Kitabı oku: «Mrs. Raffles: Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman», sayfa 5

IX
THE ADVENTURE OF THE HOLD-UP

Now that it is all over, I do not know whether she was really worn-out or by the expert use of powder gave to her cheeks the pallid look which bore out Mrs. Van Raffles's statement to me that she needed a rest. At any rate, one morning in mid-August, when the Newport season was in full feather, Henriette, looking very pale and wan, tearfully confessed to me that business had got on her nerves and that she was going away to a rest-cure on the Hudson for ten days.

"I just can't stand it for another minute, Bunny," she faltered, real tears coursing down her cheeks. "I haven't slept a wink of natural sleep for five days, and yet when night comes it is all I can do to keep my eyes open. At the Rockerbilt ball last night I dozed off four times while talking with the Duchess of Snarleyow, and when the Chinese Ambassador asked me to sit out the gavotte with him I'm told I actually snored in his face. A woman who can't keep awake all night and sleep properly by day is not fit for Newport society, and I've simply got to go away and get my nerve back again."

"You are very wise," I replied, "and I wholly approve of your course. There is no use of trying to do too much and you have begun to show the strain to which you have been subjecting yourself. Your failure last Friday night to land Mrs. Gollet's ruby dog-collar when her French poodle sat in your lap all through the Gaster musicale is evidence to me that your mind is not as alert as usual. By all means, go away and rest up. I'll take care of things around here."

"Thank you, dear," said she, with a grateful smile. "You need a change too, Bunny. What would you say if I sent all the servants away too, so that you could have a week of absolute tranquillity? It must be awful for a man of your refined sensibilities to have to associate so constantly with the housemaids, the under-butlers and the footmen."

"Nothing would please me better," I returned with alacrity; for, to tell the truth, society below stairs was rapidly becoming caviar to my taste. The housemaids were all right, and the under-butlers, being properly subject to my control, I could wither when they grew too familiar, but the footmen were intolerable guyers. On more than one occasion their quick Irish wit had put me to my trumps to maintain my dignity, and I had noticed of late that their alleged fun at my expense had made even the parlormaid giggle in a most irritating fashion. Henriette's suggestion promised at least a week's immunity from this sort of thing, and as far as remaining alone in the beautiful Bolivar Lodge was concerned, to a man of my literary and artistic tastes nothing could be more desirable.

"I can put in a week of solitude here very comfortably," said I. "The Constant-Scrappes have a very excellent library and a line of reading in Abstract Morals in full calf that I should very much like to get at."

"So be it then," said Henriette, with a sigh of relief. "I will take my departure next Saturday after the Innitt's clam-bake on Honk Island. The servants can go Saturday afternoon after the house has been put in order. You can order a fresh supply of champagne and cigars for yourself, and as for your meals – "

"Don't you bother about that," said I, with a laugh. "I lived for months on the chafing-dish before I found you again. And I rather think the change from game birds and pâté de foie gras to simple eggs and bread and butter will do me good."

And so the matter was arranged. The servants were notified that, owing to Mrs. Van Raffles's illness, they might take a vacation on full pay for ten days, and Henriette herself prepared society for her departure by fainting twice at the Innit's clam-bake on Honk Island.

No less a person than Mrs. Gaster herself brought her home at four o'clock in the morning and her last words were an exhortation to her "dear Mrs. Van Raffles" to be careful of herself "for all our sakes." Saturday morning Henriette departed. Saturday afternoon the servants followed suit, and I was alone in my glory – and oh, how I revelled in it! The beauties of Bolivar Lodge had never so revealed themselves to me as then; the house as dark as the tomb without, thanks to the closing of the shutters and the drawing to of all the heavy portières before the windows, but a blaze of light within from cellar to roof. I spent whole hours gloating over the treasures of that Monte-Cristan treasure-house, and all day Sunday and Monday I spent poring over the books in the library, a marvellous collection, though for the most part wholly uncut.

Everything moved along serenely until Wednesday afternoon, when I thought I heard a noise in the cellar, but investigation revealed the presence of no one but a stray cat which miaowed up the cellar steps to me in response to my call of "Who's there." True, I did not go down to see if any one were there, not caring to involve myself in a personal encounter with a chance tramp who might have wandered in, in search of food. The sudden materialization of the cat satisfactorily explained the noises, and I returned to the library to resume my reading of The Origin of the Decalogue where I had left off at the moment of the interruption. That evening I cooked myself a welsh-rabbit and at eight o'clock, arrayed in my pajamas, I returned to the library with a book, a bottle of champagne and a box of Vencedoras, prepared for a quiet evening of absolute luxury. I read in the waning light of the dying midsummer day for a little while, and then, as darkness came on, I turned to the switch-board to light the electric lamp.

