Mr. Leighton was seconded heartily by the American Ambassador, a Democratic individual with honest ideas which were foremost when a question of personal integrity was involved. But the search was not made and the reception proceeded. Lady Varron bore her loss marvellously well.
“She’s a brick,” was the audible compliment of one of the American Duchesses whose father owned $20,000,000 worth of soap somewhere in vague America. “I’d have had a fit if I’d lost a necklace like that.”
It was not until next day that Scotland Yard was notified of Lady Varron’s loss.
“Leighton there?” was Conway’s question.
“Yes.”
“Then he got it,” Conway asserted positively. “I’ll get him this time or know why.”
Yet at the end of a month he neither had him, nor did he know why. He had intercepted messengers, he had opened letters, telegrams, cable dispatches; he had questioned servants; he had taken advantage of the absence of both Mr. Leighton and his valet to search his exquisite apartments. He had done all these things and more—all that a severely conscientious man of his profession could do, and had gnawed his scrubby moustache down to a disreputable ragged line. But of the necklace there was no clue, no trace, nothing.
Then Conway heard that Mr. Leighton was going to the United States for a few months.
“To take the necklace and dispose of it,” he declared out of the vexation of his own heart. “If he ever gets aboard ship with it I’ve got him—either I’ve got him or the United States customs officials will have him.”
Conway could not bring himself to believe that Mr. Leighton, with all his cleverness, would dare try to dispose of the pearls in England and he flattered himself that Leighton could not have sent them elsewhere—too close a watch had been kept.
It transpired naturally that when the Boston bound liner Romanic sailed from Liverpool four days later not only was Mr. Leighton aboard but Conway was there. He knew Leighton, but was secure in the thought that Leighton did not know him.
On the second day out he was disabused on this point. He was beginning to think that it might not be a bad idea to know Leighton casually so when he noticed that immaculate gentleman alone, leaning on the rail, smoking, he sauntered up and joined him in contemplation of the infinite ocean.
“Beautiful weather,” Conway remarked after a long time.
“Yes,” replied Leighton as he glanced around and smiled. “I should think you Scotland Yard men would enjoy a junket like this?”
Conway didn’t do any such foolish thing as start or show astonishment, whatever he might have felt. Instead he smiled pleasantly.
“I’ve been working pretty hard on that Varron affair,” he said frankly. “And now I’m taking a little vacation.”
“Oh, that thing at Lady Varron’s?” inquired Leighton lazily. “Indeed? I happened to be the one to notice that the necklace was gone.”
“Yes, I know it,” responded Conway, grimly.
The conversation drifted to other things. Conway found Leighton an agreeable companion, and a democratic one. They smoked together, walked together and played shuffle-board together. That evening Leighton took a hand at “bridge” in the smoking room. For hours Conway stared at the phosphorescent points in the sinister green waters, and smoked.
“If he did it,” he remarked at last, “he’s the cleverest scoundrel on earth, and if he did not I’m the biggest fool.”
Six bells—eleven o’clock struck. The deck was deserted. Conway stumbled along through the dark toward the smoking room. Inside he saw Leighton still at play. As he paused at the open door he heard Leighton’s voice.
“I’ll play until two o’clock, not later,” it said.
Conway made up his mind instantly. He turned, retraced his steps along the deck to Leighton’s room where he stopped. He knew Leighton had not burdened himself with a valet and thought he knew why, so without hesitation he drew out several keys and fumbled at the lock. It yielded at last and he stepped inside the state room, closing the door. His purpose was instantly apparent. It was to search.
Now Conway had his own ideas of just how a search should be conducted. First he took Leighton’s wearing apparel and patted and pinched it inch by inch; he squeezed up neckties, unrolled handkerchiefs, examined shirts and crumpled up silken hosiery. Then he took the shoes—half a dozen pairs. He had been suspicious of shoes since he once found a dozen diamonds concealed in false heels. But these heels weren’t false.
Next, still without haste or apparent disappointment, he turned his attention to the handbag, the suit case and the steamer trunk all of which he had emptied. Such things had been known to have false bottoms and secret compartments. These had none. He satisfied himself absolutely on this point by every method known to his art.
In due time his examination came down to the room itself. He unmade the bed and closely felt of and scrutinized the mattress, sheets, blankets, pillows, and coverlid. He took the three drawers from the dressing cabinet and looked behind them. He turned over several English newspapers and shook them one by one. He peered into the water pitcher and fumbled around the plumbing in the tiny bath room adjoining. He examined the carpet to see if anything had been hidden beneath it. Finally he climbed on a chair and from this elevated position looked for a crack or crevice where a necklace or unset pearls could be hidden.
“There are still three possibilities,” he told himself at the end as he carefully restored the room to its previous condition. “He might have left them in a package in the ship’s safe but that’s improbable—too risky; he might have left them in a trunk in the hold, which is still more improbable; or he might have them on his person. That is more than likely.”
So Conway went out, extinguishing the light and locking the door behind him. He stepped into his own state room a moment and took a mouthful of whiskey which he spat out again. But it must have had some deep, potent effect for a few minutes later when he appeared in the smoking room he was in a lamentable state of intoxication and exhaled whiskey noticeably. His was a maudlin, thick-tongued condition. Leighton glanced up at him with well bred reproach.
It may have been only accident that Conway stumbled over Leighton’s feet and noted that he wore flat-soled, loose slippers without heels, and also accident that he embraced him with exaggerated affection as he struggled to recover his equilibrium.
Be those things as they may Leighton excused himself goodnaturedly from the bridge party and urged Conway to bed. Conway would only agree on condition that Leighton would assist him. Leighton consented cheerfully and they left the smoking room together, Conway clinging to him as the vine to the oak.
Half way down the deck Conway stumbled and fell despite the friendly supporting arm, and in his effort to save himself his hands slid all the way down Leighton’s shapely legs. Then he was deposited in his state room and Leighton returned to his cards smiling.
“And he hasn’t got them on him,” declared Conway enigmatically to the bare walls. He was not intoxicated now.
It was an easy matter next day for him to learn that Leighton had left nothing in the ship’s safe and that his four trunks in the hold were inaccessible, being buried under hundreds of others. Whereupon Conway sat down to wait and learn what new and original ideas of searching Uncle Sam’s Customs officers had invented.
At last came a morning when the wireless telegraph operator aboard picked up a signal from shore and announced that the Romanic was less than a hundred miles from Boston light. Later Conway found Leighton leaning on the rail, smoking and gazing shoreward.
It