Jimmy met McEachern’s eye, and smiled kindly at him. The ex-policeman was looking at him with the gaze of a baffled but malignant basilisk.
“I take very good care no one gets a chance at your diamonds, my dear,” said Sir Thomas, without a blush. “I have had a steel box made for me,” he added to the company in general, “with a special lock—a very ingenious arrangement, quite unbreakable, I imagine.”
Jimmy, with Molly’s story fresh in his mind, could not check a rapid smile. Mr. McEachern, watching him intently, saw it. To him it was fresh evidence, if any had been wanted, of Jimmy’s intentions, and of his confidence of success. McEachern’s brow darkened. During the rest of the meal tense thought rendered him more silent even than was his wont at the dinner table. The difficulty of his position was, he saw, great. Jimmy, to be foiled, must be watched, and how could he watch him?
It was not until the coffee arrived that he found an answer to the question. With his first cigarette came the idea. That night, in his room, before going to bed, he wrote a letter. It was an unusual letter, but singularly enough, almost identical with one Sir Thomas Blunt had written that very morning.
It was addressed to the Manager of Dodson’s Private Inquiry Agency, of Bishopsgate Street, E.C., and ran as follows:
Sir—On receipt of this, kindly send down one of your smartest men. Instruct him to stay at the village inn in the character of American seeing sights of England and anxious to inspect Dreever Castle. I will meet him in the village and recognise him as old New York friend, and will then give him further instructions.
This brief but pregnant letter cost him some pains in its composition. He was not a ready writer, but he completed it at last to his satisfaction. There was a crisp purity in the style which pleased him. He sealed up the envelope and slipped it into his pocket. He felt more at ease now. Such was the friendship that had sprung up between Sir Thomas Blunt and himself as the result of the jewel episode in Paris that he could count with certainty on the successful working of his scheme. The grateful knight would not be likely to allow any old New York friend of his preserver to languish at the village inn. The sleuthhound would at once be installed at the castle, where, unsuspected by Jimmy, he would keep an eye on the course of events. Any looking after that Mr. James Pitt might require might safely be left in the hands of this expert.
With considerable fervour Mr. McEachern congratulated himself on his astuteness. With Jimmy above stairs and Spike below, the sleuthhound would have his hands full.
XV
Mr. McEachern Intervenes
Life at the castle during the first few days of his visit filled Jimmy with a curious blend of emotions, mainly unpleasant. Fate, in its pro-Jimmy capacity, seemed to be taking a rest. In the first place, the part allotted to him was not that of Lord Herbert, the character who talked to Molly most of the time. The instant Charteris learned from Lord Dreever that Jimmy had at one time actually been on the stage professionally, he decided that Lord Herbert offered too little scope for the new man’s talents.
“Absolutely no good to you, my dear chap,” he said. “It’s just a small dude part. He’s simply got to be a silly ass.”
Jimmy pleaded that he could be a sillier ass than anybody living; but Charteris was firm.
“No,” he said. “You must be Captain Browne—true acting part, the biggest in the piece, full of fat lines. Spennie was to have played it, and we were in for the worst frost in the history of the stage. Now you’ve come it’s all right. Spennie’s the ideal of Lord Herbert. He’s simply got to be himself. We’ve got a success now, my boy. Rehearsal after lunch. Don’t be late.”
And he had gone off to beat up the rest of the company.
From that moment Jimmy’s troubles began. Charteris was a young man in whom a passion for the stage was ineradicably implanted. It mattered nothing to him during these days that the sun shone, that it was pleasant on the lake, and that Jimmy would have given five pounds a minute to be allowed to get Molly to himself for half an hour every afternoon. All he knew or cared about was that the local nobility and gentry were due to arrive at the castle a week from that day, and that very few of the company even knew their lines. Having hustled Jimmy into the part of Captain Browne, he gave his energy free play. He conducted rehearsals with a vigour which occasionally almost welded the rabble he was coaching into something approaching coherency. He painted scenery and left it about—wet—and people sat on it; he nailed up horseshoes for luck, and they fell on people. But nothing daunted him; he never rested.
“Mr. Charteris,” said Lady Julia rather frigidly, after one energetic rehearsal, “is indefatigable. He whirled me about!”
It was, perhaps, his greatest triumph, properly considered, that he had induced Lady Julia to take a part in his piece; but to the born organiser of amateur theatricals no miracle of this kind is impossible, and Charteris was one of the most inveterate organisers in the country. There had been some talk—late at night in the billiard room—of his being about to write in a comic footman role for Sir Thomas, but it had fallen through; not, it was felt, because Charteris could not have hypnotised him into undertaking it, but
