Elizabeth was a little embarrassed but determined5 to fulfill6 her mission before she left. She liked Billy and hated to see him making a fool of himself over the pretty adventuress. She wished she could save him from the bitter chagrin7 that would be sure to be his when the sorry business would finally come to light, but158 her loyalty8 to Josie forbade her doing or saying a thing to put him on his guard. Then he had paid her just enough attention to make it possible for him to think that jealousy9 prompted her in anything she might do or say.
“We have been very busy at the shop to-day,” Elizabeth began, in a rather loud tone as though determined that her voice would be heard by Hortense and her husband too, if he had concealed10 himself somewhere behind the curtains. “Irene finished mending the lace and then Josie laundered11 the whole lot and I have just delivered it to its owner.”
“Ah, indeed!” ejaculated Hortense.
Was there a note of disappointment in her voice?
“I rather wanted to see that lace again. It was a beautiful pattern. I have a passion for fine and rare lace.”
“Well, it’s safe with the rich old lady who brought it to us,” said Elizabeth, bluntly.
“You are quite wise to get it in safe keeping as soon as possible,” said Hortense, suavely12.
“By the way, you never have let me see the orchid13 pin,” put in Billy. “You remember you promised.”
159 “Why, of course! I’ll get it immediately.”
She was gone from the room for a few moments. Elizabeth, who usually was very much at home with Billy McGraw, now sat in silence. For the moment she had nothing to say. He looked at her a little uneasily.
“Are you—are you—kind of angry with me?” he finally said.
“I? The idea! Why should I be angry with you?”
“I don’t know. You don’t seem so—so—chummy as you do sometimes.”
“Chummy? I did not know I had been quite that,” she said with a touch of coldness that she could not keep from her tones.
“Now I know you have got it in for me somehow.”
Elizabeth said nothing as Hortense came back in the room with the orchid pin which she handed to Billy.
“My, it’s a peach!” he declared. He examined it with great interest. “It is as near like Vi Thomas’ as can be. Hers, of course, had Tiffany’s mark on the back and a date, as I remember, some date that meant something to her and her husband.
160 “Mine just has the name Felix loves to call me, ‘Pet.’ It sounds awfully14 silly and sentimental15, but he would have it on.”
“Can’t I see it?” asked Elizabeth, wishing in her heart she had a magnifying glass handy, feeling sure there would be marks of other things to be disclosed. She noticed that the gold mounting back of the pin was slightly concave. “No doubt Josie will attach much importance to that,” she said to herself.
“You promised some day to show me your original Rembrandt etching,” she said to Hortense. “I have never seen one.”
“Have you an original Rembrandt?” asked Billy. “You never told me. I’d certainly like to see it. The Thomases had a crackerjack of a Rembrandt. Of course that was lifted too when the orchid pin was.”
“Heavens! what luck. Those Thomases seem to be perfect Jonahs,” laughed Hortense. Elizabeth thought she detected a little sharp note in her laugh.
“I am terribly sorry not to show you my treasure of treasures, but the frame was pulling loose a bit and Felix has taken it to have it mended. Anything as precious as a Rembrandt161 must be framed in an airtight frame. Felix has been offered a huge sum for our Rembrandt and I am trembling for fear he might sell it. Of course, I know that persons of our means have no business owning such a rare etching but I would so hate to part with it. Felix is something of a speculator in such things, while I have more the soul of the born collector.”
“I should think you would live in continual fear of having your things snatched from you,” said Elizabeth, wondering at her own cruelty in making such a remark.
“I do,” said Hortense, sadly. “Why, Felix is so keen on a trade that I shouldn’t be astonished if he wanted sometime to sell my lovely orchid pin.”
“Ah, but the ‘Pet’ engraved16 on the back would keep him from doing that,” suggested Billy, thinking what a mercenary brute17 the husband must be.
“Oh, but that could be taken off,” said Elizabeth with an air of childlike innocence18. “We had some marks taken off some silver one time. It was the initials of a person who had married into my father’s family and had her initials put on an old family tea service. She had no right162 to the service and the service was ruined in our eyes by the addition of her initials. Of course, it meant some of the thickness of the silver had to be sacrificed to get rid of the engraving19 and there is almost a concavity where there used to be a convexity, but we prefer that to the initials of the interloper.”
