Mr. Prohack by Arnold Bennett (christmas read aloud TXT) 📕

on."

"I think you might have told me. If you had perhaps the--"

Mr. Prohack put his hand over her mouth.

"Stop," said he. "My sweet child, I can save you a lot of trouble. It's all my fault. If I hadn't been a miracle of stupidity the necklace would never have disappeared. This point being agreed to, let us go on to the next. When did you find out your sad loss?"

"It was Miss Winstock who asked me what I'd done with my necklace. I put my hand to my throat, and it was gone. It must have come undone."

"Didn't you say to me a fortnight or so ago that the little safety-chain had gone wrong?"

"Did I?" said Eve, innocently.

"Did you have the safety-chain repaired?"

"I was going to have it done to-morrow. You see, if I'd sent it to be done to-day, then I couldn't have worn the necklace to-night, could I?"

"Very true," Mr. Prohack concurred.

"But who could have taken it?"

"Ah! Are you sure that it isn't lying on the floor somewhere?"

"Every place where I've been has been searched--thoroughly. It's quite certain that it must have been picked up and pocketed."

"Then by a man, seeing that women have no pockets--except their husbands'. I'm beginning to feel quite like a detective already. By the way, lady, the notion of giving a reception in a house like this without a detective disguised as a guest was rather grotesque."

"But of course I had detectives!" Eve burst out. "I had two private ones. I thought one ought to be enough, but as soon as the agents saw the inventory of knicknacks and things, they advised me to have two men. One of them's here still. In fact he's waiting to see you. The Scotland Yard people are very annoying. They've refused to do anything until morning."

That Eve should have engaged detectives was something of a blow to the masculine superiority of Mr. Prohack. However, he kept himself in countenance by convincing himself in secret that she had not thought of the idea; the idea must have been given to her by another person--probably Mimi, who nevertheless was also a woman.

"And do you seriously expect me to interview a detective in the middle of the night?" demanded Mr. Prohack.

"He said he should like to see you. But of course if you don't feel equal to it, my poor boy, I'll tell him so."

"What does he want to see _me_ for? I've nothing to do with it, and I know nothing."

"He says that as you bought the necklace he must see you--and the sooner the better."

This new aspect of the matter seemed to make Mr. Prohack rather thoughtful.

* * * * *


III


Eve brought in to her husband, who had improved his moral stamina and his physical charm by means of the finest of his dressing-gowns, a dark, thin young man, clothed to marvellous perfection, with a much-loved moustache, and looking as fresh as if he was just going to a party. Mr. Prohack of course recognised him as one of the guests.

"Good morning," said Mr. Prohack. "So _you_ are the detective."

"Yes, sir," answered the detective, formally.

"Do you know, all the evening I was under the impression that you were First Secretary to the Czecho-Slovakian Legation."

"No, sir," answered the detective, formally.

"Well! Well! I think there is a proverb to the effect that appearances are deceptive."

"Is there indeed, sir?" said the detective, with unshaken gravity. "In our business we think that appearances ought to be deceptive."

"Now talking of your business," Mr. Prohack remarked with one of his efforts to be very persuasive. "What about this unfortunate affair?"

"Yes, sir, what about it?" The detective looked askance at Eve.

"I suppose there's no doubt the thing's been stolen--By the way, sit on the end of the bed, will you? Then you'll be near me."

"Yes, sir," said the detective, sitting down. "There is no doubt the necklace has been removed by some one, either for a nefarious purpose or for a joke."

"Ah! A joke?" meditated Mr. Prohack, aloud.

"It certainly hasn't been taken for a joke," said Eve warmly. "Nobody that I know well enough for them to play such a trick would dream of playing it."

"Then," said Mr. Prohack, "we are left all alone with the nefarious purpose. I had a sort of a notion that I should meet the nefarious purpose, and here it is! I suppose there's little hope?"

"Well, sir. You know what happens to a stolen pearl necklace. The pearls are separated. They can be sold at once, one at a time, or they can be kept for years and then sold. Pearls, except the very finest, leave no trace when they get a fair start."

"What I can't understand," Eve exclaimed, "is how it could have dropped off without me noticing it."

"Oh! I can easily understand that," said Mr. Prohack, with a peculiar intonation.

"I've known ladies lose even their hair without noticing anything," said the detective firmly. "Not to mention other items."

"But without anybody else noticing it either?" Eve pursued her own train of thought.

"Somebody did notice it," said the detective, writing on a small piece of paper.

"Who?"

"The person who took the necklace."

"Well, of course I know that," Eve spoke impatiently. "But who can it be? I feel sure it's one of the new servants or one of the hired waiters."

