
“Yes, yes!” said the Dean hurriedly. “I, too, feel that. I — ah — um! — we shouldn’t judge by appearances, you know. I—”
“I should be very glad to hear what Mrs. Vanderkiste has got to say,” retorted Lampard. “If you will give her the opportunity of saying — anything, I should like to hear it. I think you both forget that this affair is really out of your hands. You have both been to the police. The police are already at work. So, if Mrs. Vanderkiste is at hand, why not speak quietly and gently to her? There is still a chance of recovering this stolen property, you know, if things are done with diplomacy.”
The Earl looked at Lampard for a minute or two; then he silently rose and left the room. And Lampard turned to the window and looked out on the stately oaks and beeches of Maxbury Park, and the Dean marched up and down repeating one phrase:
“Distressing! — most distressing!”
The Earl returned in a few minutes, ushering in a smart, rather pretty, vivacious-looking woman, still well under middle age, who started at the sight of Lampard, and paled when she turned from him to the Dean. And, after a swift glance at all three men, she involuntarily clasped her hands, and ejaculated four words:
“Oh, what is it?”
The Earl, who had carefully closed the door, pushed a chair forward.
“I say!” he said. “Of course, it’s all right — sure to be all right, don’t you know; but the fact is, this gentleman is the Dean’s solicitor, and he wants to ask you a question or two. Do answer him, and let’s have an end of it! You see, my ancestor’s medal disappeared last night, and an old book was taken out of the cathedral library at Selchester on Saturday, and we’ve had to tell the police, and—”
Under Lampard’s purposely cold eye, fixed implacably on her, the woman’s own eyes fell, and her face grew paler than ever, despite the suspicion of rouge which ornamented it. And suddenly he plunged his hand in his pocket, and drew out the pendant, and held it before her.
“I know this is yours,” he said quietly. “It’s off your bracelet — that very bracelet. I found it — found it this morning in the case from which the Missal was abstracted. I think you’d better tell us how it came to be in that case.”
