The Kang-He Vase/Chapter 12
CHAPTER XII
THE PINK AND MAUVE PYJAMAS
I should have been hard put to it to explain the exact why-and-wherefore, but I was conscious of a feeling as regards Carsie that I didn’t like him. It was little I had ever seen of him, to be sure—twice or thrice at the Grange, in his mistress’s presence, and now and then in the village street—but there was something in his soft gait and his subdued manner of talking that made me think of things, animals, that slink. However, there was nothing slinking in his present approach; he came up confidently enough, and his first words were almost affectionate in their tone.
“Good-evening, Mr. Ben!” he said. “A nice evening, sir! Glad to see you out and about again—this summer air will do you good after your long spell indoors.”
I thanked him for his politeness, and stood looking at him, a bit awkwardly, and secretly wishing that he would go on his way. But he seemed inclined to linger, and, more than that, to talk.
“Any more news about these extraordinary mysteries, Mr. Ben?” he asked, with a glance which was plainly intended to suggest that whatever conversation might ensue was to be regarded as strictly confidential. “We hear next to nothing across there at the Grange—you’re more in the thick of things down here by the village.”
“I know of nothing very definite,” I answered.
He nodded, and began making holes in the turf at our feet with the ferrule of his neatly-rolled umbrella.
“Well, it’s as queer a business as ever I heard of in my life, Mr. Ben!” he remarked. “And I’ve seen a bit of the world—and some out-of-the-way bits, too! Of course, what most interests me is the burglary—that, I suppose, is what the police would call it—at our place. To be sure—between you and me, you know—I think my mistress laid herself open to that! If that Chinese vase is worth all that she now says it is—why, it was practically inviting burglars to come and take it when she let its picture and its situation in our drawing-room be advertised in a paper! There’ll be swell mobsmen in London, no doubt, that specialise in that sort of thing. Of course, I never had the least idea that the vase was in any way valuable—no more than any other old ornament of its sort! Seems remarkable, Mr. Ben, that a bit of a thing like that should be worth—thousands of pounds, I understand?”
“It’s because of its rarity,” I answered. “I don’t suppose there are many like it, in England, anyhow.”
“Just so—I suppose that’s it,” he assented. “I’ve no knowledge of that sort of thing myself. But those two little images, now, that went at the same time, Mr. Ben? Do you think—you’ll have had opportunities of hearing things that I haven’t—do you think, now, that they’d be worth anything? Anything handsome, I mean, of course.”
“Can’t say, Mr. Carsie,” I replied. “I’ve no means of knowing.”
He nodded again, as if fully accepting my statement, and went on punching holes in the turf.
“Just so—just so!” he said. “Well, it’s an odd thing, Mr. Ben, and perhaps what should be called a coincidence, that those little images—ugly things they are, too!—had only been there in that cabinet cupboard a day or two when they were stolen! I saw the mistress put them there myself. She was dusting out that cabinet one day when I was in the drawing-room, and she says, all of a sudden, ‘That shelf would do with something more on it, I think, Carsie,’ she says. ‘And I believe I’ve got the very things locked up somewhere.’ And she went out of the room and presently came back with those two images, and put them in the cabinet, one on each side that Chinese vase. ‘That looks better,’ she said, as if she admired the effect. Couldn’t see it myself, you know, Mr. Ben!—foul and loathsome objects I call those figures, one of ’em particularly.”
“I never saw them,” said I, seeing him pause for my opinion.
“Well, they’re not in accordance with what you may style English taste,” he continued. “One of ’em—why, it had ever so many heads and arms—a monstrosity, I call it! And t’other had some animal’s head instead of a human being’s! But there’s no accounting for taste, and of course the mistress has lived in India, and she’s used to seeing such objects, no doubt. However, there was a queer thing happened that day she put those images in the open cabinet, Mr. Ben. I chanced to go into the drawing-room that afternoon while the mistress was playing lawn-tennis with young Mr. Bryce in the garden, and lo! and behold, there was that Indian fellow, Mandhu Khan, a-worshipping of those images! Fact, Mr. Ben! Anyway, he was bending down in front of ’em, making queer motions with his hands and arms; it gave me quite a turn! Made me think of a line of Mr. Kipling’s poetry, which I’m partial to—
The ’eathen in ’is blindness bows down to wood an’ stone
—it fairly did, Mr. Ben! And in an English drawing-room, too!—things with as many heads as one of these three-headed calves you read about in the papers!”
He shook his own head and its smart silk hat sorrowfully, as if Miss Ellingham’s taste in heathen images was not in keeping with the best traditions—and then suddenly tapped my arm with an extended forefinger.
