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ARTHUR B. REEVE

CRAIG KENNEDY AND THE ELEMENTS
AIR—WATER—EARTH—FIRE

WATER

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First published in Flynn's, 8 Nov 1924

Reprinted in Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine, 13 Sep 1925

Collected in "The Fourteen Points,"
Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1925

This e-book edition: Roy Glashan's Library, 2022
Version Date: 2022-02-04

Produced by Art Lortie, Matthias Kaether and Roy Glashan

All content added by RGL is proprietary and protected by copyright.

Click here for more Craig Kennedy stories

Flynn's, 8 Nov 1924, with "Water"

"The Fourteen Points," Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1925

Illustration from "Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine."

"There's another jewel gone—the Blossom diamond!"

"WHAT a delightful relief, Craig, to get out of the sordid city, back again in a community where it's not all what you have, but what you are!"

The big closed car of our hostess had met us at the new Princeton station, which in my day would have been well on the way to the Junction. It was on the urgent invitation of Mrs. Paxton Whitehead that we were coming back to Old Nassau.

"Only," Craig smiled as the car turned on Stockton Street to the left, "I apprehend you would prefer turning here to the right—Nassau Street, the campus, Prospect. You cannot say it is not wholly what you have, here in this new Princeton that has grown up in the last twenty years."

"Both ways!" I insisted. "Town and gown. What you are. Only that makes it more difficult!"

The Whitehead place, the "Thickets," in the waning light of the afternoon sun was a place of beauty. On the top of a knoll, overlooking the beautiful grounds and beyond the sweep of the valley with the great Pennsylvania trunk-line threading through, it stood with a simplicity that matched the quiet dignity of its owner.

The white paint of its shingles caught and seemed bathed in the translucent lavender lights that made it a thing of glory. The shadows from its white-pillared porch stretched out and merged with the heavy shining green of the shrubbery. Groups of pines and cedars, sturdy but now bare old oaks and maples suggested the nooks and shady retreats when days were warm. The stately elms that bordered the winding drive did not suggest what only age can bestow. They left no room for dispute.

The lawn made me recall a remark of an acquaintance I once made who claimed distant relationship in old Warwickshire. I had admired the green lawns there, just as I was admiring now the sweep of velvet at the Thickets. And I had asked how they ever made such lawns.

"Well, you see," was my answer, "we plow it up, prepare it, plant it—and then we take good care of it for two or three hundred years."

It was a rambling house, the kind that seemed to love the old hill and cling to it. With its dark green shingled roof, its quaint green shutters, the big brick chimneys made me almost see the pleasures about the big fireplaces in these snappy days. It was more than a house; it was a home.

Swinging now up the winding drive, we could see the varied interests of the family. There were the modern chicken house and run, next the dog kennels with their share of noisy pups, greenhouses, and an aviary. Farther down, a little lake, or rather a series of little lakes with rustic bridges, a Japanese garden, the finest tennis courts, and a swimming pool the equal of which I had never seen in the East, even a nine-hole golf course completed the picture. With the huge garage and stable, a sizable guest house, everything from the lodge to the Thickets itself portrayed the quality of the owner.

Mrs. Paxton Whitehead, comely and gifted matron, glided over the waxed and polished oaken floor of her big reception hall with the ease and grace of movement that betrayed a training foreign to that of the loose-hipped jazz walk, of the flapper of to-day. Only by many hours in an old-fashioned finishing school, practiced alone afterward with the surreptitious use of a cup of water on the head, was that elegant grace acquired. It meant work. The strain on the debutante mind of that day was that it might never be acquired. Few are born graceful, but all can jazz.

In her musical, well-modulated voice, she said evenly to the butler: "Lights, Luther, in my study. You may go downstairs afterward. I'll not need you for some time."

Yet I fancied there was a tenseness in her speech that indicated emotion in restraint, a color in her cheeks that betrayed excitement repressed, and a simplicity and directness in her manner that told plainly she meant business. She was silent until we could hear Luther's rubber heels padding along at the other end of the long hall.

In the study, with a nod of her gracious head indicating seats, she turned to Kennedy with a quizzical smile and a glint of humor out of her steel blue eyes.

Leaning slightly forward, animation and vitality expressed in every feature, she looked scarcely older than twenty-five, thought I knew she must be nearer forty.

