Perishable Goods
By Dornford Yates.
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To
Harrow School,
as I remember it, when I had the
honour to wear “The Harrow Hat.”
Perishable Goods
I
First Blood
It was in , that George Hanbury and I first set up house in Wiltshire; and, since for the next six months we hunted four days a week, yet would commit to no one the pleasant task of setting our home in order, I do not think we slept out of Maintenance—for from time immemorial that has been the name of the place—more than seven times. But two of the visits I paid stand out of my memory, and, as they bear upon the matters which I am to tell, I will set them down.
In the first week of the wedding of one of my cousins took me to town.
Now neither Hanbury nor I would have dreamed of visiting London without calling on Jonathan Mansel, whose flat was in Cleveland Row; for we three had made our fortune together and together had proved the stuff of which friendship is made. That apart, Mansel was the very finest gentleman that ever I knew: his ways were quiet, and his address was simple; but there was a natural royalty about him such as, I think, few monarchs have been able to boast.
I started betimes and travelled to London by road, and the clock of St. James’s Palace was striking nine as I turned out of Marlborough Gate into Cleveland Row. Except for my servant, Bell, I was alone.
Here let me say that it was Mansel who had taught me the virtue of being early abroad and, particularly, of taking a journey before the world was awake; “for,” said he, “the dawn you may nearly always have to yourself, and, since it is the fairest of the hours, that a free man should lose it is more than lamentable.”
I had no need to ring, for, when I had mounted the stairs, I found Mansel’s hall-door open and his body-servant, Carson, watching two workmen who were busy about its lock. He took me directly to the study, where Mansel was standing before a cheerful fire.
“Ah, William,” says he, “I’m glad to see you. How was it you didn’t ring?”
I told him.
“That’s right,” said he. “Those fellows are changing the lock. Yesterday this flat was entered—by some person or persons unknown.”
“Thieves?” said I.
“Thieves,” said Mansel.
At once I looked at the wall, where I knew there had hung a monstrance. This was golden and jewelled, and, though there was plate-glass about it, I could have forced the case in two minutes of time. But the monstrance was there.
“And they missed that?” said I, pointing.
“They didn’t come for that,” said Mansel.
For a moment we looked at each other: then I sat down in a chair and took out a cigarette.
“They came for my papers,” said Mansel. “And got them.” He pointed to his writing-table. “In the right-hand pedestal of that is a little safe. They cut it open and took my papers away. There were fifty sovereigns there and five hundred pounds in notes: but they didn’t take them: so it looks as though they meant me to understand that they came for my papers alone.”
“Were there papers of value?” said I.
Mansel frowned. Then he moved swiftly to a window and stood, looking down upon the street. So he stayed for some moments, because, I am sure, he would not trust his voice.
Presently—
“They were of interest,” he said, “to no one but me.”
I was concerned, for Mansel was plainly moved, and, though I knew no more than the man in the moon the nature of the stolen papers, I had never before seen him betray himself.
At length—
“What’s to be done?” said I.
“Nothing,” said Mansel, turning. “But, as you know, Chandos, I have a dangerous enemy, and, if he should study those papers, he might see a line of attack which would hit me hard.”
“Us,” I said quickly.
“Us,” said Mansel, and smiled.
And there we left the business, for that was clearly his will: but, though we spoke of it no more, I could not get it out of my mind, for I knew as well as did Mansel that the theft was the work of Rose Noble and that it was not to be thought
