The Secret of Chimneys

‘Once and for all, James, I refuse to be mixed up in your beastly love affairs.’

‘It’s not a love affair. I’ve never seen the woman. I’ll tell you the whole story.’

‘If I’ve got to listen to more of your long, rambling stories, I shall have to have another drink.’

His host complied hospitably with this demand, then began the tale.

‘It was when I was up in Uganda. There was a dago there whose life I had saved–’

‘If I were you, Jimmy, I should write a short book entitled “Lives I have Saved”. This is the second I’ve heard of this evening.’

‘Oh, well, I didn’t really do anything this time. Just pulled the dago out of the river. Like all dagos, he couldn’t swim.’

‘Wait a minute, has this story anything to do with the other business?’

‘Nothing whatever, though, oddly enough, now I remember it, the man was a Herzoslovakian. We always called him Dutch Pedro, though.’

Anthony nodded indifferently.

‘Any name’s good enough for a dago,’ he remarked. ‘Get on with the good work, James.’

‘Well, the fellow was sort of grateful about it. Hung around like a dog. About six months later he died of fever. I was with him. Last thing, just as he was pegging out, he beckoned me and whispered some excited jargon about a secret–a gold mine, I thought he said. Shoved an oilskin packet into my hand which he’d always worn next his skin. Well, I didn’t think much of it at the time. It wasn’t until a week afterwards that I opened the packet. Then I was curious, I must confess. I shouldn’t have thought that Dutch Pedro would have had the sense to know a gold mine when he saw it–but there’s no accounting for luck–’

‘And at the mere thought of gold, your heart beat pitterpat as always,’ interrupted Anthony.

‘I was never so disgusted in my life. Gold mine, indeed! I dare say it may have been a gold mine to him, the dirty dog. Do you know what it was? A woman’s letters–yes, a woman’s letters, and an Englishwoman at that. The skunk had been blackmailing her–and he had the impudence to pass on his dirty bag of tricks to me.’

‘I like to see your righteous heat, James, but let me point out to you that dagos will be dagos. He meant well. You had saved his life, he bequeathed to you a profitable source of raising money–your high-minded British ideals did not enter his horizon.’

‘Well, what the hell was I to do with the things? Burn ’em, that’s what I thought at first. And then it occurred to me that there would be that poor dame, not knowing they’d been destroyed, and always living in a quake and a dread lest that dago should turn up again one day.’

‘You’ve more imagination than I gave you credit for, Jimmy,’ observed Anthony, lighting a cigarette. ‘I admit that the case presented more difficulties than were at first apparent. What about just sending them to her by post?’

‘Like all women, she’d put no date and no address on most of the letters. There was a kind of address on one–just one word. “Chimneys”.’

Anthony paused in the act of blowing out his match, and he dropped it with a quick jerk of the wrist as it burned his finger.

‘Chimneys?’ he said. ‘That’s rather extraordinary.’

‘Why, do you know it?’

‘It’s one of the stately homes of England, my dear James. A place where kings and queens go for weekends, and diplomatists forgather and diplome.’

‘That’s one of the reasons why I’m so glad that you’re going to England instead of me. You know all these things,’ said Jimmy simply. ‘A josser like myself from the backwoods of Canada would be making all sorts of bloomers. But someone like you who’s been to Eton and Harrow–’

‘Only one of them,’ said Anthony modestly.

‘Will be able to carry it through. Why didn’t I send them to her, you say? Well, it seemed to me dangerous. From what I could make out, she seemed to have a jealous husband. Suppose he opened the letter by mistake. Where would the poor dame be then? Or she might be dead–the letters looked as though they’d been written some time. As I figured it out, the only thing was for someone to take them to England and put them into her own hands.’

Anthony threw away his cigarette, and coming across to his friend, clapped him affectionately on the back.

‘You’re a real knight-errant, Jimmy,’ he said. ‘And the backwoods of Canada should be proud of you. I shan’t do the job half as prettily as you would.’

‘You’ll take it on, then?’

‘Of course.’

McGrath rose, and going across to a drawer, took out a bundle of letters and threw them on the table.

‘Here you are. You’d better have a look at them.’

‘Is it necessary? On the whole, I’d rather not.’

‘Well, from what you say about this Chimneys place, she may have been staying there only. We’d better look through the letters and see if there’s any clue as to where she really hangs out.’

‘I suppose you’re right.’

They went through the letters carefully, but without finding what they had hoped to find. Anthony gathered them up again thoughtfully.

‘Poor little devil,’ he remarked. ‘She was scared stiff.’

Jimmy nodded.

‘Do you think you’ll be able to find her all right?’ he asked anxiously.

‘I won’t leave England till I have. You’re very concerned about this unknown lady, James?’

Jimmy ran his finger thoughtfully over the signature.

‘It’s a pretty name,’ he said apologetically. ‘Virginia Revel.’

Chapter 3

Anxiety in High Places

‘Quite so, my dear fellow, quite so,’ said Lord Caterham.

He had used the same words three times already, each time in the hope that they would end the interview and permit him to escape. He disliked very much being forced to stand on the steps of the exclusive London club to which he belonged and listen to the interminable eloquence of the Hon George Lomax.

Clement Edward Alistair Brent, ninth Marquis of Caterham, was a small gentleman, shabbily dressed, and entirely unlike the popular conception of a marquis. He had faded blue eyes, a thin melancholy nose, and a vague but courteous manner.

The principal misfortune of Lord Caterham’s life was to have succeeded his brother, the eighth marquis, four years ago. For the previous Lord Caterham had been a man of mark, a household word all over England. At one time Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, he had always bulked largely in the counsels of the Empire, and his country seat, Chimneys, was famous for its hospitality. Ably seconded by his wife, a daughter of the Duke of Perth, history had been made and unmade at informal weekend parties at Chimneys, and there was hardly anyone of note in England–or indeed in Europe–who had not, at one time or another, stayed there.

That was all very well. The ninth Marquis of Caterham had the utmost respect and esteem for the memory of his brother. Henry had done that kind of thing magnificently. What Lord Caterham objected to was the assumption that Chimneys was a national possession rather than a private country house. There was nothing that bored Lord Caterham more than politics–unless it was politicians. Hence his impatience under the continued eloquence of George Lomax. A robust man, George Lomax, inclined to embonpoint, with a red face and protuberant eyes, and an immense sense of his own importance.

‘You see the point, Caterham? We can’t–we simply can’t afford a scandal of any kind just now. The position is one of the utmost delicacy.’

‘It always is,’ said Lord Caterham, with a flavour of irony.