II
THE FREWIN MINIATURES.
ALTHOUGH, mind you, Lady
Molly's methods in connexion with the Ninescore
mystery were not altogether approved of at the Yard,
nevertheless, her shrewdness and ingenuity in the
matter were so undoubted that they earned for her a
reputation, then and there, which placed her in the
foremost rank of the force. And presently, when
everyone — public and police alike — were
set by the ears over the Frewin miniatures, and a
reward of 1,000 guineas was offered for information
that would lead to the apprehension of the thief, the
chief, of his own accord and without any hesitation,
offered the job to her.
I don't know much about so-called
works of art myself, but you can't be in the detective
force, female or otherwise, without knowing something
of the value of most things, and I don't think that
Mr. Frewin put an excessive value on his Englehearts
when he stated that they were worth £10,000.
There were eight of them, all on ivory, about three to
four inches high, and they were said to be the most
perfect specimens of their kind. Mr. Frewin himself
had had an offer for them, less than two years ago, of
200,000 francs from the trustees of the
Louvre, which offer, mind you, he had refused. I dare
say you know that he was an immensely wealthy man, a
great collector himself, as well as dealer, and that
several of the most unique and most highly-priced
works of art found their way into his private
collection. Among them, of course, the Engleheart
miniatures were the most noteworthy.
For some time before his death Mr.
Frewin had been a great invalid, and for over two
years he had not been able to go beyond the boundary
of his charming property, Blatchley House, near
Brighton.
There is a sad story in connexion with
the serious illness of Mr. Frewin — an illness
which, if you remember, has since resulted in the poor
old gentleman's death. He had an only son, a young man
on whom the old art-dealer had lavished all the
education and, subsequently, all the social advantages
which money could give. The boy was exceptionally
good-looking, and had inherited from his mother a
great charm of manner which made him very popular. The
Honourable Mrs. Frewin is the daughter of an English
peer, more endowed with physical attributes than with
worldly goods. Besides that, she is an exceptionally
beautiful woman, has a glorious voice, is a fine
violinist, and is no mean watercolour artist, having
more than once exhibited at the Royal Academy.
Unfortunately, at one time, young
Frewin had got into very bad company, made many debts,
some of which were quite unavowable, and there were
rumours current at the time to the effect that had the
police got wind of certain transactions in connexion
with a brother officer's cheque, a very unpleasant
prosecution would have followed. Be that as it
may, young Lionel Frewin had to quit his regiment, and
presently he went off to Canada, where he is supposed
to have gone in for farming. According to the story
related by some of the servants at Blatchley House,
there were violent scenes between father and son
before the former consented to pay some of the young
spendthrift's most pressing debts, and then find the
further sum of money which was to enable young Frewin
to commence a new life in the colonies.
Mrs. Frewin, of course, took the
matter very much to heart. She was a dainty, refined,
artistic creature, who idolized her only son, but she
had evidently no influence whatever over her husband,
who, in common with certain English families of Jewish
extraction, had an extraordinary hardness of character
where the integrity of his own business fame was
concerned. He absolutely never forgave his son what he
considered a slur cast upon his name by the young
spendthrift; he packed him off to Canada, and openly
told him that he was to expect nothing further from
him. All the Frewin money and the priceless art
collection would be left by will to a nephew, James
Hyam, whose honour and general conduct had always been
beyond reproach.
That Mr. Frewin really took his
hitherto idolized son's defalcations very much to
heart was shown by the fact that the poor old man's
health completely broke down after that. He had an
apoplectic fit, and, although he somewhat recovered,
he always remained an invalid.
His eyesight and brain power were
distinctly enfeebled, and about nine months ago he had
a renewed seizure, which resulted in paralysis first,
and subsequently in his death. The greatest, if not
the only, joy the poor
old man had during the two years which he spent pinned
to an invalid chair, was his art collection. Blatchley
House was a perfect art museum, and the invalid would
have his chair wheeled up and down the great hall and
along the rooms where his pictures and china and,
above all, where his priceless miniatures were stored.
