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26 chapters
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
Fog. A London fog, solid, substantial, yellow as an old dog's tooth or a jaundiced eye. You could not look through it, nor yet gaze up and down it, nor over it; and you only thought you saw it. The eye became impotent, untrustworthy; all senses lay fallow except that of touch; the skin alone conveyed to you with promptness and no incertitude that this thing had substance. You could feel it; you could open and shut your hands and sense it on your palms, and it penetrated your clothes and beaded y
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
Daniel Killigrew, of Killigrew and Company (sugar, coffee and spices), was in a towering rage; at least, he towered one inch above his normal height, which was five feet six. Like an animal recently taken in captivity he trotted back and forth through the corridors, in and out of the office, to and from the several entrances, blowing the while like a grampus. All he could get out of these infernally stupid beings was "Really, sir!" He couldn't get a cab, he couldn't get a motor, he couldn't get
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
That same morning, at eleven precisely (when an insolent west wind sprang up and tore the fog into ribbons and scarves and finally blew it into smithereens, channelward) there stood before the windows of a famous haberdashery in the Strand a young man, twenty-four years of age, typically English, beardless, hair clipped neatly about his neck and temples, his skin fresh colored, his body carefully but thriftily clothed. Smooth-skinned he was about the eyes and nose and mouth, unmarked by dissipat
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
Iambic and hexameter, farewell! In that moment the poet died in Thomas; I mean, the poet who had to dig his expressions of life out of ink-pots. Things boil up quickly and unexpectedly in the soul; century-old impulses, undreamed of by the inheritor; and when these bubble and spill over the kettle's lip, watch out. There is an island in the South Seas where small mud-geysers burst forth under the pressure of the foot. Fate had stepped on Thomas. As he sprang out of his bunk he was a reversion: t
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
Outside he found himself in a kind of court. He ran about wildly, like a rat in a trap. He plumped into the alley, accidentally. Down this he fled, into the street. A voice called out peremptorily to him to stop, but he went on all the faster, swift as a hare. He doubled and circled through this street and that until at last he came out into a broad, brilliant thoroughfare. An iron-pillared railway reared itself skyward and trains clamored past. Bloomsbury: millions of years and miles away! He w
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CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
Thomas was a busy man up to and long after the hour of sailing. His cabins were filled with about all the variant species of the race: two nervous married women with their noisy mismanaged children, three young men on a lark, and an actress who was paying her husband's expenses and gladly announced the fact over and through the partitions. Three bells tingled all day long, and the only thing that saved Thomas from the "sickbay" was the fact that the bar closed at eleven. And a rough passage adde
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CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
Third day out. Kitty smiled at the galloping horizon; smiled at the sunny sky; smiled at the deck-steward as he served the refreshing broth; smiled at the tips of her sensible shoes, at her hands, at her neighbors: until Mrs. Crawford could contain her curiosity no longer. "Kitty Killigrew, what have you been doing?" "Doing?" "Well, going to do?"—shrewdly. Kitty gazed at her friend in pained surprise, her blue eyes as innocent as the sea—and as full of hidden mysterious things. "Good gracious! c
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CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER VIII
He had put forward this condition, perfectly sure that she would refuse to accept it. He could not understand. "You accept that condition?" "Yes." Having gone thus far with her plot, Kitty would have died rather than retreated; Irish temperament. Thomas was moved to a burst of confidence. "I know that I am poor, and to the best of my belief, honest. Moreover, perhaps I should be compelled by the exigencies of circumstance to leave you after a few months. I am not a rich man, masquerading for the
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CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER IX
When the constellation, which was not included among the accepted theories of Copernicus, passed away, Haggerty sat up and rubbed the swelling over his ear, tenderly yet grimly. Next, he felt about the floor for his pocket-lamp. A strange spicy dust drifted into his nose and throat, making him sneeze and cough. A mummy had reposed in the overturned cartonnage and the brittle bindings had crumbled into powder. He soon found the lamp, and sent its point of vivid white light here and there about th
