The Kang-He Vase/Chapter 8

was standing in the doorway of the parlour, behind me and Cherry, and as Miss Ellingham spoke I heard her let out a stifled exclamation which was not so much one of surprise as of assurance that what she had been expecting to hear was about to be told her. She moved aside, beckoning Miss Ellingham to enter. And Miss Ellingham, with a friendly nod, stepped in at once, and we all four turned into the parlour, where I made haste to hand our visitor a chair.

“Yes?” repeated Cherry. “You have been robbed?—and of something valuable—very valuable? Yes?”

He showed no surprise. He seemed, outwardly, as unconcerned and indifferent as if Miss Ellingham had uttered some platitude. He took a chair himself, opposite hers, and sat watching her, keenly. I could see, however, that her extraordinary presence impressed him as much as it had impressed me, and that already he was curious about her.

“Of very great value,” said Miss Ellingham. She glanced at Keziah and at me. “Ben I know already,” she continued, with a smile. “And Miss Heckitt will forgive me, I am sure, if I inflict my troubles upon her—the news of them will doubtless be all over the neighbourhood before”

“That entirely depends, ma’am!” interrupted Cherry, sharply. “It depends upon what you tell me. I know enough of Miss Heckitt and her brother to know that they won’t tell anything they ought not to tell. But—what have you to tell? What is it you think you have been robbed of?”

“Think!” exclaimed Miss Ellingham. “It’s not a case of thinking, if by thinking you imply—but I had better tell you my story in plain words. This afternoon, about an hour ago, I opened a cupboard which forms part of an old-fashioned bureau in my drawing-room, and immediately saw that the principal object kept in it had disappeared. I made an inquiry or two amongst my servants, and then came out to find you, as I had heard there was a Scotland Yard man in the village.”

“What was this principal object?” asked Cherry.

“A Kang-he vase,” replied Miss Ellingham. “Worth—I don’t know how much!”

“And what is a Kang-he vase?” inquired Cherry, quietly. “Something ancient?”

“Chinese pottery,” answered Miss Ellingham. “It is stuff, pottery, you know, made by the old Chinese potters about—oh, four thousand years ago! Collectors of it, who of course can only be very wealthy people, will give any price for it. Even damaged—badly-damaged specimens will fetch an enormous price. An absolutely perfect pair of Kang-he vases is, you may say, literally priceless, so I’m told. Of course, mine is merely one—not a pair. But I know that its worth—a great sum. A good many thousands of pounds, anyhow!”

“How big is this vase, ma’am?” asked Cherry. His manner had grown very business-like, and he put his questions rapidly. “Height?—width?”

“About twenty inches high, and ten across the top,” replied Miss Ellingham.

“When did you see it last?”

“Last Monday afternoon.”

“In the cupboard you mentioned just now?”

“Exactly! In that cupboard—in its usual place.

“Was the cupboard locked?—kept locked?”

“No!” replied Miss Ellingham, ruefully. “It wasn’t! But, of course, I never dreamed of this—I had no idea that anybody—say servants, or about here—would know anything of the value of the vase. No!—the cupboard wasn’t locked!”

“Nothing to do but open the door and take out the vase, eh?” observed Cherry. “Precisely! But I think it highly probable, Miss Ellingham, that other people than your servants and the folk about here may have heard of your vase. Now, how long have you had it, and where did you get it?”

“I’d better tell you its history,” said Miss Ellingham. “At least, as far as it’s known to me. I may tell you that I am a duly qualified medical practitioner—and pretty well known in the scientific world, too, if it’s worth while your knowing. Most of my work, however, has been done in India: I had fifteen years’ experience there. Now, during my last year there, I was called in to see the favourite daughter of a very rich Parsee merchant. I needn’t go into details, but I saved her life, undoubtedly—she had been given up by other doctors. Her father was almost extravagantly grateful to me, and in addition to forcing upon me a very generous fee for my services, he made me a present of this Kang-he vase. He had a wonderful collection of such things. This, of course, is an odd vase—one of a pair. If its fellow were in existence”

“Perhaps it is, ma’am,” interrupted Cherry, with a glance at Miss Ellingham which seemed to puzzle her. “However—did many people know of your acquiring this very rare and valuable object?”

“A few people in Bombay knew,” replied Miss Ellingham. “Personal friends, you know.”

“Just so,” said Cherry. “But—when you came home to England? Did your possession of it get out here?”

“Well, yes, I suppose it did,” admitted Miss Ellingham. “Yes! Some little time after I returned home and settled down here, at the Grange I was induced to give an interview to a representative of the Lady’s Circle—you know, the illustrated weekly—who wanted to know all about my work in India. I allowed him to photograph my more important art treasures—things I had brought home—and amongst them of course was the Kang-he vase.”

