Mrs. Charles Bryce

“ Gimblet lived in a flat in the neighbourhood of Whitehall. It was a fad of his to be more comfortably housed than most solitary men. The situation was conveniently near to Scotland Yard, where officials were much in the habit of requiring to see him at odd moments. The view from the windows, overlooking the river, was delightful to one of cultivated and artistic propensities, and the rooms, large and well-proportioned, were capable of displaying to advantage the old and valuable pictures and furniture with which it was the detective’s delight to surround himself. ”

“ Early on Tuesday afternoon Gimblet sat in his dining-room, contemplating with some satisfaction a large dish of strawberries and a pot of cream sent him by a Devonshire friend. He was finishing a luncheon which he considered well earned, as that morning he had discovered in a narrow back street in Lambeth, and purchased for a mere song, a little picture black with age and dirt, in which his hopeful eye discerned a crowd of small but masterfully painted figures footing it to the strains of a fiddle upon the grass under a spreading tree. ”

“ He admitted to himself with a kind of thrill of self-defiance that Julie was so clever, so sensible, so wonderfully reasonable and clear-sighted, that her opinion on any subject could not be despised, and it became more and more plain to him that if she thought badly of Socialism that doctrine would find difficulty in retaining his complete loyalty. To be short, by the time she reached her eighteenth birthday Bert was head over ears in love with the girl, and had scarcely a thought in which she did not predominate. Madame Querterot watched it all from beneath her heavy eyelids. ”

“ Such extraordinary things happen every day that anything short of a miracle hardly attracts attention, but surely it would be a strain on the long arm of coincidence to suppose that, having strayed on to the scene of a murder owing to the mistaken idea that he was on the track of Mrs. Vanderstein, he should then find that not only did the dead woman resemble that lady and wear similar clothes but that she even used the same uncommon perfume! Gimblet’s whole soul revolted at such an impossibility. ”

“ It always does me good to see Madame Justine.”
“I can’t think why you like her so much,” said Barbara, as she also came back into the room. “I don’t think she looks particularly nice.”
“Ah, Barbara,” said Mrs. Vanderstein, “at your age you are no judge of character. Now I know a good woman when I see one, and I do admire that one. Look at the way she works day and night to support her idle, ungrateful daughter.”
“I don’t suppose she’s so ungrateful as her mother makes out,” said Barbara. She seemed determined to see no good in poor Madame Querterot. ”

“ I turned round when we’d passed and stared back at them, for the street wasn’t crowded with people in gorgeous opera cloaks and blazing with diamonds, like one of these two was. I suppose it was Mrs. Vanderstein. She was standing a little to one side, as if she’d taken a step or two after the carriage, and was looking after it still. She had on a white dress, all sparkling, and a mauve or pink cloak thrown open and back on her shoulders, so I could see the jewels flashing and shining away all over her as right as rain, just like it says in the papers. ”

“ What then, Bert? Have you a little courage, my boy? Girls do not understand your modern ideas, that every one should be of an equal poverty; they like to have money, they like what money can give them. Did you not hear Julie say this evening that she adored jewels?”
They had reached the door of the shop and Bert turned towards it without answering. But Madame Querterot made as if to continue their walk, and after a moment’s hesitation he turned and paced beside her. ”

“ Will she not be angry with you for trying to discover her movements if she wishes them unknown?”
“I daresay she’d think it dashed impertinent. But I can’t help that. She may be in need of me; in fact,” cried Sir Gregory with sudden recollection, “I know she is! Don’t I tell you she telephoned for me last night? A most urgent message. That proves she wishes for my help in some matter of importance to her, and how can I assist her without knowing where she is?”
“As you say,” said Gimblet, “it does look as if she did not wish to leave you unacquainted with her whereabouts. ”

“ When Sidney raised his head again the face he disclosed was pale and drawn.
“Poor Aunt Ruth,” he said. “Poor thing, poor thing. To think that she should be dead. I can hardly realise it, you know. She has been killed for her jewels, I suppose, after all. The devils! You haven’t caught them, have you?” and, as Gimblet only shook his head: “How can such a thing be possible here in civilised London? And to think of that beastly old raven, Chark, going about croaking as he has been, and hinting that I’d killed her! ”