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CHAPTER X
CHAPTER X
There are many threads and many knots in a net; these can not be thrown together haphazard, lest the big fish slip through. At the bottom of the net is a small steel ring, and here the many threads and the many knots finally meet. Forbes and Haggerty (who, by the way, thinks I'm a huge joke as a novelist) and the young man named Webb recounted this tale to me by threads and knots. The ring was of Kitty Killigrew, for Kitty Killigrew, by Kitty Killigrew, to paraphrase a famous line. At one of the
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CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XI
The home-bureau of charities was a success from the start; but beyond the fact that it served to establish Thomas Webb as private secretary in the Killigrew family, I was not deeply interested. I know that Thomas ran about a good deal, delving into tenements and pedigrees, judging candidates, passing or condemning, and that he earned his salary, munificent as it appeared to him. Forbes told me that he wouldn't have done the work for a thousand a week; and Forbes, like Panurge, had ten ways of ma
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CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XII
I left Thomas scrambling about the mosaic lobby of the theater for his opera-hat. When he recovered it, it resembled one of those accordions upon which vaudeville artists play Mendelssohn's Wedding March and the latest ragtime (by request). Some one had stepped on it. Among the unanswerable questions stands prominently: Why do we laugh when a man loses his hat? Thomas burned with a mixture of rage and shame; shame that Kitty should witness his discomfiture and rage that, by the time he had retri
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CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIII
Two mornings later the newspapers announced the important facts that Miss Kitty Killigrew had gone to Bar Harbor for the week, and that the famous uncut emeralds of the Maharajah of Something-or-other-apur had been stolen; nothing co-relative in the departure of Kitty and the green stones, coincidence only. The Indian prince was known the world over as gem-mad. He had thousands in unset gems which he neither sold, wore, nor gave away. His various hosts and hostesses lived in mortal terror during
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CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XIV
This is not a story of the Maharajah's emeralds; only a knot in the landing-net of which I have already spoken. I may add with equal frankness that Haggerty, upon his own initiative, never proceeded an inch beyond the keyhole episode. It was one of his many failures; for, unlike the great fictional detectives who never fail, Haggerty was human, and did. It is only fair to add, however, that when he failed only rarely did any one else succeed. If ever criminal investigation was a man's calling, i
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CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XV
We chaps who write have magic carpets. Whiz! A marble balcony, overlooking the sea, which shimmered under the light of the summer moon. Lord Henry Monckton and Kitty leaned over the baluster and silently watched the rush of the rollers landward and the slink of them back to the sea. For three days Kitty had wondered whether she liked or disliked Lord Monckton. The fact that he was the man who had bumped into Thomas that night at the theater may have had something to do with her doddering. He mig
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CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVI
Thomas slammed the ball with a force which carried it far over the wire backstop. "You must not drive them so hard, Mr. Webb; at least, not up. Drive them down. Try it again." Tennis looked so easy from the sidelines that Thomas believed all he had to do was to hit the ball whenever he saw it within reach; but after a few experiments he accepted the fact that every game required a certain talent, quite as distinct as that needed to sell green neckties (old stock) when the prevailing fashion was
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CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVII
Meantime Kitty sat on the bench, stunned. Never before in all her life had such a thing happened. True, young men had at times attempted to kiss her, but not in this fashion. A rough embrace, a kiss on her cheek, and he had gone. Not a word, not a sign of apology. She could not have been more astounded had a thunder-bolt struck at her feet, nor more bereft of action. She must have sat there fully ten minutes without movement. From Thomas, the guileless, this! What did it mean? She could not unde
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CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XVIII