“But I’ll tell you what I think, Mr. Ben!” he exclaimed. “I think the whole thing has been the work of a smart London gang, and that that man who was found scragged at the gallowstree there was one of ’em! I think they quarrelled over their loot, as they call it, and two of ’em did for the third. And what may the police be thinking about it, Mr. Ben—you’ll have heard things, no doubt?”
Fortunately for me, Keziah came to our garden gate just then, and loudly demanded my presence at the supper-table, and with a hasty remark to the butler that I didn’t know what the official police mind was on the subject, I made my excuses and left him. And after supper I went early to bed, being tired with my adventures, and if I dreamed that night it was rather of the wonders of London than of Chinese vases and Indian images. But these came back to me next morning, and I was puzzling my head about them as I lounged the time away—I was still regarded as a convalescent—on the beach in front of our house when Pepita Marigold came along.
Pepita, who spent most of her time running wild out of doors, was as unconcerned and gay of heart as ever. But I wasn’t—I had a crow to pull with her. And I tried to look at her as a severe judge might look at a criminal arraigned before him in the dock. Unfortunately, Pepita was one of those people at whom you can’t look in that way—for very long at any rate. She came up to where I sat on the edge of a turned-up boat and dropped down beside me as if it were the most natural thing in the world that we should sit side by side.
“Hello, Ben!” she exclaimed. “I wondered if I’d find you about. You’ve been to London, haven’t you, Ben—come along, tell all about it!”
But I made an effort to preserve my severity of countenance.
“Pepita!” I said. “I’ve got something to say to you! Didn’t you promise me you’d be my girl, Pepita? You know you did!”
She gave me a half-demure, half-roguish glance out of her eye-corners, from under her thick eyelashes, and whether of set purpose or not, moved her slim figure appreciably nearer on the edge of the boat.
“Well, I haven’t said I’m not, Ben, have I?” she answered in a wheedling voice. “Don’t be horrid!—tell about London!”
“No!” I said firmly, “You’ve been going about with Bryce Ellingham, Pepita! And I’m not going to have my girl going about with anybody! If you knew anything about the law, Pepita, you’d know that a verbal contract”
She slipped her hand inside my arm and gave it a squeeze.
“Oh, Ben!” she murmured. “I don’t know anything at all about verbal contracts, and I don’t care two pins about Bryce Ellingham—he’s a mere kid!—and I do want to know about London and what you did there. Don’t be a beast, Ben, and I’ll be your girl more than ever! Let’s go for a nice walk somewhere—be good, now!”
There was no resisting Pepita when her eyes got to work and her voice became cooing, and I fell an immediate victim and let her lead me off. We went across the fields towards Wreddlesham, a place, half-town, half-village, that lay on the coast to the east of Middlebourne, some two miles from Middlebourne Grange. It got its name from a little river, the Wreddle, that came down from the hills, some distance inland, and after many windings ran into the sea between two cliff-like promontories, beneath the eastern one of which Wreddlesham itself lay, a queer, ramshackle collection of old houses and cottages grouped about an ancient church and a ruinous tide-mill. Once upon a time Wreddlesham had been of some importance, but it had gradually fallen into decay, and now looked as hopeless and forlorn as any scarecrow of the fields: its trade had gone, half its houses were empty, and it was a rare thing to see a vessel tied up to either of its slowly-rotting wharves.
Our walk through the meadows—which proved entirely satisfactory, and re-established a proper understanding between us on the subject of my strict proprietorship of her charms—brought Pepita and myself out on the western of the two cliffs between which the Wreddle ran into the sea. There were two or three cottages on that cliff, fishermen’s cottages, and we sat down on the turf near one, in the full blaze of the sun and sweep of the wind. And we had not been sitting there five minutes before I saw something that made me jump to my feet with a suddenness that startled Pepita into following my example.
“What is it?” she exclaimed.
I laid a hand on her shoulder and turned her towards one of the cottages—an isolated building near the edge of the cliff. On a wide expanse of headland at its side a quantity of washing was hung out on lines to dry: the various articles flapped loudly in the breeze.
“Pepita!” said I, in my most solemn tones. “Do you see that?”
“See what?” she asked. “Washing? Of course I do! What about it?”
“Pepita!” I continued, still more gravely. “If I show you something, you’ll just keep the knowledge of it to yourself till I give you leave to speak! Washing—yes! But what sort of washing? Now, Pepita, look there—follow my finger! Do you see a suit of pyjamas in pink and mauve stripes?—a very grand suit? You do? Very well, Pepita!—as sure as I’m a living man, that’s Uncle Joseph Krevin’s!”
Pepita let out a gasp of astonishment. She knew pretty nearly everything about Uncle Joseph and his doings at Middlebourne, and I had told her during our walk as much as I thought it good for her to know about our discoveries concerning him in London.
“Are—are you sure, Ben?” she asked in almost awe-stricken tones. “His?”