“ Julie watched him, the shadow of a smile playing about her mouth.
“Have you seen this lady’s jewels, mother?” she asked. “I adore precious stones.”
“I have seen some of them,” said her mother. “To-night her maid brought to her a necklace and bracelets of diamonds, besides a coiffure and rings of great beauty, no doubt without price. But she sent them away again, saying that she would wear others. Those I did not see, but it is certain that she has many, and all wonderful. Every day she wears different ones and, constantly, a string of enormous pearls. ”

“ Ill wind that blows no one any good,” said Miss Seraphina philosophically.
Her belongings were strewn about the room: a great bouquet of carnations lay on a chair, gloves and scarf were thrown on the bookshelf, while an enormous hat covered with flowers and ribbons was poised on a cabinet. She had drawn a curtain across the window, no doubt out of consideration for her complexion, as Gimblet happened to have chosen for this room hangings of a becoming rose colour; and the air was filled with the reek of inexpensive scent. ”

“ Without waiting to think, I rushed into the hall and tore upstairs and in at the drawing-room door. I found myself confronted by a tall man with a thick black beard and a pale, blotchy face. Behind him at the further end of the room I caught a glimpse of Mrs. Vanderstein, apparently lying on a sofa, and Madame Querterot bending over her. ‘What is it. Is she ill?’ I cried. ‘Take her away, take her away,’ exclaimed Madame Querterot, looking up over her shoulder, and before I had time to speak again I was hustled out of the room by the tall man and dragged downstairs again to the library. ”

“ You ask me why? My dear sir, I cannot reply to that question. Who can account for a woman’s whims? Not I, sir, not I. Nor you either; if you will allow me to say so.” Sir Gregory’s hands and eyes were uplifted in bewilderment as he considered the inexplicable behaviour of woman in general and of Mrs. Vanderstein in particular. “But I have no doubt that in time she would have reconsidered her decision,” he went on puffing at his cigar, “that is to say I had no doubt until this morning.”
“And what happened then?” asked the detective. ”

“ If I don’t have better luck this year than I had last I shall give up keeping race-horses,” said Sidney with decision.
“Oh, you mustn’t do that,” cried Barbara in a tone of so much distress that Sidney laughed.
“Why do you care?” he asked.
“I care a lot. I never see anything of racing people nowadays, or meet anyone except you who knows a horse from a centipede. If you give up racing I shall feel that my last link of connection with the turf is severed.”
“Why don’t you get my aunt to bring you down to Epsom to-morrow?” ”

“ Gimblet agreed diplomatically; “but tell me, how did Mrs. Vanderstein know this Madame Querterot?”
“She came for a time to coiffer Madame, and to rejuvenate her complexion, which needed nothing of the kind, I assure you. But she had the idea to be massaged, and for some months that woman was daily in the house. Never did I comprehend how Mrs. Vanderstein could tolerate her. A woman so vulgar, so familiar, and who never ceased to talk and talk and talk!”
Amélie spoke with virtuous indignation, as one to whom the gift of silence has been vouchsafed.
“She is a masseuse, then?” ”

“ Madame Querterot began by telling the young man that she would never allow her daughter to marry one so poor as himself, and added quickly that she knew of a way by which he could attain both money and the assistance of her influence exerted on his behalf with Julie. Having excited his curiosity and his hopes she bound him to secrecy and disclosed her purpose to him.
“It is yourself who gave me the good idea,” she assured him. “It is your socialistic teaching, is it not, to take from the rich? they have more than is reasonable, those others!” ”

“ The back window of the first floor, however, and all the other windows at the back of the house were without shutters, and veiled only by curtains of white muslin.
Gimblet took a hasty survey of the garden. It was not large, extending back for some sixty or seventy yards from the house, but bright with flowers and green with lawn and leaf; trees surrounded it on all sides, now golden in the rays of the descending sun; and a high wall gave it privacy from an inquisitive world. Here again the beds were dappled with pansies ”

“ Then a difficulty arose; and it was Bert, to his satisfaction and pride, who suggested a way out of it.
Madame Querterot met him one evening with an expression of dismay she made no attempt to conceal.
“There is after all something I have forgotten,” she cried. “Nom d’un nom! that I can have been so stupid, so idiot! Listen, it is this. The Jewess must drive from the opera to Scholefield Avenue. But in what? It is impossible that she should go in her own automobile, and if she takes a taxi we are equally betrayed. ”