He took an enormous pride in these, and it was, I
think, with a view to brightening him up a little that
Mrs. Frewin invited Monsieur de Colinville — who
had always been a great friend of her husband —
to come and stay at Blatchley. Of course, there is no
greater connoisseur of art anywhere than that
distinguished Frenchman, and it was through him that
the celebrated offer of £8,000 was made by the
Louvre for the Engleheart miniatures.
Though, of course, the invalid
declined the offer, he took a great pleasure and pride
in the fact that it had been made, as, in addition to
Monsieur de Colinville himself, several members of the
committee of art advisers to the Louvre came over from
Paris in order to try and persuade Mr. Frewin to sell
his unique treasures.
However, the invalid was obdurate
about that. He was not in want of money, and the
celebrated Frewin art collection would go intact to
his widow for her life, and then to his heir, Mr.
James Hyam, a great connoisseur himself, and art
dealer of St. Petersburg and London.
It was really a merciful dispensation
of Providence that the old man never knew of the
disappearance of his valued miniatures. By the time
that extraordinary mystery had come to light he was
dead.
On the evening of January the 14th, at
half-past eight, Mr. Frewin had a third paralytic
seizure, from
which he never recovered. His valet, Kennet, and his
two nurses were with him at the time, and Mrs. Frewin,
quickly apprised of the terrible event, flew to his
bedside, whilst the motor was at once dispatched for
the doctor. About an hour or two later the dying man
seemed to rally somewhat, but he appeared very
restless and agitated, and his eyes were roaming
anxiously about the room.
"I expect it is his precious
miniatures he wants," said Nurse Dawson. "He is always
quiet when he can play with them."
She reached for the large leather case
which contained the priceless art treasures, and,
opening it, placed it on the bed beside the patient.
Mr. Frewin, however, was obviously too near death to
care even for his favourite toy. He fingered the
miniatures with trembling hands for a few moments, and
then sank back exhausted on the pillows.
"He is dying," said the doctor
quietly, turning to Mrs. Frewin.
"I have something to say to him," she
then said. "Can I remain alone with him for a few
minutes?"
"Certainly," said the doctor, as he
himself discreetly retired; "but I think one of the
nurses had better remain within earshot."
Nurse Dawson, it appeared, remained
within earshot to some purpose, for she overheard what
Mrs. Frewin was saying to her dying husband.
"It is about Lionel — your only
son," she said. "Can you understand what I say?"
The sick man nodded.
"You remember that he is in Brighton,
staying with
Alicia. I can go and fetch him in the motor if you
will consent to see him."
Again the dying man nodded. I suppose
Mrs. Frewin took this to mean acquiescence, for the
next moment she rang for John Chipps, the butler, and
gave him instructions to order her motor at once. She
then kissed the patient on the forehead and prepared
to leave the room; but just before she did so her eyes
lighted on the case of miniatures, and she said to
Kennet, the valet:—
"Give these to Chipps, and tell him to
put them in the library."
She then went to put on her furs
preparatory to going out. When she was quite ready she
met Chipps on the landing, who had just come up to
tell her that the motor was at the door. He had in his
hand the case of miniatures which Kennet had given
him.
"Put the case on the library table,
Chipps, when you go down," she said.
"Yes, madam," he replied.
He followed her downstairs, then
slipped into the library, put the case on the table as
he had been directed, after which he saw his mistress
into the motor, and finally closed the front door.
2
ABOUT an hour later Mrs.
Frewin came back, but without her son. It transpired
afterwards that the young man was more vindictive than
his father; he refused to go to the tatter's bedside
in order to be reconciled at the eleventh hour to a
man who then had no longer either his wits or
his physical senses about him. However, the dying man
was spared the knowledge of his son's irreconcilable
conduct, for, after a long and wearisome night passed
in a state of coma, he died at about 6.0 a.m.
