F. Marion Crawford

When Van Torp and Logotheti left Mr. Pinney's shop, the old jeweller meant to have a good look at the ruby the Greek had brought him, and was going to weigh it, not merely as a matter of business, for he weighed every stone that passed through his hands from crown diamonds to sparks, but with genuine curiosity, because in a long experience he had not seen very many rubies of such a size, which were also of such fine quality, and he wondered where this one had been found.

Just then, however, two well-dressed young men entered the shop and came up to him. He had never seen either of them before, but their looks inspired him with confidence; and when they spoke, their tone was that of English gentlemen, which all other Englishmen find it practically impossible to imitate, and which had been extremely familiar to Mr. Pinney from his youth. Though he was the great jeweller himself, the wealthy descendant of five of his name in succession, and much better off than half his customers, he was alone in his shop that morning. The truth was that his only son, the sixth Pinney and the apple of his eye, had just been married and was gone abroad for a honeymoon trip, and the head shopman, who was Scotch, was having his {191} month's holiday in Ayrshire, and the second man had been sent for, to clean and restring the Duchess of Barchester's pearls at her Grace's house in Cadogan Gardens, as was always done after the season, and a couple of skilled workmen for whom Mr. Pinney found occupation all the year round were in the workshop at their tables; wherefore, out of four responsible and worthy men who usually were about, only the great Mr. Pinney himself was at his post.

One of the two well-dressed customers asked to see some pins, and the other gave his advice. The first bought a pin with a small sapphire set in sparks for ten guineas, and gave only ten pounds for it because he paid cash. Mr. Pinney put the pin into its little morocco case, wrapped it up neatly and handed it to the purchaser. The latter and his friend said good-morning in a civil and leisurely manner, sauntered out, took a hansom a few steps farther down the street, and drove away.

The little paper twist containing Logotheti's ruby was still exactly where Mr. Pinney had placed it on the counter, and he was going to examine the stone and weigh it at last, when two more customers entered the shop, evidently foreigners, and moreover of a sort unfamiliar to the good jeweller, and especially suspicious.

The two were Baraka and her interpreter and servant, whom Logotheti had called a Turk, and who was really a Turkish subject and a Mohammedan, though as to race, he was a half-bred Greek and Dalmatian. Now Dalmatians are generally honest, truthful, and trustworthy, {192} and the low-class Greek of Constantinople is usually extremely sharp, if he is nothing more definitely reprehensible; and Baraka's man was a cross between the two, as I have said, and had been brought up as a Musulman in a rich Turkish family, and recommended to Baraka by the Persian merchant in whose house she had lived. He had been originally baptized a Christian under the name of Spiro, and had been subsequently renamed Selim when he was made a real Moslem at twelve years old; so he used whichever name suited the circumstances in which he was placed. At present he was Spiro. He was neatly dressed in grey clothes made by a French tailor, and he wore a French hat, which always made a bad impression on Mr. Pinney. He had brown hair, brown eyes, a brown moustache, and a brown face; he looked as active as a cat, and Mr. Pinney at once put him down in his mind as a 'Froggy.' But the jeweller was less sure about Baraka, who was dressed like any young Englishman, but looked like no European he had ever seen. On the whole, he took the newcomer for the son of an Indian rajah sent to England to be educated.

The interpreter spoke broken but intelligible English. He called Baraka his master, and explained that the latter wished to see some rubies, if Mr. Pinney had any, cut or uncut. The young gentleman, he said, did not speak English, but was a good judge of stones.

For one moment the jeweller forgot the little paper twist as he turned towards his safe, pulling out his keys at the same time. To reach the safe he had to {193} walk the whole length of the shop, behind the counter, and before he had gone half way he remembered the stone, turned, came back, and slipped it into his waistcoat pocket. Then he went and got the little japanned strong-box with a patent lock, in which he kept loose stones, some wrapped up in little pieces of paper, and some in pill-boxes. He brought it to his customers, and opened it before them.

They stayed a long time, and Spiro asked many questions for Baraka, chiefly relating to the sliding-scale of prices which is regulated by the weight of the stones where their quality is equally good, and Baraka made notes of some sort in a little English memorandum-book, as if she had done it all her life; but Mr. Pinney could not see what she wrote. He was very careful, and watched the stones, when she took them in her fingers and held them up against the light, or laid them on a sheet of white paper to look at them critically.

