The Case of the Two Pearl Necklaces. Dorothy Fielding

      CHAPTER I.

       A Wedding Is Announced.

       Table of Contents

      ARTHUR WALSH hurried up the steps of Friars Halt, across the big hall and along a passage to his father's study. The footman looked after him in surprise. He had never seen Mr. Arthur in a hurry before. Then he saw him pause before a bowl of flowers as though enchanted by their beauty; and neither had he ever seen him do that before. Arthur stood so long staring at the delphinium spires that the footman had perforce to leave him entranced. But Arthur was not spellbound. Once he cast a glance at the study door that suggested an inexperienced lion tamer about to enter the cage of his fiercest animal, and by no means liking the prospect.

      He was twenty-eight years old, fairly tall, and had a face that began well in a good forehead, but ended in a weak chin. Finally, after one more prolonged stare at the flowers, he opened the door beside him and went on in. Colonel Walsh sat looking into the fire, an open letter in his hand. He had a long thin face with a tightly compressed mouth and steadfast grey eyes. Taken together, eyes and mouth gave him a curiously daunting air. Not to Colonel Walsh did people turn to ask the way. Not of him would children inquire the time. He had never to suffer from the club bore. One glance from him, and straggler, child or bore passed on.

      "Gerald is dead," Colonel Walsh said, turning to face his son. His voice was deep and powerful.

      For a second Arthur looked as though he could not place his brother Gerald. "When did it happen?" he asked after a second. "Poor old Gerald Where was it?"

      "In Smyrna. Circus performance. The roof crashed in, and Gerald was among the dead. His passport gave his name, and Raeburn—who's consul there—identified the body."

      Colonel Walsh spoke abruptly. Looking into Arthur's face, it came to him with a sudden and quite unexpected wrench that Gerald, the brilliant though unreliable, was dead, and that Arthur, the dull one, alone remained to him. For he had but the two sons.

      "It seems only yesterday that he walked through that door laughing and swinging his cap," Arthur said, drawing a deep breath.

      A spasm crossed his father's face.

      "He lied to me," he said evenly, but with a suggestion in his low tone of answering some accusation. "Lied He knew that is the one thing I won't stand, yet he did it. You owned up. He lied!" He drew a difficult breath as he added: "Gerald was given to lying."

      Arthur nodded. Gerald was. As a rule he had done it well, but on the occasion in question his father had had inside knowledge, and so Gerald had been turned adrift with his clothes and a hundred pounds in money. That had been nearly three years ago. And now Gerald was dead...Arthur looked almost curiously at his father. The Colonel had clearly had a painful shock. One wouldn't have thought he would have cared!

      "I came in to tell you something, Pater," Arthur said abruptly. "I'm afraid it's rather an inopportune moment..."

      Colonel Walsh straightened up, looking inquiringly at him, his formidable, narrow face as hawk-like as usual. "Well?"

      His son looked at him with something harder in his eye than one might have expected.

      "I'm going to be married."

      "And who is the lady?" Colonel Walsh leant forward sharply. One would say that he guessed the name, or believed that he did.

      "You've never met her, I think. Her name is Violet Finch."

      His father's face became blank. Colonel Walsh had felt certain that now that Ann Lovelace was back in England, and unmarried, Arthur would try his luck once again—and this time with success. He had assumed that this would be the announcement. But a Violet Finch...?

      "And her people are?" inquired Colonel Walsh. "Nothing much," Arthur gave a little deprecatory smile. "Her father was a barrister. He's dead. Her mother—" He hesitated.

      "She's not the Mrs. Finch surely?" the Colonel interposed.

      "I really can't possibly say whom you mean by that," was the acid retort. "Violet's mother is lady who, left quite penniless, started some night-clubs which for a time succeeded very well. And therefore made her a lot of money—and enemies." Colonel Walsh was grimly silent. So it was the Mrs. Finch! His mouth was tighter lipped than usual. So tight that at a glance it looked as though he had only one lip.

      "You'll like Violet, Pater. She's as straight as—as you are yourself. Outspoken—forthright—not at all a woman of the world; but she