It was quite late the following
afternoon when Mrs. Frewin suddenly recollected the
case of miniatures, which should have been locked in
their accustomed cabinet. She strolled leisurely into
the library — she was very fatigued and worn out
with the long vigil and the sorrow and anxiety she had
just gone through. A quarter of an hour later John
Chipps found her in the same room, sitting dazed and
almost fainting in an armchair. In response to the old
butler's anxious query, she murmured:
"The miniatures — where are
they?"
Scared at the abruptness of the query
and at his mistress's changed tone of voice, Chipps
gazed quickly around him.
"You told me to put them on the table,
ma'am," he murmured, "and I did so. They certainly
don't seem to be in the room now ——" he
added, with a sudden feeling of terror.
"Run and ask one of the nurses at once
if the case was taken up to Mr. Frewin's room during
the night?"
Chipps, needless to say, did not wait
to be told twice. He was beginning to feel very
anxious. He spoke to Kennet and also to the two
nurses, and asked them if, by any chance, the
miniatures were in the late master's room. To this
Kennet and the nurses replied in the negative. The
last they had seen of the miniatures was when Chipps
took them from the valet and followed his mistress
downstairs with the case in his hands.
The poor old butler was in despair;
the cook was in
hysterics, and consternation reigned throughout the
house. The disappearance of the miniatures caused
almost a greater excitement than the death of the
master, who had been a dying man so long that he was
almost a stranger to the servants at Blatchley.
Mrs. Frewin was the first to recover
her presence of mind.
"Send a motor at once to the police
station at Brighton," she said, very calmly, as soon
as she completely realized that the miniatures were
nowhere to be found. "It is my duty to see that this
matter is thoroughly gone into at once."
Within half an hour of the discovery
of the theft Detective Inspector Hankin and Police
Constable McLeod had both arrived from Brighton,
having availed themselves of Mrs. Frewin's motor. They
are shrewd men, both of them, and it did not take them
many minutes before they had made up their minds how
the robbery had taken place. By whom it was done was
quite another matter, and would take some time and
some ingenuity to find out.
What Detective Inspector Hankin had
gathered was this: While John Chipps saw his mistress
into the motor the front door of the house had, of
necessity, been left wide open. The motor then made a
start, but after a few paces it stopped, and Mrs.
Frewin put her head out of the window and shouted to
Chipps some instructions with regard to the nurses'
evening collation, which, in view of Mr. Frewin's
state, she feared might be forgotten. Chipps, being an
elderly man and a little deaf, did not hear her voice
distinctly, so he ran up to the motor, and she
repeated her instructions to him. In Inspector
Hankin's mind there was no doubt that the
thief, who must have been hanging about the shrubbery
that evening, took that opportunity to sneak into the
house, then to hide himself in a convenient spot until
he could find an opportunity for the robbery which he
had in view.
The butler declared that, when he
returned, he saw nothing unusual. He had only been
gone a little over a minute; he then fastened and
bolted the front door, and, according to his usual
custom, he put up all the shutters of the ground-floor
windows, including, of course, those in the library.
He had no light with him when he did this accustomed
round, for, of course he knew his way well enough in
the dark, and the electric chandelier in the hall gave
him what light he wanted.
While he was putting up the shutters
Chipps was giving no particular thought to the
miniatures, but, strangely enough, he seems to have
thought of them about an hour later, when most of the
servants had gone to bed and he was waiting up for his
mistress. He then, quite casually, and almost
absent-mindedly, when crossing the hall, turned the
key of the library door, thus locking it from the
outside.
Of course, throughout all this we must
remember that Blatchley House was not in its normal
state that night, since its master was actually dying
in a room on the floor above the library. The two
nurses and Kennet, the valet, were all awake and with
him during the whole of that night. Kennet certainly
was in and out of the room several times, having to
run down and fetch various things required by the
doctor, or the nurses. In order to do this he did not
use the principal staircase, nor did he have to cross
the hall, but, as far as the upper landing
and the secondary stairs were concerned, he certainly
had not noticed anything unusual or suspicious; whilst
when Mrs. Frewin came home she went straight-up to the
first floor and certainly noticed nothing in any way
to arouse her suspicions. But, of course, this meant
very little, as she certainly must have been too upset
and agitated to see anything.
