Tragedy at Ravensthorpe

Chapter Three. THE THEFT AT THE MASKED BALL

“I’M thankful I took my wings off,” said Ariel, leaning back in her chair with a soft sigh of satisfaction. “You’ve no notion how much you long to sit down when you know you daren’t do it for fear of crushing the frames of these things. It’s not tiredness; it’s simply tantalization.”

She turned her eyes inquisitively on the bearded figure of her partner.

“I wonder who you’re supposed to be?” she mused. “You ought to have a ticket, with a costume like that. I can’t guess who you imagine you are—or who you really are, for that matter.”

Her companion showed no desire to enlighten her on the last point.

“‘My quaint Ariel, hark in thine ear,’” he quoted, but she failed to recognize the tones of his voice.

“Oh, now I see! We did The Tempest one year at school. So you’re Prospero, are you? Well, don’t let’s begin by any misunderstandings. If you think you’re entitled to act your part by ordering me about, you’re far mistaken. My trade union positively refuses to permit any overtime.”

“I’ve left my book and staff in the cloak-room,” Prospero confessed, laughingly, “otherwise, malignant spirit . . .”

“‘That’s my noble master!’” quoted Ariel, ironically. “Prospero was a cross old thing. I suppose you couldn’t even throw in a bit of conjuring to keep up appearances? It’s almost expected of you.”

Prospero looked cautiously round the winter-garden in which they were sitting.

“Not much field here for my illimitable powers,” he grumbled disparagingly, “unless you’d like me to turn Falstaff over there into a white rabbit. And that would startle his partner somewhat, I’m afraid, so we’d better not risk it.”

He pondered for a moment.

“I hate to disappoint you, Ariel. What about a turn at divination? Would it amuse you if I told your fortune, revealed the secrets of your soul, and what not? This is how I do it; it’s called Botanomancy, if you desire to pursue your studies on a more convenient occasion.”

He stretched up his hand and plucked a leaf from the tropical plant above his head. Ariel watched him mischievously from behind her mask.

“Well, Prospero, get along with it, will you? The next dance will be starting sooner than immediately.”

Prospero pretended to study the leaf minutely before continuing.

“I see a girl who likes to play at having her own way . . . and isn’t too scrupulous in her methods of getting it. She is very happy . . . happier, perhaps, than she has ever been before. . . . I see two Thresholds, one of which she has just crossed, the other which she will cross after this next dance, I think. Yes, that is correct. There’s some influence in the background. . . .”

He broke off and regarded Ariel blandly.

“So much for the signs. Now for the interpretation. You are obviously in the very early twenties; so I infer that the Threshold you are about to cross lies between your twentieth and twenty-first birthday. Putting that along with the character which the leaf revealed . . . Why, Ariel, you must be Miss Joan Chacewater, and you’ve just got engaged!”

“You seem to know me all right, Prospero,” Joan admitted. “But how about the engagement? It’s too dim in here for you to have seen my ring; and besides, I’ve had my hand in the folds of my dress ever since I sat down.”

“Except for one moment when you settled the band round your hair,” Prospero pointed out. “The ring you’re wearing is more than a shade too large for your finger—obviously it’s so new that you haven’t had time to get it altered to fit, yet.”

“You seem to notice things,” Joan admitted. “I wonder who you are.”

Prospero brushed her inquiry aside.

“A little parlour conjuring to finish up the part in due form?” he suggested. “It’s almost time for our dance. Look!”

He held out an empty hand for Joan’s inspection, then made a slight snatch in the air as if seizing something in flight. When he extended his hand again, a small diamond star glittered in the palm.

“Take it, Joan,” said Sir Clinton in his natural voice. “I meant to send it to you to-morrow; but at the last moment I thought I might as well bring it with me and have the pleasure of giving it to you myself. It’s your birthday present. I’m an old enough friend to give you diamonds on a special occasion like this.”

“You took me in completely,” Joan admitted, after she had thanked him. “I couldn’t make out who you were; and I thought you were the limit in insolence when you began talking about my private affairs.”

“It’s Michael Clifton, of course?” Sir Clinton asked.

“Why ‘of course’? One would think he’d been my last chance, by the way you put it. This living on a magic island has ruined your manners, my good Prospero.”

“Well, he won’t let you down, Joan. You—shall I say, even you, to be tactful—couldn’t have done better in the raffle.”

Before Joan could reply, a girl in Egyptian costume came past their chairs. Joan stopped her with a gesture.

