E. Phillips Oppenheim - Crime & Mystery Collection - 110+ Thrillers & Detective Tales in One Volume (Illustrated Edition)

The Duke moved slowly across the room and rang the bell.

“There is only one way to end this unpleasant scene,” he announced. “You shall repeat your statement to Lord Geoffrey himself.”

There was a brief silence. The butler entered, and was requested to invite the presence of Lord Geoffrey. During the interval the Duchess once more raised her lorgnettes to her eyes.

“And who is the person with that disgusting little white dog?” she asked.

“Your Grace,” Goade replied, “I regret that my presence is an offence to you, or the presence of my dog. I can assure you that I am here against my will. My visits are often paid in that way. My name is Goade—Inspector Goade of Scotland Yard.”

The Duchess’ hand trembled. She turned towards the Dean, and her voice should have terrified him almost more than it did.

“You mean to say,” she demanded, “that you have had the wickedness, the colossal impertinence, to place this matter in the hands of the police?”

“Your Grace,” the Dean confided. “On the evidence before us, I might reasonably have considered it my duty to have done so. As a matter of fact, however, Mr. Goade is here unofficially. We consulted him as a friend of Captain Faulkener’s. Our only desire was that the matter might be cleared up without undue delay and without publicity.”

The Duchess was speechless. Just at that moment the door opened and Lord Geoffrey entered. He was in tennis clothes, and carried a racket under his arm. For a moment, as he stared through his monocle in surprise at these unexpected visitors, he bore some slight resemblance to his father.

“Hullo!” he exclaimed. “Why, how are you, Miss Followay? How are you, Dean? I wanted you for tennis, Faulkener. What’s this happy little gathering all about?”

“You may well ask, Geoffrey,” his mother said sombrely. “You will remember that it was at your solicitation that we invited Miss Followay to spend a few days with us recently.”

“Well, what about it?” the young man enquired.

“You may also remember,” his mother continued, “that Miss Followay mentioned something about having lost some article of jewellery—a pendant, I think it was?”

“I remember it quite well. We had the place thoroughly searched, but the thing couldn’t be found.”

“The Dean is here this afternoon to inform us that the article in question has been discovered in a pawnbroker’s shop in Holborn,” the Duchess declared—“discovered, it appears, through the agency of the gentleman with the dog, who comes from Scotland Yard. These people assert that the jewel was pawned by a young man giving the name of Geoffrey Fernell.”

Lord Geoffrey stood for a moment as though turned to stone. Then he threw his racket on to a settee.

“My God!” he exclaimed.

“At present,” the Duke interposed frostily, “your mother and I have not made up our minds whether to consider this as an outrage or a simple act of lunacy on the part of these good people. We should like to know what you have to say.”

Lord Geoffrey said nothing at all. He stood for several moments with his hands in his pockets. Then he turned suddenly towards Florence.

“Did you think I took it?” he demanded.

She faced him bravely.

“I did,” she replied. “I didn’t want the scarf. You insisted upon bringing it to me, and when you took it off I felt your fingers on the clasp of the pendant. You took the scarf away, and I believe the pendant was in it. Anyway, you went to London the next morning, and the pendant was discovered pawned for a thousand pounds in your name.”

He ignored the others and looked only at her. She met his gaze without flinching.

“If you suspected me, why didn’t you mention it before?” he asked.

For a moment she hesitated; not, however, with any sign of embarrassment.

“It was my first visit here,” she explained. “I didn’t wish to cause trouble. I hoped that my jewel might have been returned.”

“I think,” the Duchess suggested coldly, “that we had better bring this most unpleasant meeting to an end. Is there any further question you would like to ask my son?”

Goade, who had been patting Flip absently for several moments, suddenly intervened.

“I should like, if I may, to ask him a somewhat obvious question,” he said. “I should like to ask him whether he stole Miss Followay’s pendant?”

“I thought you had already discovered that,” was the unexpected reply. “Yes, I stole it.”

“And pawned it in Holborn?”

“Quite right.”

There was a tense and most amazing silence. Even the Dean gasped. The Duchess was simply incapable of speech; the Duke, a most undignified looking figure, stood with his mouth open, gaping across at his son.

“Might one further enquire why you stole it?” Goade continued.

“I needed the money,” was the curt admission.

The young man faced his father and mother, both of them now almost in a state of collapse.

“Of course, I’m terribly sorry and all that,” he said, “but after all, I wasn’t the only one to blame. I have written you time after time, Dad, and told you that it was perfectly impossible for me to keep up my position upon an allowance of two thousand a year. I needed a thousand pounds very badly, and I thought I saw a way of getting it without running any risk. I meant to have returned the thing to Miss Followay later on.”

The Duchess seemed to have lost all power of consecutive reasoning. She had become a limp, unbalanced person.

“You stole!” she murmured. “Geoffrey! Our son! You stole from a girl!”

“The trinket,” the Duke announced tremulously, “shall be returned.”

“I am not quite sure,” Florence said coldly, “whether that will meet the case. You do not know, Duchess, or you, Duke, exactly why Lord Geoffrey asked that I should be invited here. I should like to tell you. I saw quite a great deal of him in London. Since he came down here I don’t think that he has treated me very well. One hears now that he has become attached to a young lady in London at the Duke of York’s Theatre. Did you steal my pendant to buy presents for her, Lord Geoffrey?”

The young man turned towards the door.

“I’ve had enough of this,” he declared sulkily.

He would have left the room, but Goade intervened.

“I am afraid, Lord Geoffrey, that I cannot permit you to leave just yet,” he announced.

“What do you mean?” the Duchess gasped.

“Your Grace,” Goade said gravely, “your son has confessed to a theft. If Miss Followay desires to prosecute—”

“Prosecute!” the Duchess shrieked.

“Prosecute!” the Duke groaned.

“Why not?” Florence rejoined. “Your son has treated me very badly. He paid me a great deal of attention in London, and has simply ignored me here. It seems to me to be the natural course to take.”

Lord Geoffrey led her a little on one side.

“With your permission,” he said, turning to his father and mother, “I will discuss this matter with Miss Followay. I will give my word to this gentleman,” he added, turning to Goade, “not to leave the place.”

He threw open the door, and they left the room together. The Duchess turned to the Dean.

“Dean,” she begged, “I think that you had better perhaps add your persuasions to the persuasions of my son. I rely upon you to see that your daughter does not remain obdurate. If Geoffrey took the trinket at all he must have taken it as a joke.”

“He could scarcely have pawned it as a joke,” the Dean pointed out stiffly.

There was an awkward silence. Then the door was opened. Florence and Lord Geoffrey entered. The latter wore an expression of great relief.

“It’s quite all right,” he declared, addressing his father and mother. “Florence admits that it was a joke. She is perfectly willing to say no more about it. We are sending the announcement of our engagement to the Morning Post to-night.”