The Annam Jewel (12 page)

“I had put the real Jewel in my tobacco-pouch. The fake was in a little pill-box on the washstand. I pointed. Henderson opened the box and flung the fake at me with an oath, asking me if I thought he was the sort of fool who didn't know his own work. Dale was feeling under the pillow. He found my pouch there, tossed it to Henderson, and Henderson fished out the Jewel. He laughed, and put it in his pocket. Dale got up, still keeping me covered. I think I must have been light-headed, because as soon as Dale moved, I jumped at him, and he fired. He didn't hit me. I rushed at Henderson, and saw him pull out his revolver. Dale said, ‘No, no!' but Henderson fired. I went down, and that's all I know about it.

“It was a month before I could be moved. Dale and Henderson got away. I came back to Hong Kong as soon as they'd let me travel.…”

The writing broke off. Peter turned the page. There were only two or three more entries, short passages rather faintly scrawled in pencil. The first ran:

“James talked a good deal when he was light-headed. He said some things over and over. I think they were things that the priest had said to him. They weren't things he would have thought of for himself.”

Two lines were left blank. Then followed a single sentence:

“The blue is the Celestial Heaven; the red is the Elemental fire; the Green is the Living Earth; and the Gold is the Ray of Wisdom in the heart of man.”

And below:

“He said this over and over; I'm sure I've got it correctly. I don't know what he meant by it.”

Farther down was another very illegible scrawl. Peter held the book to the light, and made it out with difficulty:

“‘Can these things be taken by violence?' He said this three times. Twice he said, ‘Violence follows the violent man.' I feel sure the old priest must have said this to him.”

The last entry was at the very bottom of the page, quite neatly written:

“
N.B
.—To find out the real name of the man who calls himself Roden Dale.…”

Peter turned the leaf. The rest of the book was blank.

CHAPTER XIV

Peter dined that night with Sylvia Moreland.

“The Merritts have failed me,” she said when he arrived. “They're the most unreliable creatures on earth. You remember Jane Ann, of course.”

Peter shook hands with Miss Coverdale, who looked up at him with a puzzled air.

“I'm sure I shouldn't have known you,” she said.

“That was a compliment, Peter,” said Sylvia, as they went in to dinner.

Peter was, indeed, no longer the gawky boy who had spent an adventurous week at Sunnings. He was still plain, but after a sufficiently pleasant fashion. He was tall, and powerfully built without being clumsy. His clothes were like other people's clothes.

Miss Coverdale vanished when Sylvia led the way back to the drawing-room after dinner.

“D'you like my room, Peter?” she said. “Look at it whilst I read a letter, and tell me after due reflection.”

Sylvia's room was unlike any other that Peter had seen. The carpet was black, and so were the curtains and the covers of the big easy-chairs. The walls were white. Brilliant cushions of Chinese blue and Imperial yellow glowed against the black of the chairs, and a long divan at one end of the room was heaped with them. The only flowers were a dozen white orchids in a bowl of pale-green jade.

Sylvia stood beside the hearth, warming a very pretty foot and reading her letter. She was dressed as if she was sixteen instead of twenty-six, in a slender white frock with a pale blue sash. The contrast between this simplicity and the careful art of complexion and hair was startling. At eighteen, Sylvia had darkened her eyebrows and reddened her lips. At twenty-six, she was a very delicate and exquisite work of art, as carefully tinted as a miniature. Her hair was the brightest gold of which her taste would approve. The effect was, as has been said, startling but very pretty.

She opened her hand, and allowed the letter which she had been reading to flutter down into the fire. It lay for a moment on a bed of glowing coal, then shrivelled and went up in flame.

Sylvia laughed, sighed and looked at Peter.

“Why are men's hearts so brittle?” she said.

“I don't know,” said Peter. “Are they?”

She nodded.

“If you were me, you'd know. Yours, of course, is made of some patent unbreakable stuff, so you're safe—you don't know how nice that is. Of course, really,” said Sylvia, looking down into the fire, “really you know, Peter, you're one of my very oldest friends. When everybody's frightfully tiresome …” She laughed and flashed a look at him. “That's one of your words, ‘frightfully'. May I borrow it? Well, when everyone's frightfully tiresome, and things go wrong, and people
will
make love to me, and the world's a hollow mockery—you know the sort of thing—I just say to myself, ‘There's always Peter. Peter's
safe
.'”

