An Amiable Charlatan
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E. Phillips Oppenheim >> An Amiable Charlatan
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"What is your name?" he asked Mr. Parker.
"Joseph H. Parker," was the reply. "I am an American citizen and this is
my daughter. Mr. Cullen appears to be a person of observation. It is true
we were at the opera. It is perfectly true we were within a few yards of
Lady Orstline when she called out that her necklace was stolen. There's
nothing remarkable about that, however, as we occupied adjacent stalls.
What I want to point out to you is, though, if you'll allow me, that the
necklace I had on the table before me at Stephano's when Mr. Cullen
suddenly popped round the screen--the necklace you are now looking at,
sir--is of imitation pearls, valued at about ten pounds. I bought it in
the Burlington Arcade; it belongs to my daughter, and I was simply
examining the clasp, which is scarcely safe."
There was a moment's breathless silence. To me Mr. Parker's statement
seemed too good to be true; yet he had spoken with the easy confidence of
a man who knows what he is about. Standing there, the personification of
respectability, a trifle indignant, a trifle contemptuous, his words could
not fail to carry with them a certain amount of conviction. The inspector
rang a bell by his side.
"What are your daughter's initials?" he asked quickly.
"E.P.--Eve Parker," Mr. Parker replied. "Look at the back of the gold
clasp. There you are," he pointed out--"E.P."
Mr. Cullen and the inspector both bent over the necklace. The inspector
gave a brief order to a policeman.
"The initials on the clasp are certainly E.P.," the inspector admitted
slowly. "I do not pretend to be a judge of jewelry myself. However, I have
sent for some one who is."
A man in plain clothes entered the room. The inspector beckoned to him,
showed him the necklace and whispered a question. The man examined the
pearls for barely five seconds. Then he handed them back.
"Very nice imitation, sir," he pronounced. "There's a place in Bond Street
where I should imagine these came from, and another in the Burlington
Arcade. Their value is from seven to ten pounds."
The inspector dismissed him. He handed the necklace back to Mr. Parker and
rose to his feet.
"I can only express my most profound regret, sir," he said, "on behalf, of
the force. Such a mistake is inexcusable. Mr. Cullen will, I am sure, join
in offering you every apology."
Mr. Cullen was standing a few yards back. He was biting his lip until it
was absolutely colorless. There was a look in his face that was quite
indescribable.
"If I have made a mistake this time," he muttered; "if I have been
premature--I apologize; but--but--"
Mr. Parker turned to the inspector.
"You know," he said, "I fancy this young man's got what they call on this
side a 'down' on me! He's got an idea that I'm a crook--follows me about;
doesn't give me a moment's peace, in fact. Say, Mr. Inspector, can't I put
this thing right somehow--take him to my banker's--"
"Banker's!" Mr. Cullen ejaculated softly. "The only use you have for a
banker is to fleece him!"
"Mr. Cullen!" the inspector exclaimed, frowning.
"I beg your pardon, sir. I am sorry if I forgot myself." He turned
abruptly toward the door. "I offer you my apologies, Mr. Parker," he said,
looking back; "also the young lady. But--some day the luck may be on my
side."
The door slammed behind him. Mr. Parker turned toward the inspector.
"That young man, Mr. Inspector," he said complainingly, "puts altogether
too much feeling into his work. I may have been a bit sarcastic with him
once or twice; but if it comes to a lifelong vendetta, or anything of that
sort, why, he's beginning to look for trouble--that's all! I'm getting
sick of the sight of him. If ever I lunch or dine out he's there. If I go
to a theater he's about. Whatever harmless amusement I go in for he's
there looking on. Just give him a word of caution, Mr. Inspector. I'm a
good-tempered man, but this can't go on forever."
The inspector himself escorted us to the door.
"I beg, Mr. Parker," he said, "that you will take no more notice of Mr.
Cullen's little fit of temper. As regards your complaint, I promise you
that I will talk to him seriously. Allow me to send for a taxicab for you.
Oh! I beg your pardon--that is your own car. I only regret that we should
have wasted a few minutes of your evening. Good night, gentlemen! Good
night, madam!"
We left Bow Street amid many manifestations of courtesy and good will.
"Where shall I tell him to go to, sir?" the policeman asked as he closed
the door.
"Back to Stephano's!" Mr. Parker ordered.
We glided down into the Strand. Mr. Parker glanced at his watch.
"We shall just about make those grilled cutlets," he remarked. "Gives you
kind of an appetite--this sort of thing! Say, what's the matter with you,
Mr. Walmsley?"
