V

Lord Culvers did not offer any opposition to Mr. Redway’s suggestion. Off and on the girls lost a good many articles of jewellery in the course of a year, and an advertisement more or less, for one of their brooches, would not be likely to attract much attention among their friends. So, on the day after Clive’s consultation with his father, the following advertisement appeared in the leading London and provincial journals:

“Five hundred pounds reward will be paid for information that will lead to the recovery of a diamond brooch, missing from a lady’s jewel-case. It is formed as a hawk with outstretched wings, holding in its beak a spray of emeralds. The eyes are composed of two large rubies.

“Information to be given to Messrs. Hunt and Locke, Chancery Lane, London.”

The Messrs. Hunt and Locke thus mentioned were not Lord Culvers’s family lawyers, but a firm of solicitors noted for their successful conduct of complicated criminal cases.

Simultaneously with its publication in the London newspapers, the advertisement appeared in the principal Continental journals.

Captain Culvers, lounging over his breakfast and matutinal cigar, in his rooms in a quiet street in an unfashionable quarter of Paris, had his eye caught by it.

This visit of his to the gay capital did not promise to be either a pleasant or a profitable one to him. It was beyond measure irksome to him to shun all possible rendezvous of his countrymen of his own social standing; to remain within doors the greater part of the day, and to issue forth only when the fashionable world, to which, of right, he held entrée, were safely shut in at their dinners, their opera, or their balls. Yet this was what circumstances compelled him to, unless he was prepared to run the gauntlet of all sorts of questions and conjectures respecting his private affairs and sudden change of plans.

Society, to a man of his temperament, is as absolute a necessity as his cigar and his game of baccarat. He was consequently driven to seek it in haunts and among associates of a lower grade. He thus became once more the habitué of a sporting, drinking, card-playing set, that, in view of his approaching marriage, he had vowed should know him no more.

He read the advertisement offering the large reward for Ida’s brooch with an anxious, startled look on his face.

“The fools!” he muttered. “Who has set going this piece of folly? It must be put a stop to without a moment’s delay.” He went at once to his writing-table; but the letter which he there set himself to write was not finished without many a pause to his pen and much careful thought.

Eventually it ran thus:

“Rue Vervien, 15.

“My Dear Uncle⁠—I have this moment read your advertisement offering a reward for Ida’s brooch. At least, I judge it to be yours from the description of the brooch, which I recognise as one that Ida was very fond of wearing. Will you mind my asking you if you are quite sure she had it on when she left home with me? I saw nothing of it.” This was underlined. “Are you acting upon information given you by Juliet? If so, may I ask whether her statement is confirmed by Ida’s maid? If this is not the case, pardon me if I say that I think you are being misled to follow a wrong scent. Take my word for it, Juliet knows more than any of us”⁠—this was also underlined⁠—“and my belief is that if you concentrate attention on her you’ll come upon traces of Ida far sooner than by offering rewards for a brooch which may possibly be all the time safely hidden in a young lady’s jewel-case. I beg of you at once to withdraw the advertisement, whose only result may be to lead us a long way out of our road and land us in the mire at last.

This letter, as ill-luck would have it, fell into Juliet’s hands before it reached her father’s. Recognising the handwriting, she at once ran with it to her father’s study.

“From Sefton, father; he may have something to tell us,” she exclaimed, as she entered the room.

Lord Culvers, in spite of his repeated hourly assurances to his wife and daughter that “things” were bound to come right if they were only let alone, was far from feeling confident that his words would be verified, and would occasionally give way to those little outbursts of irritability to which placidly-disposed people are prone when the tranquil surface of their existence is broken.

“From Sefton⁠—why wasn’t it given me before?” he said, irritably. “I’ve waited in the whole morning for the post⁠—now where are my glasses?”

Juliet picked up the glasses, and perched them on her own little, straight nose. “Now, if you don’t worry, I’ll read it to you,” she said, patronisingly. Then above the rims of the glasses, without pause or exclamation, she read aloud the letter from beginning to end.

Before Lord Culvers had time to pass comment upon it, she had torn it in two, and tossed it into the wastepaper basket.

“That’s the only place for such a letter as that,” she said, taking off the spectacles, and looking at her father with flashing eyes. “Of course you won’t dream of replying to it, will you, father?” She spoke very slowly, her small lips tightening, her head very high in the air.

“Eh, what, my dear?” said Lord Culvers, turning round in his chair and facing her. “I’ve hardly taken in what he says. I should like to have read the letter once again.”

“I’ll repeat to you what he says,” said Juliet, in the same slow, quiet tones as before; “he says you are to get a maid⁠—a maid, do you understand, to confirm my words before you believe them. He advises you to set a watch on your daughter⁠—someone, I suppose, to follow her about and peep into her letters⁠—and asks you to take his word⁠—his word after doubting mine⁠—that I know more than I choose to tell!”

“Eh, my dear, are you quite sure he meant it to be taken that way?” asked Lord Culvers.

He sighed wearily.

“It’s such a painful affair! Why⁠—why doesn’t Ida send us a line and end our suspense?” He broke off again, then looking full into Juliet’s face as if hoping there to read confirmation to his words, he added: “No, no, my dear; I don’t believe that you are keeping anything back from me⁠—you couldn’t be so heartless and cruel.”

But it was said a little dubiously.

