Wicked Uncle

Chapter XIII

Gregory Porlock came into the billiard-room shepherding the Mastermans.

“Well, now, here we are. And I’m going to carry Moira off. Just finished a game? Who won?”

Moira Lane laughed.

“Oh, I’m not in Justin’s class-he’s way up, practically out of sight.”

“Ah, then he can take Masterman on, and Miss Masterman can see fair play. We’ll come back presently.”

He took her off to the study, a comfortable country room with book-lined walls, warmly coloured rugs, and deep brown leather chairs-a room that had been used and lived in. Granted that Gregory Porlock had taken the house furnished, he might be given the credit for his choice. He fitted the room too-fresh healthy skin, clear eyes, good country tweeds which had been worn in country weather. There was a tray of cocktails on the table, and he handed Moira one.

He said, “I’ve brought you here to ask you a question, you know.”

“Have you?” Nothing could have been more friendly than her voice. She sipped from her glass. “Sounds intriguing. What is it?”

He met her laughing eyes and said quite gravely,

“What do you make of me, Moira? What sort of man would you say I was?”

She didn’t look away, but she looked different. The smile was still in her eyes, but there was something else there too-something a little wary, a little on guard. She said in her pretty, light voice,

“A good fellow-a good friend-a charming host. Why?”

He nodded.

“Thank you, my dear. I think you meant that.”

She was sitting on the arm of one of the big chairs, leaning against the back, every line of the long figure graceful and easy. She took another sip from her glass and said,

“Of course I did.”

He went over to the fire and put a log of wood on it. When he turned round he had his charming smile again.

“Well, that being that, I can go on.”

“Go on?”

“Oh, yes-that was just a preliminary. The fact is-let me take your glass-well, the fact is, I’ve got something for you, and I wanted to feel sure of my ground before I gave it to you.”

“Something for me?” She laughed suddenly. “Greg, my sweet, how marvellous! Is it a present? Because I warn you I shall consider I’ve been lured here under false pretences if it isn’t. It will be a sort of breach of promise, because you’ve quite definitely raised my hopes.”

He laughed too.

“Have I? Then I shall have to do something about it. Or perhaps you will. We’ll see. Meanwhile, here it is.”

He took a small parcel wrapped in tissue paper from his pocket, laid it upon her knee, and went back to the hearth again. From a couple of yards away he watched her sit up straight and undo the wrappings. She had a laughing look, but at the first touch of the paper and what it held there was a faint instant check. Her hands stayed just as they were, measuring the weight of the parcel, feeling the shape of it through the thin paper. Something moved under her fingers like the links of a chain, and she knew.

Gregory Porlock saw her colour go, quite suddenly, as the flame goes when you blow a candle out. One moment it was there, bright and vivid. The next it wasn’t there any more. The bright, living thing had gone. Only her eyes stayed on him in a long searching look before she turned them to what the paper held.

She was unwrapping the paper now, letting it drop into the seat of the chair. What emerged was a bracelet-a band about an inch and a half wide, diamond trellis-work between two rows of fine brilliants, and, interrupting the trellis at distances of about three quarters of an inch, light panels of larger stones with a ruby at the centre of each. The rubies were very fine and of the true pigeon’s blood colour. The workmanship was exquisite.

Moira Lane held the bracelet out on the palm of her hand. Her blood might have betrayed her, but her hand was steady.

“What is this?”

Those dancing eyes met hers. He might have been enjoying himself. Perhaps he was.

“Don’t you know?” As there was no answer, he supplied one. “I think you do. But you know, you really ought to have been more careful. Of course there are so many ignorant people that one gets into the habit of expecting everyone to be ignorant. But you can’t really count on it. Anyone in the trade might happen to know something about historic jewels. Even outside the trade there are people like myself to whom the subject is of interest.”

“I don’t know what you mean. In fact I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She really did look blank. He said in an incredulous voice,

“My dear girl, you don’t mean to say you didn’t know what you were taking!”

A frown crept across the blankness.

“It’s a bracelet. The stones are very good. I suppose it’s worth a lot of money. Is there anything else to know about it?”

“Well, well,” said Gregory Porlock-“the True History of the Ruby Bracelet. Instruction for you. Opportunity to show off for me. You may have noticed that I do like showing off.”

“Yes. What have you got to show?”

He laughed good-humouredly.

“Just a little specialized knowledge. That’s another thing you may have noticed about me-I’m fond of odd bits of information-little blind-alley bits and pieces. And you know, sometimes-sometimes they come in useful.”

“Do they?” Her voice was as steady as her hand had been, but the ring had gone out of it.

