Mrs. Raffles by John Kendrick Bangs (best romance books of all time TXT) 📖

been a very delightful affair, but towards the end it began to get on my nerves. I am really appalled, Bunny, at the amount of money we have taken in."

"Did you get the full one hundred thousand dollars?" I asked.

"Full hundred thousand?" she cried, hysterically. "Listen to this." And she read the following memorandum of the day's receipts:

Flower Table $36,000.00
Doll 22,175.00
Admissions 19,260.00
Exits 17,500.00
Candy Table 12,350.00
Supper Table 43,060.00
Knick-Knacks 17,380.00
Book Table 123.30
Coat Checks 3,340.00
-----------
Total $171,188.30

"Great Heavens, what a haul!" I cried. "But how much did you spend yourself?"

"Oh--about twenty thousand dollars, Bunny--I really felt I could afford it. We'll net not less than one hundred and fifty thousand."

I was suddenly seized with a chill.

"The thing scares me, Henriette," I murmured. "Suppose these people ask you next winter for a report?"

"Oh," laughed Henriette, "I shall immediately turn the money over to the fund. You can send me a receipt and that will let us out. Later on you can return the money to me."

"Even then--" I began.

"Tush, Bunny," said she. "There isn't going to be any even then. Six months from now these people will have forgotten all about it. It's a little way they have. Their memory for faces and the money they spend is shorter than the purse of a bankrupt. Have no fear."

And, as usual, Henriette was right, for the next February when the beneficiaries of the Winter Fresh-Air Fund spent a month at Palm Beach, enjoying the best that favored spot afforded in the way of entertainment and diversion, not a word of criticism was advanced by anybody, although the party consisted solely of Mrs. Van Raffles, her maid, and Bunny, her butler. In fact, the contrary was the truth. The people we met while there, many of whom had contributed most largely to the fund, welcomed us with open arms, little suspecting how intimately connected they were with our sources of supply.

Mrs. Gaster, it is true, did ask Henriette how the Winter Fresh-Air Fund was doing and was told the truth--that it was doing very well.

"The beneficiaries did very well here," said Henriette.

"I have seen nothing of them," observed Mrs. Gaster.

"Well--no," said Henriette. "The managers thought it was better to send them here before the season was at its height. The moral influences of Palm Beach at the top of the season are--well--a trifle strong for the young--don't you think?" she explained.

The tin-type I hand you will give you some idea of how much one of the beneficiaries enjoyed himself. There is nothing finer in the world than surf bathing in winter.


VII


THE ADVENTURE OF MRS. ROCKERBILT'S TIARA

Henriette had been unwontedly reserved for a whole week, a fact which was beginning to get sadly on my nerves when she broke an almost Sphinxlike silence with the extraordinary remark:

"Bunny, I am sorry, but I don't see any other way out of it. You must get married."

To say that I was shocked by the observation is putting it mildly. As you must by this time have realized yourself, there was only one woman in the world that I could possibly bring myself to think fondly of, and that woman was none other than Henriette herself. I could not believe, however, that this was at all the notion she had in mind, and what little poise I had was completely shattered by the suggestion.

I drew myself up with dignity, however, in a moment and answered her.

"Very well, dear," I said. "Whenever you are ready I am. You must have banked enough by this time to be able to support me in the style to which I am accustomed."

"That is not what I meant, Bunny," she retorted, coldly, frowning at me.

"Well, it's what _I_ mean," said I. "You are the only woman I ever loved--"

"But, Bunny dear, that can come later," said she, with a charming little blush. "What I meant, my dear boy, was not a permanent affair but one of these Newport marriages. Not necessarily for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith," she explained.

"I don't understand," said I, affecting denseness, for I understood only too well.

"Stupid!" cried Henriette. "I need a confidential maid, Bunny, to help us in our business, and I don't want to take a third party in at random. If you had a wife I could trust her. You could stay married as long as we needed her, and then, following the Newport plan, you could get rid of her and marry me later--that is--er--provided I was willing to marry you at all, and I am not so sure that I shall not be some day, when I am old and toothless."

"I fail to see the necessity for a maid of that kind," said I.

"That's because you are a man, Bunny," said Henriette. "There are splendid opportunities for acquiring the gems these Newport ladies wear by one who may be stationed in the dressing-room. There is Mrs. Rockerbilt's tiara, for instance. It is at present the finest thing of its kind in existence and of priceless value. When she isn't wearing it it is kept in the vaults of the Tiverton Trust Company, and how on earth we are to get it without the assistance of a maid we can trust I don't see--except in the vulgar, commonplace way of sandbagging the lady and brutally stealing it, and Newport society hasn't quite got to the point where you can do a thing like that to a woman without causing talk, unless you are married to her."