“Oh, please don’t tell my husband such a thing could be done,” was Hortense’s playful rejoinder. “He would surely get some of the eraser and take off the ‘Pet.’ Of course, this little pin is very valuable as a work of art and I shouldn’t object if we get really hard up. I have never been an unreasonable20 wife, and we have had our ups and downs.”
“You might write to your friend Mr. Thomas,” Elizabeth suggested to Billy, “and tell him there is a chance for him to buy the duplicate of the pin his wife lost.” Elizabeth well understood she was teasing Mrs. Markle, but could not resist doing it, feeling assured that she was supposed to be unconscious of so doing.
“Don’t do it! Please don’t do it!” begged Hortense, plainly alarmed. “If this Mr. Thomas hears of this pin he might make a bid for it and Felix is almost sure to take him up, although it163 does belong to me. I couldn’t bear to part with my beautiful pin. It has such wonderful associations. You see, Felix gave it to me in our early married life when everything was quite different.” This, of course, was for Billy’s benefit and he looked sad and promised he would not write to his friend.
Hortense looked daggers21 at Elizabeth, who began to feel that she was regarded as being a bit catty, the expression that she had so recently used to describe Hortense.
“No doubt I am,” Elizabeth said to herself, “but I couldn’t resist it.” Aloud, she remarked that she must be going. Mrs. Markle did not urge her to remain. She found this girl Elizabeth a little too inclined to suggest unpleasant things. She was on the whole rather relieved when Billy McGraw offered to take Elizabeth home in his car. She wanted to get rid of both callers and to see Felix alone and report to him that things were getting a trifle warm.
“I am afraid my clever puss has been talking too much,” suggested Mr. Markle, when his wife told him of her having been asked to exhibit the Rembrandt.
“Oh, I can’t think it. You see, one must be164 natural and what more natural than to say one has a Rembrandt if it is the case?”
“That’s so! We may be moving on soon, Pet. Simpkins & Markle had a fine offer to-day for a furnished apartment, and no questions asked. This would be the very one and we could take with us all the doubtful things and still leave a costly22 enough place.”
“Not before the wedding, surely!” she exclaimed.
“Well, hardly, when my wife is to be matron of honor! We will be here several months longer. What is the date fixed23!”
“June the twelfth! Must I give out that there is a chance of our moving?”
“Not yet, but when you do, of course you must be the abused young wife with the peculiar24 and mercenary husband. That is a great stunt25 of yours. I heard what you were saying to that young ass4 of a McGraw.”
“Not jealous, are you?” she asked coyly.
“Not a bit! Just more in love with you than ever. I don’t know what I’d do without such a clever wife and such a stupid business partner. Simpkins is duller than ever. He accepts everything on its face value in the firm and assists me165 in operating the business with never an idea in his numskull that he is not conducting a perfectly26 legitimate27 thing. Of course, we have a lot of simple deals on that any real estate firm might have and then we have this out of town rental28 list that I attend to as much as possible. Sometimes, though, it is up to him and he accepts it with perfectly good grace. Specializing as we do in elegantly furnished apartments brings in a class of clients with whom he is unfamiliar29 and they seem in a measure to overawe him into extra stupidity.”
Dorfield and the neighboring towns were suffering from the after war congested conditions quite as much as were the large cities. New industries had sprung into existence, bringing many strangers to settle in the towns. Building was high and the cost of materials was increasing every day. That was forcing up the price of real estate and quite ordinary little apartments were renting for fabulous30 sums. When those apartments were furnished the supposed value was doubled. And when they were furnished elegantly the agents could go as far as they liked in their demands upon the tenants31.
Simpkins & Markle were doing a flourishing166 business, specializing in small, elegantly furnished apartments. They had branch offices in all the neighboring towns, Mr. Markle being the traveling member who kept in touch with the branch offices.
These apartments were always let with the greatest care as to the form of lease. The empty apartment would be rented to a young couple who would sign the lease and pay a month’s rent in advance. Then their household goods would arrive from some distant state and be installed. Rugs, pictures, beautiful furniture of all kinds, silver, china, table linen32, etc. The couple would live in the apartment for about a month and then the young husband would report at the real estate office that he had a raise, a new job, a sick mother, or something and wanted to sub-let his apartment, furnished. Of course, the beautiful furnishings would double and sometimes triple the value of the rooms and Simpkins & Markle would reap a reward. Simpkins would never be called upon to interview this couple and would therefore never be struck with its likeness33 to the couple before. He seemed merely to see that the firm was doing well and their kind of business was a lucrative34 one. He167 stayed in Dorfield and kept the books and attended to the old Dorfield business, which was slow but steady, while his more active partner attended to the furnished apartment rentals35. His was the duty to pass on to the distant young couple the profits reaped by their contract in sub-renting.