“Well, you shall judge for yourself. Anything about jewels- that has always fascinated me. Years ago-why it must be quite twenty-I picked up a shabby little book on an Edinburgh bookstall. It was called Famous Jewels and their History, with a Particular Account of the Families of the Nobility and Gentry in whose Possession they are to be Found. Not a well-written book, I am afraid, but containing some interesting facts. Do you know, for instance, that a good many of the French crown jewels were brought over to England during the Revolution and entrusted for safe keeping to the Marquess of Queensberry -the one who was known as Old Q? He is said to have buried them in the cellar of his town house, and all trace of them appears to have been lost. He kept the secret too well, and died with it undisclosed. A couple of London clubs now occupy the site, and somewhere under their foundations there may still be lying the jewels of the Queens of France-” He paused, and added briskly, “Or perhaps not. You never know, do you? Jewels are like riches-sometimes they take to themselves wings. But this is a digression. I mustn’t let myself be carried away. It is Josephine’s ruby bracelets with which we are concerned. You did know, I suppose, that this is one of a pair?”

She glanced down at the trellised diamonds and said,

“How should I know?”

If it was meant for a question, there was no direct answer.

“Then I can continue to show off. My little book mentions these bracelets. Napoleon gave them to Josephine on rather a special occasion. Just turn to the inside of the clasp and you will see the N surmounted by the imperial crown.”

There was no interest in face or manner as she turned the clasp. The crowned N looked at her from the pale gold.

Gregory Porlock had come over to stand beside her.

“Now turn it and you’ll see the date at the other end of the clasp, rather faint but legible-Fri. 10. 1804.”

She said, “What does it mean?”

“The tenth of Frimaire, eighteen hundred and four. That is, December the first, the date on which Josephine at last induced Napoleon to go through the religious ceremony of marriage with her. He cheated, because by deliberately omitting the presence of the parish priest he left a loophole of which he availed himself later on when he applied for a declaration of nullity. The bracelets were a wedding present. The imperial N is there because December the first was the eve of their coronation. Didn’t you really know the story?”

She looked up with a startling anger in her eyes.

“What has it got to do with me?”

He went back to the fire.

“I can tell you that too. Josephine died in eighteen-fourteen. The bracelets are not specifically mentioned in her will. In fact they disappear for about forty years, when the second Earl of Pemberley bought them in Paris as a wedding present for his bride. Where they had been in the interval does not transpire, but Lord Pemberley was, apparently, satisfied as to their history, and they have been handed down in the family ever since. The title is now extinct, but the widow of the last Earl survives. You are connected with her, I think, through your mother.”

“So that is why I am supposed to know about the bracelets!”

He nodded.

“We are getting to the point. About ten years ago I had the pleasure of meeting Lady Pemberley at a charity ball-she was one of the patronesses. Imagine my interest when I saw that she was wearing the Josephine bracelets. I ventured to remark on them, and when she found that I knew their history she was kind enough to take them off and show me the initial and the date-the same on each. So you see, when I encountered the bracelet which you have in your hand-”

She broke in with a raised voice, “What has this got to do with me?”

“I’m boring you? I’ve really almost done. A friend of mine who knows my hobby told me he had come across a bracelet of very beautiful workmanship. I went to see it, and of course recognized it at once. I needn’t tell you the name of the shop, because of course you know it. What you probably didn’t know was that the proprietor knew perfectly well from whom he was buying the bracelet. You see, you figure quite a lot in the Society papers, and he recognized you. In point of fact, he would not have bought so valuable a piece of jewellery, from an unknown client. Knowing your family connections, he did not hesitate.”

There was a long pause during which he watched an averted face-brows drawn together, lips pressed into a rigid line.

When he thought the silence had lasted long enough he broke it.

“I’m your friend, you know. There’s no need to look like that.”

The colour rushed back into her face. She swung round on him, eyes wide and glowing.

“Greg-”

His smile had never been more charming.

“That’s better!”

“Greg-she gave it to me. I don’t know what you’ve been thinking-”

He laughed.

“Well, I bought it. I won’t tell you what I paid, because there’s always a revolting difference between the buying and the selling price, and I don’t want to rub it in. Anyhow, now it’s my property there’s nothing to stop my making a gesture and sending it back to Lady Pemberley, is there?”

“You can’t do that! I naturally don’t want her to know I sold it.”

“Oh, naturally! Have you got the other one-or did you sell that too?”

“She only gave me one.”

He shook his head.