“Pin this pretty thing in the front of my band, please, Cleopatra. Be sure you get it in the right place.”

She held out the diamond star. Cleopatra took it without comment and fastened it in position hastily.

“Sit down,” Joan invited, “your next partner will find you here when he comes. Tell us about Cæsar and Antony and all the rest of your disreputable past. Make it exciting.”

Cleopatra shook her head.

“Sorry I can’t stop just now. Neither Julius nor Antony put in an appearance to-night, so I’m spending my arts on a mere centurion. He’s a stickler for punctuality—being a Roman soldier.”

She glanced at her wrist-watch.

“I must fly at once. O reservoir! as we say in Egypt, you know.”

With a nod of farewell, she hastened along the alley and out of the winter-garden.

“She seems a trifle nervous about something,” Sir Clinton commented, indifferently.

Joan smoothed down her filmy tunic.

“Isn’t it time we moved?” she asked. “I see Falstaff’s gone away, so you can’t turn him into a white rabbit now; and there doesn’t seem to be anything else you could enchant just at present. The orchestra will be starting in a moment, anyhow.”

She rose as she spoke. Sir Clinton followed her example, and they made their way out of the winter-garden.

“What costume is Michael Clifton wearing to-night?” asked Sir Clinton as the orchestra played the opening bars of the dance. “I ought to congratulate him; and it’s easier to pick him up at a distance if I know how he’s dressed.”

“Look for something in eighteenth-century clothes and a large wig, then,” Joan directed. “He says he’s Macheath out of the Beggar’s Opera. I suppose he’s quite as like that as anything else. You’ll perhaps recognize him best by a large artificial mole at the left corner of his mouth. I observed it particularly myself.”

She noticed that her partner seemed more on the alert than the occasion required.

“What are you worried about?” she demanded. “You seem to be listening for something; and you can’t hear anything, you know, even if you tried, because of the orchestra.”

Sir Clinton shook off his air of preoccupation.

“The fact is, Joan, I’ve been worried all evening. I’m really afraid of something happening to-night. I don’t much like this mask business with all that stuff in the collections. I’ve a feeling in my bones that there might be trouble.”

Joan laughed at his gloomy premonitions.

“You won’t be kept on the rack much longer, that’s one good thing. There’s just this dance, then the march-past for judging the costumes, and then it will be midnight when everybody must unmask. So you’ll have to make the best of your fears in the next half-hour. After that there’ll be no excuse for them.”

“Meanwhile, on with the dance, eh?” said Sir Clinton. “I see it’s no use trying to give you a nightmare. You’re too poor a subject to repay the labour and trouble. Besides, this music’s terribly straining on the vocal cords if one tries to compete with it.”

As he spoke, however, the orchestra reached a diminuendo in the score and sank to comparative quietness. Joan looked here and there about the room as they danced and at last detected the figure for which she was searching.

“That’s Michael over there,” she pointed out, “the one dancing with the girl dressed as . . .”

Across the sound of the music there cut the sharp report of a small-calibre pistol fired in some adjacent room. On the heels of it came the crash and tinkle of falling glass, and, almost simultaneously, a cry for help in a man’s voice.

Sir Clinton let Joan’s hand go and turned to the door; but before he could take a step, the lights above them vanished and the room was plunged in darkness. Joan felt a hand come out and grip her arm.

“That you, Joan?”

“Yes.”

“They’ve taken out the main switch,” Sir Clinton said hurriedly. “Get hold of some man at once and show him where it is. We want the lights as quick as possible. I can trust you not to lose your head. Take a man with you for fear of trouble. We don’t know what’s happening.”

“Very well,” Joan assured him.

“Hurry! “Sir Clinton urged.

His hand dropped from her arm as he moved invisibly away towards the door. In the darkness around her she could hear movements and startled exclamations. The orchestra, after mechanically playing a couple of bars, had fallen to silence. Someone blundered into her and passed on before she could put out her hand.

“Well, at least I know where the door is,” she assured herself; and she began to move towards it.

Meanwhile the cries for help continued to come from the museum. Then, abruptly, they were hushed; and she shuddered as she thought of what that cessation might mean. She moved forward and came to what seemed an unobstructed space on the floor, over which she was able to advance freely.

