CHAPTER
I [Mr. Field Lays Down the Law]
II [Forbidden Fruit]
III [Judge Simmons]
IV [Timothy's Three Friends]
V [A Thief in the Night]
VI [That Terrible Eye]
VII [The Mysterious Packets]
VIII [Robin Hood's Lair]
IX [The Tramp]
X [A Flash of Lightning]
XI [The Treacherous Shore]
XII [Death and the Tide]
XIII [Near Death's Door]
XIV [Pin-pricks and Pellets]
XV [Alive from the Dead]
XVI [For Conscience' Sake]
XVII [Well-founded Fears]
XVIII [Judge Simmons Again]
XIX [Revelations]
XX [Good Hope]
TARNISHED SILVER
CHAPTER I
Mr. Field Lays Down the Law
In the breakfast-room of a large house near the seacoast Mr. Thomas Algernon Field sat eating a plain boiled egg.
It was a long time since he had tasted such a rarity, and he was enjoying it to the full.
Not that eggs were scarce in his establishment, but it was seldom that they found their way to his table in so simple a form. The Earl of Monfort, the owner of the adjoining estate, regularly ate a boiled egg every morning of his life--three hundred and sixty-five in the year, and one more in leap year, so he made his boast--but to Mr. Thomas Algernon Field this would have been sheer folly and waste.
Mr. Field had a French cook--a French cook whose salary far exceeded that of many a hard-worked clerk; and of what use was such an expensive treasure unless to turn out elaborate and costly menus? So to the detriment of his digestion, but with a brave effort to keep up the honour of his table, the master of the house wrestled daily with complicated dishes burdened with high-sounding names, though often longing secretly in his heart of hearts for plainer and more wholesome fare.
The room in which he sat was a fine one, with long windows opening on to a wide terrace with heavy stone balustrades, over and through which masses of roses climbed in graceful luxuriance of spray and bloom. Beyond lay yet another terrace, wider and larger than the first, with beds gay with many-coloured flowers, set in the greenest of velvet turf. A belt of trees bounded the further side of the lower platform, their topmost branches were bent sideways and shorn by the prevailing winds, while in the distance stretched the straight blue line of the North Sea, now rippling and sparkling in the morning sunshine.