Produced by Al Haines [Frontispiece: "He glared at the clasp as if the diamond and sapphire eye were a miniature head of Medusa"] THE GREAT PEARL SECRET BY C. N. & A. M. WILLIAMSON FRONTISPIECE BY JULIAN DE MISKEY GARDEN CITY, N. Y., AND TORONTO DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 1921 COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY C. N. & A. M. WILLIAMSON ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN CONTENTS CHAPTER I. In Juliet's Sitting Room II. The Explanation III. "To Meet the Duchess" IV. The Letter with the Tsarina's Seal V. The Third Ringer of the Bell VI. Behind the Bookshelf VII. What Juliet Told Jack VIII. Juliet Breaks the Seals IX. The Eye That Looked to the Right X. The House in a Crosstown Street XI. In Jack's Private Sitting Room XII. "The 'Whisperer' Stuff" XIII. A Woman's Eyes XIV. Supper at Twelve XV. The Fortune Teller XVI. The Grey Room XVII. The Crystal XVIII. The Bargain XIX. Old Nick XX. The Third Degree XXI. The Middle Door XXII. The Whole of the Secret THE GREAT PEARL SECRET CHAPTER I IN JULIET'S SITTING ROOM A maid opened the door leading from a bedroom to a salon of the "royal suite" at Harridge's Hotel. Dusk had fallen, and entering, she switched on the electricity. The room, with its almost Louis Seize decorations, was suddenly flooded with light; and to her surprise the Frenchwoman saw a slim black figure nestled deep among cushions on a sofa before the fire. A small white face, with a frame of terra-cotta hair crushed under a mourning toque, turned a pair of big black eyes upon her. "Miladi West!" exclaimed the maid. (She pronounced it "Vest") "Pardon, Madame, I did not know that any one was here." She spoke in French, with an accent which told that her first language had been Italian, learned in the south of France; though in looks she was the chic Parisienne. Her English was quite good, but when she used that tongue, her accent was of New York. She preferred French, however, was proud of being French, and had Frenchified her Nicois-Italian name of Simonetta Amaranti to Simone Amaranthe. All Juliet Phayre's friends had to be polite to Simone. "Mr. Phayre's man let me in," said the red-haired lady in widow's weeds. "After I'd had a look at the wedding presents, I was so dazzled that I switched off the lights." She laughed, and then cried, "Leave the lights now! I suppose Mademoiselle won't be forever?" Simone shrugged her thin shoulders just perceptibly. "Mademoiselle sent me out on an errand, Miladi. I have not long returned, with the perfume she wanted. It was for the _coiffeur_ who is here to wash the hair of Mademoiselle. She would not have the stuff he brought, so the man was obliged to wait. I am afraid the drying, even with the hot-air machine, will take some time. Miladi knows what a quantity of the hairs there are on the pretty head of Mademoiselle, and how she is exacting of the way everything is done!" The red-haired lady guessed from the Frenchwoman's tone that Simone considered the introduction of a _coiffeur_ a slight to her own skill. "Why, yes," she agreed. "Mademoiselle is exacting. But what would you? She is a spoiled child. The least crumple in a rose-leaf--by the way, Simone" (she stopped for a little throaty chuckle), "is it true about the _carpet_ in this suite?" "The carpet, Miladi?" Simone flushed faintly through her dark skin, and "Miladi" made a second guess. Of course Juliet trusted Simone, and depended upon her blindly; but she--Emmy West--had often wondered how certain spicy little items concerning the Phayre family reached the gossip columns of "society papers." "I read such an amusing paragraph in _Modern Ways_ this morning," she explained. "It was _apropos_ of the wedding, of course. _Modern Ways_ loves a chance for a 'dig' at us Americans who marry well-known Englishmen! It said that when Miss Juliet Phayre and her Uncle Henry came over from Paris the other day, and took this royal suite which Mr. Phayre had engaged, Miss Phayre sent for the manager before she'd been in the hotel half an hour. 'There's a spot of ink on the carpet,' she complained (according to the paper). 'I must have another carpet at once.' Now do tell me, Simone (I'm very discreet!) did that really happen?" "It did, Madame," the maid admitted. "Though how it got to these sacred journalists----" "And did the manager say to Mademoiselle, 'We have had half the kings of Europe in this suite since that spot appeared, Miss Phayre, and not one of them mentioned it!'" "His words were to that effect, Miladi, so far as I remember. But----" "Oh, then you _were_ in the room? What fun! You can tell me if Juliet--if Mademoiselle replied that a spotted carpet might be good enough for a king; it wasn't good enough for a Phayre." Simone flung out her hands, palm upward. They were beautifully manicured hands, as carefully tended as her mistress's. And as she smiled her teeth showed very white. When her face was grave, she looked somewhat sullen, and might be thirty-five; but the smile was rejuvenating. It put her back to twenty-eight, and made her almost handsome as well as _chic_. "Miladi has known Mademoiselle since her schooldays, is it not?" she hedged. "Miladi will be able to judge as well as if I told her whether Mademoiselle would have made that answer." "I thought it rang true when I read it!" laughed Lady West. "But Simone, when you say I have 'known Mademoiselle since her schooldays', you make me sound awfully antique. We were at Madame de Sain's together. I came over to England the year I left, and married poor Sir Algy only three months after I was presented." She thought it best to hammer these details into Simone's head, in case the woman really _was_ in touch