"Oh, nothing particular!" I answered. "Only I was just wondering what in
the name of all that's miraculous can have become of Lady Orstline's
necklace!"
We descended at Stephano's and were ushered to our table, where the oyster
cocktails were waiting. Mr. Parker took my arm.
"Perhaps," he murmured, "you may even know that before you go to sleep
to-night."
* * * * *
I thought of Mr. Parker's words an hour or so later when I was preparing
to undress. I emptied first the things from my trousers pockets. The
feeling of something unfamiliar in one of them brought a puzzled
exclamation to my lips. I dragged it out and held it in front of me. My
heart gave a great leap, the perspiration broke out upon my forehead, My
knees shook and I sat down on the bed. Without the slightest doubt in the
world it was Lady Orstline's pearl necklace!
CHAPTER IV--THE WOOING OF EVE
I spent a very restless and disturbed night. I rose at six o'clock the
following morning, and at ten o'clock I rang up 3771A Gerrard. My inquiry
was answered almost at once by Mr. Parker himself.
"Is that you, Walmsley?"
"It is," I replied. "I have been waiting to ring you up since daylight! I
want you to understand--"
"You come right round here!" Mr. Parker interrupted soothingly. "No good
getting fussy over the telephone!"
"Where to?" I asked. "You forget I don't know your address. I should have
been round hours ago if I had known where to find you."
"Bless my soul, no more you do! We are at Number 17, Banton Street--just
off Oxford Street, you know."
"I am coming straightaway," I replied.
I was there within ten minutes. The place seemed to be a sort of private
hotel, unostentatious and unprepossessing. A hall porter, whose uniform
had seen better days and whose linen had seen cleaner ones, conducted me
to the first floor. Mr. Parker himself met me on the landing.
"Come right in!" he invited. "I saw you drive up. Eve is in there."
He ushered me into a large sitting room of the type one would expect to
find in such a place, but which, by dint of many cushions, flowers, and
feminine knickknacks, had been made to look presentable. Eve was seated in
an easy-chair by the fire. She turned round at my entrance and laughed.
"Where's my necklace, please?" she demanded.
"The necklace," I replied, as severely as I could, "is by this time on its
way to Lady Orstline--if it is not actually in her hands."
"You mean to say you have sent it back?" Mr. Parker exclaimed
incredulously.
"Certainly!" I replied. "I posted it to her early this morning."
Mr. Parker's expression was one of blank bewilderment.
"Say, do I understand you rightly?" he continued, coming up and laying his
great hand upon my shoulder. "You mean to say that, after all we went
through because of that miserable necklace, you've gone and chucked it? Do
you know it was worth twenty-five thousand pounds?"
"I don't care whether it was worth twenty-five thousand pounds or twenty-
five thousand pennies!" retorted I. "It belonged to Lady Orstline--not to
you or your daughter or to me. I know that you are a skillful conjurer and
I won't ask you how it found its way into my pocket. I am only glad I have
had an opportunity of returning it to its owner."
Mr. Parker shook his head ponderously. He turned to Eve.
"This," he said solemnly, "is the young man who asked leave to join us!
What do you think of him, Eve?"
"Nothing at all!" she replied flippantly. "He is absolutely useless!"
"If you think," Mr. Parker went on, "we are in this business for our
health, I want you to understand right here that you are mistaken. I never
deceived you. I told you the first few seconds we met that I was an
adventurer. I am. I brought off a coup last night with that necklace, and
you've gone and queered it! It isn't for myself I mind so much," he
concluded, "but there's the child there, I was going to have the pearls
restrung and let her wear them a bit--until the time came for selling
them."
"Look here!" I said. "Let us understand one another. It's all very well to
live by your wits; to make a little out of people not quite so smart as
you are; to worry through life owing a little here and there, borrowing a
bit where you can and taking good care to be on the right side when
there's a bargain going. That, I take it, is more or less what is meant by
being an adventurer. But when it comes to downright thieving I protest!
The penalties are too severe. I beg you, Mr. Parker, to have nothing more
to do with it!"
I went on, speaking as earnestly as I could and laying my hand upon his
shoulder.
"I ask you now what I asked you yesterday: Give me your daughter! Or if I
can't win her all at once let me at any rate have the opportunity of
meeting her and trying to persuade her to be my wife. I promise you you
shan't have to do any of these things for a living--either of you. Be
sensible, Miss Parker--Eve!" I begged, turning to her; "and please be a
little kind. I am in earnest about this. Come on my side and help me
persuade your father. I am not wealthy, perhaps, as you people count
money, but I am not a poor man. I'll buy you some pearls."