The unerring taste of Hortense was often called in play to arrange the furniture in these apartments. She could put a touch to them that would add greatly to their value. Strangers, warned beforehand of the difficulty of finding any place to live and almost hopeless of obtaining even a roof over their heads, would be carried off their feet when shown these beautiful rooms where Hortense had had her artistic36 will. No price seemed too high for such a haven37 of rest and beauty.
There can be little doubt in the minds of my readers where this furniture came from. A chain of burglars reaching from New York to San Francisco were ever busy robbing any and every house where they could make an entrance. Then the spoils were carefully sorted and shifted to far away points where detection was not likely. Felix and Hortense Markle were head168 and brains for this bold undertaking38. They worked under many aliases39 and sometimes appeared as father and daughter, sometimes brother and sister, sometimes they worked singly, but usually they were husband and wife. They were clever beyond the belief of ordinary mortals, so clever that their existence was doubted by some of the most astute40 and highly esteemed41 detectives. O’Gorman had been on their track and was in a fair way to come up with them when the war broke out and he was compelled to serve his country in other ways besides bringing to justice a pair of the cleverest thieves he confessed himself ever to have seen. He had talked to Josie of his ambition and had given her what information he possessed42. This form of real estate hoax43 was a new one with the Markles, but their method was the one they had always used, that of living in a respectable and decent way and making friends with the best people in the town where they hoped to get the most loot.
Sleepy Dorfield was a good place for their machinations. There was a good deal of wealth in town and the friendship of Mary Louise and her grandfather was “open sesame” to the society of Dorfield.
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1
besought
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| v.恳求，乞求（某事物）( beseech的过去式和过去分词 )；(beseech的过去式与过去分词) | |
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ushered
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| v.引，领，陪同( usher的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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6
fulfill
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| vt.履行，实现，完成；满足，使满意 | |
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7
chagrin
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| n.懊恼；气愤；委屈 | |
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8
loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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10
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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11
laundered
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| v.洗（衣服等），洗烫（衣服等）( launder的过去式和过去分词 )；洗（黑钱）（把非法收入改头换面，变为貌似合法的收入） | |
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12
suavely
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orchid
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| n.兰花，淡紫色 | |
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14
awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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16
engraved
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| v.在（硬物）上雕刻（字，画等）( engrave的过去式和过去分词 )；将某事物深深印在（记忆或头脑中） | |
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17
brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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engraving
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| n.版画；雕刻（作品）；雕刻艺术；镌版术v.在（硬物）上雕刻（字，画等）( engrave的现在分词 )；将某事物深深印在（记忆或头脑中） | |
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20
unreasonable
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| adj.不讲道理的，不合情理的，过度的 | |
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21
daggers
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| 匕首，短剑( dagger的名词复数 ) | |
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22
costly
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| adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的 | |
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23
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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24
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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25
stunt
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| n.惊人表演，绝技，特技；vt.阻碍...发育，妨碍...生长 | |
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26
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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legitimate
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| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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rental
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| n.租赁，出租，出租业 | |
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unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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30
fabulous
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| adj.极好的；极为巨大的；寓言中的，传说中的 | |
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31
tenants
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| n.房客( tenant的名词复数 )；佃户；占用者；占有者 | |
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32
linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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33
likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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lucrative
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| adj.赚钱的，可获利的 | |
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rentals
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| n.租费，租金额( rental的名词复数 ) | |
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36
artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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37
haven
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| n.安全的地方，避难所，庇护所 | |
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38
undertaking
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| n.保证，许诺，事业 | |
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39
aliases
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| n.别名，化名( alias的名词复数 ) | |
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40
astute
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| adj.机敏的，精明的 | |
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41
esteemed
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| adj.受人尊敬的v.尊敬( esteem的过去式和过去分词 )；敬重；认为；以为 | |
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42
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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43
hoax
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| v.欺骗，哄骗，愚弄；n.愚弄人，恶作剧 | |
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