“My dear girl, it won’t do. You know, and I know. And you know that I know. What’s the good of keeping up this farce? If I were to go to Lady Pemberley and say that I had recognized her bracelet in a sale room, what do you suppose would happen? There would be a bit of a crash, wouldn’t there? She wouldn’t run you in-oh, no! We don’t wash our dirty linen in public. But I think Miss Lane’s name would come out of Lady Pemberley’s will, and I shouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t get round the family that dear Moira had spilt rather a lot of ink on her copybook. In fact, in the language of melodrama, ‘Social Ruin Looms.’ ”

Moira Lane got to her feet. She put the bracelet down on the corner of the writing-table and said rather quietly,

“What good would that do you?”

He could admire her, and he did. Courage appealed to him, and the breeding which set him at a distance. She wouldn’t cry or make any appeal, she wouldn’t break. He looked at her approvingly.

“That’s where we really get down to brass tacks. And the answer is, it wouldn’t do me any good at all. There’s nothing in the world I want less than to hurt you. All I want is for us to stop playing comedies and get to business.”

“What business?”

He came up to the table and gave her another cocktail.

“Better have a drink. You look played out. Now, Moira, listen! I could ruin you. But why should I want to? I don’t. I admire you very much, and I like to think that we are friends. I’ll go farther and tell you I’d like to have you as a partner.”

Standing there, glass in hand, she looked at him with a little scorn. She finished her cocktail, put the glass back on the tray, and waited, her eyebrows delicately raised.

He stood perhaps a yard away, easy and smiling.

“I told you I was a collector of odd bits of information. When people know you like them they come your way, sometimes in a very surprising manner. But that sort of thing has to be very carefully checked. It doesn’t do to slip up. Some of it-rather an important part-comes from the circles of which you are a privileged member. Exclusive circles, very intimately linked. It would be a great advantage to me to have what I might call a consultant who was in and out of those very exclusive circles.”

The eyebrows rose a little higher still.

“You used the word partner just now. You are asking me to be your partner in a blackmailing business?”

He put up a deprecatory hand.

“Now, Moira-what’s the good of talking like that? It may relieve your feelings, but I assure you it doesn’t do anything at all to mine. They have acquired a complete resistance to sarcasm, so you are wasting your time. If, on the other hand, you did by any chance succeed in making me angry, the results might be unfortunate-” He paused and added, “For you. I think that my use of the word partner was not a very happy one. It implies responsibility, and you would have none. Consultant is a much more accurate description. All I should ever ask you to do would be to keep me straight as to facts, and to assist me with your personal specialized knowledge of the people concerned. To give you a simple illustration. Certain things admitted to be facts might in one case be extremely compromising, whereas in another no one would attach the slightest importance to them. That is where your personal contacts would come in. I needn’t say that the whole thing would be completely confidential and sufficiently remunerative. As far as Josephine’s bracelet is concerned, it is yours to do what you like with. If I might make a suggestion, it would be that you should find some opportunity of restoring it to Lady Pemberley. It would be better not to run any further risk. It is the future that matters now.”

The last words set her blood storming. The future-and what a future! If she could have killed him then, she might have done it. Perhaps he guessed that. The sudden brilliance of her glance, the sudden scarlet in the cheeks which had been so pale, declared an inner fire. He could have no possible doubt as to its nature, but he gave her marks for self-control.

It was not until the flame had dropped from flaring-point that she let herself speak. When she did, it was any guest to any host.

“My dear Greg, you’re too flattering. But I’m afraid I shouldn’t be any good at business-I expect you have to be born that way. Too kind of you to let me have my bracelet back. You must let me know what you paid for it. I shouldn’t like my cousin to know that I had sold her present. The fact is, I was in a frightful hole just then, and I simply had to have the money.”

The bracelet was on her wrist as she spoke, withdrawn from the table and slipped over her left hand so swiftly and smoothly that Gregory Porlock would hardly have had time to intervene. In point of fact he made no move to do so, but laughed and said,

“Well, don’t sell it again! It’s a bit too dangerous. Someone else might recognize it next time-you never know.” Then, as she turned to go, he came a step nearer, took her by the wrist, his big hand closing down over the diamond trellis, pressing it into her flesh. “I’ve got the receipted bill, you know. It describes the bracelet. You can have till Monday morning to make up your mind. Meanwhile we’ll call a truce.”

He let go of her, and she turned and went out of the room without a word.

She was half way up the stairs, when she heard the front door open and shut. The cold of the outer air came in and followed her, with the sound of Leonard Carroll’s voice. The last of the house-party had arrived.

Without turning her head she went on past the door of Miss Masterman’s room to her own. A short distance, a short time, from door to door, from the study to this small charming bedroom with its pale blue curtains drawn, its clean fresh chintzes with their flowery pattern picking up the colour of the curtains and blending it with purple and rose, its warm sparkling fire. But in that distance, in that time, Moira Lane had made up her mind what she was going to do.