Eve threw down the book she had been reading and leaned over the side of
her chair, looking at me. She seemed no longer angry. There was, indeed, a
touch of that softness in her face which I had noticed once before and
which had encouraged me to hope. Her forehead was a little puckered, her
dear eyes a little wistful. She looked at me very earnestly; but when I
would have moved toward her she held out her hand to keep me back.
"You know," she said, "I think you are quite nice, Mr. Walmsley. I rather
like this outspoken sort of love-making. It's quite out of date, of
course; but it reminds me of Mrs. Henry Wood and crinolines and woolwork,
and all that sort of thing. Anyhow, I like it and--I rather like you, too.
But, you see, it's how long?--a matter of thirty-six hours since I met you
first! Now I couldn't make up my mind to settle down for life with a man
I'd only known thirty-six hours, even if he is rash enough to offer to
pension my father and remove me from a life of crime."
"The circumstances," I persisted, "are exceptional. You may laugh at it as
much as you like; but there are very excellent reasons why you should be
taken away from this sort of life."
She shrugged her shoulders a little dubiously.
"There again!" she protested. "I am not so sure that I want to be taken
away from it. I like adventures--I adore excitement; in fact I must have
it."
"You shall," I promised. "I'll take you to Paris and Monte Carlo. We'll go
up to Khartum and take a caravan beyond. You shall go big-game shooting
with me in Africa. I'll take you where very few women have been before.
I'll take you where you can gamble with life and death instead of this
sordid business of freedom or prison. We'll start for Abyssinia in three
weeks if you like. I'll find you excitement--the right sort. I'll take you
into the big places, where one feels--and the empty places, where one
suffers."
Her eyes flashed sympathetically for a moment.
"It sounds good," she admitted, "and yet--am I ungrateful, I wonder?--
there's no excitement for me except where men and women are. I'm afraid
I'm a daughter of Babylon."
"Doomed from her infancy to a life of crime, I fear," Mr. Parker declared,
pinching a cigar he had just taken out of a box. "She loves the rapier
play--the struggle with men and women. Takes risks every moment of the
time and thrives on it. All the same, Mr. Walmsley, there's something very
attractive about the way you are talking. I am not going to let my little
girl decide too hastily. Our sort of life's all very well when we are
number one and Mr. Cullen's number two. We can't have the luck all the
time, though."
"I haven't dared to mention it in plain words," I answered, "because the
thought, the mere thought, of what might happen to Miss Eve is too
horrible! But the risk is there all the time. One doesn't deal in forged
notes or steal pearl necklaces for nothing; and you've an enemy in Cullen
if ever any one had. He means to get you both, and if you give him the
least chance he'll have no mercy."
I looked at them anxiously. The whole thing seemed to me so momentous.
Neither of them showed the slightest signs of fear or apprehension. Mr.
Parker, with his newly lit cigar in the corner of his mouth, was smiling a
smile of pleasant contentment. Eve, leaning back in her chair, with her
hands clasped round the back of her head, was gazing at me with a
bewitching little smile on her lips.
"I am not a bit afraid of Mr. Cullen," she declared softly.
"Between you and me," her father remarked, knocking the ash from his
cigar, "there's only one darned thing in this world we are afraid of and
that, thank the Lord, isn't this side of the Atlantic!"
The smile faded from Eve's lips. For a moment she closed her eyes--a
shiver passed through her frame.
"Don't!" she begged weakly.
"I guess I'll leave it at that," her father agreed. "Now this little
proposition of yours, Mr. Walmsley, has just got to lie by for a little
time--perhaps only for a very short time. It's a kind of business for us
to make up our minds to part with our liberty or any portion of it.
Meanwhile, if you'd like to take Eve for a motor ride round and meet me
for luncheon, why, the car's outside, and if Eve's agreeable I can pass
the time all right."
I looked at her eagerly. She rose at once to her feet.
"Why, it would be charming, if you have nothing to do, Mr. Walmsley," she
assented. "I'll put my hat on at once."
"I have nothing to do at any time now but to respect your wishes," I
answered firmly, "and wait until you are sensible enough to say Yes to my
little proposition."
She looked back at me from the door with a twinkle in her eyes.
"You know," she said, "before I came over I was told that Englishmen were
rather slow. I shall begin to doubt it. You wouldn't describe yourself
exactly as shy, would you, Mr. Walmsley?"
"I don't know about that," I replied; "but we have other traits as well.