with those back-door, kitchen-stairs reporters. Then, to give an air of carelessness to her words, she turned the subject. "Perhaps you might let Mademoiselle know I've come. Parker told me that she was lying down--that she'd promised her uncle to rest till tea time. So I wouldn't have her disturbed. But if her hair is being washed, she might let me in." "I will ask Miladi," said Simone. "I came to the salon to see if the curtains were drawn. If Madame permits!" She tripped with her short, high-heeled step first to one window, then the other, and closed the draperies of old-rose brocade. Having done this, she pattered out of the room. Emmy West's eyes followed the thin but graceful figure in black silk. "Simone is a character!" she thought. And she wondered what the maid's secret opinion was of this marriage which would take place next day; the richest American heiress with the poorest British duke! Left alone again, Emmy wriggled up from her nest of cushions, and beguiled the time in examining the wedding gifts once more. This did not take long, as the marriage had been suddenly hurried on by special license, and friends of Juliet Phayre and the Duke of Claremanagh had had only a few days to send in their offerings. Emmy had made this uninvited visit with the object of admiring a certain one of Juliet's presents, but she had already informed herself that it was not on show with the rest. Unless the bride-elect refused to see her, she did not intend to leave Harridge's without a glimpse--or anyhow, news--of it. When she had wandered languidly round the three or four tables on which jewel cases, gold, silver, china, and tortoise-shell things were spread, she propped her own black-edged card conspicuously in front of a Sevres-framed mirror, and bent down for a hasty peep at her face in its oval. She wondered if her hair were a tiny touch too red. She liked it, herself, and thought the heart-shaped white face, with its wide-apart black eyes set in that copper halo, a siren face. In the weeds of a war-widow it seemed to her that she was almost irresistible, but she could not help realizing that there were people who did resist her. The Duke was one. And an attractive cousin of Juliet's, John Manners, was another. She was vaguely aware that her own taste was decidedly vivid. Perhaps the hair _was_ rather red! She had had it "bobbed" since Juliet came to London, because it worried her that Juliet should look years younger than she. No one would take Lady West for twenty-seven, but she had been an "old girl" and Juliet a "new girl," the year they met at school. Juliet was twenty-three now, and she, Emmy, had gone back to twenty-five. One had to be that, if one had married before the war! Quickly she dusted on a little powder from her vanity box, and accentuated the cupid's bow of her lips with a stick of red salve, for it was possible that Claremanagh might "breeze in." It would be like him! This thought was still in her mind when a door behind her opened. She turned nervously, tucking the lip-salve into her gold mesh bag, for just now the Duke was having a craze for baby complexions without make-up. But it was not the Duke. It was a girl, standing in the doorway between bedroom and salon. "Hello, Emmy!" she said. "Hello, Juliet!" said Emmy. And suddenly she felt years older than she had felt a moment ago. Juliet Phayre was such a big baby! The girl wore a pale pink chiffon thing which she probably considered a dressing gown. It was embroidered with wild roses and banded with swansdown, and no practical person would have dreamed of keeping it on for a shampoo. Juliet, however, thought herself sufficiently protected with a towel over her shoulders--a silvery damask towel under which her bare, girlish arms hung down. Over the towel streamed masses of hair in long, wet strands, which must be bright golden-brown when dry. These fell--weighted with water--nearly to her knees, and from their curly ends drops poured like unstrung pearls. She was so tall and slender, and brilliant rose-and-white, that she would have looked to a poet like Undine just out of her fountain. "You extravagant thing," Lady West scolded, "to spoil a lovely boudoir gown like that!" "Simone gets it to-morrow as a perquisite, with all my old things," Juliet dismissed the subject. "She said you'd been here an age, so I thought I'd better come in. I'll dry my hair before the fire, presently we'll have tea." So saying, she sat down tailor-fashion on a long, fat velvet cushion which lay in front of the low fender. "Evidently you're not expecting the Duke," laughed Lady West. "No-o," said the girl. "But I'm expecting a letter from him--or something." "You haven't got the pearls on show with your other presents, I see," remarked her friend. "I don't blame you! Of course, Parker is doing the watch-dog act outside; and only your _bestest_ pals come up. Still, the pearls are frightfully valuable. And you can never tell! But do, _do_ let me see them. I'm dying to!" "I haven't got them yet," Juliet confessed. "Not got them?" gasped the elder woman. "You're joking. Why"--and she laughed with great gaiety--"one _marries_ Claremanagh for his pearls!" "Does one?" Juliet took her up. "I know whole populations of females who'd give _their_ pearls to marry him, for--himself!" This told Emmy West that the bride-to-be knew she had been scratched, and was ready to scratch back. For an instant Emmy hesitated whether to be sweet or sharp, and decided to compromise. "By Jove, you _are_ in love, aren't you?" she said. "I am," Juliet admitted. "I don't care a rap about being a duchess. That sort of thing seems--somehow old-fashioned since the war. And I don't think I ever was a snob, thank