An Amiable Charlatan/Chapter 5

The moment I opened my paper the next morning the very announcement I had dreaded to find was there in large type! I read the particulars breathlessly:

The burglary had taken place at the house of a Mr. and Mrs. Samuelson, in Wood Grove, Hampstead. It appeared that a dinner party had been given at the house during the evening, which had engaged the attention of the whole of the staff of four servants, and that for an hour or so the upper premises were untenanted.

Upon retiring to rest Mrs. Samuelson found that her jewel case and the whole of her jewelry, except what she was wearing, had been stolen. As no arrest had yet been made the references to the affair were naturally guarded. The paragraph even concluded without the usual formula as to the police having a clew. On the whole, I put the paper down with a slight feeling of relief. I felt that it might have been worse.

I breakfasted at nine o'clock, after having read the announcement through again, trying to see whether there was any possible connection between it and my friends. Then I lit a pipe and sat down to wait until I could ring up 3771A Gerrard. About ten o'clock, however, my own telephone bell rang, and I was informed that a gentleman who desired to see me was waiting below. I told the man to send him up, and in a moment or two there was a knock at my door. In response to my invitation to enter a short, dark, Jewish-looking person, with olive complexion, shiny black hair and black mustache, presented himself. He carried a very immaculate silk hat and was dressed with great neatness. He had the air, however, of a man who is suffering from some agitation.

"Mr. Walmsley, I believe?" he asked. "Mr. Paul Walmsley?"

"That is my name."

"Know you by hearsay quite well, sir," my visitor assured me, with a flash of his white teeth. "Very glad to meet you indeed. I have done business once or twice with your sister, the Countess of Aynesley—business in curios. You know my place, I dare say, in St. James Street. My name is Samuelson." I could scarcely repress a little start, which he was quick to notice. "Perhaps you've been reading about that affair at my house last night?" he asked.

"That is precisely what I have been doing," I admitted. "Please sit down, Mr. Samuelson." I wheeled an easy-chair up for him and placed a box of cigarettes at his elbow. "Quite a mysterious affair!" I continued. "It is almost the first burglary I have ever read of in which the police have not been said to possess a clew."

Mr. Samuelson, who seemed gratified by his reception, lit a cigarette and crossed his legs, displaying a very nice pair of patent boots, with gray suède tops.

"It is a very queer affair, indeed," he told me confidentially. "The police have been taking a lot of trouble about it, and a very intelligent sort of fellow from Scotland Yard has been in and out of the house ever since."

"Any clew at all?" I asked.

"Rather hard to say," Mr. Samuelson replied. "You'll be wondering what I've come to see you about. Well, I'll just explain. Of course there's always the chance that some one may have entered the house while we were all at dinner—crept upstairs quietly and got away with the jewel case; but this Johnny I was telling you about, from Scotland Yard, seems to have got hold of a theory that has rather knocked me of a heap. Very delicate matter," Mr. Samuelson continued, "as you will understand when I tell you that he thinks it may have been one of my guests who was in the show."

"Seems a little far-fetched to me," I remarked; "but one never knows."

"You see," Mr. Samuelson explained, "there's no back exit from my house without climbing walls and that sort of thing, and it happened to be a particularly light evening, as you may remember. There are policemen at both ends of the road, who seem unusually confident that no one carrying a parcel of any sort passed at anything like the time when the thing was probably done. This is where the Johnny from Scotland Yard comes in. He has got the idea into his head that the jewels might have been taken away in the carriage of one of my guests."

"Well," I remarked, "I should have thought you would have been the best judge as to the probability of that. You hadn't any strangers with you, I suppose?"

"Only two," Mr. Samuelson replied. "We were ten, altogether," he went on, counting upon his fingers—"and a very nice little party too. First of all my wife and myself. Then Mr. and Mrs. Max Solomon—Solomon, the great fruiterers in Covent Garden, you know; man worth a quarter of a million of money and a distant connection of my wife—very distant, worse luck! Then there was Mr. Sidney Hollingworth, a young man in my office; but he doesn't count, because he stayed on chatting with me about business after the others had gone, and he was with us when the theft was discovered. Then there was my wife's widowed sister, Mrs. Rosenthal. We can leave her out. That's six. Then there was Alderman Sir Henry Dabbs and his wife. You may know the name—large portmanteau manufacturers in Spitalfields and certain to be Lord Mayor before long. His wife was wearing jewelry herself last night worth, I should say, from twenty to twenty-five thousand pounds; so my wife's little bit wouldn't do them much good, eh?"

