“Believe me, I shall not care tuppence if I lose.”
“Oh, all right. Give me your address. I’ll send you a telegram about four o’clock to–morrow. You’ll never see your fifty any more.”
Never before in his life had Warden acted the spendthrift, but any surprise he may have felt at his own recklessness was utterly dissipated when he received Rosamund Laing’s letter next morning. Though its tone was studiously gossipy and cheerful, the tidings it contained were unpleasant enough to lend significance to the American’s dictum. Its innuendoes, whether intentional or otherwise—and Warden was suspicious, for he had not forgotten certain traits of Rosamund’s character—assumed a sinister aspect when there was neither letter nor telegram from Evelyn.
“My dear Arthur”—wrote this unwelcome correspondent—“I suppose I may address you in that manner after our once close friendship—you will think that marvels are happening when you hear that I am at Lochmerig. The real marvel is, however, that I should have obtained your address. Last evening Billy Thring—do you know him?—by the way, he is now Lord Fairholme, since that sad railway smash at Beckminster yesterday—well, Billy Thring spoke of you. He means to cut you out with your little governess friend. I don’t blame you a bit, for she is very pretty, but, without telling tales, I would warn you that the man who said that absence makes the heart grow fonder was certainly not a connoisseur in woman’s hearts. Naturally, Fairholme flew south this morning, and that clears off one of your rivals temporarily. Still, there are others. I am only chaffing, of course, and I suppose you were chiefly amusing yourself at Cowes and elsewhere. My presence here is easily accounted for—I met the Baumgartners at Madeira last winter; and they invited me to their Scotch shooting. Isn’t B. a funny little man? On the island they used to call him by his initials, I. D. B.—Illicit Diamond Buyer, you know.
“Now, why did you leave me to fish out your whereabouts by sheer accident? Naughty! Do write soon, and tell me when I shall see you. Oh, I was nearly forgetting. Recent arrivals included a Herr von Rippenbach and an old acquaintance of yours, Miguel Figuero. Isn’t it odd that they should come here! And a little bird named Evelyn has whispered that the men of Oku are making ju–ju nearer home than the Benuë River. Please keep out of it, for your friends’ sake, and especially for the sake of yours ever sincerely, Rosamund.”
“P.S. Send a line, and I shall give you more news. R.”
There was hardly a word in that innocent–looking note that was not a barbed shaft. Was it believable that Evelyn Dane, the girl whose eyes shone so divinely while he entrusted to her willing ears his hopes and aspirations, should make him the butt of the ninnies gathered at Lochmerig? Yet, that allusion to the men of Oku inflicted a stab cruel as the thrust of an Oku spear. Who else but Evelyn could have revealed his interest in the visit of the negroes to England? And who was this Billy Thring—whose very name suggested inanity? True, Evelyn had mentioned him as one of the house party. “I find the Honorable One very amusing,” she had said. “He is the clown of our somewhat dull circus.” But there was no suggestion of friendliness other than the ordinary civilities of life under the same roof. Again, why had she not written, nor answered his telegram? He laid no great stress on these minor things. They became important only in the light of Rosamund’s statements.
He read and re–read the letter while crossing the Channel. Before Dover was reached he had gone through identically the same thought–process as Evelyn herself two days earlier. He found malevolence in every line of Rosamund’s epistle. It was meant to wound. Its airy comment was distilled poison, its assumed levity the gall of a jealous woman. Were it not for her wholly inexplicable and confusing allusion to the Oku chief’s mission, he could have cast aside with a scornful laugh her sly hints as to Evelyn’s faithlessness. Even then, puzzled and angry though he was, he remained true in his allegiance to his affianced wife.
“Why should there not be some devil’s brew where such men as Figuero and Baumgartner foregather?” he asked himself. “It exists, as I well know, and Rosamund Laing is just the woman to sip it. I wish now that I had insisted more firmly on Evelyn’s removal from the Baumgartner gang. I was mad not to ask her to marry me at once. We could have managed somehow, and she would have borne the separation for a year or more.”
Then it occurred to him that the two hundred pounds’ worth of diamonds in his pocket would almost have furnished a country cottage, and, to crown all, there was the exquisite folly of the bet on a horse that his sporting friend described as a hopeless outsider. His misery was not complete till the memory of another jewel intruded itself—a ruby that had waited two hundred and fifty years for an owner. Certainly, Arthur Warden experienced a most perplexed and soul–tortured journey to London.