She bought nothing; and when she had seen all he had to show her, she thanked him very much through Spiro, said she would come back another day, and went out with a leisurely, Oriental gait, as if nothing in the world could hurry her. Mr. Pinney counted the stones again, and was going to lock the box, when his second man came in, having finished stringing the Duchess's pearls. At the same moment, it occurred to Mr. Pinney that he might as well go to luncheon, and that he had better put Logotheti's ruby into the little strong-box and lock it up in the safe until he at last {194} had a chance to weigh it. He accordingly took the screw of paper from his waistcoat pocket, and as a matter of formality he undid it once more.

'Merciful Providence!' cried Mr. Pinney, for he was a religious man.

The screw of paper contained a bit of broken green glass. He threw his keys to his shopman without another word, and rushed out into the street without his hat, his keen old face deadly pale, and his beautiful frock-coat flying in his wake.

He almost hurled himself upon a quiet policeman.

'Thief!' he cried. 'Two foreigners in grey clothes—ruby worth ten thousand pounds just gone—I'm Pinney the jeweller!'

You cannot astonish a London policeman. The one Pinney had caught looked quietly up and down the street, and then glanced at his interlocutor to be sure that it was he, for he knew him by sight.

'All right,' he said quickly, but very quietly. 'I'll have them in a minute, sir, for they're in sight still. Better go in while I take them, sir.'

He caught them in less than a minute without the slightest difficulty, and by some odd coincidence two other policemen suddenly appeared quite close to him. There was a little stir in the street, but Baraka and Spiro were too sensible and too sure of themselves to offer any useless resistance, and supposing there was some misunderstanding they walked back quietly to Mr. Pinney's shop between two of the policemen, while the third went for a four-wheeler at the nearest stand, {195} which happened to be the corner of Brook Street and New Bond Street.

Mr. Pinney recognised his late customers without hesitation, and went with them to the police station, where he told his story and showed the piece of green glass. Spiro tried to speak, but was ordered to hold his tongue, and as no rubies were found in their pockets he and Baraka were led away to be more thoroughly searched.

But now, at last, Baraka resisted, and with such tremendous energy that there would have been serious trouble if Spiro had not called out something which at once changed the aspect of matters.

'Master is lady!' he yelled. 'Lady, man clothes!'

'That makes a pretty bad case,' observed the sergeant who was superintending. 'Send for Mrs. Mowle.'

Baraka did not resist when she saw the matron, and went quietly with her to a cell at the back of the station. In less than ten minutes Mrs. Mowle came out and locked the door after her. She was a cheery little person, very neatly dressed, and she had restless bright eyes like a ferret. She brought a little bag of soft deerskin in her hand, and a steel bodkin with a wrought silver handle, such as southern Italian women used to wear in their hair before such weapons were prohibited. Mrs. Mowle gave both objects to the officer without comment.

'Any scars or tattoo-marks, Mrs. Mowle?' he inquired in his business-like way.

'Not a one,' answered Mrs. Mowle, who had formerly {196} taken in washing at home and was the widow of a brave policeman, killed in doing his duty.

In the bag there were several screws of paper, which were found to contain uncut rubies of different sizes to a large value. But there was one, much larger than the others, which Mr. Van Torp had not seen that morning. Mr. Pinney looked at it very carefully, held it to the light, laid it on a sheet of paper, and examined it long in every aspect. He was a conscientious man.

'To the best of my belief,' he deposed, 'this is the stone that was on my counter half an hour ago, and for which this piece of green glass was substituted. It is the property of a customer of mine, Monsieur Konstantin Logotheti of Paris, who brought it to me this morning to be cut. I think it may be worth between nine and ten thousand pounds. I can say nothing as to the identity of the paper, for tissue paper is very much alike everywhere.'

'The woman,' observed the officer in charge of the station, 'appears to steal nothing but rubies. It looks like a queer case. We'll lock up the two, Mr. Pinney, and if you will be kind enough to look in to-morrow morning, I'm sure the Magistrate won't keep you waiting for the case.'

Vastly relieved and comforted, Mr. Pinney returned to his shop. Formality required that the ruby itself, with the others in the bag, should remain in the keeping of the police till the Magistrate ordered it to be returned to its rightful owner, the next morning; but Mr. Pinney {197} felt quite as sure of its safety as if it were in the japanned strong-box in his own safe, and possibly even a little more sure, for nobody could steal it from the police station.

But after he was gone, Spiro was heard calling loudly, though not rudely or violently, from his place of confinement.

'Mr. Policeman! Mr. Policeman! Please come speak!'

The man on duty went to the door and asked what he wanted. In his broken English he explained very clearly that Baraka had a friend in London who was one of the great of the earth, and who would certainly prove her innocence, vouch for her character, and cause her to be set at large without delay, if he knew of her trouble.

'What is the gentleman's name?' inquired the policeman.