"Well, I'll tell you one thing, Henriette," I returned, with more positiveness than I commonly show, "I will not marry a lady's maid, and that's all there is about it. You forget that I am a gentleman."

"It's only a temporary arrangement, Bunny," she pleaded. "It's done all the time in the smart set."

"Well, the morals of the smart set are not my morals," I retorted. "My father was a clergyman, Henriette, and I'm something of a churchman myself, and I won't stoop to such baseness. Besides, what's to prevent my wife from blabbing when we try to ship her?"

"H'm!" mused Henriette. "I hadn't thought of that--it would be dangerous, wouldn't it?"

"Very," said I. "The only safe way out of it would be to kill the young woman, and my religious scruples are strongly against anything of the sort. You must remember, Henriette, that there are one or two of the commandments that I hold in too high esteem to break them."

"Then what shall we do, Bunny?" demanded Mrs. Van Raffles. "_I must have that tiara._"

"Well, there's the old amateur theatrical method," said I. "Have a little play here, reproduce Mrs. Rockerbilt's tiara in paste for one of the characters to wear, substitute the spurious for the real, and there you are."

"That is a good idea," said Henriette; "only I hate amateur theatricals. I'll think it over."

A few days later my mistress summoned me again.

"Bunny, you used to make fairly good sketches, didn't you?" she asked.

"Pretty good," said I. "Chiefly architectural drawings, however--details of facades and ornamental designs."

"Just the thing!" cried Henriette. "To-night Mrs. Rockerbilt gives a moonlight reception on her lawns. They adjoin ours. She will wear her tiara, and I want you when she is in the gardens to hide behind some convenient bit of shrubbery and make an exact detail sketch of the tiara. Understand?"

"I do," said I.

"Don't you miss a ruby or a diamond or the teeniest bit of filigree, Bunny. Get the whole thing to a carat," she commanded.

"And then?" I asked, excitedly.

"Bring it to me; I'll attend to the rest," said she.

You may be sure that when night came I went at the work in hand with alacrity. It was not always easy to get the right light on the lady's tiara, but in several different quarters of the garden I got her sufficiently well, though unconsciously, posed to accomplish my purpose. Once I nearly yielded to the temptation to reach my hand through the shrubbery and snatch the superb ornament from Mrs. Rockerbilt's head, for she was quite close enough to make this possible, but the vulgarity of such an operation was so very evident that I put it aside almost as soon as thought of. And I have always remembered dear old Raffles's remark, "Take everything in sight, Bunny," he used to say; "but, damn it, do it like a gentleman, not a professional."

The sketch made, I took it to my room and colored it, so that that night, when Henriette returned, I had ready for her a perfect pictorial representation of the much-coveted bauble.

"It is simply perfect, Bunny," she cried, delightedly, as she looked at it. "You have even got the sparkle of that incomparable ruby in the front."

Next morning we went to New York, and Henriette, taking my design to a theatrical property-man we knew on Union Square, left an order for its exact reproduction in gilt and paste.

"I am going to a little fancy-dress dance, Mr. Sikes," she explained, "as Queen Catharine of Russia, and this tiara is a copy of the very famous lost negligee crown of that unhappy queen. Do you think you can let me have it by Tuesday next?"

"Easily, madam," said Sikes. "It is a beautiful thing and it will give me real pleasure to reproduce it. I'll guarantee it will be so like the original that the queen herself couldn't tell 'em apart. It will cost you forty-eight dollars.

"Agreed," said Henriette.

And Sikes was true to his word. The following Tuesday afternoon brought to my New York apartment--for of course Mrs. Raffles did not give Sikes her right name--an absolutely faultless copy of Mrs. Rockerbilt's chiefest glory. It was so like that none but an expert in gems could have told the copy from the original, and when I bore the package back to Newport and displayed its contents to my mistress she flew into an ecstasy of delight.

"We'll have the original in a week if you keep your nerve, Bunny," she cried.

"Theatricals?" said I.

"No, indeed," said Henriette. "If Mrs. Rockerbilt knew this copy was in existence she'd never wear the other in public again as long as she lived without bringing a dozen detectives along with her. No, indeed--a dinner. I want you to connect the electric lights of the dining-room with the push-button at my foot, so that at any moment I can throw the dining-room into darkness. Mrs. Rockerbilt will sit at my left--Tommy Dare to the right. She will wear her famous coiffure surmounted