The servants were not apprised of the
death of their master until after their breakfast In
the meanwhile Emily, the housemaid, had been in, as
usual, to "do" the library. She distinctly noticed,
when she first went in, that none of the shutters were
up and that one of the windows was open. She thought
at the time that someone must have been in the room
before her, and meant to ask Chipps about it, when the
news of the master's death drove all thoughts of open
windows from her mind. Strangely enough, when Hankin
questioned her more closely about it, and she had had
time to recollect everything more clearly, she made
the extraordinary statement that she certainly had
noticed that the door of the library was locked on the
outside when she first went into the room, the key
being in the lock.
"Then, didn't it strike you as very
funny," asked Hankin, "that the door was locked on the
outside, and yet that the shutters were unbarred and
one of the windows was open?"
"Yes, I did seem to think of that,"
replied Emily, with that pleasant vagueness peculiar
to her class; "but then, the room did not look like
burglars — it was quite tidy, just as it had been
left last night, and burglars always seem to leave a
great mess behind, else I should have noticed," she
added, with offended dignity
"But did you not see that the
miniatures were not in their usual place?"
"Oh, they often wasn't in the cabinet,
as the master used to ask for them sometimes to be
brought to his room."
That was, of course, indisputable. It
was clearly evident that the burglar had had plenty of
chances to make good his escape. You see, the actual
time when the miscreant must have sneaked into the
room had now been narrowed down to about an hour and a
half, between the time when Mrs. Frewin finally left
in her motor to about an hour later, when Chipps
turned the key in the door of the library and thus
undoubtedly locked the thief in. At what precise time
of the night he effected his escape could not anyhow
be ascertained. It must have been after Mrs. Frewin
came back again, as Hankin held that she or her
chauffeur would have noticed that one of the library
windows was open. This opinion was not shared by
Elliott from the Yard, who helped in the investigation
of this mysterious crime, as Mrs. Frewin was certainly
very agitated and upset that evening, and her powers
of perception would necessarily be blunted. As for the
chauffeur, we all know that the strong headlights on a
motor are so dazzling that nothing can be seen outside
their blinding circle of light.
Be that as it may, it remained
doubtful when the thief made good his escape. It was
easy enough to effect, and, as there is a square of
flagstones in front of the main door and just below
the library windows, the thief left not the slightest
trace of footprints, whilst the drop from the window
is less than eight feet.
What was strange in the whole case,
and struck Detective Hankin immediately, was the fact
that the
burglar, whoever he was, must have known a great deal
about the house and its ways. He also must have had a
definite purpose in his mind not usually to be found
in the brain of a common housebreaker. He must have
meant to steal the miniatures and nothing else, since
he made his way straight to the library, and, having
secured the booty, at once made good his escape
without trying to get any other article which could
more easily be disposed of than works of art.
You may imagine, therefore, how
delicate a task now confronted Inspector Hankin. You
see, he had questioned everyone in the house,
including Mr. Frewin's valet and nurses, and from them
he casually heard of Mrs. Frewin's parting words to
her dying husband, and of her mention of the
scapegrace son, who was evidently in the immediate
neighbourhood, and whom she wished to come and see his
father. Mrs. Frewin, closely questioned by the
detective, admitted that her son was staying in
Brighton, and that she saw him that very evening.
"Mr. Lionel Frewin is staying at the
Metropole Hotel," she said coldly, "and he was dining
with my sister, Lady Steyne, last night. He was in the
house at Sussex Square when I arrived in my motor,"
she added hastily, guessing, perhaps, the unavowed
suspicion which had arisen in Hankin's mind, "and he
was still there when I left. I drove home very fast,
naturally, as my husband's condition was known to me
to be quite hopeless, and that he was not expected to
live more than perhaps a few hours. We covered the
seven miles between this house and that of my sister
in less than a quarter of an hour."