"In our business, madam, we usually suspect servants and waiters last." Then turning round very suddenly he demanded: "Who's that at the door?"

Eve, startled, moved towards the door, and in the same instant the detective put a small piece of paper into Mr. Prohack's lap, and Mi. Prohack read on the paper:

"_Should like see you alone_." The detective picked up the paper again. Mr. Prohack laughed joyously within himself.

"There's nobody at the door," said Eve. "How you frightened me!"

"Marian," said Mr. Prohack, fully inspired. "Take my keys off there, will you, and go to my study and unlock the top right-hand drawer of the big desk. You'll find a blue paper at the top at the back. Bring it to me. I don't know which is the right key, but you'll soon see."

And when Eve, eager with her important mission, had departed, Mr. Prohack continued to the detective:

"Pretty good that, eh, for an improvisation? The key of that drawer isn't on that ring at all. And even if she does manage to open the drawer there's no blue paper in there at all. She'll be quite some time."

The detective stared at Mr. Prohack in a way to reduce his facile self-satisfaction.

"What I wish to know from you, sir, personally, is whether you want this affair to be hushed up, or not."

"Hushed up?" repeated Mr. Prohack, to whom the singular suggestion opened out new and sinister avenues of speculation. "Why hushed up?"

"Most of the cases we deal with have to be hushed up sooner or later," answered the detective. "I only wanted to know where I was."

"How interesting your work must be," observed Mr. Prohack, with quick sympathetic enthusiasm. "I expect you love it. How did you get into it? Did you serve an apprenticeship? I've often wondered about you private detectives. It's a marvellous life."

"I got into it through meeting a man in the Piccadilly Tube. As for liking it, I shouldn't like any work."

"But some people love their work."

"So I've heard," said the detective sceptically. "Then I take it you do want the matter smothered?"

"But you've telephoned to Scotland Yard about it," said Mr. Prohack. "We can't hush it up after that."

"I told _them_," replied the detective grimly, indicating with his head the whole world of the house. "I told _them_ I was telephoning to Scotland Yard; but I wasn't. I was telephoning to our head-office. Then am I to take it you want to find out all you can, but you want it smothered?"

"Not at all. I have no reason for hushing anything up."

The detective gazed at him in a harsh, lower-middle-class way, and Mr. Prohack quailed a little before that glance.

"Will you please tell me where you bought the necklace?"

"I really forget. Somewhere in Bond Street."

"Oh! I see," said the detective. "A necklace of forty-nine pearls, over half of them stated to be as big as peas, and it's slipped your memory where you bought it." The detective yawned.

"And I'm afraid I haven't kept the receipt either," said Mr. Prohack. "I have an idea the firm went out of business soon after I bought the necklace. At least I seem to remember noticing the shop shut up and then opening again as something else."

"No jeweller ever goes out of business in Bond Street," said the detective, and yawned once more. "Well, Mr. Prohack, I don't think I need trouble you any more to-night. If you or Mrs. Prohack will call at our head-office during the course of to-morrow you shall have our official report, and if anything really fresh should turn up I'll telephone you immediately. Good night, Mr. Prohack." The man bowed rather awkwardly as he rose from the bed, and departed.

"That chap thinks there's something fishy between Eve and me," reflected Mr. Prohack. "I wonder whether there is!" But he was still in high spirits when Eve came back into the room.

"The sleuth-hound has fled," said he. "I must have given him something to think about."

"I've tried all the keys and none of them will fit," Eve complained. "And yet you're always grumbling at me for not keeping my keys in order. If you wanted to show him the blue paper why have you let him go?"

"My dear," said Mr. Prohack, "I didn't let him go. He did not consult me, but merely and totally went."

"And what is the blue paper?" Eve demanded.

"Well, supposing it was the receipt for what I paid for the pearls?"

"Oh! I see. But how would that help?"

"It wouldn't help," Mr. Prohack replied. "My broken butterfly, you may as well know the worst. The sleuth-hound doesn't hold out much hope."

"Yes," said Eve. "And you seem delighted that I've lost my pearls! I know what it is. You think it will be a lesson for me, and you love people to have lessons. Why! Anybody might lose a necklace."

"True. Ships are wrecked, and necklaces are lost, and Nelson even lost his eye."

"And I'm sure it _was_ one of the servants."

"My child, you can be just as happy without a pearl necklace as with one. You really aren't a woman who cares for vulgar display. Moreover, in times like these, when society seems to be toppling over, what is a valuable necklace, except a source of worry? Felicity is not to be attained by the--"

Eve screamed.

"Arthur! If you go on like that I shall run straight out of the house and take cold in the Square."

"I will give you another necklace," Mr. Prohack answered this threat, and as her face did not immediately