The lamp would not light.

I pressed and pressed every button in the room, but with no better results; and then, going through the house I tried every other button I could find, but everywhere conditions were the same. Apparently there was something the matter with the electrical service, a fact which I cursed, but not deeply, for it was a beautiful moonlight night and while of course I was disappointed in my reading, I realized that after all nothing could be pleasanter than to sit in the moonlight and smoke and quaff bumpers of champagne until the crack of doom. This I immediately proceeded to do, and kept at it pretty steadily until I should say about eleven o'clock, when I heard unmistakable signs of a large automobile coming up the drive. It chugged as far as the front-door and then stood panting like an impatient steam-engine, while the chauffeur, a person of medium height, well muffled in his automobile coat, his features concealed behind his goggles, and his mouth covered by his collar, rapped loudly on the front-door, once, then a second time.

"Who the devil can this be at this hour of the night, I wonder," I muttered, as I responded to the summons.

If I sought the name I was not to be gratified, for the moment I opened the door I found two pistols levelled upon me, and two very determined eyes peering at me from behind the goggles.

"Not a word, or I shoot," said the intruder in a gruff voice, evidently assumed, before I could get a word from my already somewhat champagne-twisted tongue. "Lead me to the dining-room."

Well, there I was. Defenceless, taken by surprise, unarmed, not too wide awake, comfortably filled with champagne and in no particularly fighting mood. What could I do but yield? To call for help would have brought at least two bullets crashing into my brain, even if any one could have heard my cries. To assault a scoundrel so well-armed would have been the height of folly, and to tell the truth so imbued was I with the politer spirit of the gentle art of house-breaking that this sudden confrontation with the ruder, rough-house methods of the highwayman left me entirely unable to cope with the situation.

"Certainly," said I, turning and ushering him down the hall to the great dining-room where the marvellous plate of the Constant-Scrappes shone effulgently upon the sideboard – or at least such of it as there was no room for in the massive safe.

"Get me some rope," commanded the intruder. Still under the range of those dreadful pistols, I obeyed.

"Sit down in that chair, and, by the leaping Gladstone, if you move an inch I'll blow your face off feature by feature," growled the intruder.

"Who's moving?" I retorted, angrily.

"Well, see that whoever else is you are not," he retorted, winding the rope three times around my waist and fastening me securely to the back of the chair. "Now hold out your hands."

I obeyed, and he bound them as tightly as though they were fastened together with rods of iron. A moment later my feet and knees were similarly bound and I was as fast in the toils as Gulliver, when the Liliputians fell upon him in his sleep and bound him to the earth.

And then I was a mute witness to as keen and high-handed a performance as I ever witnessed. One by one every item of the Constant-Scrappe's silver service, valued at ninety thousand dollars, was removed from the sideboard and taken along the hall and placed in the tonneau of the automobile. Next the safe in which lay not only the famous gold service used only at the very swellest functions, said to have cost one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars for the gold alone, to say nothing of the exquisite workmanship, but – it made me gnash my teeth in impotent rage to see it – Henriette's own jewel-box containing a hundred thousand dollars worth of her own gems and some thirty thousand dollars in cash, was rifled of its contents and disposed of similarly to the silver in the gaping maw of that damned automobile tonneau.

"Now," said the intruder, loosening my feet and releasing me from the chair, "take me to my lady's boudoir. There is room in the car for a few more objects of virtu."

I obeyed on the instant and a few moments later the scene of below-stairs was repeated, with me powerless to resist. Pictures, bric-à-brac, and other things to the tune of twenty thousand dollars more were removed, as calmly and as coolly as though there were no law against that sort of thing in the world.

"There!" cried the highwayman, as he returned after the last item of his loot had been stowed away in the vehicle. "That'll make an interesting tale for Friday morning's papers. It's the biggest haul I've made in forty-eight years. Good-night, sir. When I am safely out of town I'll telegraph the police to come and rescue you from your present awkward position. And let me tell you, if you give them the slightest hint of my personal appearance, by the hopping Harcourt, I'll come back and kill you. See?"