goodness." Emmy wondered if this were another "dig." She had been a Chicago girl, and only a "tuppenny half-penny" heiress, compared to Juliet Phayre; but she had wanted a title, and had paid all she could afford for a mere baronet, such as her few hundred thousand dollars would buy. On the sofa once more facing her low-seated hostess, she looked Juliet full in the eyes; but Juliet's were innocent, even dreamy. "I'd have snapped at my Boy if he'd been just a Tommy when I met him Over There, instead of a perfectly gorgeous Guardsman," the girl went on. "But, of course, I _do_ want the pearls! I wouldn't be human if I didn't; everyone talks about them so much, even my Cousin Jack Manners, and says they're so marvellous. I expect they are what Pat is sending around this evening." "Sending around!" repeated the other. "You talk as if--as if they were a box of chocolates! Claremanagh is the careless-est creature on earth, I know. And he has been--er--very careless with the pearls. But I don't think even he would be as bad as that." "Why not?" asked the girl to whom most jewels meant little. "If he sent them by Old Nick, that dear, quaint man of his, they'd be safer than if he brought them himself. I never knew before that he was superstitious. But he is. It's bad luck for a Claremanagh to see his bride the day before the wedding. _Creepy_ things have happened, it seems, according to an old story! So he said he wasn't running risks. For some reason, he couldn't give me his present before to-day. So that's why the thing is to come by messenger, you see." "I see," echoed Emmy. "And you're sure the present _will_ be the pearls?" This was rather an impudent question to ask, especially for one who knew the Duke's circumstances; but, for a wonder, Juliet did not seem to mind. She answered quite easily, "Oh, I suppose so. Don't the Claremanagh men always give them to their brides?" "I believe they have dutifully handed them over _so far_--for several generations, since the pearls came into their family in that exciting way," said Lady West. "But you know, Peter--I mean Claremanagh--is very independent, and quite--er--a law unto himself." "Why do you call him 'Peter'?" the girl branched off from the subject. "He has about a dozen names, I know, but I hadn't heard that 'Peter' was one. My selection from the lot is Pat!" "Oh, 'Peter' was only a silly nickname I made up for him. 'Peter Pan', because he just isn't the sort who ever grows up!" Emmy explained elaborately. "Of course he was a lot with Algy and me the first year I married--before the war spoilt everything for everyone. And then, when I took up Red Cross work in France, after poor Algy---" "I know," Juliet ruthlessly interrupted. "That was where and when _I_ came on the scene." "It was," agreed Emmy, in a flat voice. "You came, you saw, you conquered. But we were talking of the Tsarina pearls. I do hope the Duke _is_ 'delivering the goods', as we say in our country. I don't mind confessing to you, my angel child, I dropped in hoping for a private view." "Oh, I guessed _that_ the minute Simone told me you were here, and determined to wait!" Juliet laughed like a naughty child who dares a "grown-up" to slap it. Emmy's ears tingled. The girl's tone, though intimate and friendly, told her how unimportant she was in the future Duchess's scheme of things. She had always envied Juliet, and had an old grudge against the heiress for refusing her brother, Bill Lowndes. Now she suddenly hated her. Instead of inflicting a kittenish scratch or two, she wanted to strike at Juliet Phayre's heart. "Well," she excused herself, "I never saw the pearls, except--er--at a _distance_." "You have seen them, then?" Juliet exclaimed. "How was that? Pat's mother died years before you knew him, and only the Duchess is supposed to wear the pearls, isn't she?" "Only the Duchess is _supposed_ to wear them." Juliet sat up straight on the velvet cushion. Her hair was drying beautifully now. The red background of fireglow lit it to flame, so that Lady West saw the slight figure surrounded by a nimbus. "Ever since Pat and I were engaged, you've been hinting at something queer, or _secret_, about that rope of pearls, Emmy," the girl blazed. "Now, _out_ with it, please! Tell me what you mean." The elder woman was taken aback. "Don't you _know_ what I mean?" she temporized. "No, I don't," snapped Juliet. "But I'm sure it's something unpleasant." "At least, I had no intention of telling you," Lady West snapped back. "I wouldn't distress you for worlds, dear, especially on your _wedding eve_." "Wedding eve be--'jizzled!'" inelegantly remarked the bride-elect. "You sound quite early Edwardian! If you don't tell me, I shall think the thing worse than it is." "You had better ask Claremanagh, or Jack Manners, who is a pal of his," said Emmy. "I can't, till I have an idea what to ask them about." "Ask whether Lyda Pavoya ever--no, I won't say it!" "Whether she ever wore the pearls? That's what you were going to say!" "So you _did_ know?" "I didn't. And I don't now. I only know what you have in your mind. I don't believe she was allowed to wear the pearls." "Why should you believe it? And even if she did, it was before you knew Peter--the Duke. Or anyhow, it was before you were _engaged_. It was when she was dancing for the Polish Relief Fund in Paris, that I saw----" "You saw what?" "Saw--her." "Emmy! You _didn't_ see her wearing the Tsarina pearls? It's not possible." "Why, of course you must be right, dear. Even though they are _blue_, they'd be like any other pearls, wouldn't they, _to see at a distance_." "That's just what you said about Pat's pearls five minutes ago: that you'd seen them only 'at a distance.'" Lady West did