“Just so!” remarked Cherry. “And no doubt you told the interviewer how you acquired the vase? Exactly!—so that a good many people were put in possession of the fact that you had it! For the Lady’s Circle, I believe, has a very large circulation. By-the-bye, have you got a copy of the issue in which the interview and photographs appeared? Good!—I shall be obliged if you’ll let me have it. And now, ma’am, if you please, I’ll just walk round to your house with you, and you shall show me the cupboard and the drawing-room—and everything else.”

I gave Cherry’s elbow a nudge and he was quick to catch the meaning of it.

“And, if I may, I’ll bring Ben here with me,” he added. “Ben is by way of being my right-hand man just now, and he’s seen one thing to-day that I failed to see, so he may be useful.”

“Oh, let Ben come by all means!” agreed Miss Ellingham. She stayed behind a moment to say a few word to Keziah; then joined Cherry and me in the garden. “I have been wondering, Mr. Cherry,” she observed, as we set out towards the Grange, “if this robbery has any connection with the affair that took place there—at Gallowstree Point—the other night—Tuesday night. What do you think?” Cherry laughed.

“I shall be very much surprised—when we’ve ironed everything out—if it hasn’t, ma’am!” he answered. “I think it exceedingly likely.”

“That would seem to argue the existence of a scheme,” observed Miss Ellingham, meditatively. “A deeply-laid scheme, too!”

“Possibly of more than one scheme, ma’am,” assented Cherry. “It’s certainly significant that at or about the time of your loss one man should be murdered and another effect a mysterious disappearance! But this vase of yours—I’m getting interested in that. I gathered from what you said just now that these things were usually made in pairs. How was it that the Parsee merchant you mentioned hadn’t the fellow to the one he gave you?”

Miss Ellingham laughed—a little cynically.

“Ah!” she replied. “Grateful—pathetically grateful—as he was, I don’t think he’d have given me the vase if he’d still possessed its fellow! But that, once in his possession, had been stolen, some years before.”

“Oh!” said Cherry. “Stolen?—um! Are these things—this Kang-he ware—thought much of in their own country, now?”

“Thought much of!” exclaimed Miss Ellingham. “Bless your life and soul!—they’re regarded there as something sacred! It’s forbidden—by the Chinese Government—to take them out of the country. They are treasured in families for generation after generation. Lives have been lost in defence of them—yes, and in trying to get hold of them. I remember,” she added, with a queer little laugh, “that when I was given my vase, and showed it to a friend of mine in Bombay, he said that he wouldn’t have such a thing in his house for a fortune, and that I’d better not let any Chinaman know I’d got it! But—I’m not given to cultivating panics.”

“And you reflected, doubtless, that you were coming home, to a country where people don’t cut throats or break into houses for the sake of a bit of pottery!” observed Cherry. “Still, ma’am, there is one thing you forgot!”

“What?” asked Miss Ellingham.

“There are Chinamen in England!—plenty of ’em,” replied Cherry. “And—you advertised your possession of this sacred object pretty well if you told its story to an interviewer and permitted photographs of it to appear in a widely-circulated journal!”

Miss Ellingham shook her head.

“I don’t think Chinese laundry men and opium-den keepers in Limehouse are very likely to take in the Lady’s Circle, Mr. Cherry,” she observed. “No—I don’t think my vase has been stolen by a Chinaman!”

“Chinamen have long arms!” said Cherry, with a knowing laugh. “I’ve heard of them stretching all the way from Pekin to Piccadilly—and getting a tight hold at the end of the stretch, too, ma’am. However—no doubt much remains to be discovered!”

This profound remark, at which both my companions laughed, brought us to the door of the Grange. Carsie, the butler, chanced to be there as we entered, and Miss Ellingham at once turned to him.

“Heard anything, or discovered anything, Carsie?” she inquired.

“Nothing, ma’am,” replied Carsie. “I have made every inquiry in and around the house, and have not succeeded in getting any information.”

“Of what sort?” asked Cherry, sharply.

Carsie gave his questioner a quiet look.

“As to any strange person having been seen about between Monday noon and to-day,” he replied, in his subdued level accents. “No such person has been noticed, by any of the servants, indoor or outdoor, during the daytime at any rate.”

“And as to night, of course you can’t say,” remarked Cherry, off-handedly. He turned away from the butler, and looked at Miss Ellingham. “I should like to see the drawing-room,” he said.

