Mrs. Vanderstein's jewels

by Marion Bryce

They waited eagerly, with eyes fixed on the door and ears strained to catch the sound of footsteps; but minutes passed and no such sound greeted them. Higgs rang again; the loud pealing of the bell could be heard jingling itself to a standstill in the basement, and must surely be audible all over the house. Still no one came, and he tried the area with no better result. Leaving Higgs to continue his efforts, Gimblet backed across the little lawn, and looked up at the windows to see if he could detect any sign of life.

There were muslin curtains in the bedroom windows and he tried in vain to catch sight of a pair of eyes peeping from behind one of them; but not a movement was visible anywhere. The shutters of the drawing-room were closed, and the parapet of the broad balcony shut them out from a searching inspection, which was still further impeded by a wide wooden stand which took up most of the balcony, and extended its whole length. In it were planted flowers, tall daisies and geraniums, which appeared somewhat withered and neglected, and, with the closed shutters, contributed the only hint of disorder in the clean and cheerful aspect of the house.

The detective made his way round to the back. Here the ground fell away, and the basement appeared on the surface instead of below the level of the ground. Another and longer flight of iron steps led up to a door used, no doubt, to give access to the garden. There was no bell here, and the door, of which Gimblet tried the handle, was locked. Through the windows of the basement he could see into the kitchen, clean and orderly as the outside of the house, with white tiled walls and rows of shining stewpans. The table was bare, he noticed, and no fire burnt in the grate; on a summer’s evening such as this it might well have been allowed to go out. On the other side of the steps he looked into what must be the scullery, and beyond this was a larder; over these was a small window into which he could not see, while above the kitchen a large one was hidden, like those of the drawing-room, by outside shutters. The back window of the first floor, however, and all the other windows at the back of the house were without shutters, and veiled only by curtains of white muslin.

Gimblet took a hasty survey of the garden. It was not large, extending back for some sixty or seventy yards from the house, but bright with flowers and green with lawn and leaf; trees surrounded it on all sides, now golden in the rays of the descending sun; and a high wall gave it privacy from an inquisitive world. Here again the beds were dappled with pansies; here were pinks and poppies, daisies and tall larkspurs, with such other flowers as could be induced to derive nourishment from the unrefreshing showers of smuts, which was their daily portion. By the end wall was a hut, of which the door yielded to Gimblet’s touch, and disclosed a mowing machine in one corner, some garden implements in another, and a potting bench with boxes of mould and some packets of seeds; by the door were stacked a few red pots. Gimblet stood for a moment looking in, and then went back to the front of the house.

Here he found Sir Gregory engaged in conversation with an elderly man, whose velvet coat and the paint brush he carried stuck behind his ear suggested that he was an artist. He introduced himself as the detective came up.

“Mr. Gimblet, I think,” said he; “my name is Brampton. I live next door,” and he waved his hand towards the south.

Gimblet ground his teeth as he realised that Sir Gregory had given away his identity, but he replied civilly that it was indeed he.

“Although only a stay-at-home painter, I have heard of you,” said the new-comer; “but of course I had no idea who was ringing, when I came round. My wife saw your friends at the door here, and suggested that I should come and tell you that she believes there is no one in the house. We heard that it was let, and the other day a man came and took down the board, but my wife says that no one has been seen to go in or leave the house for several days; she and the servants are of opinion that it is empty at the present moment, and that the new tenant has not yet arrived.”

“Indeed,” said Gimblet, “I am grateful for your information; but I have some reason to think that the new tenant took possession some time ago.”