not reply. She put on a stricken, trapped expression, which went well with her widow's weeds. The two gazed into each other's eyes, each waiting for the other to speak. Neither heard a sound at the door until a respectable voice--such a voice as is never possessed save by a British butler or valet--announced "His Grace the Duke of Claremanagh." CHAPTER II THE EXPLANATION A perfectly charming young man came in--a young man so delightful to look at that it seemed almost too much that he should be a duke. With that merry brown face (the war had left a scar across cheek and temple), those Celtic grey eyes, that jet-black hair, that "figure for a fencer," and above all that engaging grin of his, the merest Nobody might hope to make his mark as Somebody. "Breezing in" (as Emmy had put it), he smiled his nice smile that brought a dimple like a cut line into each thin, tanned cheek. The smile was for Juliet, whose velvet throne was opposite the door, and for her he waved aloft a small, sealed white parcel. Then he saw Lady West, and his expression changed. As the saying is, his "face fell," but in half a second he had controlled his features. "How do you do?" he enquired. His voice was as pleasant as his grin, but there was a slight stiffness in his tone for the red-haired war-widow. "I'm going strong, thanks! Going in every sense of the word," Emmy assured him. "I should have taken myself off before now, only Juliet pretended not to be expecting you. Of course, the day before the wedding _is_ supposed by old-fashioned folk to be close time for brides, where their loving bridegrooms are concerned, and so----" "I'm not old-fashioned," said Claremanagh. "Rather not! I've every reason for knowing that. We all have. But Juliet had some story about a 'bad luck' superstition. I thought you were the last man to be superstitious, Irish as you are, but it didn't sound like a joke----" "It wasn't a joke. I'm as superstitious as the deuce about one or two things," the man confessed. "Juliet wasn't 'pretending' but"--and he turned to the girl--"I had to come. There was something I didn't want to explain in a letter, and--hang 'bad luck!' It's a cross dog that would dare bite us." As Emmy West saw the look he gave Juliet, she felt as though her heart had been sharply pinched between a thumb and a finger. She had believed till now that his "superstition" was an excuse for spending his time with someone whose society he preferred to the bride's. Yet here he was, bouncing in like a bomb, with that eager light in his eyes, and in his hand a packet which _might_ be the pearls! When Juliet explained that there "was a reason" why Claremanagh "couldn't give his present till to-day," an exciting thought had tumbled into Emmy's head: What if Lyda Pavoya had refused to return the pearls he'd been teased into lending her, and had taken them to New York, where she was now dancing? Emmy visioned the poor Duke frantically cabling, the moment he had secured the American heiress; or perhaps engaging a lawyer to frighten the Polish siren. Lyda wouldn't be easy to frighten, Emmy imagined, admiringly. (She, in fact, admired the dancer so sincerely, that her own attempts at sirenhood were copied from Pavoya.) Even if Lyda had disgorged the booty, would there have been time for it to arrive from across the Atlantic? Only the opening of that little parcel would show, and Emmy's jealous pain was complicated by curiosity. Still, she decided, it would be useless to wear out her welcome by lingering. The chances were that Claremanagh wouldn't break those thrilling seals till she had gone. Besides, Juliet was in a state of suppressed fury, and was capable in that mood of banishing her with rudeness. In some moods, the girl was capable of _anything_! So Lady West "kissed air" in the neighbourhood of Miss Phayre's burning cheeks, and accepted defeat with one sole satisfaction: If the pearls had come--or if they ever came!--she had pretty well spoiled them for the future Duchess. "_Au revoir_, dearest child," she said. "I shall be in church to-morrow, of course. _Au revoir_, Peter, and good luck in spite of the Claremanagh curse. I do hope it won't put on seven-league boots and follow you to New York." "Leather's too dear since the war for superannuated old curses to buy seven-league boots," replied the Duke, unflatteringly prompt in opening the door. The pretty lady went to it with wormlike meekness, but turned on the threshold. "If I meet the Curse, I'll tell it to mind its business," she laughed. "The Claremanaghs have had enough bad luck. You'll create a new record, working out your democratic notions in a new country, with one or two _old friends_ there to applaud them." With this exit speech she put herself in charge of Parker, who would ring up the lift for her. The Duke shut the salon door, and turned to the girl. He didn't even say "Thank goodness, the woman's gone!" He seemed to have forgotten her existence. "Heavens, what hair you have!" he exclaimed. "I knew it must be gorgeous, but I didn't dream of _this_. To-night I _shall_ dream of it! By rights, I oughtn't to have seen this show till to-morrow night, ought I? But I'm glad I have. All your beauties bursting upon me at once would be too much for my brain." "Don't make fun of me," Juliet laughed, with a wistfulness rather pathetic in so pretty and so rich a girl. "Make fun of you!" Claremanagh snatched her up from the low seat, and crushed the yielding, thinly clad young body in his arms. On the sweet-scented, damp hair he rained kisses. "Am I a wooden man? Take that--and that, to punish you! Mavourneen--if it were _to-morrow_!" Between warm joy and chilling doubt Juliet Phayre shivered. If only she could believe