Miss Ellingham led us to a big room at the far end of the house; a great, square room with windows looking east and west, and a French window looking south and opening on the walled garden which lay between the house and the sea. It was to my eyes a very fine and beautiful room, filled with picturesque furniture, and lavishly decorated with ornaments, water-colour drawings, and finely bound books in small cases. But Cherry gave no more than a glance at the general effect: his eyes turned straight to a bureau which stood on one side of the room and had in its upper part a small, square cupboard fronted by an elaborately carved door. Miss Ellingham, too, went straight to this cupboard and laid a hand on the door. And she had no sooner thrown it open and looked inside than she let out a sharp exclamation.

“Oh, really!” she said. “I—I never noticed that! I’ve been robbed of more than the Kang-he vase! My two little Hindu gods are gone! Dear me!—this”

“I think you had better examine everything, ma’am,” remarked Cherry. “You may find that still more has been stolen. But now just tell me about this cupboard—it has, I see, two shelves in it.”

“Yes, and the Kang-he vase stood on that, and on the other, in the background, there were two quaint little figures, statuettes, of Hindu gods,” said Miss Ellingham. “There were all three here on Monday afternoon”

“And now they’re not!” said Cherry, peering into the gloom of the cupboard. “Very well, ma’am!—now just let me have a look at things.”

He was very speedy in what he did, and he reminded me, somehow, of a hound trying to pick up a scent. … He looked all over the bureau; he looked at the big, thick rug which lay before it, he looked over the carpet. Then he crossed the room, examined the French window, opened it, walked out, and disappeared in the garden. But within a few minutes he was back again in the drawing-room.

“I can show you exactly how your property was stolen, Miss Ellingham,” he said, with an air of something very closely resembling cheerfulness. “To begin with, look at the fastening of your French window—a simple lock of the most elementary description, which any even half-trained cracksman would manipulate in two seconds with the greatest ease. Your burglar came in through that window, of course, and went straight to the cupboard in the bureau. He brought with him a bag, wherein to place the loot. The bag was fitted with those fine shavings that they use in crockery shops, to pack their wares in—here you are!—there are stray odds and ends of those shavings in this rug, strewed about amongst the long, rough hair of which it’s made. You couldn’t have a simpler case than this!—the man had nothing to do but walk in, help himself, and go off by the way he came!”

“And yet,” observed Miss Ellingham, quietly, “Carsie assures me that there has never been any occasion on which he has not personally seen that that French window was locked at night and still locked when he examined it next morning.”

“Just so!” said Cherry, smiling. “But the thief probably turned the key in it again when he left, to make you think the robbery was effected from inside—by someone in your house. The instrument he used to turn the key one way, to admit him, could be used just as effectually to turn it the other—when he’d got what he wanted. Oh, a very easy burglary! But talking of people inside your house—are you sure of all your servants? Your butler, now? It’s best to be brutally plain, ma’am.”

“I had the highest references with Carsie,” replied Miss Ellingham. “I don’t think there’s the slightest doubt of his absolute honesty and respectability. As for my Hindu man-servant, Mandhu Khan, he has been in my service twelve years, and is devoted to me. As to the rest—well I don’t suppose my cook, nor my parlourmaid, nor my housemaids and scullery-maids, or the boy who cleans knives and boots or the two gardeners, or my chauffeur would, any one of them, covet what to them would look like nothing but an ornamental jar and a couple of little stone figures”

“You never know however humble a catspaw mayn’t be useful to a clever and unscrupulous criminal, ma’am,” interrupted Cherry, with a laugh. “And there’s one thing you can make sure of in connection with your affair. This is no common theft! However—can you give me a copy of the Lady’s Circle in which the interview and pictures figure?”

Miss Ellingham found him the promised copy, and presently he and I went away. When we were out of the grounds he began to turn over the paper, and suddenly he laughed, cynically.

“Ben!” he said. “You’d think from her looks that the good lady we’ve just left was about as clever as they make ’em!—and so, no doubt, she is, in her own line. But she’s simple, my lad, she’s simple! Knowing all she does about the something-like-superstitious value attached by the Chinese to these Kang-he stuff, she goes and advertises her possession of a fine specimen of it—just look here, at these pictures! Photographs of the vase itself! Photographs of the cupboard in which the vase is kept—door open, showing vase! Photograph of the drawing-room, showing exact situation of bureau! Lord!—why, the thief had all his work done for him in advance!—he’d nothing to do but slip in and lay his hands on the thing!”

He left me, abruptly, at the end of our lane, and went off to his lodging muttering over the Lady’s Circle and its pictures of Miss Ellingham and her treasures. But late that night, when Keziah and I were thinking of going to bed, in he walked and dropped into a chair between us, as we sat on either side of the parlour fire.

“Miss Heckitt!” he said, abruptly. “You know me, by now, I hope! I’ll take great care of him—but I must have what I want. And that’s that Ben should go to London with me, first thing to-morrow morning.”