Peter felt vaguely annoyed. It sounded as if he were the cat, or Miss Coverdale. He said rather shortly:

“I thought you liked being made love to!”

“Is that why you never do it?” said Sylvia.

“I don't know,” said Peter.

Sylvia laughed again.

“We've got right away from the subject,” she said. “We were considering how safe you are. You weren't always, you know. You nearly frightened me out of my life once. Do you remember, in the rose garden at Sunnings?”

“Was it in the rose garden?”

She looked reproachful.

“Oh, Peter, it was, and
most
romantic—all the proper things; the most heavenly warm evening; and moonlight; and the last rose of summer; and—you really were in love with me then.”

Peter did not speak. He felt disturbed, and wondered vaguely what Sylvia was driving at.

“You frightened me dreadfully,” said Sylvia. “I ran all the way back to the house.”

Peter continued to say nothing. There didn't really seem to be anything to say. He thought Sylvia was looking very pretty, but he wished she would talk about something else.

“My father was furious,” said Sylvia.

“Did you always tell him when people made love to you?” asked Peter. He smiled as he spoke, but he was getting rather angry.

“Oh, well, no. But he asked endless questions.”

Sylvia left the fire, and balanced herself on the arm of one of the big black chairs.

“Peter, do sit. I simply hate you towering over me and being superior.”

“I like standing,” said Peter.

Sylvia looked up at him, her hands clasped about her knees.

“Peter, I do want to ask you something,” she said. “Will you tell me?”

“I don't know,” said Peter. “What is it?”

“Well, when you—you know, in the rose garden …”

There was a pause. Peter just let it be a pause, and presently Sylvia broke it.

“You made love awfully well, you know, Peter,” she said. “And you did say some thrilling things. I always wished that I hadn't got frightened and run away, because I did so want to know some more about the Jewel.”

“What Jewel?”

“You said you were going to have one when you were twenty-five. It sounded most mysterious and romantic. And you said you were going to give it to me, Peter.” Sylvia's pretty voice sank low.

“What would you have done with it?” Peter had taken a mandarin's button off the mantelshelf and was shifting it absently from one hand to the other. It was of a bright pale blue finished with golden filigree.

“I? What's the use of asking me that? I haven't got it. But what I'm dying to know is, have you got it, Peter? You're twenty-five. You must be. You look more.”

Peter laughed.

“I can answer one of the questions. I am twenty-five today.”

Sylvia drew a long breath. Her blue eyes shone.

“And you've got the Jewel? Oh, Peter!”

Peter set the mandarin's button back upon the mantelpiece, frowned at it, and shifted it half an inch to the right.

“That's a jolly colour,” he said. “It matches your eyes awfully well—I noticed it when you looked at me just now. It's odd, because I don't think I've ever seen anything that matched them before.”

He gazed artlessly at her for a moment, then sat down, pushing a chair back a little so as to get farther from the fire. This brought him within reach of a small table with a lamp upon it. The lamplight shone down upon two brilliantly coloured objects—a little tray of Canton enamel, and a book exquisitely bound in leather of the same Imperial yellow.

Sylvia swung her foot to and fro, watching the sparkle of the old paste buckle on her shoe. “Was that intentional? I mustn't startle him,” were the thoughts that passed swiftly through her mind. Aloud she said:

“Talking of jewels, Peter—of course you've been to The Luxe to see the latest sensation?”

Peter shook his head lazily.

“I didn't know there was a latest sensation.”

“Ignorant savage! Do you mean to tell me that you haven't heard about Mrs. Hendebakker, and her amazing jewel? Why, everybody's talking about it. You can't get a table at The Luxe for love or money, because everyone goes there to see Mrs. Hendebakker and the jewel come down to dinner.”

“And who is Mrs. Hendebakker?”

