The Seven Conundrums

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

I watched the pieces filter through my fingers into the waste-paper basket.

"Nothing of any importance," I assured him.

The next day several things happened. In the first place, the key of the door leading to the little gallery facing the jewel chamber arrived, wrapped in tissue paper and with an obliterated postmark. Secondly, I took five wickets for fifteen against the team brought over from a neighbouring country house, and Leonard, by indefensible slogging, managed to knock up fifty-five before he was caught on the boundary. These last two episodes seemed to obliterate all memory of the professional character of our stay. The Duke, who had played a very useful innings himself, and whose joy at winning the match was almost like a schoolboy's, treated us as honoured guests and insisted upon all three of us accepting his invitation to dine in the great hall that evening. The third event of the day was the coming of the Princess Anne of Chantilly, the last representative of a famous French family, a great heiress, related to royalty, and one of the beauties of the world. The three of us chanced to witness her arrival, and our host's secret was manifest in the first few minutes. In her presence he seemed rejuvenated. He watched her every movement. The slight austerity of his tone and deportment vanished as though by magic. A new and more genial side of him appeared. He paid his court almost openly. It did not need the gossip of the place to tell us that he was her suitor.

I was ready for dinner early that evening and strolled up and down the north gallery, waiting for Rose, who was naturally taking some pains with her toilette. I made my way as though by accident to the notice board containing the names of the watchmen selected from the menservants of the establishment. There were eleven altogether, and the watch for the next twenty-four hours had just been put in. For the first time I saw there the name of Edwards. He was on duty, it seemed, from three to six on the following morning. I felt a little shiver of excitement as I strolled away, after a surreptitious glance at the little gallery. The beginning of my task was close at hand.

Dinner that night was a pageant rather than a meal. Sixty-four of us sat down at a long table, the decoration of which with hothouse flowers had taken two gardeners the greater part of the day. We were served from gold plate and we drank strange wines from Venetian glasses. The Duke sat at one end of the table, with the Princess at his right hand, and his sister, the Marchioness of Leicestershire, sat at the other end. The Princess, of whom I had a good view, was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. She was fair and slim, with a perfect complexion, dark, rather tired eyes, a fascinating mouth, and corn-coloured hair, whose seemingly simple arrangement was an artistic triumph. The one remarkable thing about her, though, was that she wore not a single article of jewellery. Her neck and bosom were bare, her fingers were ringless. I ventured to remark upon this fact to my neighbour, whose acquaintance I had made on the cricket field. She glanced down the table and nodded.

"The Princess has strange fancies," she remarked. "I have seen her wearing the Chantilly emeralds at a small dinner party, and afterwards go to a Court function wearing the jewels of an ingénue."

I looked back at her with a very genuine admiration.

"She ought to marry the Duke," I whispered, "if only for the sake of wearing the wonderful pink pearls."

My companion smiled.

"She would look better in them than any woman in the world," she agreed. "The pity of it is that she would only be able to wear them up here, and for a woman of her cosmopolitan tastes, Westmoreland would seem a little confining."