The name of Baraka's friend was Konstantin Logotheti, and Spiro knew the address of the lodgings he always kept in St. James's Place.

'Very well,' said the policeman. 'I'll speak to the officer at once.'

'I thank very much, sir,' Spiro answered, and he made no more noise.

The sergeant looked surprised when the message was given to him.

'Queer case this,' he observed. 'Here's the thief appealing to the owner of the stolen property for help; and the owner is one of those millionaire financiers; {198} and the thief is a lovely girl in man's clothes. By the bye, Sampson, tell Mrs. Mowle to get out some women's slops and dress her decently, while I see if I can find Mr. Logotheti by telephone. They'll be likely to know something about him at the Bank if he's not at home, and he may come to find out what's the matter. If Mrs. Foxwell should look in and want to see the girl, let her in, of course, without asking me. If she's in town, she'll be here before long, for I've telephoned to her house, as usual when there's a girl in trouble.'

There was a sort of standing, unofficial order that in any case of a girl or a young woman being locked up, Mrs. Foxwell was to know of it, and she had a way of remembering a great many sergeants' names, and doing kind things for their wives at Christmas-time, which further disposed them to help her in her work. But the London police are by nature the kindliest set of men who keep order anywhere in the world, and they will readily help a man or woman who tries to do good in a sensible, practical way; and if they are sometimes a little prejudiced in favour of their own perspicuity in getting up a case, let that policeman, of any other country, who is quite without fault, throw the first stone at their brave, good natured heads.

Logotheti was not at his lodgings in St. James's Place, and from each of two clubs to which the officer telephoned rather at random, the only answer was that he was a member but not in the house. The officer wrote a line to his rooms and sent it by a messenger, to be given to him as soon as he came in. {199}

"She grasped Lady Maud's hand."

It was late in the hot afternoon when Mrs. Foxwell answered the message by coming to the police station herself. She was at once admitted to Baraka's cell and the door was closed after her.

The girl was lying on the pallet bed, dressed in a poor calico skirt and a loose white cotton jacket, which Mrs. Mowle had brought and had insisted that she must put on; and her man's clothes had been taken from her with all her other belongings. She sat up, forlorn, pale and lovely, as the kind visitor entered and stood beside her.

'Poor child!' exclaimed the lady, touched by her sad eyes. 'What can I do to help you?'

Baraka shook her head, for she did not understand. Then she looked up into eyes almost as beautiful as her own, and pronounced a name, slowly and so distinctly that it was impossible not to hear each syllable.

'Konstantin Logotheti.'

The lady started, as well she might; for she was no other than Lady Maud, who called herself by her own family name, 'Mrs. Foxwell,' in her work amongst the poor women of London.

Baraka saw the quick movement and understood that Logotheti was well known to her visitor. She grasped Lady Maud's arm with both her small hands, and looked up to her face with a beseeching look that could not be misunderstood. She wished Logotheti to be informed of her captivity, and was absolutely confident that he would help her out of her trouble. Lady Maud was less sure of that, however, and said so, {200} but it was soon clear that Baraka did not speak a word of any language known to Lady Maud, who was no great linguist at best. Under these circumstances it looked as if there were nothing to be done for the poor girl, who made all sorts of signs of distress, when she saw that the English woman was about to leave her, in sheer despair of being of any use. Just then, however, the sergeant came to the door, and informed the visitor that the girl had an accomplice who spoke her language and knew some English, and that by stretching a point he would bring the man, if Mrs. Foxwell wished to talk with him.

The result was that in less than half an hour, Lady Maud heard from Spiro a most extraordinary tale, of which she did not believe a single word. To her plain English mind, it all seemed perfectly mad at first, and on reflection she thought it an outrageous attempt to play upon her credulity; whereas she was thoroughly convinced that the girl had come to grief in some way through Logotheti and had followed him from Constantinople, probably supporting herself and her companion by stealing on the way. Lady Maud's husband had been a brute, but he knew the East tolerably well, having done some military duty in the Caucasus before he entered the diplomatic service; his stories had chiefly illustrated the profound duplicity of all Asiatics, and she had not seen any reason to disbelieve them.

When Spiro had nothing more to say, therefore, she rose from the only seat there was and shook her head with an air of utter incredulity, mingled with the sort {201} of pitying contempt she felt for all lying in general. She could easily follow the case, by the help of the sergeant and the Police Court reports, and she might be able to help Baraka hereafter when the girl had served the sentence she would certainly get for such an important and cleverly managed theft. The poor girl implored and wept in vain; Lady Maud could do nothing, and would not stay to be told any more inane stories about ruby mines in Tartary. She called the sergeant, freed herself from Baraka's despairing hold on her hand and went out. Spiro was then marched back to his cell on the men's side.

