The Riddle of the Purple Emperor

For once, too, Miss Cheyne relaxed her firm manner.

"I suppose you know what to-morrow is, my dear," she said, looking almost furtively at her niece.

Lady Margaret thought a moment, then gave a little cry of delight.

"Why, it's my birthday, of course, and I'm eighteen."

"Yes, and what is just as important," said Miss Cheyne, "you are the owner of the Cheyne jewels. We're going up to town in the morning to bring them back."

"Bring them all here?" cried Lady Margaret, startled at the odd look in the black, flashing old eyes. "Do you think it safe enough? Thieves might break in. Why not leave them, at least some of them, where they are, Aunt Marion. It is safer, surely!"

"Because I want them. I want to see them," Miss Cheyne snapped ferociously. "I'm curious, you know, more curious than you are. And I mean to have them here."

"Just as you like, Aunt. I want to see them, too, only I was thinking of the danger."

"There is no danger. I am having special safes made for them downstairs," said Miss Cheyne. "If you have them here you can wear them whenever you like without having to go up to those thieving lawyers every time you happen to want them."

Lady Margaret agreed, but deep down in her own mind she felt that she would prefer to leave the Cheyne jewels in the safe custody of Messrs. Shallcott, Woodward & Company in London. On the other hand, she had gained an unspoken victory in regard to her future marriage.

Indeed it seemed to her as if Miss Cheyne had but one obsession: to see the Cheyne Court jewels. Her inexplicable antipathy even against Ailsa Lorne seemed to have died a natural death. When Lady Margaret, albeit a trifle timidly, ventured to hint at a visit to her newly found friend, Miss Cheyne said pleasantly enough:

"Yes, if you like my dear, after we come back from London, then there is no reason at all why you should not see your friends."

To say that this lifted a load off the girl's mind, is to express the matter in the mildest terms imaginable. Her failure to hear either from Lady Brenton or her lover, as well as from Ailsa Lorne herself, had filled Lady Margaret's mind with strange forebodings. She almost felt that she would be willing to lose every stone among the heirlooms if her aunt could be made so much pleasanter to live with.

And downstairs, Miss Cheyne said aloud with a queer little chuckle, when the girl had left the room:

"See your friends? So you shall, my dear. After we come back!"

CHAPTER VII

IN THE TIGER'S CLUTCHES

Despite the mysterious fact that the Honourable Miss Cheyne's photo had been found in the dirty little shop in Crown Court, Drury Lane, Cleek could find no visible connection between it and the fact of the murder. Its presence was also speedily accounted for, owing to the information garrulously volunteered by Mrs. Malone. It appeared that "Madame" had been in the service of the Honourable Miss Cheyne. "Hupper 'ousemaid, she were," said that lady, "and when she left to get married, the mistress gave her half-a-crown and her photo to remind her wot a fool she was to do it. 'Er very own words, sir, not but what she wasn't 'appy enough – Still, it's a man wot's killed 'er, so the old girl wasn't far out."

"How do you know that?" asked Cleek, to whom she was talking at the time.

Mrs. Malone bit her lip.

"Stands to reason it was so, sir. I'll not be speaking the black word against anybody, but sure an' I belave I know the man what did it – "

"What's that? What do you mean?"

"Well, sir," said the woman, "I wasn't 'ere myself all day, but it might have been the man who used to come in 'ere and pump 'er all about 'er old 'ome and 'er first place – which was 'er last, too. It were Cheyne Court itself down on the river somewhere, I don't exactly know where, but poor 'Madame' was bred and born there, and loved the place like 'ome. This man was always a coming in, after he spotted that dratted photograph there. Talk, talk, talk 'e would. What was the place like and how far away was it? And ever so many more such-like questions. But Madame always shut up and once when 'e offered to buy the picture itself, she nearly broke his neck with a broom handle."

Cleek sat very still, his eyes half closed. To all appearances he was half asleep. But his thoughts were racing at topmost speed. So he was right. There was some connection between this murder and the Cheyne Court mystery; but what? What was it that this stranger wanted to learn, and why had he been so persistent in his inquiries? He could find no answer to his mental queries, and eventually he was obliged to own himself beaten. But that in nowise prevented his taking the impression of the finger-prints on the dagger with which the grim deed had been perpetrated. The case was left in the hands of the jury with the result that the verdict was one he had prophesied, "wilful murder against someone or persons unknown." Notwithstanding its practical passing into oblivion, Cleek felt that the case was connected in some way with the Cheyne Court mystery, and as he left the grimy regions of Drury Lane behind him his thoughts went back to Lady Margaret.