him--believe that he cared for her, and not for the money! She almost had believed--before Emmy West came. The girl burned to tell "Pat" what Emmy had said and hinted. If he could reassure her, it would be balm on a wound never quite healed. But--_if he couldn't_. If questioning should make bad things worse? Then she would wish in vain that she'd "let sleeping dogs lie," because she loved the man too much to give him up. She had wanted him as a child wants the moon, ever since the day she, a gilt-edged Red Cross nurse, had met him, a soldier on leave, in Paris. Now she had got him--or almost--and the future _might_ be so wonderful! He had promised her uncle, Henry Phayre, to live for at least half of each year in America, there to work as other men worked (Phayre would supply the employment), and Juliet had looked forward to being proud of her adorable husband, happy with him; a living proof--the pair of them--that an American girl can marry a duke for himself, not for his title; that a duke can make an American heiress his wife for love. But now, Emmy had raked up those old rags of gossip, nearly forgotten. And Juliet had read in the paper only a few days ago about Pavoya's first night in New York; the furore her "wild eastern dancing and strange, Slavic fascination" had created. The girl felt sick at heart as she asked herself if Pat's pleasure in the thought of "seeing New York" had any connection with Pavoya's presence there. It was all she could do not to purr out her complaints of "that _cat_, Emmy West," but native prudence prevailed over hot impulse. She enjoyed as much as Emmy permitted Pat's praise of her glorious hair (surely Pavoya's wasn't as long or thick, and probably its "rusty red" was due to dye), and then she reminded him of the parcel. "Is it my present from you?" she asked, almost shyly, nodding toward the table where Pat had thrown the neat white square. Instantly he let her go, and took the little parcel again in his hand. "Yes, sweet, it _is_ my present for you," he said. "But _not_ the present I wanted to give you. That's why I risked the 'curse' and came to explain." "Oh!" was the girl's noncommittal answer. Her heart sank. The pearls were not in the packet, she knew now, but her disappointment was not so much in missing them as in the thought that Emmy could say "I told you so!" "Before you open these silly seals, and see what I've brought," the Duke went on, "I want to make my explanation, and be sure you understand the whole business. Come and sit by me on the sofa, will you?" He drew her down beside him, and gathered her close. "Of course, you know all about our pearls, the one ewe lamb of ancient glory left to us poor Claremanaghs," he said. "I don't know _all_ about them," amended Juliet, her heart missing a beat. "Tell me just what you do know, and then I shan't bore you with repetitions." "Oh, people have told me things," she hedged. "Didn't a Tsarina of Russia sell the pearls to some old ancestor of yours?" "Good lord, no!" he chuckled. "Never was a Claremanagh so stony broke as yours truly; yet never was there one since the days of pterodactyls who could run to the price of a Tsarina's pearls; that is, in _lucre_. My great-great-grandfather bought them with kisses. But joking apart, it's rather a romantic tale. He was a soldier and offered his services to Russia because he'd seen a portrait of the Tsarina, which the Prince of Wales had, and fell in love with it. Well, she fell in love with him, too, at sight. He wasn't bad to look at, judging from his portrait----" "Was he like you?" cut in Juliet. Pat laughed. "They say so. When we can get those Pill people out of Castle Claremanagh (their lease has a year to run) you shall tell me if you find a likeness. There was an 'affair' between the two; and great-great-grandfather Pat (he was Patrick, too, like all the eldest sons) had it politely intimated to him, through his friend Wales, that he'd better come home--a marriage had been arranged for him. He'd not have stirred a foot if it hadn't been for his Love. She begged him to go. There was a plot to murder him, it seems, and as for her, she'd ceased to be very popular with the Tsar, her husband. She made her sweetheart promise to marry the English girl, and she gave him the rope of pearls which since then have been called after her--the 'Tsarina's pearls.' They were for his wife, as a gift from her, so the girl shouldn't hate the thought of their love." "_I_ should have hated it all the more!" cried Juliet. "I wouldn't have _worn_ the things if I'd been his bride." "Well, as _my_ bride I hope you will wear them often. They'll be dashed becoming to your blondness, for the things are unique in one way: they're _blue_; a hundred and eighty immense and perfectly matched blue pearls. Never has anything been seen like them, the expert johnnies say." "Was the Tsarina a blonde?" the girl wanted to know. "A copper-headed blonde. You shall see her miniature." Juliet said nothing. But she thought of Lyda Pavoya's head. She had never seen the Polish dancer, but she had heard her described: the traditional "siren-green" eyes, white face, and red hair. And she knew that Emmy West modelled herself, so far as Nature permitted, on Pavoya. "In the ordinary sense of the word, the Tsarina pearls aren't an heirloom in our family," Claremanagh continued. "But the first bride who received them passed on the gift to her eldest son's bride. So it has gone on ever since. The thing falls to the heir, or his wife; and it's tacitly understood that neither the rope as a whole, nor even one of the pearls, shall be sold. Well, I came into the inheritance (if you can call it that) seven years ago, when I was twenty-one. I'm afraid