“May I come in?” said a voice at that moment. Then, without waiting for a reply, the door opened, and Clive Redway entered in the easy, familiar way which his relations with the Culvers family warranted.

“I’ve come once more to beg permission to start for Florence,” he began, and then broke off abruptly, looking from Juliet to Lord Culvers, from Lord Culvers to Juliet, the faces of both so evidently bearing the marks of a disturbing subject of thought.

Juliet was the first to explain: “A letter has come from Sefton⁠—there it is in fragments in the wastepaper basket⁠—and I am accused by him of knowing more than I have told about Ida and her movements. It’s true in one way, I do know more than I have told about Ida⁠—and about Sefton also. I could, if I had chosen, have told you things that would have startled you.”

“Eh, what?” cried Lord Culvers, looking scared.

“I mean it. I could have told you that he and Ida had some desperate quarrels. Once Ida told him to his face that she hated him⁠—at least he told me so, and begged me to make peace between them. I made things straight, and then Ida to seal their reconciliation paid off his debts⁠—all, at least, that he told her of.”

“Paid his debts!” echoed Lord Culvers, his face showing simple blank astonishment.

“Yes,” continued Juliet. “Do you remember three months back you paid Ida a good deal of money⁠—dividends or something or other⁠—and told her she had better collect her bills in and pay them? Very well, those bills are still unpaid; every penny of that money went to Sefton.”

“Is it possible?”

“Yes. Ida rolled the banknotes up into a ball, and they played tennis with it one afternoon. She won the game, and then tossed the ball over to him as she left the ground⁠—I can see her now⁠—just as you would toss a ball to a lapdog.”

All this time Clive had been standing a little apart, his face growing whiter and whiter, his brow knotting into an ugly frown. Now he advanced a step, and laid his hand on Juliet’s arm.

“And you let your sister marry such a man as that⁠—without a word of remonstrance,” he said, in a low, constrained tone.

Juliet felt herself now on the defensive all round. She held her head very high, half-closed her eyes, and her face slightly⁠—very slightly⁠—flushed.

“Without a word of remonstrance!” she repeated. “Off and on Ida and I had a good many words about Sefton, though whether they were words of remonstrance is another thing. You see I liked him⁠—I dare say it was very absurd of me, but I did like him, and more than once I said to Ida, ‘What a pity it is you and I cannot change places, and you marry Clive, and I marry Sefton!’ ” This was meant as a counterthrust; but it didn’t strike quite as she meant it should.

“I wish to Heaven⁠—” broke in Clive, hotly. Then he checked himself, biting his lip to keep back words that would have fallen with evil grace upon the ear of his betrothed.

Lord Culvers rose excitedly from his chair.

“It’s too much! Too much!” he exclaimed, in a piteous tone. “Why, why is all this told me now when I am absolutely powerless to remedy the evil? Gracious Heaven what have I done that my life should be filled with turmoil from year’s end to year’s end?”

As if magnetically drawn to it, he finished his sentence with his eyes uplifted to a picture hanging over the mantelpiece.

It was that of the first Lady Culvers. One glance at it sufficiently answered the question what he had done that his life should be filled with turmoil and worry. The beautiful eyes and mouth, the very turn of the head, the droop of the eyelid, the crisp, curly hair, expressed in every line and tint the vivacity, waywardness, and love of fun which in Ida and Juliet had fascinated their friends and lovers, and had made their father’s life off and on a burden to him.

Juliet did not heed her father’s outburst. She remained standing facing Clive, and, narrowing her eyes, steadily surveyed him.

“It is very good of you to show so much interest in Ida and her affairs,” she said, sarcastically; “but I do think a journey to Florence to cross-question Madame Verdi will be a work of supererogation. You had far better run over to Paris and keep your eye on my cousin Sefton.”

“What makes you say that?” asked Clive, curtly, peremptorily.

Her words struck a sudden and most painful keynote to his mind. Was it possible that Ida’s disappearance was the result of some prearranged plan between herself and Sefton, and that the latter, after all, had but acted the part of a forlorn bridegroom? Did Juliet know of any circumstances that gave warrant to such a supposition, or was she merely speaking as she often did⁠—at random? Or was it possible that this enigmatical girl, after all, was seeking to divert suspicion from herself by throwing it upon Sefton, and thus pay him back with interest for the insult he had offered her in his letter?

From his knowledge of Juliet’s character the last supposition seemed the most feasible.

He carefully watched her face as he waited for his answer.

But the piquant, girlish countenance was as unreadable as the massive, stone-cut features of the great Sphinx itself.

She only slightly curled her lip.

“From what I have told you of the footing on which Ida and Sefton stood to each other, you can form your own opinion on the matter,” she answered, calmly.

Lord Culvers laid his hand upon her shoulder.

“Juliet,” he said, “you are driving me to the verge of distraction with your hints and prevarications.”

Clive’s temper gave way utterly.

“It is simply your duty,” he said, hotly. “You are bound to speak out⁠—to tell everything, small or great, that you know of Ida’s possible intentions.”

Juliet kept her coolness still.

“If I don’t know anything of her intentions I can’t speak out, as you call it,” she answered, in perfectly level tones. “And supposing I did know more than I have said, and Ida had not given me permission to speak, not you, not my father⁠—no, not wild horses, even, should drag it out of me!”