The Case of the Two Pearl Necklaces. Dorothy Fielding
her uncle's attitude be? He was a broad-minded man, with but one detestation—personal deceit, and especially of a lie to him. That had cost him Gerald. Was it now—through Violet Finch—to cost him Arthur? For Violet had set it down in black and white that the pledged pearls were her actual property...
Kitty thought that Violet might have considered that a very trifling inaccuracy; but to her uncle there was no such thing as a "trifling" untruth. And, apart from that, even for Violet Finch it was surely no mere inaccuracy to say that wax imitations were real pearls, and to borrow a considerable sum of money on them...Kitty felt that she must get some clear idea of what had really happened. She could not discuss it with her uncle. Arthur might, but Kitty carried no guns that could cope with her uncle's. Then she bethought herself of Ambrose Walsh, her cousin and Arthur's.
Ambrose Walsh was a priest. He was only a little older than Arthur himself, but brilliant, even as a boy. You never could deceive Ambrose in the old days; and he was hardly likely to have grown less clear-sighted with the years. He was home, from a leper station, on sick leave, which he was using to write a book. His few books were by way of being literary landmarks.
Kitty had always liked Ambrose. Fearless, honest, by character he might have been Colonel Walsh's son instead of his nephew. She would try for an interview with him in private. She had better telephone first and find out if he could see her. For Father Walsh was an important person. The lay brother who answered the telephone asked her name. He told her that Father Walsh was engaged for the moment and had an appointment for the next hour, but if Miss Walsh could come then...? Kitty could and would. She felt chilled at the thought of even the hour's delay, and half regretted the impulse that had made her ring her cousin up. But, having done so, she must keep the appointment.
CHAPTER IV.
A Marriage Takes Place.
KITTY was before her time at the Priest's House in Islington. She was shown into a very bare little waiting-room. Three doors opened out of it. One was Ambrose Walsh's sitting-room, and she heard voices in conversation within it. Kitty stiffened, for one voice was Ann's. Well, she might have known it. Ambrose had been Ann's confessor for a few months. Ann would be sure to want to get her story in first. Very likely she was even enlisting Ambrose's help to give the Colonel her version of what had happened. What had happened? Kitty asked herself again. Who had been lying...? Something about Ann's exit had been very telling...And, though it seemed incredible that Violet should have done such a thing, yet how had the pearls been imitated?
But against those doubts rose her old well-founded distrust of Ann Lovelace. Ann of the quiet voice and effective manner, the cool calm eyes, the subtle brain. Kitty had felt quite certain that Ann meant to get triumphantly between Arthur and Violet Finch, that she had secretly tried hard to do this during the week they had all spent together at the Walsh's place in the country.
For when Arthur wrote that he was bringing his fiance down for a week's visit, his aunt had promptly asked Ann to come down, too. Ann, with whom Arthur had been so madly in love, in the days when Gerald was still at home. Handsome, careless, undependable Gerald. The days when Arthur, though well off, was still only the younger son. There was no entail in the family. The Colonel could leave his really big fortune as he liked, but it was natural to expect that the elder would get the lion's share. Also, Ann, at that time, was all out to marry Lord Wilverstone. But there, too, she failed. Lord Wilverstone married an old love of his, despite Ann's cleverest counter-diplomacy. Kitty happened to know, however, that Ann had nearly succeeded there.
Again her thoughts returned, now, to her present problem, as she distantly heard the sound of Ann Lovelace's quiet but "carrying" voice, speaking evidently with what, for Ann, amounted to vehemence. Nor were the sounds misleading. For, inside, Father Ambrose and Ann were facing each other dynamically at the two ends of his mantelshelf. The Reverend Ambrose Walsh was solidly built, physically, and something about his face, with its strongly-marked features, suggested a character also firmly built. Pale of face, with a beak of a nose, 'a flexible, long upper lip and firm jaw—his brilliant and keenly-penetrating eyes were fastened searchingly on his visitor's.
"It's a bad, sad business," he said regretfully when she stepped speaking. His own voice had irrepressible warm undertones. It suggested subdued but strong passions underneath. Just as his face did. "A very bad, very sad business," he repeated, half to himself. "But if it breaks his engagement to such a character it may prove a blessing to him yet."
"It won't break it!" Ann said decisively. "Nothing can do that. It's as if she had Arthur under a witch's spell."
"I wonder what his father, my uncle, will say," murmured Ambrose Walsh reflectively.
"Oh, Arthur will swear to him by all his gods that Violet's an innocent dove, that it's I, not she, that is the guilty one."
A very penetrating glance flashed for a second from Father Ambrose's eyes, but Ann's were fastened on her gloves, as she wrinkled and smoothed their gauntlets. "He once trusted and liked me," she continued composedly; "but Violet Finch holds him, as I said, just as though he were under some spell. He can't seem to see or hear the truth, where she's concerned. You met her, I remember, one afternoon down at Friar's Halt. Did you see anything in her to account for such an infatuation?"
The priest made no answer and Ann moved towards the door.
"I wanted you to know all the facts, Father, so as to be able to explain things to your uncle, Colonel Walsh." Ann had not come for that reason at all. But she knew that Ambrose Walsh was against the marriage; and she hoped that, learning from her what more than sufficient reason he had for his opposition—he would increase his personal pressure on Arthur to persuade him to give up the girl. After all, Arthur, too, was a Catholic. Like all the Walshes, at one time, he had been quite under his cousin's influence.
Father Ambrose showed her out by a door that did not lead back into the common sitting-room where Kitty sat impatiently counting the minutes. Then he gravely welcomed his second visitor. His eyes lit up as they shook hands, for he liked Kitty sincerely. And whenever he saw her he saw not the charming young woman, but his romping child cousin. Saw himself, too, again a mischievous schoolboy making her walk the plank into a tub of water and getting soundly thrashed for it afterwards, as well as in a score of childhood's scenes.
He led her into his own little sitting-room and closed the door. "Well, Kit? What brings you for the first time to see me here?"
"I oughtn't to have come," she said to that. "Really, Ambrose, I shouldn't take up your time, but I'm bewildered...and frightened. Ann Lovelace has just left, hasn't she? Oh, never mind," as he made no reply. "I know she has been here. I'm come on the same matter...That accusation against Violet Finch about the pearls—"
"You don't think the charge of fraud is true?" he questioned.
"No, I don't," she replied promptly. "Partly because Ann Lovelace is making it, and also because it's absolutely incredible It makes Arthur's fiance just a common thief!"
"Nevertheless, it would be the best thing that could happen to Arthur if it could be shown to be true," Ambrose said in his authoritative, crisp way. "I didn't say that to Ann, and I shan't say it to Arthur, probably. But it's stern facts, Kit. I have met Miss Finch, have talked with her, studied her. And I tell you candidly—and confidentially—that if Arthur marries her—he's doomed!"
"Why—!" Kitty demanded. But she knew how uncannily right Ambrose's summing up of people and consequences used to prove in the end.
"Because she's devoted, soul and body, to the World and the Flesh—if not to the Devil. And because Arthur is only too much inclined that way himself."
"You always wanted Arthur to be a priest, too!" Kitty said resentfully.
He gave her a steely look. "Catherine"—Ambrose only called her that when he wished to emphasise the fact that he was speaking with authority—"stand aside! Have nothing to do with the woman or the affair of her pearls. It is just possible that Providence