There could be but one answer to this from Clive: he would wait hours, days, if need were, on the faintest chance of a word being spoken by Marie Schira that might throw light on her possession of Ida’s diamonds.
There was, however, Lord Culvers to be thought of. So he borrowed pen and paper, and asked if a trusty messenger could be found.
Miss Skinner answered him that the watcher beside Marie’s couch, who was going off duty now for the night, might be trusted to carry a note for him.
Clive, therefore, sent by her a brief line to Lord Culvers, telling him not to expect him till he saw him, as he had been detained on a matter of importance.
A dreary night’s vigil he was to keep in that dim, silent room. The doctor came and the doctor went, saying that another six or eight hours would see the end of it, and telling Clive, as he passed through the outer room on his way downstairs, that, if he wanted to speak with Marie Schira, he might as well go home at once, for she would never again recover consciousness.
Nevertheless, Clive remained. After midnight outside noises died down and the silence deepened on the house within, a silence which, so far as he was concerned, was broken only by the merry chimes of the showy clock on the mantelpiece, the creaking of the bedstead in the adjoining room, and the moans of the poor sufferer.
And through it all—running, so to speak, as a soft, sad accompaniment to those moans of pain—went ceaselessly the prayers of the Sister kneeling beside the dying girl: “Spare her, good Lord! Have mercy upon her, a miserable sinner!”
XVI
So Marie Schira passed away with her story untold.
The air struck chill to Clive as, weary and sad at heart, he made his way down the stairs and out into the silent streets in the grey of the early dawn.
In spite of the early hour, he found Lord Culvers dressed and seated at breakfast when he got back to the hotel. To Clive’s fancy he looked far less dejected and spiritless than when he had left him overnight. To say truth, the old gentleman had ventured to build on Clive’s prolonged absence hopes that the circumstances scarcely justified. He was naturally enough eager for an explanation. The long, dreary explanation that Clive had to give killed those hopes one by one.
When it came to an end the two found themselves precisely where they had been on the preceding day, so far at least as the mystery of Ida’s disappearance was concerned—at the end of a blind alley, as it were, with a blank wall facing them.
“The thing we have now to decide,” said Clive, as he finished his story, “is whether it will be better for me to see and question this man, John Skinner, or whether it will be best to leave him to the police.”
The matter was to be decided for them, for even as Clive said the words the door opened, and a waiter entered to say that a man, by name John Skinner, was below, and wished to see Lord Culvers.
“We must be on our guard against fraud with a man of his stamp,” said Clive, as the waiter departed to show the man in.
Assuredly the personal appearance of John Skinner was not such as to inspire confidence. With his hat removed, he looked even less attractive than he had on the previous night. He was short in stature, with a flat head, small eyes, and hair, complexion, and whiskers of a sandy hue. The expression on his face was that of cunning of a low type combined with servility.
He looked from Lord Culvers to Clive, from Clive to Lord Culvers. Then he turned to the latter, saying:
“I was told you wished to see me, my lord.”
Lord Culvers looked helplessly at Clive.
“Yes,” said Clive, coming forward, and going straight to the point at once. “We have a question to ask you. How did a diamond brooch, the property of Lord Culvers’s daughter, pass into the possession of your sister?”
The man did not immediately reply. A look of low cunning settled on his face. He made one step towards Lord Culvers.
“My lord,” he said, “I have a question—an important one—to ask before I speak. I know that a handsome reward has been offered for the brooch, I want to know if there will be a reward—in proportion to that very handsome sum—for relating how that brooch got into a certain person’s possession, and how it passed out of that person’s possession into someone else’s?”
“Oh‑h,” said Clive, contemptuously, “it’s a case of how much down, is it?”
Lord Culvers became greatly agitated.
“Speak out, don’t talk in enigmas,” he said. “Of course I’ll pay for information that may be worth having. Who is that ‘certain person’?”
“But we’ve yet to learn that this man’s word is to be relied on,” said Clive, even more contemptuously than before. “A man who sells information for so much down, is likely to manufacture as much as he can find a market for.”
Again the man declined to answer Clive, and addressed Lord Culvers.
“You can test the truth of my statements in any way you please, my lord,” he said; “but I don’t open my lips till I find out if it’ll be worth my while.”
“How much do you want?” asked Lord Culvers, his agitation increasing on him.
For answer Skinner drew from his pocket a letter-case, from which he took some four or five slips of paper. These he spread before Lord Culvers, pointing with his finger to the name which signed each slip.
One and all these papers were headed with the formidable letters “I.O.U.,” one and all they were signed with the name “Sefton Culvers.”
“A mere bagatelle, my lord,” he said, flippantly; “in all something under five hundred pounds. But,