Peter had picked up the little enamelled tray, and was turning it so as to see the colours on its border. It looked small in his big brown hands. He was only mildly interested in what Sylvia was saying.

“Mrs. Hendebakker,” said Sylvia impressively, “is the wife of Virgil P. Hendebakker; and Virgil P. Hendebakker is
the
very latest American millionaire. They've got a magnificent private suite at The Luxe, but they always dine in the public dining-room. It's a most thrilling performance, I do assure you, Peter—exactly like Royalty coming in, which, I suppose, is why they do it. She comes in alone, with Virgil P. walking a yard behind her. She always wears dead black
and
the jewel, and everyone stops eating and turns round to look at her.”

“At her or at the jewel?” said Peter.

Sylvia laughed.

“Well, they're both worth looking at,” she said. “Some people admire her quite enormously. She's the South American type—very magnificent, you know—but the jewel is really ‘It'.”

“What is it?” said Peter.

He had stopped turning the little Canton tray, and was just staring at it. He had the oddest feeling that something was going to happen. He heard Sylvia say:

“That's just what everybody wants to know. No one has seen anything like it before, and nobody,
nobody
knows what it is.”

Peter spoke stiffly without looking up. He said:

“What is it like?”

“I've seen it, but I can't describe it. It isn't like anything but itself—that's what's so exciting. It's green, and blue, and red, and yellow; but it isn't an opal—everybody's quite sure of that. It's just itself, and perfectly, perfectly lovely.”

Something said, “The Annam Jewel”. The words seemed to come like a thunder-clap out of a clear sky. It was a moment before Peter realized that they had only sounded in his own mind. Sylvia was spreading her fingers to the fire, and saying lightly:

“By hook or by crook you must manage to see it, Peter. It's worth it.”

She got up as she spoke, and changed her position, coming nearer to Peter and sinking down in a graceful attitude on a bright-blue and gold pouffe.

“I don't know why we began to talk about jewels,” she said. “I know they don't interest men a bit; and, really and truly, I wanted to talk to you about something quite different.” She propped her chin on her hands, and looked at him appealingly. “You know, Peter, I really meant it when I said you were my oldest friend. I want to ask your advice. I—I'm in an awful hole.”

Peter came to himself with a little start. The enamel tray dropped on the floor. He bent to pick it up, and said, not quite in his natural voice, “What have you been doing, Sylvia?” after which he achieved quite a creditable smile.

Sylvia continued to gaze.

“You see, I feel I can tell you about it because—well, you haven't any money yourself, so you won't think I'm trying to borrow.” She paused, and added, “Will you?”

“Of course not,” said Peter warmly.

Sylvia repressed a desire to frown. Her manner became a shade more pathetic.

“It's really a dreadful hole. If—if I can't get out of it, I'm done.”

“How done?”

“Smashed,” said Sylvia. “Broke. Done in. Before the war I should have had to run away from my creditors and live in third-rate foreign hotels, but now I don't know what one does.”

Peter was frowning.

“Good lord, Sylvia, you don't mean it! You're not serious?”

“Peter!” Sylvia put out one hand and just touched his knee with it. “Of
course
I'm serious.” Her voice began to tremble a little. “I hate being serious, but one has to be when one's ruined, and—and—it comes to that.”

“I thought Moreland left you quite well off.”

“Everything's so dreadfully expensive,” sighed Sylvia.

“Even orchids,” said Peter rather grimly.

Sylvia's eyes did not fall.

“Yes, even orchids,” she said.

There was a silence—of consternation on Peter's part.

He got up, and stood leaning against the mantelpiece, frowning heavily.

“Look here, Sylvia,” he said, “what do you want me to do?”

“I don't know,” said Sylvia. “I just wanted to talk. It's—it's so lonely with no one to talk to.”

Her eyes filled with tears, but Peter was not looking at her.

“What's the good of talking?” he said. “Do you know what your assets are? Do you know what you owe?”

Sylvia shook her head.

“Then, my dear girl, the first thing to do is to find out. I can't be any earthly use to you unless you can give me some facts. But, look here, if you're in a mess, why don't you go to your father? Where is he?”