We know what we want; very often we get it."
Mr. Parker rose to his feet. He put his hand on my shoulder. He was the
very prototype of the self-respecting, conscientious, prospective father-
in-law.
"Young fellow," he confessed, "I shall end by liking you!" I drove with
Eve for about two hours. We went out nearly as far as Kingston and wound
up in the heart of the West End. I tried to persuade her to walk down Bond
Street, but she shook her head.
"To tell you the truth," she confided, "I am not very fond of being seen
upon the streets. You know how marvelously clever dad is; still we have
been talked about once or twice, and there are several people whom I
shouldn't care about meeting."
I sighed as I looked out of the window toward the jewelers' shops.
"I should very much like," I said, "to buy you an engagement ring."
She laughed at me.
"You absurd person! Why, I am not engaged to you yet!"
"You are very near it," I assured her. "Anyhow, it would be an awfully
good opportunity for you to show me the sort of ring you like."
She shook her head.
"Not to-day," she decided. "Somehow or other I feel that if ever I do let
you, you'll choose just the sort of ring I shall love, without my
interfering. Where did we say we'd pick father up?"
"Here," I answered, as the car came to a standstill outside the Cafe
Royal. "I'll go in and fetch him."
I found Mr. Parker seated at a table with two of the most villainous
specimens of humanity I had ever beheld. They were of the same class as
the men with whom he had been talking at the Milan, but still more
disreputable. He welcomed me, however, without embarrassment.
"Just passing the time, my dear fellow!" he remarked airily. "Met a couple
of acquaintances of mine. Will you join us?"
"Miss Parker is outside in the car," I explained. "If you don't mind I
will go out and wait with her. You can join us when you are ready."
"Five minutes--not a moment longer, I promise!" he called out after me.
"Sorry you won't join us."
I took my place once more by Eve's side. Perhaps my tone was a little
annoyed.
"Your father is in there," I said, "with two of the most disreputable-
looking ruffians I have ever seen crawling upon the face of the earth.
What in the world induces him to sit at the same table with them I cannot
imagine."
"Necessity, perhaps," she remarked. "Very likely they are highly useful
members of our industry."
Mr. Parker came out almost immediately afterward. I suggested the Ritz for
luncheon. They looked at each other dubiously.
"To be perfectly frank with you, my dear fellow," Mr. Parker explained, as
he clambered into the car and took the place I had vacated by his
daughter's side, "it would give us no pleasure to go to the Ritz. We have
courage, both of us--my daughter and I--as you may have observed for
yourself; but courage is a different thing from rashness. We have been
enjoying a very pleasant and not unlucrative time for the last six weeks,
with the--er--natural result that there are several ladies and gentlemen
in London whom I would just as soon avoid. The Ritz is one of those places
where one might easily come across them."
"The Carlton? Prince's? Claridge's? Berkeley?" I suggested. "Or what do
you say to Jules' or the Milan grill-room?"
Mr. Parker shook his head slowly.
"If you really mean that you wish me to choose," he said, "I say
Stephano's."
"As you will," I agreed. "I only suggested the other places because I
thought Miss Parker might like a change."
We drove to Stephano's. It struck me that Luigi's greeting was scarcely so
cordial as usual. He piloted us, however, to the table usually occupied by
Mr. Parker. On the way he took the opportunity of drawing me a little
apart.
"Mr. Walmsley, sir," he said, "can you tell me anything about Mr. Parker
and his daughter?"
"Anything about them?" I repeated.
"That they are Americans I know," he continued, "and that the young lady
is beautiful--well, one has eyes! It is not my business to be too
particular as to the character of those who frequent my restaurant; but
twice Mr. Parker has been followed here by a detective, and last night, as
you know, they left practically under arrest. It is not good for my
restaurant, Mr. Walmsley, to have the police so often about, and if Mr.
Parker and his daughter are really of the order of those who pass their
life under police supervision, I would rather they patronized another
restaurant."
I only laughed at him.
"My dear Luigi," I protested, "be careful how you turn away custom. Mr.
Parker is, I should think, no better or any worse than a great many of
your clients."
"If one could but keep the police out of it!" Luigi observed. "Could you
drop a word to the gentleman, sir? Since I have seen them in your company
I have naturally more confidence, but it is not good for my restaurant to
have it watched by the police all the time."
"I'll see what can be done, Luigi," I promised him.