"I don't mean to beg the question," returned Kennedy. "But I can answer that better after he is caught. Have you been robbed?"

"No. But four of my most intimate friends have been—and I suppose my turn will come soon."

"No,"—shaking her head vigorously—"and I don't want it to become news. None of my friends do—certainly not yet."

"How were your friends robbed? Did the thieves make a big haul? When did these robberies occur?"

An expressive gesture of two up-raised slender white hands seemed to ask Kennedy to check the flood of questions and allow her to tell her story in her own measured way.

"No, these robberies have not been safe robberies in the dead of night, breaking and entering, nor even robberies from rooms left unguarded, nor hold-ups, I think you call them. The jewels have been missed by people themselves—at our parties—where everybody is around. And we do not know whether it is done by one of the servants or one of the guests!" The last accusation, cautious though it was, seemed to cost her something even to utter.

"Have there been large dances and receptions, or smaller teas and dinner parties?" asked Craig, thoroughly interested in his inquiry.

"One was a dinner dance at the Van Vlecks' old mansion. A debutante niece was the inspiration of the dance, and only the most exclusive, impeccable people received cards to that. The Van Vlecks are extremely fastidious as to whom Betty is to know. Why, Mr. Kennedy, I was there, and I saw no one for whom I would not have indorsed a note for thousands, if you could imagine such a thing. The soundest financially and morally. Yet, Mrs. Montague lost her famous black pear-shaped pearl, one of the most valuable of its kind."

"Was it snipped from a platinum chain?" I broke in, trying to reconstruct what might have happened, then adding as the most impossible situation I could imagine, "Or picked from its setting in a pendant or brooch?"

"No, unclasped simply from a lavallière. But we have had cases where extremely valuable jewels have been clipped, as you suggested. Mrs. Montague was wearing it. There were thirty guests at that dinner dance—and numerous servants, of course."

It was with a satisfied straightening of the shoulders that Mrs. Whitehead looked at us. There was a certain distinction even in this affair, she felt. Out of her even tenor of life, where comforts, luxuries, all things beautiful and cultural abounded, she had been able to pass along to Craig a crime, an unusual crime, for him to solve.

"Well, the Baldwins gave a house party over at their Lakewood estate, just a few intimate friends. There a wonderful diamond was missing from a guest. She told the hostess quietly. None of us want the scandal to get about—but we are not enjoying losing our treasures, either. All the robberies have been single jewels, by the way, always of the greatest value. Diamonds and pearls seem to be preferred. Strange to say, no necklaces or large pieces have disappeared."

"I can appreciate your feelings to the utmost, Mrs. Whitehead. It seems as if the wave of crime were seeping up into the highest strata of society from the lowest."

With a nervous laugh she returned: "Yea, it's epidemic; it's catching. But we must catch the thief." She paused a moment, considering. "I feel a sort of pride in American society, you know, and this season we have some people close to us from England—people who see only the dearth of years and tradition back of American culture and, I fear, would not hesitate to note our crudities. All the losers have been patriotic.

"They have kept quiet because of this innate feeling we have of putting our best foot forward. It cannot be denied we reflect to a great degree the growth and moral tone of our nation. As the strength and worthiness of its ruling, controlling classes, so the strength and worthiness of a nation." Her head was lifted proudly. Eagerly she would defend America and its system, with the same dignity and pride as might any English duchess.

Craig was thoughtful. "I see to what you are leading. You want these thefts stopped, Mrs. Whitehead, not so much for the recovery of the jewels, valuable though they are, as for the honor of American society."

She was every inch the grande dame, beautiful, dignified, kind, and human. "Exactly," she agreed. "You must find out, Mr. Kennedy, who is taking them—but it must be done under cover, with no brass band. This problem requires infinite tact. Society is scandalized by it. And we must protect society."

"I am giving an afternoon tea dance for some of the members of the Junior League, and have invited all the people who were at the Van Vlecks' dinner dance. Will you help me protect my guests and possibly myself?"

"Mrs. Whitehead, this is mysterious. Certainly I shall do my best to help you find your thief. By the way, may I ask you for your list of guests? It will help me materially at the tea," suggested Craig.

"I hate to do it—but here it is. I thought you would ask for it, first. Many of them you know personally. That is the reason I have appealed to you. You are one of us," she added simply.

