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this feat, my own poor performance in preferring death to discovery and dishonour passed unpraised.
I must do Michael the justice, however, to state that directly Aunt Patricia had left the hall, he had hurried to raise the lid of the chest in which I was entombed, and had himself carried me upstairs as soon as his armour was removed and restored to its place.
Digby, who, from long and painful practice, was an expert bugler, took down his old coach-horn from its place on the wall and blew what he said was an "honorific fanfare of heralds' trumpets," in recognition of the tenacity displayed both by Michael and myself.
I must confess, however, that in spite of Michael's reticence concerning the visit of the "black man," we others discussed the strange event in all its bearings.
We, however, arrived at no conclusion, and were driven to content ourselves with a foolish theory that the strange visitor was in some way connected with a queer boy, now a very distinguished and enlightened ruler in India. He was the oldest son and heir of the Maharajah, his father, and had been at the College for the sons of Ruling Princes in India, I think the Rajkumar College at Ajmir, before coming to Eton.
He was a splendid athlete and sportsman, and devoted to Michael to the point of worship.
Aunt Patricia welcomed him to Brandon Abbas at Michael's request, and when he saw the "Blue Water" he actually and literally and completely fainted.
I suppose the sight of the sapphire was the occasion rather than the cause, but the fact remains. It was queer and uncanny beyond words, the more so because he never uttered a sound, and neither then nor subsequently ever said one syllable on the subject of the great jewel!
* * *
And so we lived our happy lives at Brandon Abbas, when not at our prep, school, at Eton, or later, at Oxford.
Chapter II.
The Disappearance of the "Blue Water"
And then, one autumn evening, the face of life changed as utterly and suddenly as unexpectedly. The act of one person altered the lives of all of us, and brought suffering, exile, and death in its train.
I am neither a student nor a philosopher, but I would like some convinced exponent of the doctrine of Free Will to explain how we are anything but the helpless victims of the consequences of the acts of other people. How I envy the grasp and logic of those great minds that can easily reconcile "unto the third and fourth generation," for example, with this comfortable doctrine!
On this fine autumn evening, so ordinary, so secure and comfortable, so fateful and momentous, we sat in the great drawing-room of Brandon Abbas, after dinner, all together for what proved to be the last time. There were present Aunt Patricia, the Chaplain, Claudia, Isobel, Michael, Digby, Augustus Brandon, and myself.
Aunt Patricia asked Claudia to sing, and that young lady excused herself on the score of being out of sorts and not feeling like it. She certainly looked pale and somewhat below her usual sparkling standard of health and spirits. I had thought for some days that she had seemed preoccupied and worried, and I had wondered if her bridge-debts and dressmakers' bills were the cause of it.
With her wonted desire to be helpful and obliging, Isobel went to the piano, and for some time we sat listening to her sweet and sympathetic voice, while my aunt knitted, the Chaplain twiddled his thumbs, Claudia wrestled with some unpleasant problem in frowning abstraction, Augustus shuffled and tapped his cigarette-case with a cigarette he dared not light, Digby turned over the leaves of a magazine, and Michael watched Claudia.
Presently Isobel rose and closed the piano.
"What about a game of pills?" said Augustus, and before anyone replied, Claudia said:
"Oh, Aunt, do let's have the 'Blue Water' down for a little while. I haven't seen it for ages."
"Rather!" agreed Michael. "Let's do a gloat, Aunt," and the Chaplain supported him and said he'd be delighted to get it, if Lady Brandon would give permission.
Only he and Aunt Patricia knew the secret of the Priests' Hole (excepting Sir Hector, of course), and I believe it would have taken an extraordinarily ingenious burglar to have discovered it, even given unlimited opportunity, before tackling the safe in which the "Blue Water," with other valuables, reposed. (I know that Michael, Digby, and I had spent countless hours, with the knowledge and consent of our aunt, in trying to find, without the slightest success, the trick of this hiding-place of more than one hunted divine. It became an obsession with Michael.) . . .
Aunt Patricia agreed at once, and the Chaplain disappeared. He had a key which gave access to the hiding-place of the keys of the safe which the Priests' Hole guarded.
"What is the 'Blue Water' worth, Aunt Patricia?" asked Claudia.
"To whom, dear?" was the reply.
"Well--what would a Hatton Garden person give for it?"
"About a half what he thought his principal would be willing to offer, perhaps."
"And what would that be, about, do you suppose?"
"I don't know, Claudia. If some American millionaire were very anxious to buy it, I suppose he'd try to find out the lowest sum that would be considered," was the reply.
"What would you ask, supposing you were going to sell it?" persisted Claudia.
"I certainly am not going to sell it," said Aunt Patricia, in a voice that should have closed the conversation. She had that day received a letter from her husband announcing his early return from India, and it had not cheered her at all.
"I did hear someone say once that Uncle Hector was offered thirty thousand pounds for it," said Augustus.
"Did you?" replied Aunt Patricia, and at that moment the Chaplain returned, carrying the sapphire on its white velvet cushion, under its glass dome. He placed it on a table under the big hanging chandelier, with its countless cut-glass pendants and circle of electric bulbs.
There it lay, its incredible, ineffable, glowing blue fascinating us as we gazed upon it.
"It is a wonderful thing," said Isobel, and I wondered how often those very words had been said of it.
"Oh, let me kiss it," cried Claudia, and with one hand the Chaplain raised the glass dome, and with the other handed the sapphire to Aunt Patricia, who examined it as though she had not handled it a thousand times. She looked through it at the light. She then passed it to Claudia, who fondled it awhile.
We all took it in turn, Augustus throwing it up and catching it as he murmured, "Thirty thousand pounds for a bit of glass!"
When Michael got it, I thought he was never going to pass it on. He weighed and rubbed and examined it, more in the manner of a dealer than an admirer of the beautiful.
Finally, the Chaplain put it back on its cushion and replaced the glass cover.
We sat and stood around for a few minutes, while the Chaplain said something about Indian Rajahs and their marvellous hereditary and historical jewels.
I was standing close to the table, bending over and peering into the depths of the sapphire again; Augustus was reiterating, "Who says a game of pills, pills, pills?" when, suddenly, as occasionally happened, the electric light failed, and we were plunged in complete darkness.
"What's Fergusson up to now?" said Digby, alluding to the head chauffeur, who was responsible for the engine.
"It'll come on again in a minute," said Aunt Patricia, and added, "Burdon will bring candles if it doesn't. . . . Don't wander about, anybody, and knock things over."
Somebody brushed lightly against me as I stood by the table.
"Ghosts and goblins!" said Isobel in a sepulchral voice. "Who's got a match? A skeleton hand is