United States or Macao ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Brightman declared, with an attempt at cheerfulness. "By-the-by, Mr. Joyce, I hope you got my note?" The manager nodded. "Yes," he assented, "I've made all the arrangements you wished, and the box has not been entered except by the cleaner." "Mr. Thew himself, then, has made no attempt to visit it?" Crawshay enquired. "Not to my knowledge," was the brusque reply.
"He was an Englishman, and very anxious to reach his own country before he died." "I can't quite catch on to it," Beverley admitted. Jocelyn Thew glanced carelessly around. His manner was the reverse of suspicious, but he only resumed his speech when he was sure that not even a waiter was within hearing.
There was a little murmur of applause, and before any further word could be said, the auctioneer's hammer dropped. Jocelyn Thew stepped up to his side and counted out three hundred guineas in notes, receiving in return the admission ticket for the box. The comedian shook hands with him. "A very generous contribution, sir," he declared. "I shall do myself the pleasure of remembering it to-night."
Jocelyn Thew regarded his questioner with an air of pained surprise. "It's Gospel," he assured them all, "but you don't need to take my word. You go right along up and enquire at the Beverley house to-night, and you'll find that she is packing. Made up her mind just an hour ago. I'm about the only one in the know." "Who's the man, anyway?" one of the little group asked.
On the extreme edge of a stony and wide-spreading moor, Jocelyn Thew suddenly brought the ancient motor-car which he was driving to a somewhat abrupt and perilous standstill. He stood up in his seat, unrecognisable, transformed. From his face had passed the repression of many years.
It occurred to me, from what he said, that he has not quite the right idea as to my aspirations, as to the place I desire to fill in life. I shall try to give him an opportunity to form a saner judgment." "It will give me the utmost pleasure to accept it," the detective confessed, with ill-concealed acerbity. Jocelyn Thew sighed lightly.
Through the swing doors, almost as Brightman had concluded his speech, came Jocelyn Thew. He was dressed in light tweeds, carefully fashioned by an English tailor. His tie and collar, his grey Homburg hat with its black band, his beautifully polished and not too new brown shoes, were exactly according to the decrees of Bond Street.
"The face of the man in khaki seems familiar," she admitted. "That's Crawshay, the fellow whom Jocelyn Thew fooled. He was married last week to the girl with him. Nora Sharey, her name was. She came from New York." "They seem very happy," Katharine observed, watching them as they left the room.
It was all very well for you, when you were painting New York red, to choose your friends where it pleased you, but your sister she's different, isn't she? what they call over on our side a society belle. I am not saying that there is a single person in the world too good for Jocelyn Thew to sit down with, but at the present moment well, he's hard up against it.
It really doesn't amount to anything. It was just after Jocelyn Thew had come back from Nicaragua and Dick Beverley was having a flare-up of his own in New York. They came together, those two, when Dick was in a tight corner. I don't know the story, but I know that Jocelyn Thew played the white man. Dick Beverley owes him perhaps his life, perhaps only his liberty, and his sister knows it.
Word Of The Day