seemed tolerably massive and impregnable, but Spike had evidently
known how to open it without much difficulty. The lid was shut, but
it came up without an effort when he tried to raise it, and he saw
that the lock had been broken.
"Spike's coming on!" he said.
He was dangling the necklace over the box, preparatory to dropping
it in, when there was a quick rustle at the other side of the room.
The curtain was plucked aside, and Molly came out.
"Jimmy!" she cried.
Jimmy's nerves were always in pretty good order, but at the sight of
this apparition he visibly jumped.
"Great Scott!" he said.
The curtain again became agitated by some unseen force, violently
this time, and from its depths a plaintive voice made itself heard.
"Dash it all," said the voice, "I've stuck!"
There was another upheaval, and his lordship emerged, his yellow
locks ruffled and upstanding, his face crimson.
"Caught my head in a coat or something," he explained at large.
"Hullo, Pitt!"
Pressed rigidly against the wall, Molly had listened with growing
astonishment to the movements on the other side of the curtain. Her
mystification deepened every moment. It seemed to her that the room
was still in darkness. She could hear the sound of breathing; and
then the light of the torch caught her eye. Who could this be, and
why had he not switched on the regular room lights?
She strained her ears to catch a sound. For a while, she heard
nothing except the soft breathing. Then came a voice that she knew
well; and, abandoning her hiding-place, she came out into the room,
and found Jimmy standing, with the torch in his hand, over some dark
object in the corner of the room.
It was a full minute after Jimmy's first exclamation of surprise
before either of them spoke again. The light of the torch hurt
Molly's eyes. She put up a hand, to shade them. It seemed to her
that they had been standing like this for years.
Jimmy had not moved. There was something in his attitude that filled
Molly with a vague fear. In the shadow behind the torch, he looked
shapeless and inhuman.
"You're hurting my eyes," she said, at last.
"I'm sorry," said Jimmy. "I didn't think. Is that better?" He turned
the light from her face. Something in his voice and the apologetic
haste with which he moved the torch seemed to relax the strain of
the situation. The feeling of stunned surprise began to leave her.
She found herself thinking coherently again.
The relief was but momentary. Why was Jimmy in the room at that
time? Why had he a torch? What had he been doing? The questions shot
from her brain like sparks from an anvil.
The darkness began to tear at her nerves. She felt along the wall
for the switch, and flooded the whole room with light.
Jimmy laid down the torch, and stood for a moment, undecided. He had
concealed the necklace behind him. Now, he brought it forward, and
dangled it silently before the eyes of Molly and his lordship.
Excellent as were his motives for being in. that room with the
necklace in his hand, he could not help feeling, as he met Molly's
startled gaze, quite as guilty as if his intentions had been
altogether different.
His lordship, having by this time pulled himself together to some
extent, was the first to speak.
"I say, you know, what ho!" he observed, not without emotion.
"What?"
Molly drew back.
"Jimmy! You were--oh, you can't have been!"
"Looks jolly like it!" said his lordship, judicially.
"I wasn't," said Jimmy. "I was putting them back."
"Putting them back?"
"Pitt, old man," said his lordship solemnly, "that sounds a bit
thin."
"Dreever, old man," said Jimmy. "I know it does. But it's the
truth."
His lordship's manner became kindly.
"Now, look here, Pitt, old son," he said, "there's nothing to worry
about. We're all pals here. You can pitch it straight to us. We
won't give you away. We--"
"Be quiet!" cried Molly. "Jimmy!"
Her voice was strained. She spoke with an effort. She was suffering
torments. The words her father had said to her on the terrace were
pouring back into her mind. She seemed to hear his voice now, cool
and confident, warning her against Jimmy, saying that he was
crooked. There was a curious whirring in her head. Everything in the
room was growing large and misty. She heard Lord Dreever begin to
say something that sounded as if someone were speaking at the end of
a telephone; and, then, she was aware that Jimmy was holding her in
his arms, and calling to Lord Dreever to bring water,
"When a girl goes like that," said his lordship with an insufferable
air of omniscience, "you want to cut her--"
"Come along!" said Jimmy. "Are you going to be a week getting that
water?"
His lordship proceeded to soak a sponge without further parley; but,
as he carried his dripping burden across the room, Molly recovered.
She tried weakly to free herself.
Jimmy helped her to a chair. He had dropped the necklace on the
floor, and Lord Dreever nearly trod on it.
"What ho!" observed his lordship, picking it up. "Go easy with the
jewelry!"
Jimmy was bending over Molly. Neither of them seemed to be aware of
his lordship's presence. Spennie was the sort of person whose
existence is apt to be forgotten. Jimmy had had a flash of
intuition. For the first time, it had occurred to him that Mr.
McEachern might have hinted to Molly something of his own
suspicions.
"Molly, dear," he said, "it isn't what you think. I can explain
everything. Do you feel better now? Can you listen? I can explain
everything."
"Pitt, old boy," protested his lordship, "you don't understand. We
aren't going to give you away. We're all--"
Jimmy ignored him.
"Molly, listen," he said.
She sat up.
"Go on, Jimmy," she said.
"I wasn't stealing the necklace. I was putting it back. The man who
came to the castle with me, Spike Mullins, took it this afternoon,
and brought it to me."
Spike Mullins! Molly remembered the name.
"He thinks I am a crook, a sort of Raffles. It was my fault. I was a
fool. It all began that night in New York, when we met at your
house. I had been to the opening performance of a play called,
'Love, the Cracksman,' one of those burglar plays."
"Jolly good show," interpolated his lordship, chattily. "It was at
the Circle over here. I went twice."
"A friend of mine, a man named Mifflin, had been playing the hero in
it, and after the show, at the club, he started in talking about the
art of burglary--he'd been studying it--and I said that anybody
could burgle a house. And, in another minute, it somehow happened
that I had made a bet that I would do it that night. Heaven knows
whether I ever really meant to; but, that same night, this man
Mullins broke into my flat, and I caught him. We got into
conversation, and I worked off on him a lot of technical stuff I'd
heard from this actor friend of mine, and he jumped to the
conclusion that I was an expert. And, then, it suddenly occurred to
me that it would be a good joke on Mifflin if I went out with
Mullins, and did break into a house. I wasn't in the mood to think
what a fool I was at the time. Well, anyway, we went out, and--well,
that's how it all happened. And, then, I met Spike in London, down
and out, and brought him here."
He looked at her anxiously. It did not need his lordship's owlish
expression of doubt to tell him how weak his story must sound. He