Kennedy glanced at, made quick mental note of the list, and returned it to Mrs. Whitehead.

"I feel," he said, rising, "with your permission, that I may be excused while I make some discreet inquiries?"

She nodded, and we left her until later in the evening, everything on the place at our disposal.

"I KNOW the Montagues, Walter, friends of my mother," remarked Kennedy as we rolled out down the driveway from the Thickets in one of the Whitehead chummy roadsters. "I'm going over to see them. They might have some bit of gossip that Mrs. Whitehead hasn't mentioned, perhaps doesn't know."

We found ourselves ushered into one of the many exquisite old homes of the delightful little town, out Mercer Street way, past the old water tower that I had almost fallen off as a freshman, painting the class numerals.

Rare prints, beautiful bronzes, and tapestries, shelf upon shelf of books lined the walls.

I always had a weakness for the old town, more especially since it was more than a college town. It had what neither the city nor even a little village has. Cities too often are centers of aliens with a fringe of Americans. Princeton was a center of learning with a fringe of culture.

"Craig Kennedy! I am glad to see you! Wherever did you come from? When did you get down?" It was Stella Montague herself. She had one of those rich, resonant voices, a smile that showed a perfect row of whitest teeth, a personality that charmed and held. "When I see you I always think of the good times we had together as children down at the old Capo May. Changed, hasn't it? You rescued me from dire punishments many times with your ingenious excuses!" She laughed reminiscently.

"Now, you're getting everybody else out of trouble, too." There was a reflective wrinkle on her brow, of a sudden. She was thinking of her lost jewel, I knew.

"Oh, Jameson and I just ran down for a few days—the hockey team is very promising this year, and that new rink, and everything, you know. Besides, if the faculty should ever give me a call, I'd like to know just what sort of atmosphere I was likely to drop into, too. Though heaven knows what I'd do for a diversion from my chemistry. No crimes in an atmosphere like this, I'm sure. I just had to call, for old times' sake, to see if everything is going all right. How's Easton?"

"Oh, all roofed and sheathed and plated with copper, busy as ever. He's entertaining some Chileans in New York to-night. Wonderful property, I believe. They mine with a steam shovel, or a hoe, down there. No crimes. Indeed!" She laughed a bit seriously, however.

"Do you know, that reminds me." She lowered her voice. "I've lost mother's wonderful black pearl!" She regarded him with an anxious, almost hurt look.

"If I tell you, you won't mention it? None of us are doing so. I lost it at the Van Vlecks' dinner dance last week."

"When I was dancing with Howard Thornton. It must have been unclasped from my lavallière."

"Oh, he was frightfully annoyed. I told him to keep quiet about it, that I might find it on the floor or in the dressing room. You see there had been other cases, quite similar. But it was gone, irretrievably gone, I'm afraid now."

I knew Howard Thornton. He was the only fellow I had ever even suspected of violating the honor system in the exams. I had nothing on him, however. I just did not like him.

"No, he hasn't. But I suppose it is because the other losses have rubbed the edge off my mystery."

"I don't know. People brushed me during the dancing, of course, but Howard is a good dancer, and there were no noticeable collisions," she added with an emphasis. "It's just a plain unclasping of a catch, a platinum catch, and I never saw it, even felt it. Some one is clever. But who can it be?"

"Oh, another friend of mine had an emerald necklace. Hanging on a pendant was the largest emerald of all, a perfect stone. Why, you know Sally Carroll. Of course. Well, it was she. Two nights before my loss, at a musicale at the Marquards', she noticed the little pendant was suddenly gone from her necklace. During the short intermissions people had visited back and forth among the chairs in the ballroom. It must have been— er—lost, then.

"It's incredible, I know, almost unbelievable, how it is done. If it was only once, you might think it was an accident, carelessness, or something. But to happen at almost every affair. Now, don't tell, please. Valiant Mrs. Whitehead has shouldered the responsibility of solving it. It's disgusting, she says, to think that in our ranks we may be harboring a—a thief—a person with warped morals. You've met her, have you not? You would adore her."

Kennedy admitted nothing even to Stella Montague. We chatted a few moments more, then I found that he was turning the car around the triangle over toward Sally Carroll's ancestral home.