I'd have sold the bally thing more than once if I could have done it in common decency. But I couldn't. So there you _are_!" "What _did_ you do with it?" Juliet ventured, half dreading the answer. Her head was pressed close to Pat's shoulder. She could not look up at his face, but she thought a muscle jumped in the arm that held her, and that there was a sudden change in his tone. "Do with it?" he echoed. "Why, what should I do but keep it in the bank waiting for the Lady of my Dreams? I couldn't wear it round my neck, you know! But, well, I did get it out of the bank now and then, to show to beautiful beings who begged to see it. Once it was in a Loan Exhibition for the benefit of something or other, I forget what. The confession I have to make, though, is this: only two months before I met the dearest girl on earth I was so hard up I'd have had to grind a monkey-organ in the streets if I hadn't been engaged in fighting for King and Country. I'd had some beastly bad luck with a speculation an alleged pal had let me in for, and honest Injun, I didn't know which way to turn, until a chap I know offered me two hundred thousand francs on the security of the pearls." "_Francs?_" echoed Juliet. "Yes. The man's a Frenchman. And the business was done in France. He's a dashed good fellow in his way. But it's a queer way. He's a kind of gilded, super money-lender. His transactions are only with his friends, and the interest he takes is fair and square: twenty per cent. instead of sixty or so, as the sharks do--to my bitter knowledge. With what I got from Louis Mayen I paid my debts, and hung onto a bit, a few thousands. Then, two months later, I met you--and the fat was in the fire!" "How, in the fire?" "Why, I made up my mind at first sight to grab you if I could----" Juliet broke out laughing like a child, forgetful of her secret burden. "_Did_ you--really? So did I you!" "Bold hussy!" He kissed her with passion. "But it was worse for me than you. I'd just lost my chance of giving you your legitimate wedding present--if you'd have me. The day you said 'Yes', instead of walking on air I could have thrown myself in the sea, I felt such a fool." "Silly boy!" cried the girl. "Any real money-lender, or even your super, gilded one, would have let you have all you wanted if you'd said you were marrying Silas Phayre's heiress. I mayn't know much about business, but I know that!" "And I mayn't be a saint, but I'm not a cad," Claremanagh capped her. "I wouldn't go to a money-lender on the strength of being engaged to you. I don't say that if Louis Mayen had been in France then I'd not have wheedled the pearls back from him, on the mere strength of friendship, and an I.O.U., or some such arrangement. He'd have trusted me," Pat laughed; "anyhow, in the circumstances! But you and I were engaged a fortnight after the Armistice, you remember. Just a week before our own Great Day (yours and mine) Mayen went to Russia with a lot of important Frenchmen of Hebrew blood, on a diplomatic mission. He had a bad time in Petrograd. He and his lot were stuck into the prison of St. Peter and St. Paul, by the Bolchies. I didn't know where the pearls were and couldn't find out. That was two months ago. But after six weeks in a cell, Mayen was released by order of Lenine; and it was expected in Paris that he and the rest would be back in France by now. "We were there ourselves--you and your uncle in Paris, and I at G.H.Q. you know, till just ten days ago--though it seems longer. And I was hoping against hope that Mayen might turn up. I wouldn't say a word to you, for I didn't want you to be disappointed. And even as late as last night I wouldn't quite give up. Your Cousin Jack Manners, who is the best fellow on earth, has been watching things for me in Paris. He'd heard that Mayen had quietly sneaked back, and hadn't let any one know, in order to get a good rest cure. But this turns out to be a _canard_. Now you see why I had to go out and find you a 'fairing' as the Scots say. I couldn't afford anything worth while unless I borrowed; so I thought things over, and decided that you'd prefer a little remembrance of our wedding, bought with my own 'pocket-money,' and supplemented by a souvenir of my mother. Am I right?" "Absolutely! Whatever you give me, I shall love it," said Juliet. "I wouldn't care if it cost sixpence. It's from _you_; that makes the value for me. But, Pat, I can't bear to think of your being poor! You won't be after to-morrow. I haven't liked to talk of such things, but I told Uncle Henry I wanted a million dollars settled on you, to use as you pleased. Surely he did what I----" "He did, my child. But I 'wasn't taking any'. I meant to tell you this myself when we were old married people--a week after the wedding, let's say! But since you've brought up the subject, we might as well have it out. Your money is going to restore Claremanagh, and the jolly old London house in Queen Anne's gate that my great-grandfather bought. I don't so much mind that. You'll enjoy the places. And it won't be till the tenants there turn out. I'm to have a screw from your uncle for pretending to work in the S. P. Phayre Bank: a hundred dollars a week to begin with (he offered more, but I wouldn't have it), about a fiftieth part of which I'll really earn. But even that will bring me nearly a hundred pounds a month, so I shan't disgrace my wife by wearing paper collars or elastic-sided boots, or not getting my hair cut. Then, as my earning power increases, so will my pay. Besides, your noble guardian wants to buy my place at Maidenhead, when it's free, next spring. He'll give sixty thousand pounds, which will leave me fifty when the mortgage is paid off; and Mr. Phayre