"It certainly doesn't seem like it," I admitted. "So far, your list of guests seems to have been entirely reputable."

"The only two left," Mr. Samuelson concluded, "are an American gentleman and his daughter, a Mr. and Miss Parker whom we met on the train coming up from Brighton—a very delightful gentleman and most popular he was with all of us. The young lady, too, was perfectly charming. To hear him talk I should have put him down myself as a man worth all the money he needed, and more; and the young lady had got that trick of wearing her clothes and talking as though she were born a princess. Real style, I should have said—both of them. Still, the fact remains that they came in a motor car with two men-servants; that it waited for them; and that this detective from Scotland Yard—Mr. Cullen, I think his name is—has fairly got his knife into them."

"And now," I remarked, smiling, "you are perhaps coming to the object of your visit to me?"

"Exactly!" Mr. Samuelson admitted. "The fact of it is that in the course of conversation your name was mentioned. I forget exactly how it cropped up, but it did crop up. Mr. Parker, it seems, has the privilege of your acquaintance—at any rate he claims it. Now if his claim is a just one, and if you can tell me Mr. Parker is a friend of yours—why, that ends the matter, so far as I am concerned. I am not going to have my guests worried and annoyed by detectives for the sake of a handful of jewels. I thank goodness I can afford to lose them, if they must be lost, and I can replace them this afternoon without feeling it. Now you know where we are, Mr. Walmsley. You understand exactly why I have come to see you, eh?"

I pressed another cigarette upon him and lit one myself.

"I do understand, Mr. Samuelson," I told him, "and I appreciate your visit very much indeed. I am exceedingly glad you came. Mr. Parker told you the truth. He is a gentleman for whom I have the utmost respect and esteem. I consider his daughter, too, one of the most charming young ladies I have ever met. I am planning to give a dinner party, within the course of the next few evenings, purposely to introduce them to some of my friends with whom they are as yet unacquainted; and I am hoping that almost immediately afterward they will be staying with my sister at her place down in Suffolk."

"With the Countess of Aynesley?" Mr. Samuelson said slowly.

"Certainly!" I agreed. "I am quite sure my sister will be as charmed with them as I and many other of my friends are."

Mr. Samuelson rose to his feet, brushed the cigarette ash from his trousers and took up his hat.

"Mr. Walmsley," he said, holding out his hand, "I am glad I came. You have treated me frankly and in a most gentlemanly manner. I can assure you I appreciate it. Not under any circumstances would I allow friends of yours to be irritated by the indiscriminate inquiries of detectives. The jewels can go hang, sir!"

He shook hands with me and permitted me to show him out, after which he marched down the corridor, humming gayly to himself, determined to have me understand that a trifling loss of two thousand pounds' worth of jewelry was in reality nothing. I stood for some time with my back to the fire, smoking thoughtfully. Then the telephone bell rang. My gloomier reflections were at once forgotten. It was Eve who spoke.

"Good morning, Mr. Walmsley!"

"Good morning, Miss Eve!" I replied.

"Are you very busy this morning?" she asked.

"Nothing in the world to do!" I answered promptly.

"Then please come round," she directed, ringing off almost at once.

I was there in ten minutes. The hall porter, who had not yet completed his morning toilet, conducted me upstairs. In the morning sunlight the whole appearance of the place seemed shabbier and dirtier than ever. Inside the sitting room, however, everything was different. My own flowers had apparently been supplemented by many others. Mr. Parker, as pink-and-white as usual, looking the very picture of content and good digestion, was smoking a large cigar and reading a newspaper. Eve was seated at the writing table, but she swung round at my entrance and held out both her hands.

"The flowers are lovely!" she murmured. "Do go and sit down—and talk to daddy while I finish this letter."

I shook hands with Mr. Parker. He laid down the newspaper and smiled at me.

"A pleasant dinner last night, I trust?" I inquired.

His eyes twinkled.

"Most humorous affair!" he declared. "I wouldn't have missed it for worlds."

"From a business point of view" I began dryly.

Mr. Parker shook his head.

"Mr. Samuelson's jewels," he complained, "were like his wines, all sparkle and outside—no body to them. Two thousand pounds indeed! Why, we shall be lucky if we clear four hundred!" The man's coolness absolutely took me aback. For a moment I simply stared at him. "He'll be round to see you this morning, sometime, about my character," Mr. Parker proceeded.