Mr. Parker was twice called up on the telephone during luncheon time. He
seemed throughout the meal preoccupied; and more than once, with a word of
apology to me, he and Eve exchanged confidential whispers. I felt certain
that something was in the air, some new adventure from which I was
excluded, and my heart sank as I thought of all the grim possibilities
overshadowing it.
I watched them with their heads close together, Mr. Parker apparently
unfolding the details of some scheme; and it seemed to me that, after all,
the wisest thing I could do was to bid this strange pair farewell after
luncheon and return either to the country or cross over to Paris for a few
days. And then a chance word, a little look from Eve, a little touch from
her fingers, as it occurred to her that I was being neglected, made me
realize the absolute impossibility of doing anything of the sort.
For a person of my habits of life and temperament I had certainly fallen
into a strange adventure. Not only had Eve herself come to mean for me
everything that was real and vital in life, but I was most curiously
attracted by her terrible father. I liked him.
I liked being with him. He was a type of person I had never met before
in my life and one whom I thoroughly appreciated. I sat and watched him
during an interval of the conversation.
Geniality and humor were stamped upon his expression. "I am enjoying
life!" he seemed to say to everybody. "Come and enjoy it with me!" What
a man to be walking the tight rope all the time--to be risking his
character and his freedom day by day!
"If there is anything more on hand," I said, trying to make my tone as
little dejected as possible, "I should like to be in it."
Mr. Parker scratched his chin.
"I am not sure that you really enjoy these little episodes."
"Of course I don't enjoy them," I admitted indignantly. "You know that. I
hate them. I am miserable all the time, simply because of what may happen
to you and to Miss Eve."
Mr. Parker sighed.
"There you are, you see!" he declared. "That's the one kink in your
disposition, sir, which places you irrevocably outside the class to which
Eve and I belong. Now let me ask you this, young man," he went on: "What
is the most dangerous thing you've ever done?"
"I've played some tough polo," I remembered.
"That'll do," Mr. Parker declared. "Now tell me: When you turned out you
knew perfectly well that a broken leg or a broken arm--perhaps a cracked
skull--was a distinct possibility. Did you think about this when you went
into the game? Did you think about it while you were playing?"
"Of course I didn't," I admitted.
"Just so!" Mr. Parker concluded triumphantly. "That's where the sporting
instinct comes in. You know a thing is going to amuse and excite you.
Beyond that you do not think."
"But in this case," I persisted, "I think it is your duty to think for
your daughter's sake."
Eve flashed upon me the first angry glance I had seen from her.
"I think," she decided coldly, "it is not worth while discussing this
matter with Mr. Walmsley. We are too far apart in our ideas. He has been
brought up among a different class of people and in a different way.
Besides, he misses the chief point. If I weren't an adventuress, Mr.
Walmsley, I might have to become a typist and daddy might have to serve in
a shop. Don't you think that we'd rather live--really live, mind--even for
a week or two of our lives, than spend dull years, as we have done, upon
the treadmill?"
"I give it up," I said. "There is only one argument left. You know quite
well that the pecuniary excuse exists no longer."
She looked at me and her face softened.
"You are a queer person!" she murmured. "You are so very English, so very
set in your views, so very respectable; and yet you are willing to take us
both--"
"I am only thinking of marrying you," I interrupted.
"Well, you were going to make daddy an allowance, weren't you?"
"With great pleasure," I assured her vigorously; "and I only wish you'd
take my hand now and we'd fix up everything to-morrow. We could go down
and see my house in the country, Eve--I think you'd love it--and there are
such things, even in England, you know, as special licenses."
"You dear person!" she laughed. "I can't be rushed into respectability
like this."
Perhaps that was really my first moment of genuine encouragement, for
there had been a little break in her voice, something in her tone not
altogether natural. If only we had been alone--if even another summons to
the telephone had come just then for her father! Fortune, however, was not
on my side. Instead, the waiter appeared with the bill and diverted my
attention. Eve and her father whispered together. The moment had passed.
"Anything particular on this afternoon, Walmsley? "Mr. Parker asked as he
rose to his feet.
"Not a thing," I replied.
"I have just got to hurry off," he explained; "a little matter of
business. Eve has nothing to do for an hour or so--"
"I'll look after her if I may," I interposed eagerly.
"Don't be later than half past five, Eve," her father directed as he went
off, "and don't be tired."
We followed him a few minutes later into the street. A threatening shower
had passed away. The sky overhead was wonderfully soft and blue; the air
was filled with sunlight, fragrant with the perfume of barrows of lilac
drawn up in the gutter. Eve walked by my side, her head a little thrown
back, her eyes for a moment half closed.
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