Page:The Secret of Chimneys - 1987.djvu/22

 Hence King’s Messengers and all that. In mediaeval days you gave a fellow a signet ring as a sort of Open Sesame. ‘The King’s Ring! Pass, my Lord!’ And usually it was the other fellow who had stolen it. I always wonder why some bright lad never hit on the expedient of copying the ring—making a dozen or so, and selling them at a hundred ducats apiece. They seem to have had no initiative in the Middle Ages.”

Jimmy yawned.

“My remarks on the Middle Ages don’t seem to amuse you. Let us get back to Count Stylptitch. From France to England via Africa seems a bit thick even for a diplomatic personage. If he merely wanted to ensure that you should get a thousand pounds he could have left it you in his will. Thank God neither you nor I are too proud to accept a legacy! Stylptitch must have been balmy.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?”

Anthony frowned and continued his pacing.

“Have you read the thing at all?” he asked suddenly.

“Read what?”

“The manuscript.”

“Good Lord, no. What do you think I want to read a thing of that kind for?”

Anthony smiled.

“I just wondered, that’s all. You know a lot of trouble has been caused by Memoirs. Indiscreet revelations, that sort of thing. People who have been close as an oyster all their lives seem positively to relish causing trouble when they themselves shall be comfortably dead. It gives them a kind of malicious glee. Jimmy, what sort of a man was Count Stylptitch? You met him and talked to him, and you're a pretty good judge of raw human nature. Could you imagine him being a vindictive old devil?”

Jimmy shook his head.

“It’s difficult to tell. You see, that first night he was distinctly canned, and the next day he was just a high-toned old boy with the most beautiful manners overwhelming me with compliments till I didn’t know where to look.”

“And he didn’t say anything interesting when he was drunk?”

Jimmy cast his mind back, wrinkling his brows as he did so.

“He said he knew where the Koh-i-noor was,” he volunteered doubtfully.