Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, The (36 page)

  'In that case you are safe enough,' said Hagar, enraged at the ingenious villainy of the creature. 'But how did you come to learn that there were letters hidden in this box? You didn't know of them when you pawned it.'

  'No, miss, I didn't,' confessed Peters, regretfully; 'but yesterday I heard my lord say to a friend of his that there were letters to him from a married lady in the secret place of the box, so I thought – '

  'That you would find the secret place, and use the letters to get money out of the married lady.'

  'Yes, I did. That's what we are going to do, ain't it?'

  'Is the married lady rich?' asked Hagar, answering the question by asking another.

  'Lor', miss, her husband, Mr Delamere, has no end of money! She'd give anything to get those letters back. Why, if her husband saw them he would divorce her for sure! He's a proud man, is Delamere.'

  'Has he any suspicion of an intrigue between his wife and Lord Averley?'

  'Not he, miss; he'd stop it if he had. Oh, you may be sure she'll give a long price for those letters.'

  'No doubt,' assented Hagar. 'Well, Mr Peters, as I am your partner in this very admirable scheme, you had better let me see Mrs Delamere. I'll get more out of her than you would.'

  'I daresay, miss. You're a sharp one, you are! But you'll go shares fair?'

  'Oh, yes; if I get a good sum, you shall have half,' replied Hagar, ambiguously. 'But where does Mrs Delamere live?'

  'In Curzon Street, miss; the house painted a light red. You'll always find her in now about seven. Squeeze her for all she is worth, miss. We've got a good thing on in this business.'

  'It would seem so,' replied Hagar, coolly. 'But if I were you, Mr Peters, I would redeem this casket as soon as I could. You may get into trouble else.'

  'I'll take the money out of my share of the cash,' said the scoundrel. 'Don't you take less than five hundred, miss; those letters are worth it.'

  'Be content; I'll see to all that. To-morrow I shall interview Mrs Delamere; so if you come and see me the day after, I will tell you the result of my visit.'

  'Oh, there can only be one result with a sharp one like you,' grinned Peters. 'You squeeze Mrs Delamere like an orange, miss. Say you'll tell her husband, and she'll pay anything. Good day, miss. My stars, you're a sharp girl! Good day.'

  Mr Peters departed with this compliment, just in time to stop Hagar from an unholy desire to throw the casket at his head. The man was a greater scoundrel even than she had thought; and she trembled to think of how he would have extorted money from Mrs Delamere had he obtained the letters. Luckily for that lady, her foolish epistles were in the hands of a woman far more honorable than herself.

  Although untitled, Mrs Delamere was a very great lady. Certainly she was a beautiful one, and many years younger than her lord and master. Mr Delamere was a wealthy commoner, with a long pedigree, and an over-weening pride. Immersed in politics and Blue-books, he permitted his frivolous and youthful wife to do as she pleased, provided she did not drag his name in the mud. He would have forgiven her anything but that. She could be as extravagant as she pleased; gratify all her costly whims; and flirt – if she so chose, and she did choose – with fifty men; but if once the name of Delamere was whispered about in connection with a scandal, she knew well that her husband would seek either a separation or a divorce. Yet, with all this knowledge, pretty, silly Mrs Delamere was foolish enough to intrigue with Lord Averley, and to write him compromising letters.

  She never thought of danger. Averley was a gentleman, a man of honour, and he had told her a dozen times that he always burnt the letters she wrote him. It was therefore a matter of amazement to Mrs Delamere when a gipsy-like girl called to see her with a sealed envelope, and mentioned that such envelope contained her letters to Averley.

  'Letters! letters!' said Mrs Delamere, brushing her fluffy yellow curls off her forehead. 'What do you mean?'

  'I mean that your letters to Lord Averley are in this envelope,' replied Hagar, looking coldly at the dainty doll before her. 'I mean also that did your husband see them he would divorce you!'

  Mrs Delamere turned pale under her rouge. 'Who are you?' she gasped, her blue eyes dilating with terror.

  'My name is Hagar Stanley. I am a gipsy girl, and I keep a pawnshop in Lambeth.'

  'A pawn-shop! How – how did you get my – my letters?'

