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Show DIAMOND v,1!l CUT DIAMOND MG & Jane Bunker Copyrlght-The Pohba-Morrtll Co. CHAPTER XV Continued. 16 Billy charged monsieur's confession to a private account that was growing large. Personally I felt I liked the man the better for It I read it as the effort to shield the girl and minimize her part in the affair. And in that I was right; Billy looked at it differently. differ-ently. "Conceited cuss !" he later confided. con-fided. "Wanted to take the whole credit to himself." "Oui, madame," monsieur went on, and all the while I felt him searching my face for a sign of what I had accomplished ac-complished with Mrs. Delario. "Nos-eing "Nos-eing can be safer I argue zan a fancy slipper. It is not worn on ze steamer in ze cold of winter, and madame mad-ame have so assure me zat her hag-gage, hag-gage, because of her so good cousin, is pass wisout difficulty. And who would accuse madame of" he gave me a knowing look and finished ambiguously ambig-uously "of to smuggle zoze valuable papers zat do not concern her? Ah, no it would be incredible wisout to see zem and we have take care zat zey are not seen ! And to accomplish zis we have put zem where zey are almost al-most but not quite seen. I have explain ex-plain all zis to Claire and she have understand parfaitement. Oui." The smugness with which he delivered deliv-ered himself of this was really amusing, amus-ing, and I couldn't help a smile, which encouraged him to add at the same time looking piercingly at me with a deprecating shrug: "And just at ze moment of bep.utiful completion madame carries off one of zoze slippers we know not which." All of us laughed and the tension that had been quite plainly felt in our little company broke. Claire went on to tell us liow, in Antwerp, she had occupied a room communicating with Mrs. D.clario's the day before tiiey sailed, and how papa had taken Mrs. Delario out to see the great Rubens in the cathedral and she Claire pleading a headache, had remained behind and had gone through Mrs. Delario's things so she couLl tell her father what there was they could use; had discovered the slippers and had taken them to her room and siown them to her father that night1 and he said they "would do admirably," and she had got tbem back while Mrs. Delario Del-ario was asleep. But it wasn't easy to put the box into the slipper when it came lo the point. Mrs. Delario keenly felt the obligations of her charge and proved a far too devoted chaperon. At last the chance arrived and the box was stowed. What, then, was the poor child's consternation to hear me twitting twit-ting Mrs. Delario into wearing the slippers! "She nearly had me then !" Claire confided with noticeable glee at her own ability to cope with the situation. "I got the box out just one minute before be-fore she came into our stateroom. But this fright made me so ill 1 couldn't stay at table that night." i "I should think so," said Billy, and gave a sly glance in my direction that said, "I take hack all I said about her last night she wasn't really in it at all. It was all the old scoundrel of a 'mossoo.' " Claire seemed ready to end here, but I wasn't ready to have her. What was I I to tell monsieur? My turn was com ing in a minute, and what was I to I say? I kept on with Claire. "Then so far as you know, the box came through 1 the customs house in one of those slip- ; pers? And what were you to do after ! that?" The words were hardly out of my : mouth when the front bell rang and George handed in a telegram addressed ; to monsieur. I Monsieur tore open the yellow enve- 1 lop and rapidly scanned the message; frowned ; hesitated ; started to speak and stopped ; looked at me inquir- 1 ingly ; asked if there was a telegraph ; office near and when I told him where j It was excused himself from our cora- ! pany to "send an immediate and ur- i gent reply" and instructed Claire to answer every question I might care to put and with that he hurried oft with the curt ceremony of one who expects j to he hack on the quarter-hour stroke. There was, however, but little more I needed to discover from Claire; still I there was one thing, and I asked her j bluntly. "Your father came over ahead of us on a faster steamer? lie was on the wharf in disguise when we arrived?" ar-rived?" She blushed fu.'iously and stammered. stam-mered. "Y yes he was there." and added hastily: "Hut I didn't know he was there, lie told me there would be someone to take charge when I gave the signal that everything was all right" "Oh, there was a signal!" "Of Kiurse. 1 bad to -et the other jtie know who had the oox " "You mean you had to let your father fa-ther kr ivvV" "It was papa but I didn't see him." "What did you have to let him know?" "Whether it was you or Mrs. Delario." Dela-rio." "How did you manage that?" "I set my little handbag on top of the suitcase that said the box was there. Then I drew off my glove that said, 'in a slipper.' It wasn't very hard to remember." "And you had given the signal when I picked up the slipper?" "Yes and I was so frightened. I didn't know but papa would be killed." "And you went home with Mrs. Delario and tried to see if she had the right slipper?" "Yes but I never found out " She looked as if she were dying to ask, "Have you found out?" I was so afraid she would that I ended the cross-examination hastily by asking her what she heard from her mother and signaled Billy to chip into the conversation and make talk as fast as he could ; and after she'd replied about her mother that her grandfather grandfa-ther was still dying and her mother dared not leave she turned to Billy as though she had really only just then become aware of his presence, and they soon were chattering away like magpies and the blushes were mostly on Billy's