Her whole senses were concentrated on reaching the exit; but her mind appeared to work independently of her own volition and to conjure up possibilities behind this series of events. Sir Clinton had evidently expected some criminal attempt that night; and he had assumed that the museum would be the objective. But suppose he were wrong. Perhaps the affair in the museum was only a blind to draw towards it all the men outside the ball-room. Then, when they were disposed of, there might come an incursion here. Most of the women had taken advantage of their fancy dress to deck themselves out with jewellery, and a few armed men could easily reap a small fortune in a minute or two. Despite the soundness of her nerves, she began to feel anxious, and to conjure up still more appalling pictures.

Suddenly her eyes were dazzled by a flash of light as a man beside her struck a match. Almost at the same moment she felt a hand on her shoulder and she was pulled backwards so brusquely that she almost lost her balance and slipped.

“Put out that match, you fool!” said Michael’s voice. “Do you want to have these girls’ dresses in a blaze?”

The flare of the match had revealed a circle of startled faces. The room was filled with excited voices and a sound of confused movements. Over at the orchestra a music-stand fell with a clash of metal. Then, close beside her in the darkness, Joan heard a girl’s voice repeating monotonously in tones of acute fear: “What does it mean? Oh, what does it mean?”

“Much good that does anyone,” Joan muttered, contemptuously. Then, aloud, she called: “Michael!”

Before he could reply, there came a sharp exclamation in a man’s voice:

“Stand back, there! My partner’s fainted.”

The possibilities involved in a panic suddenly became all too clear in Joan’s mind. If half a dozen people lost their heads, the girl might be badly hurt.

Michael’s voice was lifted again, in a tone that would have carried through a storm at sea:

“Everybody stand fast! You’ll be trampling the girl underfoot if you don’t take care. Stand still, confound you! Pull the blinds up and throw back the curtains. It’s a moonlight night.”

There was a rustling as those nearest the windows set about the execution of his orders. Light suddenly appeared, revealing the strained faces and uneasy attitudes of the company. Joan turned to Michael.

“Come with me and put in the switch, Michael. Sir Clinton’s gone to the museum. We must get the lights on quick.”

Michael, with a word to his partner, followed his fiancée towards the door. A thought seemed to strike him just as he was leaving the room:

“Wait here, everybody, till we get the lights on again. You’ll just run risks by moving about in the dark outside. It’s nothing. Probably only a fuse blown.”

“Now then, Joan, where’s that switch?” he added as they passed out of the door.

It was pitch-dark in the rest of the house; but Joan knew her way and was able to grope along the corridors without much difficulty. As they came near the switch-box, the lights flashed up again. One of the servants appeared round a corner.

“Someone had pulled out the switch, sir,” he explained. “It took me some time to make my way to it and put it in again.”

“Stout fellow!” said Michael, approvingly.

At that moment, a voice shouted above the confused noises of the house:

“Come on, you fellows! He’s got away. Lend hand to chase him.”

And a sound of running steps filled the hall, as the male guests poured out in answer to the summons.

“You don’t need me any longer, Joan?” Michael questioned. “Right! Then I’m off to lend a hand.”

He ran to join the rest.

Left alone, Joan retraced her steps to the ballroom; but instead of re-entering it, she passed on in the direction of the museum, whither a number of the guests were making their way also.

“I hope nobody’s got badly hurt,” she thought to herself as she hurried along. “I do wish I’d taken the hint and not asked to have that collection thrown open to-night.”

Much to her relief, she found Sir Clinton sitting on a chair beside the museum door. In the doorway stood the keeper, looking none the worse and busying himself with fending off the more inquisitive among the guests who wished to enter the room. Joan noticed that the museum itself was in darkness though the lights were burning in the rest of the house.

“You’re not hurt, are you, Sir Clinton?” she asked as she came up to him.

“Nothing to speak of. The fellow kicked me on the ankle as he came out. I’m temporarily lamed, that’s all. Nothing to worry about, I think.”

He rubbed his ankle as he spoke.

“Are you all right, Mold?” Joan inquired.

The keeper reassured her.

“No harm done, Miss Joan. They didn’t hurt me. But I’m sorry, miss, I didn’t manage to get hold of them. They were on me before I could do anything, me being so taken aback by the lights going out.”

“What’s happened?” Joan questioned Sir Clinton. “Has anything been stolen?”

“We don’t know yet what’s gone,” he replied, answering her last question first. “The bulb of the lamp’s smashed in there”—he nodded towards the museum—“and until they bring a fresh one, we can’t find out what damage has been done. As to what happened, it seems rather confused at present; but I expect we shall get it cleared up eventually. There seems to have been a gang at work; and I’m afraid some things may be missing when we begin to look over the collection.”