  'The valet of Lord Averley pawned a silver box in which they were concealed,' explained Hagar. 'He intended to use them as a means to extort money from you. However, I obtained the letters before he did, and I came instead of him.'

  'To extort money also, I suppose?'

  For the life of her, Mrs Delamere could not help making the remark. She knew that she was speaking falsely; that this girl with the grave, dark, poetic face was not the kind of woman to blackmail an erring sister. Still, the guilty little creature saw that Hagar – this girl from a pawnshop of the slums – was sitting in judgment upon her, and already, in her own mind, condemned her frivolous conduct. Proud and haughty Mrs Delamere writhed at the look on the face of her visitor, and terrified as she was at the abyss which she saw opening at her feet, she could not help making a slighting remark to gall the woman who came to save her. She said it on the impulse of the moment; and impulse had cost her dearly many a time. But that Hagar was a noble woman it would have cost the frivolous beauty dearly now.

  'No, Mrs Delamere,' replied Hagar, keeping her temper – for really this weak little creature was not worth anger – 'I do not wish for money. I came to return you these letters, and I should advise you to destroy them.'

  'I shall certainly do that!' said the fashionable lady, seizing the envelope held out to her; 'but you must let me reward you.'

  'As you would reward any one who returned you a lost jewel!' retorted the gipsy, with curling lip. 'No, thank you; what I have done for you, Mrs Delamere, is above any reward.'

  'Above any reward!' stammered the other wondering if she heard aright.

  'I think so,' responded Hagar, gravely. 'I have saved your honour.'

  'Saved my honour!' cried Mrs Delamere, furiously. 'How dare you! How dare you!'

  'I dare, because I happen to have read one of those letters; I read only one, but I have no doubt that it is a sample of the others. If Mr Delamere read what I did, I am afraid you would have to go through the Divorce Court with Lord Averley as co-respondent.'

  'You – you are mistaken,' stammered Mrs Delamere, drawn into defending herself. 'There is nothing wrong between us, I – I swear.'

  'It is no use to lie to me,' said Hagar, curtly. 'I have seen what you said to the man; that is enough. However, I have no call to judge you. I came to give you the letters; you hold them in your hand; so I go.'

  'Wait! wait! You have been very good. Surely a little money – '

  'I am no blackmailer!' cried Hagar, wrathfully; 'but I have saved you from one. Had Lord Averley's valet become possessed of those letters, you would have had to pay thousands of pounds for them.'

  'I know, I know,' whimpered the foolish little woman. 'You have been good and kind; you have saved me. Take this ring as – '

  'No, I want no gifts from you,' said Hagar, going to the door.

  'Why not – why not?'

  Hagar looked back with a glance of immeasurable contempt. 'I take nothing from a woman who betrays her husband,' she said, tranquilly. 'Good-night, Mrs Delamere – and be careful how you write letters to your next lover. He may have a valet also,' and Hagar left the magnificent room, with Mrs Delamere standing in it, white with rage and terror and humiliation. In those few contemptuous words of the poor gipsy girl, her sin had come home to her.

  Hagar had come to the West-end to see the woman who had written the letters; now she walked back to her Lambeth pawn-shop to interview the man to whom they had been sent. She was not a girl who did things by halves; and, bent upon thwarting in every way the scoundrelism of John Peters, she had sent a message to his master. In reply Lord Averley had informed her that he would call on her at the time and place mentioned in her letter. The time was nine o'clock; the place, the dingy parlor of the pawn-shop; and here Hagar intended to inform Lord Averley of the way in which she had saved Mrs Delamere from the greed of the valet. Also, she intended to make him take back the casket and repay the money lent on it. In all her dabblings in romance, Hagar never forgot that she was a woman of business, and was bound to get as much money as possible for the heir of the old miser who had fed and sheltered her when she had come a fugitive to London. Hagar's ethics would have been quite incomprehensible to the majority of mankind.