"He has already paid me a visit," I said grimly. "He was round at ten o'clock this morning."

"You don't say!" Mr. Parker murmured.

He looked at me hopefully. His expression was like nothing else but the wistful smile of a fat boy expecting good news.

"Oh, of course I told him the usual thing!" I admitted. "I told him you were a close personal friend; a sort of amateur millionaire; a person of the highest respectability—everything you ought to be, in fact. He went away perfectly satisfied and determined to have nothing to do with the guest theory."

Mr. Parker patted me on the shoulder.

"My boy," he said, "I knew I could rely on you."

"I propose," I continued, elaborating upon the scheme that had come into my head on the way, "to do more than this for you. I am asking some friends to dine to-night whom I wish you and your daughter to meet. You will then be able to refer to other reputable acquaintances in London besides myself."

Eve turned round in her chair to listen. Mr. Parker, whose first expression had been one of unfeigned delight, suddenly paused.

"My boy," he expostulated, "I don't want to take advantage of you. Do you think it's quite playing the game on your friends to introduce to them two people like ourselves? You know what it means."

"I know perfectly well," I agreed; "but, as some day or other I'm going to marry Eve, it seems to me the thing might as well be done."

They were both perfectly silent for several moments. They looked at each other. There were questions in his face—other things in hers. I strolled across to the window.

"If you'd like to talk it over," I suggested, "don't mind me. All the same I insist upon the party."

"It's uncommonly kind of you, sure!" Mr. Parker said thoughtfully. "The more I think it over, the more I feel impressed by it; but, do you know, there's something about the proposition I can't quite cotton to! Seems to me you've some little scheme of your own at the back of your head. You haven't got it in your mind, have you, that you're sort of putting us on our honor?"

"I have no ulterior motive at all," I declared mendaciously.

Eve rose to her feet and came across to me. She was wearing a charming morning gown of some light blue material, with large buttons, tight- fitting, alluring; and there was a little quiver of her lips, a provocative gleam in her eyes, which I found perfectly maddening.

"I think we won't come, thank you," she decided.

"Why not?"

"You see," she explained, "I am rather afraid. We might get you into no end of trouble with some of your most particular friends. There are one or two people, you know, in London, especially among the Americans, who might say the unkindest things about us."

"No one, my dear Eve," I assured her stolidly, "shall say anything to me or to any one else about my future wife."

For a moment her expression was almost hopeless. She shook her head.

"I don't know what to do with him, daddy!" she exclaimed, turning toward her father in despair.

"I'm afraid you'll have to marry him if he goes on," Mr. Parker declared gloomily; "that is," he added, as though he had suddenly perceived a ray of hope about the matter, "unless we should by any chance get into trouble first."

"Meantime," I ventured, "we will dine at eight o'clock at the Milan."

Mr. Parker groaned.

"At the Milan!" he echoed. "Worse and worse! We shall be recognized for certain! There's a man lives there whom I did out of a hundred pounds— just a little variation of the confidence trick. Nothing he can get hold of, you understand; but he knows very well that I had him. Look here, Walmsley, be reasonable! Hadn't you better drop this chivalrous scheme of yours, young fellow?"

"The dinner is a fixture," I replied firmly. "Can I borrow Miss Eve, please? I want to take her for a motor ride."

"You cannot, sir," Mr. Parker told me. "Eve has a little business of her own—or, rather, mine—to attend to this morning."

"You are not going to let her run any more risks, are you?"

Mr. Parker frowned at me.

"Look here, young man," he said; "she is my daughter, remember! I am looking after her for the present. You leave that to me."

Eve touched me on the arm.

"Really, I am busy to-day," she assured me. "I have to do something for daddy this morning—something quite harmless; and this afternoon I have to go to my dressmaker's. We'll come at eight o'clock."

"We'll come on this condition," Mr. Parker suddenly determined: "My name is getting a little too well known, and it isn't my own, anyway. We'll come as Mr. and Miss Bundercombe or not at all."

"Why on earth Bundercombe?" I demanded.

"For the reason I have just stated," Mr. Parker said obstinately. "Parker isn't my name at all; and, between you and me, I think I have made it a bit notorious. Now there is a Mr. Bundercombe and his daughter, who live out in a far-western State of America, who've never been out of their own country, and who are never likely to set foot on this side. She's a pretty little girl—just like Eve might be; and he's a big, handsome fellow—just like me. So we'll borrow their names if you don't mind."

"You can come without a name at all, so long as you come," was my final decision as I took my leave.