This statement of Mrs. Frewin's was,
if you remember, fully confirmed both by her
sister and her brother-in-law, Lady Steyne and Sir
Michael. There was no doubt that young Lionel Frewin
was staying at the Hotel Metropole in Brighton, that
he was that evening dining with the Steynes at Sussex
Square when his mother arrived in her motor. Mrs.
Frewin stayed about an hour, during which time she,
presumably, tried to influence her son to go back to
Blatchley with her in order to see his dying father.
Of course, what exactly happened at that family
interview none of the four people present was inclined
to reveal. Against that both Sir Michael and Lady
Steyne were prepared to swear that Mr. Lionel Frewin
was in the house when his mother arrived, and that he
did not leave them until long after she had driven
away.
There lay the hitch, you see, for
already the public jumped to conclusions, and,
terribly prejudiced as it is in a case of this sort,
it had made up its mind that Mr. Lionel Frewin, once
more pressed for money, had stolen his father's
precious miniatures in order to sell them in America
for a high sum. Everyone's sympathy was dead against
the young son who refused to be reconciled to his
father, although the latter was dying.
According to one of the footmen in
Lady Steyne's employ, who had taken whiskies and sodas
in while the interview between Mrs. Frewin and her son
was taking place, Mr. Lionel had said, very testily:
"It's all very well, mother, but that
is sheer sentimentality. The guv'nor threw me on my
beam ends when a little kindness and help would have
meant a different future to me; he chose to break my
life because of some early peccadilloes — and I
am not going to fawn
round him and play the hypocrite when he has no
intention of altering his will and has cut me off with
a shilling. He must be half imbecile by now, and won't
know me, anyway."
But with all this, and with public
opinion so dead against him, it was quite impossible
to bring the crime home to the young man. The burglar,
whoever he was, must have sneaked into the library
some time before Chipps closed the door on the
outside, since it was still so found by Emily the
following morning. Thereupon the public, determined
that Lionel Frewin should in some way be implicated in
the theft, made up its mind that the doting mother,
hearing of her son's woeful want of money, stole the
miniatures herself that night, and gave them to him.
3
WHEN Lady Molly heard this
theory she laughed, and shrugged her pretty shoulders.
"Old Mr. Frewin was dying, was he not,
at the time of the burglary?" she said. "Why should
his wife, soon to become his widow, take the trouble
to go through a laboured and daring comedy of a
burglary in order to possess herself of things which
would become hers within the next few hours? Even if,
after Mr. Frewin's death, she could not actually
dispose of the miniatures, the old man left her a
large sum of money and a big income by his will, with
which she could help her spendthrift son as much as
she pleased."
This was, of course, why the mystery
in this strange case was so deep. At the Yard they did
all that they
could. Within forty-eight hours they had notices
printed in almost every European language, which
contained rough sketches of the stolen miniatures
hastily supplied by Mrs. Frewin herself. These were
sent to as many of the great museums and art
collectors abroad as possible, and, of course, to the
principal American cities and to American
millionaires. There is no doubt that the thief would
find it very difficult to dispose of the miniatures,
and until he could sell them his booty would, of
course, not benefit him in any way. Works of art
cannot be tampered with, or melted down or taken to
pieces, like silver or jewellery, and, so far as could
be ascertained, the thief did not appear to make the
slightest attempt to dispose of the booty, and the
mystery became more dark, more impenetrable than ever.
"Will you undertake the job?" said the
chief one day to Lady Molly.
"Yes," she replied, "on two distinct
conditions."
"What are they?"
"That you will not bother me with
useless questions, and that you will send out fresh
notices to all the museums and art collectors you can
think of, and request them to let you know of any art
purchases they may have made within the last two
years."
"The last two years!" ejaculated the
chief. "Why, the miniatures were only stolen three
months ago."