  True to the hour, Lord Averley made his appearance in Carby's Crescent, and was admitted by Hagar to the back parlor. He was a tall slender, fair man, no longer in his first youth, with a colourless face, which was marked by a somewhat tired expression. He looked a trifle surprised at the sight of Hagar's rich beauty, having expected to find an old hag in charge of a pawn-shop. However, he made no comment but bowed gravely to the girl, and took the seat she offered to him. In the light of the lamp Hagar looked long and earnestly at his handsome face. There was a look of intellect on it which made her wonder how he could have found satisfaction in the love of a frivolous doll like Mrs Delamere. But Hagar quite forgot for the moment that the fullest delight of life lies in contrast.

  'I have no doubt you wondered at receiving a letter from a pawnshop,' she said, abruptly.

  'I confess I did,' he replied, quietly: 'but because you mentioned that you had my casket I came. It is here, you say?'

  Hagar took the silver box off a near shelf, and placed it on the table before him. 'It was pawned here two weeks ago,' she said, quietly. 'I lent thirteen pounds; so, if you give me that sum and the month's interest, you can have it.'

  Without a word Lord Averley counted out the thirteen pounds, but he had to ask her what the interest was. Hagar told him, and in a few moments the transaction was concluded. Then Averley spoke.

  'How did you know it was my casket?'

  'The man who pawned it told me so.'

  'That was strange.'

  'Not at all, my lord. I made him tell me.'

  'H'm! you look clever,' said Averley, looking at her with interest. 'May I ask the name of the man who pawned this?'

  'Certainly. He was your valet, John Peters.'

  'Peters!' echoed her visitor. 'Oh, you must be mistaken! Peters is an honest man!'

  'He is a scoundrel and a thief, Lord Averley; and but for me he would have been a blackmailer.'

  'A blackmailer?'

  'Yes. There were letters in that casket.'

  'Were letters!' said Averley, hurriedly, and drew the box towards him. 'Do you know the secret?'

  'Yes; I found the secret recess and the letters. It was lucky for you that I did so. Your indiscreet speech to a friend informed Peters that compromising letters were hidden in the casket. He came here to find them; but I had already removed them.'

  'And where are they now?'

  'I gave them back to the married woman who wrote them.'

  'How did you know who wrote them?' asked Lord Averley, raising his eyebrows.

  'I read one of the letters, and then Peters told me the name of the lady. He proposed to me to blackmail her. I ostensibly agreed, and went to see the lady, to whom I gave back the letters. I asked you here to-night to return the casket; also to put you on your guard against John Peters. He is coming to see me to-morrow, to get – as he thinks – the money obtained by means of the letters. That is the whole story.'

  'It's a queer one,' replied Averley, smiling. 'I shall certainly discharge Peters, but I won't prosecute him for thieving. He knows about the letters, and they are far too dangerous to be brought into court.'

  'They are not dangerous now, my lord. I have given them back to the woman who wrote them.'

  'That was very good of you,' said Averley, satirically. 'May I ask the name of the lady?'

  'Surely you know! Mrs Delamere.'

  Averley looked aghast for a moment, and then began to laugh quietly. 'My dear young lady,' he said, as soon as he could bring his mirth within bounds, 'would it not have been better to have consulted me before giving back those letters?'

  'No,' said Hagar, boldly, 'for you might not have handed them over.'

  'Certainly I should not have handed them to Mrs Delamere!' said Averley, with a fresh burst of laughter.

  'Why not?'

  'Because she never wrote them. My dear lady, I burnt all the letters I got from Mrs Delamere, and I told her I had done so. The letters in this casket signed "Beatrice" were from a different lady altogether. I shall have to see Mrs Delamere. She'll never forgive me. Oh, what a comedy!' and he began laughing again.

  Hagar was annoyed. She had acted for the best, no doubt; but she had given the letters to the wrong woman. Shortly the humour of the mistake struck her also, and she laughed in concert with Lord Averley.

  'I'm sorry I made a mistake,' she said, at length.

  'You couldn't help it,' replied Averley rising. 'It was that scoundrel Peters who put you wrong. But I'll discharge him to-morrow, and get those letters of Beatrice back from Mrs Delamere.'

  'And you'll leave that poor little woman alone,' said Hagar, as she escorted him to the door.

  'My dear lady, now that Mrs Delamere has read those letters she'll leave me alone – severely. She'll never forgive me. Good-night. Oh, me, what a comedy!'