Though it was hot, Lady Maud walked home, as Mr. Van Torp had done that same morning when he had left Mr. Pinney's shop. She always walked when she was in any distress or difficulty, for the motion helped her to think, since she was strong and healthy, and only in her twenty-ninth year. Just now, too, she was a good deal disturbed by what had happened, besides being annoyed by the attempt that had been made to play on her credulity in such a gross way.

She was really fond of Margaret Donne, quite apart from any admiration she felt for the Primadonna's genius, by which she might have been influenced. In her opinion, the Tartar girl's appeal for help to reach Logotheti could only mean one thing, and that was very far from being to his credit. If the girl had not been positively proved to be a thief and if she had not attempted to impose upon her by what seemed the most absurd falsehoods, Lady Maud would very probably {202} have taken her under her own protection, as far as the law would allow. But her especial charity was not for criminals or cheats, though she had sometimes helped and comforted women accused of far worse crimes than stealing. In this instance she could do nothing, and she did not even wish to do anything. It was a flagrant case, and the law would deal with it in the right way. The girl had come to grief, no doubt, by trusting Logotheti blindly, and he had thrown her off; if she had sunk into the dismal depths of woe behind the Virtue-Curtain, as most of her kind did, Lady Maud would have gone in and tried to drag her out, as she had saved others. But Logotheti's victim had taken a different turn, had turned thief and had got into the hands of justice. Her sin would be on his head, no doubt, but no power could avert from her the just consequences of a misdeed that had no necessary connexion with her fall.

Thus argued Lady Maud, while Baraka lay on her pallet bed in her calico skirt and white cotton jacket, neither weeping, nor despairing by any means, nor otherwise yielding to girlish weakness, but already devising means for carrying on her pursuit of the man she would still seek, even throughout the whole world, though she was just now a penniless girl locked up as a thief in a London police station. It was not one of the down-hearted, crying sort that could have got so far already, against such portentous odds.

She guessed well enough that she would be tried the next morning in the Police Court; for Spiro, who knew much about Europe, and England in particular, had {203} told her a great deal during their travels. She had learned that England was a land of justice, and she would probably get it in the end; for the rest, she was a good Musulman girl and looked on whatsoever befell her as being her portion, for good or evil, to be accepted without murmuring.

Lady Maud could not know anything of this and took Baraka for a common delinquent, so far as her present situation was concerned. But when the Englishwoman thought of what must have gone before, and of the part Logotheti had almost certainly played in the girl's life, her anger was roused, and she sat down and wrote to Margaret on the impulse of the moment. She gave a detailed account of her experience at the police station, including especially a description of the way Baraka had behaved in trying to send a message to Logotheti.

'I tell you quite frankly,' Lady Maud wrote in conclusion, 'that my friend Mr. Van Torp has begged me very urgently to use any friendly influence I may possess, to induce you to reconsider your engagement, because he hopes that you will accept him instead. You will not think any less well of him for that. A man may ask his best friend to help him to marry the girl he is in love with, I am sure! I told him that I would not do anything to make trouble between you and Logo. If I am making trouble now, by writing all this, it is therefore not to help Mr. Van Torp, but because the impression I have had about Logo has really frightened me, for you. I made such a wretched failure of my {204} own married life that I have some right to warn a friend who seems to be on the point of doing just the same thing. I don't forget that in spite of all your celebrity—and its glories—you are nothing but a young girl still, under twenty-five; but you are not a schoolgirl, my dear, and you do not expect to find that a man like Logo, who is well on towards forty now, is a perfect Galahad. Even I didn't flatter myself that Leven had never cared for any one else, when I married him, and I had not half your knowledge of the world, I fancy. But you have a right to be sure that the man you marry is quite free, and that you won't suddenly meet a lovely Eastern girl of twenty who claims him after you think he is yours; and your friend has a right to warn you, if she feels sure that he is mixed up in some affair that isn't over yet. I'm not sure that I should be a good friend to you if I held my tongue. Our fathers were very close friends before us, Margaret, and there is really a sort of inheritance in their friendship, between you and me, isn't there? Besides, if you think I'm doing wrong, or that I'm making trouble out of nothing, just to help Mr. Van Torp, you can tell me so and we shall part I suppose, and that will be the end of it! Except that I shall be very, very sorry to lose you.