"Did I not say that you were not to
ask me useless questions?"
This to the chief, mind you; and he
only smiled, whilst I nearly fell backwards at her
daring. But he did send out the notices, and it was
generally understood that Lady Molly now had charge of
the case.
4
IT was about seven weeks later
when, one morning, I found her at breakfast looking
wonderfully bright and excited.
"The Yard has had sheaves of replies,
Mary," she said gaily, "and the chief still thinks I
am a complete fool."
"Why, what has happened?"
"Only this, that the art museum at
Budapest has now in its possession a set of eight
miniatures by Engleheart; but the authorities did not
think that the first notices from Scotland Yard could
possibly refer to these, as they had been purchased
from a private source a little over two years ago."
"But two years ago the Frewin
miniatures were still at Blatchley House, and Mr.
Frewin was fingering them daily," I said, not
understanding, and wondering what she was driving at.
"I know that," she said gaily, "so
does the chief. That is why he thinks that I am a
first-class idiot"
"But what do you wish to do now?"
"Go to Brighton, Mary, take you with
me, and try to elucidate the mystery of the Frewin
miniatures."
"I don't understand," I gasped,
bewildered.
"No, and you won't until we get
there," she replied, running up to me and kissing me
in her pretty, engaging way.
That same afternoon we went to
Brighton and took up our abode at the Hotel Metropole.
Now you know I always believed from the very first
that she was a born lady and all the rest of it, but
even I was taken aback
at the number of acquaintances and smart friends she
had all over the place. It was "Hello, Lady Molly!
Whoever would have thought of meeting you here?" and
"Upon my word! this is good luck," all the time.
She smiled and chatted gaily with all
the folk as if she had known them all her life, but I
could easily see that none of these people knew that
she had anything to do with the Yard.
Brighton is not such a very big place
as one would suppose, and most of the fashionable
residents of the gay city find their way sooner or
later to the luxurious dining-room of the Hotel
Metropole, if only for a quiet little dinner given
when the cook is out. Therefore I was not a little
surprised when, one evening, about a week after our
arrival and just as we were sitting down to the
table d'hôte dinner, Lady Molly suddenly
placed one of her delicate hands on my arm.
"Look behind you, a little to your
left, Mary, but not just this minute. When you do you
will see two ladies and two gentlemen sitting at a
small table quite close to us. They are Sir Michael
and Lady Steyne, the Honourable Mrs. Frewin in deep
black, and her son, Mr. Lionel Frewin."
I looked round as soon as I could, and
gazed with some interest at the hero and heroine of
the Blatchley House drama. We had a quiet little
dinner, and Lady Molly having all of a sudden become
very silent and self-possessed, altogether different
from her gay, excited self of the past few days, I
scented that something important was in the air, and
tried to look as unconcerned as my lady herself. After
dinner we ordered coffee, and as Lady Molly strolled
through into the lounge, I noticed
that she ordered our tray to be placed at a table
which was in very close proximity to one already
occupied by Lady Steyne and her party.
Lady Steyne, I noticed, gave Lady
Molly a pleasant nod when we first came in, and Sir
Michael got up and bowed, saying "How d'ye do?" We sat
down and began a desultory conversation together.
Soon, as usual, we were joined by various friends and
acquaintances who all congregated round our table and
set themselves to entertaining us right pleasantly.
Presently the conversation drifted to art matters, Sir
Anthony Truscott being there, who is, as you know, one
of the keepers of the Art Department at South
Kensington Museum.
"I am crazy about miniatures just
now," said Lady Molly, in response to a remark from
Sir Anthony.
I tried not to look astonished.
"And Miss Granard and I," continued my
lady, quite unblushingly, " have been travelling all
over the Continent in order to try and secure some
rare specimens."
"Indeed," said Sir Anthony. "Have you
found anything very wonderful?"
"We certainly have discovered some
rare works of art," replied Lady Molly, "have we not,
Mary? Now the two Englehearts we bought at Budapest
are undoubtedly quite unique."