And with that he made off, closing the door behind him, and a moment later I heard his infernal automobile chugging down the drive at full speed. Twelve hours later, in response to a long-distance telephone message from New York, the police came bounding around to the house, and found me tied up and unconscious. The highwayman had at least been true to his word, and, as he had prophesied, the morning papers on Friday were full of the story of the most daring robbery of the century. Accurate stories in detail under huge scare-type headlines appeared in all the papers, narrating the losses of the Constant-Scrappes, as well as the rape of the jewels and money of Mrs. Van Raffles. The whole country rang with it, and the afternoon train brought not only detectives by the score, but the representative of the Constant-Scrappes and Henriette herself. She was highly hysterical over the loss not only of her own property but that of her landlord as well, but nobody blamed me. The testimony of the police as to my condition when found fully substantiated my story and was accepted as ample evidence that I had no criminal connection with the robbery. This was a great relief to me, but it was greater when Henriette stroked my hand and called me "poor old Bunny," for I must say I was worried as to what she would think of me for having proven so poor a guardian of her property.

Since then months have passed and not a vestige of the stolen property has been recovered. The Constant-Scrappes bore their loss with equanimity, as became them, since no one could have foreseen such a misfortune as overtook them; and as for Mrs. Van Raffles, she never mentioned the matter again to me, save once, and that set me to thinking.

"He was a clever rascal you say, Bunny?" she asked one morning.

"Yes," said I. "One of the best in the business, I fancy."

"A big fellow?" She grinned with a queer smile.

"Oh, about your height," said I.

"Well, by the hopping Harcourt," she retorted, quizzically, "if you give them the slightest hint of my personal appearance, I'll come back and kill you. See?"

The man's very words! And then she laughed.

"What?" I cried. "It was – you!"

"Was it?" she returned, airily.

"Why the devil you should go to all that trouble, when you had the stuff right here is what puzzles me," said I.

"Oh, it wasn't any trouble," she replied. "Just sport – you looked so funny sitting up there in your pajamas; and, besides, a material fact such as that hold-up is apt to be more convincing to the police, to say nothing of the Constant-Scrappes, than any mere story we could invent."

"Well, you'd better be careful, Henriette," I said with a shiver. "The detectives are clever – "

"True, Bunny," she answered, gravely. "But you see the highwayman was a man and – well, I'm a woman, dear. I can prove an alibi. By-the-way, you left the cellar-door unlocked that Wednesday. I found it open when I sneaked in to cut off the electric lights. You mustn't be so careless, dear, or we may have to divvy up our spoil with others."

Marvellous woman, that Henriette!

X
THE ADVENTURE OF MRS. SHADD'S MUSICALE

Henriette was visibly angry the other morning when I took to her the early mail and she discovered that Mrs. Van Varick Shadd had got ahead of her in the matter of Jockobinski, the monkey virtuoso. Society had been very much interested in the reported arrival in America of this wonderfully talented simian who could play the violin as well as Ysaye, and who as a performer on the piano was vastly the superior of Paderewski, because, taken in his infancy and specially trained for the purpose, he could play with his feet and tail as well as with his hands. It had been reported by Tommy Dare, the leading Newport authority on monkeys, that he had heard him play Brahm's "Variations on Paganini" with his paws on a piano, "Hiawatha" on a xylophone with his feet, and "Home, Sweet Home" with his tail on a harp simultaneously, in Paris a year ago, and that alongside of Jockobinski all other musical prodigies of the age became mere strummers.

"He's a whole orchestra in himself," said Tommy enthusiastically, "and is the only living creature that I know of who can tackle a whole symphony without the aid of a hired man."

Of course society was on the qui vive for a genius of so riotous an order as this, and all the wealthy families of Newport vied with one another for the privilege of being first to welcome him to our shores, not because he was a freak, mind you, but "for art's sweet sake." Mrs. Gushington-Andrews offered twenty-five hundred dollars for him as a week-end guest, and Mrs. Gaster immediately went her bid a hundred per cent. better. Henriette, in order to outdo every one else, promptly put in a bid of ten thousand dollars for a single evening, and had supposed the bargain closed when along came Mrs. Shadd's cards announcing that she would be pleased to have Mrs. Van Raffles at Onyx House on Friday evening, August 27th, to meet Herr Jockobinski, the eminent virtuoso.

"It's very annoying," said Henriette, as she opened and read the invitation. "I had quite set my heart on having Jockobinski here. Not that I care particularly about the music end of it, but because there is nothing that gives a woman so assured a social position as being the hostess of an animal of his particular kind. You remember, Bunny, how completely Mrs. Shadd wrested the leadership from Mrs. Gaster two seasons ago with her orang outang dinner, don't you?"

I confessed to having read something about such an incident in high society.