'I don't know where Logo is, but if he were near enough I should go to him and tell him what I think. Of course he is not in town now—nobody is, and I've only stayed on to clear everything out of my house, now that I'm giving it up. I suppose he is with you, {205} though you said you did not want him at Bayreuth! Show him this letter if you like, for I'm quite ready to face him if he's angry at my interference. I would even join you in Paris, if you wanted me, for I have nothing to do and strange to say I have a little money! I've sold almost all my furniture, you know, so I'm not such a total pauper as usual. But in any case answer this, please, and tell me that I have done right, or wrong, just as you feel about it—and then we will go on being friends, or say good-bye, whichever you decide.'

Lady Maud signed this long letter and addressed it to Miss Margaret Donne, at Bayreuth, feeling sure that it would be delivered, even without the name of the hotel, which she did not know. But the Bayreuth post-office was overworked during the limited time of the performances, and it happened that the extra assistant through whose hands the letter passed for distribution either did not know that Miss Donne was the famous Cordova, or did not happen to remember the hotel at which she was stopping, or both, and it got pigeonholed under D, to be called for. The consequence was that Margaret did not receive it until the morning after the performance of Parsifal to which she had taken Van Torp, though it had left London only six hours after him; for such things will happen even in extremely well-managed countries when people send letters insufficiently addressed.

Furthermore, it also happened that Logotheti was cooling himself on the deck of his yacht in the neighbourhood of Penzance, while poor Baraka was half-stifled {206} in the Police Station. For the yacht, which was a very comfortable one, though no longer new, and not very fast according to modern ideas, was at Cowes, waiting to be wanted, and when her owner parted from Van Torp after promising to dine on the next day but one, it occurred to him that the smell of the wood pavements was particularly nasty, that it would make no real difference whether he returned to Pinney's at once or in two days, or two weeks, since the ruby he had left must be cut before it was mounted, and that he might just as well take the fast train to Southampton and get out to sea for thirty-six hours. This he did, after telegraphing to his sailing-master to have steam as soon as possible; and as he had only just time to reach the Waterloo Station he did not even take the trouble to stop at his lodgings. He needed no luggage, for he had everything he wanted on board, and his man was far too well used to his ways to be surprised at his absence.

The consequence of this was that when Baraka's case came up the next morning there was no one to say a word for her and Spiro. Mr. Pinney identified the ruby 'to the best of his belief' as the one stolen from his counter, the fact that Baraka had been disguised in man's clothes was treated as additional evidence, and she and Spiro were sent to Brixton Gaol accordingly, Spiro protesting their innocence all the while in eloquent but disjointed English, until he was told to hold his tongue.

Further, Lady Maud read the Police Court report in an evening paper, cut it out and sent it to Margaret as a {207} document confirming the letter she had posted on the previous evening; and owing to the same insufficiency in the address, the two missives were delivered together.

Lastly, Mr. Pinney took the big ruby back to his shop and locked it up in his safe with a satisfaction and a sense of profound relief such as he had rarely felt in a long and honourable life; and he would have been horrified and distressed beyond words if he could have even guessed that he had been the means of sending an innocent and helpless girl to prison. The mere possibility of such a mistake would have sent him at the greatest attainable speed to Scotland Yard, and if necessary in pursuit of the Home Secretary himself. The latter was in the north of Scotland, on a friend's moor, particularly preoccupied about his bag and deeply interested in the education of a young retriever that behaved like an idiot during each drive instead of lying quiet behind the butts, though it promised to turn out a treasure in respect of having the nose and eye of a vulture and the mouth of a sucking-dove. The comparisons are those of the dog's owner, including the 'nose' of the bird of prey, and no novelist can be held responsible for a Cabinet Minister's English.

One thing more which concerns this tale happened on that same day. Two well-dressed young men drove up to the door of a quiet and very respectable hotel in the West End; and they asked for their bill, and packed their belongings, which were sufficient though not numerous; and when they had paid what they owed and given the usual tips, they told the porter to call {208} two hansoms, and each had his things put on one of them; and they nodded to each other and parted; and one hansom drove to Euston and the other to Charing Cross; and whether they ever met again, I do not know, and it does not matter; but in order to clear Baraka's character at once and to avoid a useless and perfectly transparent mystery, it is as well to say directly that it was the young man who drove to Euston, on his way to Liverpool and New York, who had Logotheti's ruby sewn up in his waistcoat pocket; and that the ruby really belonged to Margaret, since Logotheti had already given it to her, before he had brought it to Mr. Pinney to be cut and set. But the knowledge of what is here imparted to the reader, who has already guessed this much of the truth, would not help Baraka out of Brixton Gaol, where the poor girl found herself in very bad company indeed; even worse, perhaps, than that in which Spiro was obliged to spend his time. {209}