“I wish I’d taken your hint,” Joan admitted, frankly. “It’s partly my blame, I feel, for neglecting your advice. I was silly to laugh at you when you spoke about it.”

“I shouldn’t worry about it, if I were you, Joan,” Sir Clinton reassured her. “It was really only one chance in a million that anything of the sort would happen to-night. Besides, if we manage to nail this fellow that they’re all after, we may be able to get some clue to his confederates. Quite evidently there was a gang at work, and he may be induced to split on his friends if we can lay hands on him; and then we’ll get the stuff back again without much trouble, I hope.”

He glanced at her, as though to see the effect of his words; then, as his eyes caught her mask, he seemed struck by another idea.

“That reminds me,” he said, “we must get these masks off. Send someone round at once, please, Joan, to order everyone to unmask now. And have all the outer doors shut, too. It’s a futile precaution, I’m afraid; because anyone could slip out during the confusion when there was no light: but we may as well do what we can even at this stage.”

He removed his own mask as he spoke, and pulled away the false beard which he had worn as Prospero. Joan loosened her mask and went off to give the necessary orders. In a few moments she returned.

“Now tell me what did happen,” she demanded.

“There’s no one killed, or even hurt,” Sir Clinton assured her. “This ankle of mine’s the only casualty, so far as I know; and I expect I’ll be able to limp about quite comfortably by to-morrow.”

“I’m thankful it’s no worse,” said Joan, with relief.

“All I know about the business comes from Mold, here,” Sir Clinton went on. “It seems he was patrolling the museum at the time the thing happened, under your brother’s orders. Perhaps half a dozen people—under a dozen, he says, at any rate—were in the place then. Some of them were examining the cases in the bays; some of them were looking at the things in the big centre case. Mold doesn’t remember what costumes they were wearing. I don’t blame him. People had been passing in and out all through the evening; and there was no reason why he should take particular note of the guests at that special moment.”

Sir Clinton glanced up at the keeper, who was looking rather ashamed at his inability to furnish better information.

“Don’t you worry, Mold. I doubt if I’d have had any more to tell, myself, if I’d been there. One can’t be expected to remember everything.”

He turned back to Joan.

“The next thing that happened was a pistol-shot, and the light went out. Some light filtered in from the door of the room, for the lamps in the hall here were still blazing; but before Mold could do anything, someone gripped him from behind and got his wrists twisted behind his back. In the struggle Mold was swung round, so that he couldn’t see the central case even in what light there was. Then the lights outside were switched off and he heard a smashing of glass. There was a bit of a struggle, apparently; and then all at once he felt himself let loose. As soon as he got free, he lit a match and posted himself at the door to prevent anyone getting away; and he stayed there until the lights went on again. Then he made all his prisoners unmask and those whom he didn’t recognize himself he kept there until someone he knew came to identify them. They’re all people you know quite well, Joan. More than half of them were girls, who seem rather unlikely people to go in for robbery with violence, to put it mildly. Mold made a list of them, if we happen to need it. But I don’t think we’re likely to find the criminal amongst them. This affair was too well planned for that. The real gang have got clean away, I’m pretty sure.”

“And what about your ankle?” demanded Joan.

“Oh, that? I happened to arrive at the door fairly quickly after the lights went out. Just as I got to it, a fellow came dashing out; and I made a grab at him as well as I could in the dark. But one can’t see what one’s doing; and I didn’t get a decent grip on him as he charged out on top of me. He landed me a fairly effective kick—right on the ankle-bone, by bad luck—and then, before I could get my hands on him properly he tore himself clear and was off down the hall towards the front door. I hobbled after him as best I could; and there he was—a fellow dressed in Pierrot costume—running quite leisurely over the gravel sweep and making for the woods. I couldn’t go after him; but he was quite clear in the moonlight and he’d a long way to go before getting into cover; so I raised a hue and cry at once, and quite a crowd of stout fellows are after him. He’ll have to run a bit faster than he was doing, if he expects to get off. These pine-woods have no undergrowth to speak of; and he’ll find it difficult to conceal himself in a hurry.”

As Sir Clinton ended his narrative a servant came hurrying up the hall, bringing a tall pair of steps with him.

“Is that the new lamp?” Sir Clinton demanded. “All right. Light a match or two, Mold, to let him see where to put the steps. And don’t tramp about too much while you’re fixing them up, please. I want to see things undisturbed as far as possible.”