"Engleheart — and at Budapest!"
remarked Sir Anthony. "I thought I knew the
collections at most of the great Continental cities,
but I certainly have no recollection of such treasures
in the Hungarian capital."
"Oh, they were only purchased two
years ago, and have only been shown to the public
recently," remarked Lady Molly. "There was originally
a set of eight, so
the comptroller, Mr. Pulszky, informed me. He bought
them from an English collector whose name I have now
forgotten, and he is very proud of them, but they cost
the country a great deal more money than it could
afford, and in order somewhat to recoup himself Mr.
Pulszky sold two out of the eight at, I must say, a
very stiff price."
While she was talking I could not help
noticing the strange glitter in her eyes. Then a
curious smothered sound broke upon my ear. I turned
and saw Mrs. Frewin looking with glowing and dilated
eyes at the charming picture presented by Lady Molly.
"I should like to show you my
purchases," said the latter to Sir Anthony. "One or
two foreign connoisseurs have seen the two miniatures
and declare them to be the finest in existence. Mary,"
she added, turning to me, "would you be so kind as to
run up to my room and get me the small sealed packet
which is at the bottom of my dressing-case? Here are
the keys."
A little bewildered, yet guessing by
her manner that I had a part to play, I took the keys
from her and went up to her room. In her dressing-case
I certainly found a small, square, flat packet, and
with that in my hand I prepared to go downstairs
again. I had just locked the bedroom door when I was
suddenly confronted by a tall, graceful woman dressed
in deep black, whom I at once recognized as the
Honourable Mrs. Frewin.
"You are Miss Granard?" she said
quickly and excitedly; her voice was tremulous and she
seemed a prey to the greatest possible excitement.
Without waiting for my reply she continued
eagerly:—
"Miss Granard, there is no time to be
more explicit, but I give you my word, the word of a
very wretched,
heart-broken woman, that my very life depends upon my
catching a glimpse of the contents of the parcel that
you now have in your hand."
"But ——" I murmured,
hopelessly bewildered.
"There is no 'but,'" she replied. "It
is a matter of life and death. Here are £200,
Miss Granard, if you will let me handle that packet,"
and with trembling hands she drew a bundle of
bank-notes from her reticule.
I hesitated, not because I had any
notion of acceding to Mrs. Frewin's request, but
because I did not quite know how I ought to act at
this strange juncture, when a pleasant, mellow voice
broke in suddenly:—
"You may take the money, Mary, if you
wish. You have my permission to hand the packet over
to this lady," and Lady Molly, charming, graceful and
elegant in her beautiful directoire gown, stood
smiling, with Hankin just visible in the gloom of the
corridor.
She advanced towards us, took the
small packet from my hands, and held it out towards
Mrs. Frewin.
"Will you open it?" she said, "or
shall I?"
Mrs. Frewin did not move. She stood as
if turned to stone. Then with dexterous fingers my
lady broke the seals of the packet and drew from it a
few sheets of plain white cardboard and a thin piece
of match-boarding.
"There!" said Lady Molly, fingering
the bits of cardboard while she kept her fine, large
eyes fixed on Mrs. Frewin; "£200 is a big price
to pay for a sight of these worthless things."
"Then this was a vulgar trick," said
Mrs. Frewin, drawing herself up with an air which did
not affect Lady Molly in the least.
"A trick, certainly," she replied with
her winning smile, "vulgar, if you will call it so
— pleasant to us all, Mrs. Frewin, since you so
readily fell into it."
"Well, and what are you going to do
next?"
"Report the matter to my chief," said
Lady Molly, quietly. "We have all been very severely
blamed for not discovering sooner the truth about the
disappearance of the Frewin miniatures."
"You don't know the truth now,"
retorted Mrs. Frewin.