"This makes me think of senior year," he exclaimed. "Bareheaded, how many times I have walked down this old lane to the Carroll house! An invitation to Sally's to Sunday night tea was an event. When I sat listening in those days to her father, Doctor Carroll, a gentleman of the old school, traveled, open-minded, a raconteur of humor and ability, I rather decided I would be like him as I grew old, Walter."

Dr. Carroll had died only two years before, and Sally had gone abroad for a long visit to her sister, Lady Leinster, who lived in England most of the time, but was now sojourning in America for a season.

THE Carroll house would have charmed, fascinated a lover of the Colonial times and manners. Not so large a house as the others we had visited that day, it had something the others lacked—age and a history. Large for the period in which it was built, it had been carefully preserved by the Carroll family. They looked on it reverently.

Big oak and chestnut beams, weathered and time-stained, sustained the weight of the building. In the room where we waited for Sally Carroll was a fireplace to delight the heart. Modern beating apparatus was the only thing that jarred in that ensemble of Colonial architecture and furnishings. There was no fire in the huge open space of the hearth, only the old-fashioned andirons, kettles and brushes. A five-foot log was resting on the andirons.

I stood up, and my curiosity led me over to it. Stepping over the protecting rail, I looked up the chimney. There above me shining brilliantly now was a bright star. I was enthusiastic. Kennedy smiled at my discomfiture as at that moment Sally Carroll appeared.

"Mr. Jameson is thinking of writing some of this modern literature," laughed Craig. "He's preparing as a chimney sweep. Only he just saw a star up the big chimney. It may deter him, I hope."

Out her little hand came as I stepped back over the rail into the room. "I just love it, too. When I was a child, and things went wrong with me, I used to come into this room as the darkness settled, and if there was no fire, take my little stool, place it in that chimney corner and just enjoy my morbidity. Then common sense would tap me on the chin at last, and I would look up—up to the stars, and recover my peace of mind. You can't look at the stars through even a chimney and have morbid, ugly, misshapen thoughts."

"I never thought you had any other than beautiful thoughts, Sally," rallied Craig. "Your father's heritage passed on to you."

She took Craig's arm lightly. "Wasn't he a wonderful man, Craig? But I am afraid I didn't live up to his theories or your ideal of me, not a few days ago, anyhow. I was angry—and hurt."

I fancied what was coming. I regarded Sally Carroll with interest. Petite, beautiful golden hair massed in a crown to add height, a delicate, clear complexion, a broad, smooth, intelligent brow, blue eyes that sparkled with humor and vivacity, a mouth that showed tenderness above a chin that denoted strength, she seemed scarcely more than a child, yet she was just past thirty, I recalled her with two huge St. Bernards, exact counterparts, "Whig" and "Clio." It was easy to see she claimed Craig as an old friend and true.

"You mustn't tell. But my emerald in the pendant to the necklace of emeralds mother gave me when she passed away was stolen. Think of it. Just clipped off, it must have been. I don't know how. Only, it's gone. I'm terribly distressed about it. Father bought that necklace for mother on their honeymoon in France. It was a rarely beautiful thing, had a history, too, and the loss of the pendant is irreparable."

"At the Marquards'. They had a musicale. Jacques Thibaud played, and I was so interested in his technique, his varied program, I never saw or felt any one take the pendant. Music makes me forget everything; you know that."

"Oh, yes. Victor Bartley was sitting with me. He is crazy over the violin, too. You know him, fussy little man, always wanting to help everybody. Father used to say he needed more help himself, and didn't know it, than any of our friends. I didn't mention it to Victor. He would have had everybody down looking for it, including the servants.

"Then the Hon. Mr. Thurston was there—one of my sister's intimate friends—with his wife. I couldn't let them know that something else had been taken. I let Mrs. Marquard know quietly as soon as I could. She felt upset over it. But it isn't the first robbery of the sort. I had to bear it like the others. It's the mysteriousness of the thing that is so disturbing, too. I am completely at sea about it I don't believe poor old Victor would have taken it, if he had picked it up on the floor in a room alone."

"I am going to get you to help me, if Mrs. Whitehead approves and doesn't solve the mystery herself at her tea dance tomorrow. Why, dear old Mrs. Ashton, a friend of father's, his chess and miniature friend, mutual hobbies, you know, lost a beautiful diamond at a morning meeting of their private Current Events Club several days ago. It was on a platinum pendant attached to a silk ribbon about the neck—and it happened to be the last gift Mr. Ashton gave her. She hasn't been out since, she feels so badly about it."