“Dead certain!” I declared. “His! Those are the very things he was wearing when Keziah and I went up to his room to tell him about the murder. Pink—and—mauve stripes! I know ’em!”
“But—I daresay there are a lot of pink-and-mauve pyjamas about,” she remarked. “You see them in the shops at Kingshaven.”
“Yes, and you see blue and white, and red and yellow, and green and scarlet, and all sorts of colours!” said I. “But those are Uncle Joseph Krevin’s, as sure as I’m a living man! And I’m going a bit nearer to have a look at them—they might have his name, or at any rate his initials, on them. Come along!”
We stole nearer the lines on which the washing was hung out; eventually we got close to the garments in which I took such interest. And I let out an exclamation which was meant to indicate a sense of triumph.
“There, what did I tell you!” I said, pointing to a label inside the waistband. “Look at that!”
Pepita looked, and shook her head.
“I don’t see that that proves anything,” she remarked. “It says, Remnant, Outfitter, Southampton Row, London. Well—what’s that?”
“You don’t draw conclusions as I do, Pepita,” said I. “Of course, you can’t be expected to—you haven’t had the experience. And you don’t know London. Now if you did, you’d know that Calthorpe Street, where Uncle Joseph lodges, is within a few minutes’ walk of Southampton Row. See? Oh, it’s as plain as that flag-staff! But—where is Uncle Joseph, that his pyjamas should be flopping about here?”
A woman came out of the cottage close by. She carried a big wicker basket, and was evidently going to collect the things already dried. She came along the line, gathering them in, until she was close to us—we had by that time perched ourselves on a convenient mass of rock that cropped out from the surf. She was a good-natured looking woman, a fisherman’s wife, I thought, and I bade her good-day in order to get into conversation with her.
“A grand morning for drying clothes!” I remarked as she busied herself. “Just the right sort of wind.”
“Oh, they’re dry in no time, a morning like this,” she answered. “What with the wind and the sun, they’re no trouble at all.”
I pointed my stick at the pyjamas, which she was just then taking down and laying away in her basket.
“Bit of finery, there!” I said jokingly. “You could see them a mile off!”
“Aye, they’re pretty gay!” she assented, laughingly. “They belong to a London gentleman, those, that’s stopping at the Shooting Star—I do a bit o’ washing for folks that they have there now and then. Of course, some gentlemen likes these new-fangled things, and some likes the old-fashioned night-gown—it’s all a question of taste.”
I agreed with her, and presently, her basket filled, she went back to her cottage. I turned on Pepita.
“Did you hear that?” I exclaimed. “They belong to a London gentleman, stopping at the Shooting Star! Pepita!—that London gentleman is my undesirable relative, Uncle Joseph Krevin! Sure and certain!”
Pepita looked at me with admiring eyes.
“Ben!” she said. “Why don’t you go in for being a detective? I think you’d be an awful good hand! And it’s a lot more exciting than sitting in a law office.”
“No!” I answered sternly. “Don’t you tempt me, Pepita! I daresay I’d do awfully well as a detective; I’m beginning to learn a lot about it, and how it’s done. But I’ve been destined for the Law ever since I was twelve years old, and I’m going to have a career in it, Pepita—never you fear! Still, there’s no harm in doing a bit of detective work now and then, and I’m going to do a bit now. Come on, to the edge of the cliff.”
Pepita followed me to where the promontory sank sheer down to the ravine through which the little river ran to the sea. Below us, on the other bank, lay Wreddlesham, dead-alive as a decaying place can be. But I looked little at its red roofs and grey walls; all my attention was given to the Shooting Star, a big, rambling old inn that stood between the Eastern Wharf and the village. It had once been a house of some importance, but it was quiet enough now, and from where we stood, looking down on it, there was not a sign of life to be seen about it, save for a dog that lay basking in the sunlight before its front door.
“Pepita!” I said, suddenly. “I’m going into that Shooting Star, to see if I can see or hear of Uncle Joseph! Come on!—You can look round the wharf while I go in. I’ll get a glass of ale and keep my eyes open while I’m drinking it.”
“You don’t think there’s any danger, Ben?” she asked, as we began to descend the cliff. “You’re all alone, you know.”
“You have to run risks at this business,” I replied loftily. “I’m not afraid of running one now. And I’m pretty cute, you know, Pepita.”
We crossed the Wreddle by an old wooden bridge at the top of the little harbour, and strolled down to the wharf in front of the inn as if we were mere loafers, idling about. And after a while, leaving Pepita seated on a pile of old planks near an ancient hulk left high and dry on the beach, I went off to the Shooting Star. There was a door just within its big, empty hall labelled Bar Parlour; I pushed it open and stuck my inquisitive head into the opening.