Meanwhile, the object of his solicitude was apparently far from needing it. "Lady Margaret Cheyne, the Honourable Miss Cheyne and maid," the latter, the furtive-faced "Aggie," had registered their arrival in a quiet little hotel in Craven Street, W. Once in London Miss Cheyne had shown an amazing knowledge of its thoroughfares and shopping centres, despatching the girl, in the company of Aggie, on delightful expeditions that sent the child, for she was little more, almost delirious with delight. After being pent up in the austere walls of that convent abroad it was small wonder that to have all the bewildering splendour of feminine fashions at her command turned her head a little.

Only one little thing gave her cause for dissatisfaction, and that was the presence of the ever-watchful Aggie.

"If only you would come, too, Auntie," she cried, on the third morning of their stay, previous to setting forth on another whirl of purchasing. "Aggie hasn't an atom of taste, you know. She would cheerfully let me buy a green hat to go with a mauve skirt, and I don't think even an orange blouse would upset her equanimity."

"Well, why should it?" demanded Miss Cheyne. "I like a bit of colour myself."

This coming from her aunt, whose clothes were always of the darkest and dowdiest combinations of gray or black that could be imagined, left Lady Margaret almost breathless.

"Don't be too long to-day," said Miss Cheyne, apparently totally unconscious of the effect her words had produced. "Don't forget that we have an appointment with the solicitors this afternoon, and I shall want all my energies to see you are not done out of those jewels."

Lady Margaret laughed gaily.

"No, I don't suppose they will like giving them up after all these years."

With a little nod she passed out and was soon on her way westward. In Trafalgar Square she stopped to stare skyward at the Nelson monument. So absorbed was she that she did not see the start of glad surprise which a stalwart young man gave as he came rushing to her side.

It was not, indeed, until the sound of her own name spoken in glad, joyous tones fell on her ears that she came back once more to her surroundings.

"Edgar," she said breathlessly, clapping her hands like a little child. "Isn't this just wonderful; meeting you like this? Why, where did you spring from, and why haven't you been near me?"

Without waiting for his reply she led him round till they found a seat on the stone steps.

"I jolly well haven't had a chance of seeing you, my darling," said the young man as he devoured the radiant young face with his eyes. "I've fairly haunted the grounds of Cheyne Court but didn't dare to face your old dragon after the drubbing she gave me last week. I suppose she's all right?" he asked, a little irrelevantly.

Lady Margaret looked at him in surprise.

"Why, of course she is all right. She has been good to me, though she seems queerer than ever. But, Edgar, what do you think, she says my jewels will be a good wedding present for us! What do you say to that?"

"What!" cried the young man. "Do you mean you tackled her – you brave darling. I wonder she didn't snap your pretty head off."

"I did expect an outcry, when I said I was going to marry you," she said, shaking her fair head, "but she said I might, and should have the Cheyne Court jewels, too."

"Considering they're your own property, my darling, that's just like her cheek," retorted Sir Edgar. "But I'm hanged if I can understand it, for when I saw her last, as I told you, she abused me like a pickpocket."

Lady Margaret laughed aloud in childish glee.

"Well, we'll just take the goods the gods send," said she. "She can keep the old jewels if she likes, if only she gives her consent to our marriage."

Her voice dropped tenderly upon the words, and the wild-rose colour bloomed for a moment in her cheeks until Sir Edgar, impetuous young man that he was, gave a hasty look round at the practically empty square and snatched the kiss he had been longing for ever since he had caught sight of her.

"And now," he said, when Lady Margaret, blushing deeper than ever, had reproved him for his audacity, "what are you going to do next?"

"Go back to the hotel, Maxell's, in Craven Street, and get ready for those horrid old lawyers," she responded, laughing, as she surveyed Aggie's broad figure some distance away. "Auntie won't rest till she gets those precious jewels home."

"Jove, Meg darling, but you don't mean to tell me you're going to be mad enough to take the Cheyne jewels back to that old rookery of a place?" exclaimed Sir Edgar.

"It does seem a bit of a risk," she admitted, "but Auntie is keen on it and I don't care so long as she lets me see you. I really must go now, Edgar. I shall have to go right back instead of shopping."

"I'm coming with you," Sir Edgar said, jumping to his feet. "I won't let you out of my sight if I can help it."