Murgatroyd nodded a little curtly. Tibbitts was not a favorite with him.
"Whatever causes one misfortune would be bound to cause another would be a better way of stating it," he murmured. "Take a criminal—I think that at the back of all our prison systems is the unacknowledged certainty that an evil mind should not be allowed at large to attract other evil minds. We hang a murderer because he must, not he may, cause other murders. The mind of a murderer will murder, in other words."
"It really comes to this," Monsieur Pichegru cut in, in his careful English, and in the tone of a man who dislikes the mysterious, "that talents for good or evil will draw to themselves their own opportunities. I think we can all agree on that?" Monsieur Pichegru had all the Frenchman's love of a discussion at the dinner table. Not at lunch. The midday meal was for the passing of light items of news or gossip, but with the evening, the French spirit seems to expand and rejoice in exercise.
"What do I draw to myself, professor?" Vivian asked gaily, catching Murgatroyd's eye as he entirely agreed with their host's condensed version of his idea.
"Opportunities for using your very remarkable quickness of observation, I should say," was his reply. It surprised her. Here was some one else who was quick too. "I should think you would make a very successful newspaper correspondent, because by that law of which we're talking, events of interest would be bound to come your way, rather than the way of some duller person."
Vivian smiled a little as at a quaint phantasy, but on that came the startling reflection that here was the problem from Anthony Cross's past sitting beside Smith. Here, to the town, if not to the villa where she was staying, Anthony Cross was coming, perhaps on some errand of his own, perhaps really brought here by the hunt for the diamond-stealers of which he had spoken.
Here, where just before dinner she had herself had the incident of the boot in the bushes on which she had stepped. And, why—yes, she herself—why was she here? Not as an ordinary tourist...
"Law?" Tibbitts bit off a chunk of peach and talked through it. "You called it that before. I never heard of any such law. Where is it?"
"It's the law by which, unless we ourselves deliberately bury them, our gifts will surely get the chance to be used to their best advantage. It's a law we do not yet understand. But then, what do we understand?" The professor sighed.
"Nothing of what's been talked about just now," Tibbitts said bluntly.
Every one laughed. He flushed a little and thrust out his weak chin.
"I say, Miss Young, I've mended your bracelet for you." He spoke loudly, in the tone of one who intended to show the rest that there were some things he could do better perhaps than they.
"Oh, thank you!" Vivian's bracelet, one of the heavy kind fashionable just now, had come undone during tennis, and had refused to stay fastened. Tibbitts had volunteered to put it right.
He now took it out of his pocket and held it out to her on the palm of his large, red hand—the hand of a laboring man in spite of its obvious acquaintance with soap and water.
It fastened perfectly. Thanking him, she snapped it shut.
"Talents, and opportunities to use them," Smith murmured lazily, with that undertone of careless contempt in which he always spoke to Tibbitts. "I didn't know you were a handy man, Tibbitts. There should be plenty of work for you if your tastes lie in that direction."
"I used to do metal work when I was a boy." Tibbitts looked uncomfortable. "Arts-and-crafts classes, you know. No end fond of it I was. That's where I got these weals on my palms."
"Just the lad for the garden roller," Smith said firmly. "Monsieur Pichegru, get him to have a heart-to-heart talk with it this evening."
Smith disliked Tibbitts, that much Vivian knew already.
Mrs. Brownlow protested that Tibbitts and she were going to feed some carp in the Abbotts' Pond. She said it gently enough, yet Vivian was certain that she was not pleased with something. Was it possible that she did not care for her fag to slave for other people? If so, here was the first glimpse of one of the vamp's characteristics that Vivian had seen.
"No, no," Monsieur Pichegru said promptly; "I use Mr. Tibbitts for something better. Adrien, the chauffeur, thinks him a marvel. He thinks—"
"Who was that chap, a red-haired chap, who called here this afternoon," Brownlow asked the table in general, apparently not noticing that his host was speaking. "We met just outside the gate?"
"A reporter. He wanted to see me about Davidson's lost money," Smith answered in his drawl that struck Vivian as so affected.
"About my lost jewels, I hope, too," Mrs. Brownlow said urgently.
"He only wrote on his card that he came about Davidson's loss," Smith explained. "I didn't see him—why should I? I told him to go to the police. They have all the facts. I loathe reporters."
"But why shouldn't he tell about my jewels too in his paper?" Mrs. Brownlow asked pathetically. She spoke perfect English, but with a very pretty French regularity of accent. "The same thief took both."
"The insurance company in London is investigating, you may be sure," her husband reminded her. "They won't thank us to insert articles in newspapers."
"But the things were only insured for half their value," she said accusingly. "All your fault too. And, of course, no company could be as keen on getting them back as I am. Do see if he won't write up a description of my jewels too. Who did you say the man was, Mr. Smith?"
"Name of Mackay. Scot evidently. Works on some Aberdeen paper."
"Then you may be quite sure he won't work for nothing," Brownlow pointed out to his wife.
Vivian was listening intently. This talk of theft...And it was on account of thefts that Anthony had said he was coming to Cluny...Was it, after all, really business that was bringing him? She had forgotten Edith Montdore's words about "the vamp's" lost sapphires.
Monsieur Pichegru explained, in answer to her inquiry, that a couple of weeks ago Mrs. Brownlow, another guest called Davidson who had now left, Mr. Smith, and Mr. Tibbitts, had all four gone up to Paris, taking the night Pullman at Macon. Mrs. Brownlow to join her husband in the capital, and at the same time have some jewelery re-set. Davidson to put some money into a tourist agency. Smith to have a couple of merry days with some friend, and Tibbitts to escort Mrs. Brownlow apparently; at least, so Monsieur Pichegru said with a twinkle in his bright, dark eyes.
In the morning, on their arrival at Paris, Mrs. Brownlow was minus her jewelery and Davidson had lost his wallet containing a thousand pounds in bonds—international bearer bonds unfortunately. Neither Smith nor Tibbitts had lost anything. Except Mr. Smith, all the travelers had been chloroformed—by sprays inserted in holes pierced in the doors, the police thought. They had been the only occupants of the carriage, which had been put on at Macon. The porter seemed to have been drugged. There was nothing about the affair to distinguish it from other similar railway thefts, so Smith claimed when Monsieur Pichegru had finished.
"They tried to bore a hole through the panel of my door, but it was a new one. And teak!" he explained.
"These thefts on the French lines are getting as numerous as their accidents," Lascelles murmured under his breath to Mrs. Brownlow. He had only arrived yesterday morning, and was leaving at the end of the week.
After dinner some French neighbors dropped in again, this time for bridge. Smith, a remarkably good player, and his friend Lascelles excused themselves after a rubber, and sat out in the gardens close to a bed of rhododendrons.
In the thick undergrowth behind them there was from time to time a slight, noiseless ripple—a ripple that seemed to be steadily nearing the two figures. It had begun on the outer edge of the little thicket—then it showed towards the middle—then past the middle—now it was close to the edge nearest the backs of the two talkers.
It