"Well," said Henriette, "this would have thrown that little episode wholly in the shade. Of course Mrs. Shadd is doing this to retain her grip, but it irritates me more than I can say to have her get it just the same. Heaven knows I was willing to pay for it if I had to abscond with a national bank to get the money."

"It isn't too late, is it?" I queried.

"Not too late?" echoed Henriette. "Not too late with Mrs. Shadd's cards out and the whole thing published in the papers?"

"It's never too late for a woman of your resources to do anything she has a mind to do," said I. "It seems to me that a person who could swipe a Carnegie library the way you did should have little difficulty in lifting a musicale. Of course I don't know how you could do it, but with your mind – well, I should be surprised and disappointed if you couldn't devise some plan to accomplish your desires."

Henriette was silent for a moment, and then her face lit up with one of her most charming smiles.

"Bunny, do you know that at times, in spite of your supreme stupidity, you are a source of positive inspiration to me?" she said, looking at me, fondly, I ventured to think.

"I am glad if it is so," said I. "Sometimes, dear Henriette, you will find the most beautiful flowers growing out of the blackest mud. Perhaps hid in the dull residuum of my poor but honest gray matter lies the seed of real genius that will sprout the loveliest blossoms of achievement."

"Well, anyhow, dear, you have started me thinking, and maybe we'll have Jockobinski at Bolivar Lodge yet," she murmured. "I want to have him first, of course, or not at all. To be second in doing a thing of that kind is worse than never doing it at all."

Days went by and not another word was spoken on the subject of Jockobinski and the musicale, and I began to feel that at last Henriette had reached the end of her ingenuity – though for my own part I could not blame her if she failed to find some plausible way out of her disappointment. Wednesday night came, and, consumed by curiosity to learn just how the matter stood, I attempted to sound Henriette on the subject.

"I should like Friday evening off, Mrs. Van Raffles," said I. "If you are going to Mrs. Shadd's musicale you will have no use for me."

"Shut up, Bunny," she returned, abruptly. "I shall need you Friday night more than ever before. Just take this note over to Mrs. Shadd this evening and leave it – mind you, don't wait for an answer but just leave it, that's all."

She arose from the table and handed me a daintily scented missive addressed to Mrs. Shadd, and I faithfully executed her errand. Bunderby, the Shadd's butler, endeavored to persuade me to wait for an answer, but assuring him that I wasn't aware that an answer was expected I returned to Bolivar Lodge. An hour later Bunderby appeared at the back door and handed me a note addressed to my mistress, which I immediately delivered.

"Is Bunderby waiting?" asked Henriette as she read the note.

"Yes," I answered.

"Tell him to hand this to Mrs. Shadd the very first thing upon her return to-morrow evening," she said, hastily scribbling off a note and putting it in an envelope, which by chance she left unsealed, so that on my way back below-stairs I was able to read it. What it said was that she would be only too happy to oblige Mrs. Shadd, and was very sorry indeed to hear that her son had been injured in an automobile accident while running into Boston from Bar Harbor. It closed with the line, "you must know, my dear Pauline, that there isn't anything I wouldn't do for you, come weal or come woe."

This I handed to Bunderby and he made off. On my return Henriette was dressed for travel.

"I must take the first train for New York," she said, excitedly. "You will have the music-room prepared at once, Bunny. Mrs. Shadd's musicale will be given here. I am going myself to make all the necessary arrangements at the New York end. All you have to do is to get things ready and rely on your ignorance for everything else. See?"

I could only reflect that if a successful issue were dependent upon my ignorance I had a plentiful supply of it to fall back on. Henriette made off at once for Providence by motor-car, and got the midnight train out of Boston for the city where, from what I learned afterwards, she must have put in a strenuous day on Thursday. At any rate, a great sensation was sprung on Newport on Friday morning. Every member of the smart set in the ten-o'clock mail received a little engraved card stating that owing to sudden illness in the Shadd family the Shadd musicale for that evening would be held at Bolivar Lodge instead of in the Onyx House ballroom. Friday afternoon Jockobinski's private and particular piano arrived at the Lodge and was set up promptly in the music-room, and later when the caterers arrived with the supper for the four hundred odd guests bidden to the feast all was in readiness for them. Everything was running smoothly, and, although Henriette had not yet arrived, I felt easy and secure of mind until nearing five-thirty o'clock when Mrs. Shadd herself drove up to the front-door. Her color was unusually high, and had she been any but a lady of the grande monde I should have said that she was flustered.

She demanded rather than asked to see my mistress, with a hauteur born of the arctic snow.