cheeks. For which he might be forgiven. He was just twenty-two and she was just sixteen; but in three years dear me, what a beauty she was going to be what a man-killc-r! I left them to themselves, going to my bedroom on some pretext or another an-other while one quarter of an hour fol lowed another, and still monsieur did not return. At nine Claire begaa to be restless; at quarter after she blurted blurt-ed out, "Do you suppose anything has happened to papa?" I had been supposing it for hali! an hour he'd had time to make twenty trips to the telegraph office and back but I managed to say reassuringly, "Why, what could happen?" and Billy supported me with a fine courageous, "Nothing could have happened he's a man he knows how to take care of himself," and was rewarded with a look. Even at sixteen Claire's looks were valuable Billy wouldn't have sold that to another fellow for a ten-dollar ten-dollar bill. The elevator rumbled up, and 1 cried, "There he is I think." George presented me with two notes and the information that an automobile au-tomobile was downstairs waiting. I handed one note to Claire, tore open the one addressed to me, and read : I'm sending a car for my daughter. Will you ask Mr. Rivers to escort her to tlie hotel? It is necessary that I say some few words to you alone. I beg you to await me. It was' signed, "II. de Bavenol." I had barely finished this when I heard Claire give a cry, "Mamma is dead !" and I looked up just in time to see her throw out her arms and swoon away at my feet. People faint away in this story like the heroines of a mid-Victorian romance, ro-mance, but I can't help it. Anyway, I warned you there was another faint coming, .which faint was, under the circumstances, natural enough. To be exact, Claire swooned at my feet via Billy's arms. The intention was all on his side, however he caunt fcer as she was regardlessly going go-ing and let her down. A light burden. bur-den. "Got any smelling salts? Quick if you have. Some water, if you haven't," he ordered. I couldn't help an inward snort at the cool way in which he took the proprietorship pro-prietorship of the situation in my house a snort tempered with good-natured good-natured elderly amusement at his impetuosity im-petuosity and its justifiable cause. He was nearly as pale as Claire and dreadfully agitated. But I was already running to the bathroom for the water to revive her, as twenty-four hours previous I'd run for water to assuage the ammoniacal agonies of her dear papa. Billy was on his knees. From under one protruded the note that had caused the damage. I went down on my knees and applied the wet towel. Billy fished forth the note and without with-out compunction read it aloud. My child: (It was in French) Return to the hotel immediately. Ask Mr. Rivers to escort you. YOTKE rERE. Xothing very nerve-sttattering and not a word about her mother; so evidently evident-ly she'd been expecting something and this had keeled her ever on general principles. "What was in yours?" demanded Hilly. I reached out and got it off the table ta-ble where I'd thrown it and gave it to him. "Nothing about her mother" said I. "This getting her awry is jt:.-t a dodge to see me alone." "You're not going to!" Billy exclaimed, ex-claimed, with some dismay. I sopped at Claire's face and answered: an-swered: "I don't know It depends on how soon he comes." "I wouldn't it isn't safe for you." "You come here the very first thing in the morning, and If I don't answer your ring " Claire just then stirred, and we thought she was coming to, but she relapsed again, and Billy doubled up his fists and made a motion toward the front door, indicating that if I didn't answer he would break it in. "That's it and the very first thing in the morning. I don't know what else to do and " I leaned over Claire anxiously, and whispered to myself rather than Billy: "This is pretty bad." "Where's that ammonia?" he demanded, de-manded, making a wry face and adding in a whisper: "Do you suppose she knows ?" "Of course not," I retorted. "You don't suppose he was such a fool as to tell his own child how we 'done him' last night ! It's in the kitchen, where we left it." "Well, she'll never know from me and I hope she'll never know from you," admonished Billy, rising from his knees and searching my face for the assurance. I responded with something very like a glare Billy was really taking quite a bit on himself just then I hope I knew without being told by a boy who went to school to me what the common decencies of the case were! But all I said was: "Please get it." A few drops of ammonia on the towel tow-el and she gasped. Then she murmured mur-mured : "Oh, mamma," in tragic accents, ac-cents, and relapsed again. I was about to send Billy to the nearest doctor doc-tor he could get in captivity, when the bell rang George wanted to know when the young lady would be ready "the snuffer's waitin' an' he's in a hurry." Billy who answered the ring snapped out: "Let him wait it's what he's paid for. Go down and tell him we're coming." He slammed the door, for a moment forgetting Claire, and she started up at the noisie with her cry: "Oh, mamma!" mam-ma!" and then seeing me: "Oh, you!" "Yes I'm here," I soothed, and thought she was going off again and gave her a good smart swat with the towel and a good sharp, "Claire !" In spite of our assurances, it was a good half-hour before she was anything any-thing like all right and we got a co- Claire Swooned at My Feet. herent account from her and found she only thought something had happened hap-pened to her mother. It was a full three-quarters of an hour before she was ready to leave. I was more than half-minded to go with her, and but for monsieur's explicit explic-it note which I "read again after Claire csaue to her senses I should