"Yes; do you know Dick? He is a bright boy and the chief jewel of his grandmother. His parents are dead, and when he's not up in the city he lives with his grandmother and the servants in that huge place of hers a few miles out of town. Delightful people, everybody thinks."

The conversation lingered about the missing jewels until we felt impelled to take our leave. "Come down and see me again, soon, before you leave, Craig. I may need your help." She included me in the invitation, and I went away feeling quite charmed.

"Craig," I exclaimed, "these people all take it wonderfully. Thoroughbreds and game. I really believe they would keep silent forever rather than betray this thing that might look to an outsider like a weakness, especially to their English friends and relatives. I didn't know we had so many Spartans!"

"Sure do. Everybody on the Star knows Dick Ashton. He is a special writer. I'll say a future in the newspaper game lies golden before him. His millions that he's going to get don't distract him from his work. He has more application than the youngest cub reporter hustling his meals and clothes on a morgue assignment. Full of pep. And I imagine he often does a good turn to some of the other fellows, the way his popularity has grown."

"Let's turn in here at the Nassau Club, then," I suggested. "I'll call him up, and if he is in town ask him to meet us."

I found that Dick was in fact in town, had not yet gone out to his grandmother's, and we waited at the club for him to drop around.

IT was mighty good to be sitting there in that old place so full of Princeton memories, watching the older men, grads, visitors, faculty members, and three or four of the undergraduates, light-hearted chaps making friendships that would last as Craig's and mine had through all the years. Something of the same spirit gripped Craig. "Great to be back, Walter, great, isn't it?"

"Well, Jameson, what are you doing down here? Glad to see you, Kennedy. Now come over to Ivy with me. No, can't go to your club. Sorry. Have an appointment. There's a good fellow, both of you."

It was as we were walking across the campus to Prospect that Craig mentioned his interest in the robberies in the seclusion of McCosh walk.

"How did you know of them?" A puzzled, pained look overspread Dick's face. "We have a feeling down here to keep it quiet—sort of 'for the honor of the family,' you know. The news hasn't become public yet, has it?" He asked it looking at us anxiously.

"No," Craig assured him. "But I know many of the people here, and a friend of yours invited me to look into the mystery for her."

Dick did not answer immediately. I felt that I knew why. As a "newspaper detective" he was reluctant to confess failure. "Yes," he admitted at length. "I have worked quietly on it. But I don't know any more now than I did when I began. Whoever is doing it is clever, I'll say.

"You know, of course, my grandmother lost a diamond. She was sitting on an end seat at the affair. It would be difficult to fasten suspicion on any one, really. People were passing her in the aisle, but no one occupied the chair next to her. She had been saving it for Mrs. Mackenzie, who couldn't possibly get there until the last minute."

"Pretty much the same group of people in our set— reliable to the nth degree," Dick returned, now warming up as he came to what he had been doing. "You see, my grandmother was terribly shocked when she first discovered her loss. But she kept silent about it except for telling the officers of the current events club.

"She had invited Mrs. Gainesborough, a friend of Mrs. Whitehead and Lady Leinster to luncheon. Another jewel gone. It was impossible to tell. What would these people think of us? I don't see it, quite, myself. But then the rest of us do; so I must. Well, anyway, that's how grandmother felt. Why, Mrs. Gainesborough, they tell us, is rather close even to the royal family.

"In these democratic days in England friendships are formed with the commoners, I understand, that prove lasting and valued. Anyhow, this Mrs. Gainesborough was to take her little boy to our place. She is a widow. And grandmother expected some other guests. She had to appear calm and unruffled in spite of her loss. And she did. But after that luncheon she almost collapsed."

"You say you have worked on the case?" quizzed Craig. "What have you done? Do you mind telling?"

"No. I interviewed the servants. I did it quietly, of course, in a way that couldn't excite suspicion of what I was after. Nothing I missed as far as back stairs gossip was concerned. I couldn't talk, but I made them talk. They thought I was writing up something wonderful in the papers about society. I saw them all, all," he added, proud of his thoroughness and enterprise.