"Mrs. Van Raffles went to New York Wednesday evening," said I, "and has not yet returned. I am expecting her every minute, madame. She must be here for the musicale. Won't you wait?"

"Indeed I will," said she, abruptly. "The musicale, indeed! Humph!" And she plumped herself down in one of the drawing-room chairs so hard that it was as much as I could do to keep from showing some very unbutlerian concern for the safety of the furniture.

I must say I did not envy Henriette the meeting that was in prospect, for it was quite evident that Mrs. Shadd was mad all through. In spite of my stupidity I rather thought I could divine the cause too. She was not kept long in waiting, for ten minutes later the automobile, with Henriette in it, came thundering up the drive. I tried as I let her in to give her a hint of what awaited her, but Mrs. Shadd forestalled me, only however to be forestalled herself.

"Oh, my dear Pauline!" Henriette cried, as she espied her waiting visitor. "It is so good of you to come over. I'm pretty well fagged out with all the arrangements for the night and I do hope your son is better."

"My son is not ill, Mrs. Van Raffles," said Mrs. Shadd, coldly. "I have come to ask you what – "

"Not ill?" cried Henriette, interrupting her. "Not ill, Pauline? Why," – breathlessly – "that's the most extraordinary thing I ever heard of. Why am I giving the musicale to-night then, instead of you?"

"That is precisely what I have come to find out," said Mrs. Shadd.

"Why – well, of all queer things," said Henriette, flopping down in a chair. "Surely, you got my note saying that I would let Jockobinski play here to-night instead of – "

"I did receive a very peculiar note from you saying that you would gladly do as I wished," said Mrs. Shadd, beginning herself to look less angry and more puzzled.

"In reply to your note of Wednesday evening," said Henriette. "Certainly you wrote to me Wednesday evening? It was delivered by your own man, Blunderby I think his name is? About half-past seven o'clock it was – Wednesday."

"Yes, Bunderby did carry a note to you from me on Wednesday," said Mrs. Shadd. "But – "

"And in it you said that you were called to Boston by an accident to your son Willie in his automobile: that you might not be able to get back in time for to-night's affair and wouldn't I take it over," protested Mrs. Van Raffles, vehemently.

"I?" said Mrs. Shadd, showing more surprise than was compatible with her high social position.

"And attend to all the details – your very words, my dear Pauline," said Henriette, with an admirably timed break in her voice. "And I did, and I told you I would. I immediately put on my travelling gown, motored to Providence, had an all-night ride to New York on a very uncomfortable sleeper, went at once to Herr Jockobinski's agent and arranged the change, notified Sherry to send the supper to my house instead of yours, drove to Tiffany's and had the cards rushed through and mailed to everybody on your list – you know you kindly gave me your list when I first came to Newport – and attended to the whole thing, and now I come back to find it all a – er – a mistake! Why, Pauline, it's positively awful! What can we do?"

Henriette was a perfect picture of despair. "I don't suppose we can do anything now," said Mrs. Shadd, ruefully. "It's too late. The cards have gone to everybody. You have all the supper – not a sandwich has come to my house – and I presume all of Mr. Jockobinski's instruments as well have come here."

Henriette turned to me.

"All, madame," said I, briefly.

"Well," said Mrs. Shadd, tapping the floor nervously with her toe. "I don't understand it. I never wrote that note."

"Oh, but Mrs. Shadd – I have it here," said Henriette, opening her purse and extracting the paper. "You can read it for yourself. What else could I do after that?"

Innocence on a monument could have appeared no freer of guile than Henriette at that moment. She handed the note to Mrs. Shadd, who perused it with growing amazement.

"Isn't that your handwriting – and your crest and your paper?" asked Henriette, appealingly.

"It certainly looks like it," said Mrs. Shadd. "If I didn't know I hadn't written it I would have sworn I had. Where could it have come from?"

"I supposed it came from Onyx House," said Henriette simply, glancing at the envelope.

"Well – it's a very mysterious affair," said Mrs. Shadd, rising, "and I – oh, well, my dear woman, I – I can't blame you – indeed, after all you have done I ought to be – and really am – very much obliged to you. Only – "

"Whom did you have at dinner Wednesday night, dear?" asked Henriette.

"Only the Duke and Duchess of Snarleyow and – mercy! I wonder if he could have done it!"

"Who?" asked Henriette.

"Tommy Dare!" ejaculated Mrs. Shadd, her eyes beginning to twinkle. "Do you suppose this is one of Tommy Dare's jokes?"

"H'm!" mused Henriette, and then she laughed. "It wouldn't be unlike him, would it?"