"Oh, yes, I do," replied Lady Molly,
still smiling. "I know that two years ago your son,
Mr. Lionel Frewin, was in terrible monetary
difficulties. There was something unavowable, which he
dared not tell his father. You had to set to work to
find money somehow. You had no capital at your own
disposal, and you wished to save your son from the
terrible consequences of his own folly. It was soon
after M. de Colinville's visit. Your husband had had
his first apoplectic seizure; his mind and eyesight
were somewhat impaired. You are a clever artist
yourself, and you schemed out a plan whereby you
carefully copied the priceless miniatures and then
entrusted them to your son for sale to the Art Museum
at Budapest, where there was but little likelihood of
their being seen by anyone who knew they had belonged
to your husband. English people do not stay more than
one night there, at the Hotel Hungaria. Your copies
were works of art in themselves, and you had no
difficulty in deceiving your husband in the state of
mind he then was, but when he lay dying you realized
that his will would inevitably be proved, wherein he
bequeathed the miniatures to Mr. James Hyam, and
that these would have to be valued for probate.
Frightened now that the substitution would be
discovered, you devised the clever comedy of the
burglary at Blatchley, which, in the circumstances,
could never be brought home to you or your son. I
don't know where you subsequently concealed the
spurious Engleheart miniatures which you calmly took
out of the library and hid away during the night of
your husband's death, but no doubt our men will find
that out," she added, quietly, "now that they are on
the track."
With a frightened shriek Mrs. Frewin
turned as if she would fly, but Lady Molly was too
quick for her, and barred the way. Then, with that
wonderful charm of manner and that innate kindliness
which always characterized her, she took hold of the
unfortunate woman's wrist.
"Let me give you a word of advice,"
she said, gently. "We at the Yard will be quite
content with a confession from you, which will clear
us of negligence and satisfy us that the crime has
been brought home to its perpetrator. After that, try
and enter into an arrangement with your husband's
legatee, Mr. James Hyam. Make a clean breast of the
whole thing to him and offer him full monetary
compensation. For the sake of the family he won't
refuse. He would have nothing to gain by bruiting the
whole thing abroad; and for his own sake and that of
his late uncle, who was so good to him, I don't think
you would find him hard to deal with."
Mrs. Frewin paused awhile, undecided
and still defiant. Then her attitude softened; she
turned and looked full at the beautiful, kind eyes
turned eagerly
up to hers, and pressing Lady Molly's tiny hand in
both her own, she whispered:
"I will take your advice. God bless
you."
She was gone, and Lady Molly called
Hankin to her side.
"Until we have that confession,
Hankin," she said, with the quiet manner she always
adopted where matters connected with her work were
concerned, "Mum's the word."
"Ay, and after that, too, my lady,"
replied Hankin, earnestly.
You see, she could do anything she
liked with the men, and I, of course, was her slave.
Now we have got the confession, Mrs.
Frewin is on the best of terms with Mr. James Hyam,
who has behaved very well about the whole thing, and
the public has forgotten all about the mystery of the
Frewin miniatures.
THE IRISH-TWEED COAT
IT all began with the murder
of Mr. Andrew Carrthwaite, at Palermo.
He had been found dead in the garden
of his villa just outside the town, with a stiletto
between his shoulder blades and a piece of rough Irish
tweed, obviously torn from his assailant's coat,
clutched tightly in his hand.
All that was known of Mr. Carrthwaite
over here was that he was a Yorkshireman, owner of
some marble works in Sicily, a man who employed a
great many hands; and that, unlike most employers of
labour over there, he had a perfect horror of the many
secret societies and Socialist clubs which abound in
that part of the world. He would not become a slave to
the ever-growing tyranny of the Mafia and its kindred
associations, and therefore he made it a hard and fast
rule that no workman employed by him, from the
foremost to the meanest hand, should belong to any
society, club, or trade union of any sort or kind.
At first, robbery was thought to have
been the sole object of the crime, for Mr.
Carrthwaite's gold watch, marked with his initials
"A.C.," and his chain, were missing, but the Sicilian
police were soon inclined to the belief that this was
merely a blind, and that personal
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