will advise me about investments. So you see, you're not marrying a pauper after all, my good girl! As for the pearls, it's only a delay--an annoying delay. When Mayen really does get back to Paris, he'll find a letter from me containing a post-dated cheque for the two hundred thousand francs, and interest. That will come out of the fifty thousand pounds, and still leave me a decent pile. Mayen will at once take steps to get the pearls to me." "But we'll be in New York," objected Juliet. "How can Monsieur Mayen send them without danger of their being stolen?" "Trust him to arrange that," Claremanagh soothed her. "There must be lots of ways. Besides, they'll be insured for their full value, which is supposed to be--intrinsic, not sentimental--one hundred thousand pounds. What I hope is, they'll be in time for you to make a show in your box at the opera--Metropolitan Opera House, you call it, don't you? You see, I've been reading up a guide book to New York! And now I've made all my explanations and excuses, my darling, you'd better open the poor little box." His arm still round her, the girl broke the jeweller's seals. Inside the white paper was a white velvet case, and inside the white velvet case was a string of white pearls. They were small, but good, and from them depended an old-fashioned, open-faced locket containing an ivory miniature of a beautiful boy. "The pearls are from me," Pat said. "The locket and miniature are from my mother. She used always to wear the locket. And when she died, eight years ago, one of the last things she did was to give it to me, 'for my bride'." Juliet Phayre would not have been human if she had not forgotten, in that moment, both Emmy West and Lyda Pavoya. CHAPTER III "TO MEET THE DUCHESS" Mrs. Lowndes, Emmy West's sister-in-law, was giving a luncheon for the Duchess of Claremanagh; and the Duchess was late. Nine lovely ladies (including the hostess) were waiting for her in the Futurist drawing room of an apartment overlooking the Park. It was not to all tastes a beautiful drawing room, but it was expensive for all purses. So was the apartment; too expensive, Billy Lowndes' friends said, for his. As for the ladies, each one was beautiful, or her clothes were; for Nat Lowndes had chosen her guests with the special view of impressing the Duchess, whom Billy had tried to marry when she was Miss Phayre. The invitations were for one-fifteen, and before one-thirty everyone had arrived--except the Duchess. By twenty to two the nine voices were chattering with almost abnormal gaiety, but ears and eyes were secretly on the alert. Natalie Lowndes was not precisely in the Duchess' "set", or if she was, moved on the chilled outer edge of it. These women who chatted in her startling salon would have preferred other engagements, if they had not been asked "to meet the Duchess of Claremanagh." Most of them knew that Billy had desperately wanted Juliet Phayre, and that Juliet had been at school with his sister, Lady West, now in London. Their private opinion was that the Duchess had accepted for Lady West's sake rather than Mrs. Lowndes'; and as the minutes lagged, they wondered if the chief guest were purposely proving her slight esteem of the circle. This idea ruffled their vanity, and as they talked, glancing at wrist watches, their irritation grew. Natalie who, like her husband, was from the Middle West, felt the atmosphere of her overheated room fall to zero. She began to feel sick at heart, and tears pricked her eyelids. But she kept a brave front. No one had spoken yet of the delay, nor of the lady who caused it; but at a quarter to two it seemed better to be frank. "I can't think what can have happened to Juliet!" Natalie said. (Nat was one of those women who always called her smartest acquaintances by their Christian names--behind their backs.) "We'll wait five minutes more--not a moment longer. I'm sure she wouldn't wish it." "Royalties are always so prompt," said Mrs. Sam Selby-Saunders, who knew the habits of kings and queens from the Sunday Supplements. "Evidently dukes--or anyhow duchesses--don't follow their example." "Something must be the matter," Nat defended the absent. "At first Juliet was afraid she couldn't accept to-day. You know, there's a meeting this morning at Mrs. Van Esten's, to arrange details of the wonderful roof garden show in aid of the Armenians. Juliet had to be present, as she's on the committee. But at last she decided she could get away in time. She must have been kept." Nobody spoke for a minute. If there had been only Ten First Families in New York, Mrs. Van Esten would still have been high on the list. She was the organizer of the proposed entertainment, the plans for which were thrilling the town; and if this business were keeping the Duchess, she was almost excusable. Anyhow, nobody's feelings need be hurt. Suddenly, in the midst of the pause, Miss Solomon laughed. Her father was as rich as Silas Phayre had been, and there was no reason why she shouldn't be a duchess, too, some day, when travel abroad became easier. "I did hear the _loveliest_ thing!" she chuckled. "I wonder if any of you have heard it? ... That Mrs. Van Esten meant to propose at the committee meeting to-day the name of Lyda Pavoya." "Good gracious, for _what_?" gasped Nat Lowndes. "To dance at the entertainment, of course. Mrs. Van E.'s maid and my maid are cousins. So I should say it was true. You know Mrs. Van E. is notorious for never listening to gossip. She prides herself on 'being above it'. Very silly, _I_ think. Because one can make such awful 'gaffs' if one doesn't know the seamy side of things." "No wonder the Duchess is late!" cried Mrs. Sam. "She has probably had to go home between