Charles Williamson - Lord Loveland Discovers America

Luncheon time was near, and Val was hungry, but he would not leave wardrobe and jewellery to the discretion of a strange servant. In a mood swinging towards impatience, he sat down on a cushioned sofa to watch the valet's proceedings.

The larger of the two noble portmanteaux was opened; the neat square of gold-braided and coronetted brown velvet, with which Foxham always covered the contents of each box, was removed; and a pile of clothing was deftly excavated.

Loveland's face changed from attention to surprise, then to bewilderment. "By Jove!" he exclaimed, "those don't look like my things." Then springing up alertly he began to toss over the pile as the hotel valet deposited it upon the bed, to toss it over as a haymaker tosses hay. But, in the midst, he drew back his hand as if he had inadvertently touched pitch. "Jove!" he stammered again.

"Wrong luggage, sir?" ventured the servant.

Loveland did not reply. He did not even hear, for his thoughts had taken a trip of record quickness across the sea, and were already in London, chasing a mystery. But, if the valet had stopped to think, an answer would have been unnecessary. The keys fitted the portmanteaux; and there were the big initials and the small coronets which distinguished Lord Loveland's property from the vulgar trunks of the common herd.

Had Foxham gone mad? For the moment Loveland could think of no other explanation. The portmanteau was filled with discarded garments, many of which Loveland had given to Foxham at parting. Other things were there, too, which Val dimly remembered having actually seen on the person of Foxham, and it was from the touch of these contaminated remnants that he recoiled in disgust.

"Open the other portmanteau," he directed, flushed now, and anxious-eyed.

The hotel servant obeyed. Another neat square of brown velvet was whisked away, and piles of shirts were revealed; but, save for a deceitful top layer, they were not Loveland's shirts. They might have been bought ready-made in the Edgware Road; probably had been – by Foxham. There was underclothing also; but not the pale pink, blue and heliotrope silk variety affected by Foxham's master.

"Now the hat box," Loveland went on, almost sure that he was talking in his sleep. For it was unbelievable that he would not soon wake up to find that this was a bad dream.

There were hats in the hat box; Foxham's hats, perhaps; certainly not Lord Loveland's. And in the boot box which came next were boots, but boots which had lost all claim to self-respect; boots which even Foxham would have found it difficult to give away.

Only the Custom House official's good nature and haste, and Loveland's complete absence of mind on the dock had delayed discovery until this moment, but now that the secret was out, there seemed nothing to do, if not to rage helplessly.

Loveland spluttered a few colourful words, but was still too bewildered by the catastrophe to become volcanic. The eruption would follow later.

"What shall I do with the things, sir?" the valet wanted to know.

"Do with them?" repeated Loveland, exasperated by the creature's calmness. "Pitch 'em into the fire – get rid of them anyhow, out of my sight, and be quick about it. I've been robbed, by my own man."

Loveland seemed to hear these words spoken by an unknown voice, as if they had been uttered by a stranger, and instantly he accepted them as the solution of the mystery.

That was it! Foxham had robbed him. Foxham had not gone mad. Foxham was simply a scoundrel.

There was too much method in the planning of this trick, even for madness.

The careful arrangement of the cabin luggage, with all the right things in the right places, except for the jewel-case containing tie pins, sleeve links and shirt studs, which for five days Loveland had believed to have been stowed away somewhere else by mistake. The packing of the portmanteaux and boxes with a nice judgment as to their proper weight and the neatness of top layers; all this was too well thought out to be the work of a lunatic.

No wonder Foxham had not asked for wages in arrear. No wonder he suddenly developed a defunct grandfather with an eccentric will. From the moment he heard of the proposed trip to America, he must have been quietly planning this coup , a coup worth making for the sake of the bran new wardrobe, to say nothing of the jewellery. And hot with rage, Loveland ran over in his mind the contents of that missing jewel-box. The pearl studs which Lady Kitty Manning had given him on his last birthday – each one of the three worth fifty pounds, if it was worth a shilling. How he wished he had sold the things, as he had been tempted to do, and would have done, if they had not been the gift of a pretty woman! The diamond and enamel sleeve-links, too, and the sapphire buttons; a hundred pounds more in Foxham's pocket. Then the cravat pins, in two long rows on a white velvet background: Loveland could see them, as he had seen them last – a cherished collection representing not only so many golden sovereigns, but so many queens of beauty, the charming givers.

What a rogue to send his master off to a strange country, stripped practically naked; and how the master longed to have the rogue within kicking distance, instead of safe across the sea.

Forgotten faults of Foxham's flashed back into his memory; small slynesses winked at, or condoned; rumoured "airs" assumed in the servants' hall at country houses; fibs found out and overlooked, because no other valet had Foxham's skill and resourcefulness. Still – who would have expected such depravity?

If this blow had fallen on some other man, Loveland would have laughed, and chaffed him; but he was far from seeing his own predicament as a laughing matter. He was like a knight of old who, having journeyed to a far land to joust for a great prize, finds himself robbed of his armour. How was he to fight on the tilting ground of society, and bear away a millionairess, when his sole possessions consisted of what he stood up in, and the contents of a suit-case and a cabin trunk?

Luckily Foxham had not been able to annex his master's letter of credit; but Val had uses for the hundred and fifty pounds other than buying a new outfit. How he wished now that he had not played Bridge quite so often on board ship, emptying his pockets of spare cash. The scrape he was in was as hard to win out of as a black London fog; and while groping for light, a mild question from the hotel valet did not sweeten his temper.

"Am I really to carry all these things away, sir?"

"Oh, go to the devil and take them with you!"

The servant – lest he remember that he had been born a man, and retaliate – bolted towards safety, with a leaning tower of Foxham's garments on his arm. It was nobody's business how he meant to dispose of them; and a second later he would have passed the danger line, had not a page boy selected that identical instant to knock at Lord Loveland's door.

Man and youth collided. The top-heavy pile of clothing crumbled into ruin, Foxham's loathed shirts and waistcoats blotting out the threshold. What the valet said, long habits of servitude rendered inaudible, but what Loveland said might have been heard at the end of the corridor. And there were listeners nearer: Major Cadwallader Hunter and a companion who "represented" one of New York's leading newspapers.

Major Cadwallader Hunter had been somewhat doubtful of his wisdom in paying this uninvited call. He had hinted that he might drop in at the Waldorf to see how Lord Loveland got on, and had not been encouraged to do so. But Tony Kidd of "New York Light" was a pretty good excuse for persevering, and he certainly had been badly in want of an excuse.

Having cast himself for the part of bear-leader it was imperative that Society should know who led the bear, whether the bear recognised his position or not.