not have let her go off that way, even with Billy, though I knew that so far as devoted perfect care went, he'd give it to her as well as I. More acceptably, accepta-bly, mayhap ! I had a growing uneasiness that monsieur's surreptitious return for words alone with me marked a change in the current of events. Had he al ready discovered without my help that Mrs. Delario had the diamonds? Had he seen her since I left the house? And was he prepared to drop on her with the law? Certainly I had already noticed no-ticed he had about him the air of something he hadn't the night before when he threw himself on my mercy and implored me to help him. He'd shed his pleading attitude that was how I summed him up in my new impression ; and when a person does that it's either because he doesn't care or holds the whip ! I was bound to see him and find out; aud Claire and Billy went away together, Billy wearing a grim do-or-dle, trust-me-ab-solutely expression on his round young face connoting appreciation of his grave responsibility. When I'd seen them off in the elevator eleva-tor and closed my door I smiled. I wasn't sorry that Billy was getting a wholesome nearness to the real thing in women, albeit a very young one but time would rapidly remedy that difficulty; ami as for Claire well, Billy was her first young man and I knew hiT ideals wouldr.'t surfer any thre-ugh him. Ho inidil be a tritle reiiLh and r.tiri'i'::'i' ! -,;-. the outside, 1 but he was true b!uj. j I There were three low raps at my door. Or was It my door? I listened I must have been mistaken mis-taken though I'd only barely closed It and was turning out the hall electric. The elevator that was taking Claire and Billy down was still on Its way. Could monsieur have walked up? The raps were repeated unquestionably unques-tionably on my door. Without waiting wait-ing or even thinking to call through and ask who was there I threw the door open. Mrs. Delario whipped In and closed It behind her. Her face was almost concealed by a heavy black veil, but I recognized her and cried out, "Why, Mrs. Delario!" Dela-rio!" in utter amazement. What under un-der the heavens had brought her there? She laid a black-gloved finger on her lips to signify silence; she thrust something In my hand ; she opened the door and whipped out as she came, shutting It in my face. She hadn't uttered a word she had barely caused a sound ; even the door closed behind her noiselessly. I tore It open as my first impulse when I got my breath thinking she'd be waiting wait-ing for the elevator. In the few seconds sec-onds of my astonishment she had gone. I checked a call to her "Mrs. Delario" Dela-rio" and listened for descending footsteps foot-steps on the stairs but heard nothing. I sank into a hall chair, quite unnerved un-nerved coming on top of what I'd been through that day, I feel I'd have had a justifiable cause for a faint on my own account; only I didn't swoon. I kept asking myself : If it weren't an apparition how did she know which door to knock at? I have no door-plate door-plate and she'd evidently not asked George he was taking the car down with Claire and Billy at the moment Mrs. Delario popped in. It didn't occur oc-cur to me at first that she'd probably seen me, from the corner of the stairway, stair-way, close that door after saying goodby to the others. There had been three raps classic apparitions always, I believe, rap thrice when they wish to enter your abode they do not condescend con-descend to push a button ; and then . she'd noiselessly whipped in and put something in myhand I became conscious of a hard object in my fist; opened the fist and beheld be-held the fatal box. You could have knocked me over with a feather! Impossible that she'd brought it back! I dashed for the dining din-ing room where the light was and pulled off the cover of the box. There lay the diamonds ! With a sweeping gesture I flung them on the table in one fell swoop I'd been tumbled off my lotty perch and had become a victim once more just a disconcerted, worried victim, responsible re-sponsible for the fate of nations! And having thrown them down one of them fell off the table I snatched them up monsieur would return at any minute for that private Interview with me, aad now what was I to tell him? I no longer had the gem-free conscience of an hour ago I had the diamonds S But I might have saved my agonies ago-nies monsieur did not return that night he had other fish to fry. The canny cleverness of monsieur'!', next move i:ave me when I knew it such keen intellectual joy that I forgave for-gave him everything. He had arft-ued it out thus: Either I should succeed or I should fail with Mrs. Delario. If I failed it would be for one of two easons : either she denied de-nied all knowledge of the diamonds, or she had coniessed to me yet had been able to blurt me to secrecy. But in either case ho would read my success suc-cess or failure In my face the moment he greeted me. My face was a blhnk. He hadn't expected ex-pected to find it t6at way, but so It was not a hint did I give him, first when I opened the door, or later while I talked with Claire. In fact, inside of fifteen minutes he became convinced con-vinced that so far as I was concerned my mission was a failure and I was hedging for time and unwilling to confess con-fess it. He was prepared for my failure his chance of trapping her lay in his ses-ing ses-ing her before I could communicate with I er after seeing him. With a fake telegram, delivered by George at a preconcerted moment to serve as monsieur's excuse to leave the house, and also as a pretext to leave Claire in the house, keeping guard over Billy and my self none of the three of us suspecting it monsieur had taken his waiting automobile and swooped down on Mrs. Delario ! (TO BE CONTINUED.) |