the meeting and here to faint or have a fit." Nobody could help laughing, and nobody tried to help it. There was a weekly paper in New York--a paper called the _Inner Circle_. This publication one got one's maid to buy and hide under a pile of books until it could be read. The moment all its paragraphs had been absorbed the paper was destroyed, thus making it possible to say, "the _Inner Circle_! I wouldn't give the wretched rag houseroom!" The inside middle pages of the "rag" were headed "Let's Whisper!" And at the time of the Phayre-Claremanagh marriage, two months ago, the choicest whispering had concerned the Duke's flirtation with Lyda Pavoya. "It is easier to break off a flirtation than an engagement, because you can't be sued for breach of promise," was one _mot_ of "The Whisperer," and it was intimated that the Duke had profited by this immunity when he proposed to Miss Phayre. "But what about the pearls?" was a question which no one had forgotten, and for which everyone wanted an answer. Oh, yes, it would be a rich joke if Mrs. Van Esten proposed Pavoya for a "star turn" at the Armenian charity entertainment! "If it's true," said Nat, "Juliet couldn't very well refuse her consent to have Pavoya. That would make things worse. As it is, none of us could help noticing how she has kept the Duke away from every single opera where Pavoya has danced. Not once has he or she been in their box on a Pavoya night. But----" The company hung on the word, as Nat drew in her breath, and paused for effect. Never were they to know, however, what revelation was to follow that "but," for at this instant Mrs. Lowndes' butler announced "The Duchess of Claremanagh," and left out the preface of "Her Grace." His omission upset the hostess so much that she stammered over her greeting, and forgot what she had read in a book called "English Etiquette" about introducing a duchess. Juliet Claremanagh was so contrite for her own guilt, however, that she had no thought for others' shortcomings. "Oh, I'm _dreadfully_ sorry to be late! Do forgive me, everyone!" she cried, like a penitent schoolgirl. "I was kept so long at that meeting, and then I had to dash home for a minute. My husband had made me _promise_. You see, this is supposed to be a great day for me. The pearls--perhaps you've heard of them?--are due at last!" "Perhaps" they had heard of the pearls! The Duchess was forgiven at once. Introductions were hastily made. As the party sat down, the guest of honour pulling off her gloves, she went on with her excuses. Evidently she was willing to talk of the pearls, so Nat ventured an entering wedge. "Emmy wrote me they had to be re-strung," she said. "And that the most skilled pearl-stringer in England wasn't demobilized, or something; so you had to wait." What Emmy had really written was, "This is the story they're putting round." But it would be exciting to get Juliet's answer, and watch Juliet's face. The Duchess was somewhat paler than Juliet Phayre had been, for she and the Duke had made a huge success in New York, and were in such request that they kept appalling hours. But she was rosier than she had ever been as she replied that, yes, she had had to wait. But at last the pearls had been sent. They were on the _Britannia_, in care of a trusted person; and that person had "wirelessed" that he would be at the house by half-past twelve. Unluckily, however, the _Britannia_ had been delayed outside for a sister ship to leave the dock. She--Juliet--had gone home from Mrs. Van Esten's to receive the messenger, with her husband. But the former and Pat's trusted man, sent to meet him, had not arrived. She had waited a few minutes, and had then come on in the car to Mrs. Lowndes'. Of course, the auto had been detained for ages, at two or three crossings! It was always like that if one were late! And now she could not be at home when the pearls appeared, for there were engagements, which couldn't be broken, for the whole of the afternoon. After all, the luncheon was a great success. The Duchess atoned for her sins by being "sweet" to everyone, much sweeter than she had troubled herself to be, as a spoiled young girl, with strangers. She was as pleased as a child with the delicious dishes ordered, almost with prayer, by Nat; and when she was obliged to go, after coffee and cigarettes, she left behind her a charming impression. Mrs. Selby-Saunders and Miss Solomon and all the rest made up for their sharp speeches by praising the bride's beauty and exquisite clothes. "She's much prettier than she used to be," generously said Nat (who had never seen Juliet as Miss Phayre), "and the Duke must be a fool if he likes Lyda Pavoya better. If he neglects his wife, she won't have any trouble finding someone else who won't." "What about that cousin of hers, Jack Manners, who used to be in love with her when she was almost a child?--a nephew of her mother's," asked Mrs. Selby-Saunders. "An awfully nice fellow! She ought to have married him. They say he volunteered before America joined the Allies, because she refused him----" "He's in France still," Nat supplied the information eagerly. "My sister-in-law, Lady West, met him there----" "I saw in some newspaper that he was to sail for home on the _Britannia_" said Miss Solomon. "Perhaps _he_ is the messenger bringing the pearls!" CHAPTER IV THE LETTER WITH THE TSARINA'S SEAL John Manners was not the messenger bringing the pearls. Even if he had been asked to bring them, he would not have accepted the responsibility of escorting Claremanagh's "ewe lamb" across the Atlantic. He knew more about
{'title': 'The Great Pearl Secret by A. M. Williamson and C. N. Williamson', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}