Pimpernel and Rosemary

As soon as Sàndor had brought the brandy, Rosemary sent him peremptorily away. Fortunately neither he nor any of the other servants had heard anything of the scuffle, and Rosemary, for very life, could not have said anything to them just then. She knelt down beside Jasper and made him swallow some of the brandy. Obviously he had not been hurt, only scared, and the scared look was still in his eyes when he came to himself.

"You haven't let him go?" were the first words he uttered.

"Let whom go, Jasper?" Rosemary asked quietly. She rose to her feet and offered him an arm to help him get up.

"That spying devil," Jasper replied, with a savage oath. "Peter Blakeney."

"What in the world do you mean?"

"You know quite well what I mean. You must have seen him—I told you to call the servants. Are you in collusion with him, then, that you did not do it?"

"I heard a scuffle," Rosemary rejoined coldly, "when I reached the hall. I opened the door and saw you lying on the ground. I only had enough presence of mind to send for some brandy. Perhaps you will tell me what else happened."

"What else?" he retorted, with a sneer. He had risen and gone over to the mirror to readjust his clothes. She could see his face in the glass, livid with passion, his eyes fixed upon her reflection, while he fumbled with his tie and collar. But even while she watched him she saw a change come slowly over his face. The colour came back to his cheeks, his eyes narrowed, and an indefinable expression crept into them. Perhaps he did not know that Rosemary was watching; certain it is that she had never seen such an expression on his face before—the lips parted above the teeth, which gleamed sharp and white and gave the mouth a cruel, wolfish look. It was all over in a moment, the next he had swung round and faced her, apparently quite himself again, with just the habitual expression of high-bred weariness which he always affected.

"I was obviously wrong," he said coolly, "to suggest that you were in collusion with that young devil, and for this I beg your pardon."

"Wouldn't it be best," she retorted equally coolly, "if you were to tell me what did happen?"

"Peter Blakeney sneaked in through that open window. My back was turned that way and I heard nothing, as I was intent on reading your manuscript. He attacked me from behind. I was taken unawares, but I tried to put up a fight. However, he is younger and more athletic than I am, and he knocked me down. He had already snatched your manuscript out of my hand, and he disappeared with it the way he came, through that open window, at the very moment that you entered the room."

Rosemary had listened to this without moving a muscle. She stood in the middle of the room as if she had been turned to stone, alive only by her eyes, which were fixed with such an intensity of questioning on Jasper that instinctively he turned away, as if dreading to meet her glance.

"That is all, my dear," he said, with a sudden assumption of meekness. "I was certainly to blame for allowing that precious manuscript to be taken from me. I should, I know, have guarded it with m life, and so on, and I have probably sunk very low in your estimation as a coward. But I was taken entirely unawares, and one is not usually prepared for daylight robbery in a house filled with servants. So that must be my excuse—" He paused a moment, then added drily: "That and the fact that I warned you more than once that Peter Blakeney was working against you. Now perhaps you are convinced."

At last Rosemary recovered the use of her tongue, but her voice sounded strange to herself, toneless and distant, as if it came from beneath the earth. "You are quite sure, I suppose," she said slowly, "that it was Peter Blakeney who—who did what you say?"

"Aren't you?" he retorted with a harsh laugh.

She made no reply to the taunt. Outwardly she did not even wince.

"You are quite sure that he got away with the manuscript?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "I am quite sure," he replied.

"What do you supposed he means to do with it?"

"Sell it to Naniescu, of course."

"In exchange for Philip and Anna's freedom?"

Jasper looked at his wife keenly for a moment or two, and the corners of his lips curled in a satiric smile. He took out his cigar-case, carefully selected a weed, struck a match, lit his cigar, and blew out the flame. Then only did he reply.

"Hardly that, I think, seeing that he was instrumental in getting them locked up. More probably, I should say, in exchange for a few thousand pounds."

This time the shaft struck home. Rosemary had some difficulty in smothering the cry of protest which had risen to her throat. But she recovered herself in less than a second and said coolly:

"The manuscript must be got back, of course."

Once more Jasper shrugged his shoulders.

"It might have been done at the moment; but I was helpless, and you were so concerned for my welfare that you did not raise hell to send the servants after the thief."

"I did not know then—about the manuscript."