Sugar, coffee and spices. Thomas dipped his pen into the inkwell and went to work. Were all American fathers mad? To condone an affront like this! He could not understand these Americans. He had approached Killigrew with far more courage than the latter suspected. Thomas had read that here men still shot each other on slight provocation. Sugar, coffee and spices… Sao Paulo and valorization committee… 10,000,000 bags. What should he do? Whither should he turn? To have offered that affront… for
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CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XIX
"Rather hot for this time of day," volunteered Lord Monckton, sliding into the Morris chair at the side of Thomas' desk and dangling his legs over the arm. "Yes, it is," agreed Thomas, folding a sheet of paper and placing the little ivory elephant paper-weight upon it. "Rippin' doubles this morning. You ought to go into the game. Do you a lot of good." "I didn't know you played." "Don't. Watch." Thomas' gaze was level and steady. Lord Monckton laughed easily and sought his monocle. He fumbled ab
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CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XX
"The Carew cottage was entered last night," said Killigrew, "and twenty thousand in diamonds are gone. Getting uncomfortably close. You and your mother, Kitty, had better let me take your jewels into town to-day." "We have nothing out here but trinkets." "Trinkets! Do you call that fire-opal a trinket? Better let me take it into town, anyway. I'm Irish enough to be superstitious about opals." "That's nonsense." "Maybe." "Oh, well; if the thought of having it around makes you nervous, I'll give i
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CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXI
Meanwhile Killigrew arrived in New York, went to the bank and deposited Kitty's opal, and sought his office. "There's a Mr. Haggerty in your office, Mr. Killigrew. I told him to wait." "Haggerty, the detective?" "Yes. He said you'd be glad to see him. Has news of some sort." Killigrew hurried into his private office. "Hello, Haggerty! What's the trouble this morning?" "Got some news for you." Haggerty accepted a cigar. "I've a hunch that I can find Miss Killigrew's sapphires." "No! I thought the
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CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXII
For a moment Killigrew sat stiffly upright in his chair; then gradually his body grew limp, his chin sank, his shoulders drooped. "Webb?" he said dully. "Are you sure, Haggerty?" "No question about it. Y' see, this Jameson chap writes me a sassy letter from Liverpool. Spite. Thomas Webb was th' name. What's th' matter?" "Haggerty, the very devil is the matter. Thomas Webb, recently a steward on the Celtic , has been my wife's private secretary for nearly two months." "Say that again!" gasped Hag
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CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIII
"Mr. Killigrew," whispered Haggerty, "will you get Miss Kitty an' Thomas int' th' study-end o' th' library?" "Found anything?" "Th' sapphires were in his trunk, all right. Tucked away in th' toes of a pair o' shoes. Webb is in th' library now. Jus' get Miss Kitty." "Very well," replied Killigrew, leaden-hearted. Thomas had been busy all day. He was growing very tired, and often now the point of his pen sputtered. The second man had brought in his dinner and set it on a small stand which stood at
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CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXIV
Meanwhile the whirligig had gone about violently after this fashion. Forbes, wondering mightily, procured his automatics and gave one to his impatient friend. "What's the row, Crawffy?" "Be as silent as you can," said Crawford. "Follow me. We may be too late." "Anywhere you say." "The door will be locked. We'll creep around the upper veranda and enter by opposite windows. You keep your eye on the valet. Don't be afraid to shoot if it's necessary." "What the deuce…!" "Come!" "But where?" "Lord Mo
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CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXV
"That is true, Haggerty. I had a debt to pay." Crawford spun a billiard ball down the table. "Mr. Crawford, I'm going t' show you that I'm a good sport. You've challenged me. All right. I want that man, an' by th' Lord Harry, I'm going t' get him. I'm going t' put my hand on his shoulder an' say 'Come along!' Cash ain't everything, even in my business. I want t' show it's th' game, too. I don't want money in my pockets for winking my eye." "You'll have hard work." "How?" "He has burned the pads
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CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVI
It remains for me, then, to relate how Thomas escaped that arm of the law equally as relentless as that of the police—the customs. Perfectly innocent of intent, he was none the less a smuggler. Killigrew took him before the Collector of the Port, laid the matter before him frankly, paid the duty, and took the gems over to Tiffany's expert, who informed him that these sapphires were the originals from which his daughter's had been copied, and were far more valuable. Twenty-five thousand would not
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