"Nothing, I tell you. Nothing. Hang it, Kennedy, after all that palavering, it suddenly dawned on me that I was up the wrong tree. They were all different servants, in each house, that I was talking to. They could never organize, even, as extensively as that. There isn't any blood brotherhood of crooks among servants!"

WE parted from Dick Ashton after a very pleasant reunion at the club, but with mighty slim new information, except that we had seemed to eliminate the servant question.

We stayed at the Thickets that night. In the morning we happened around at the Golf Club, the real one, not the Whitehead private course. It was not so much for a game as to get the gossip.

I found, however, that there was little talk, even to Kennedy, of the thing that was uppermost in all minds. But it was underneath, nevertheless, in an undercurrent.

They were discussing the market quietly. Bartley, it seemed, had suffered some serious losses in oil. One of our classmates, who engaged in the real estate game in the town, informed me that Victor must be sadly hit this season, but was hanging on without a murmur. Then there was Thornton, too. It seemed he, too, had been squeezed in the market by the failure of Standard Oil to take up, as had been predicted, some chemical company. So the gossip ranged on.

At the club that morning, too, I saw Dick Ashton and Thurston, M.P. Ashton was cultivating him, and Thurston was conniving at the cultivation, for it meant a series of syndicated interviews. Somehow I could not shake off the idea that Thurston was here putting something over. What was it?

One thing was assured. Society was scandalized by the robberies. Rather a large contract, too, for Craig, I thought "You must find out who is taking the jewels—but it must be done under cover, with no brass band."

IT was a vista of color that opened before us as we sauntered through the arched doorway of Mrs. Whitehead's drawing-room in the afternoon.

From that formal room we could see a most charming living room opening into a combined solarium and conservatory. The gowns of the pretty girls vied with the flowers in brightness and freshness.

We were early. Only Peggy Whitehead, a pretty girl of about eighteen, with three or four other girl friends, was there besides Mrs. Whitehead. Our hostess had arranged it so. Besides, she wished to talk with us over the guests she expected and what we should do if we should discover the thief.

"I feel sure we shall," she asserted. "Things either end or begin at my parties. I am responsible for more romances, I think, than any other hostess in this vicinity. I believe my conservatory has been the silent witness of more genuine cases of love at first sight and betrothals than any other in New Jersey. I just love it for that.

"I am never so happy as when I see two young friends of mine starting out in life together, happy. Oh, if we Americans could only realize the importance and sacredness of marriage, how much everything depends on it, the future of our race and the country!

"Do you know, it almost seems there is hardly a family among my friends around here that hasn't a Norma Whitehead in it? They name their babies after me, bless them, all on account of my conservatory. And these babies are a joy to me. I always feel so disgusted at small families. I rather think there was never a baby born that God couldn't find a place for it if its parents only both hustled. The most patriotic thing a wife can do is to present healthy children to the nation.

"However, I think the other guests will be arriving soon, Mr. Kennedy. It might be well to stand near me so that you can hear the names of the people as the butler calls them. Many of them you know, of course. But there will be some strangers. When my guests have arrived, the young folks will go to the ballroom for the dancing."

Peggy Whitehead and her young friends, including Betty Van Vleck, received with Mrs. Paxton Whitehead. What pretty girls they were, simply and beautifully gowned for the afternoon dance. I quite lost my head over them, and I could imagine the havoc they would spread among susceptible hearts on the campus.

I looked eagerly, and saw a little man, in his early fifties, entering. He tried to do everything so correctly. His formality was amazing. Looking neither to the right nor the left, eyes only on the receiving line and his hostess, he entered.

But how changed when he had greeted Mrs. Whitehead! Then his volubility was unrestrained. It had not even distant relationship to the brook. It was a veritable Niagara, a torrent of words. Mrs. Whitehead was clever, passed him along to her daughter. His interest in these buds was no less apparent. His thin, wrinkled face was in a constant state of animation, wrinkles shifting faster than a line formation in a snappy football game, as fast as I hoped the team might be next year against Yale. It was with good-natured tolerance that the young girls accepted his banal gallantries and turned him to the newer guests.

Mr. Bartley now devoted himself to the others. Just before his arrival a pompous, dignified woman had entered. We didn't know her, but heard her announced as Mrs. Reginald Blossom. Victor Bartley hurried over to her and was soon going strong again.

Mrs. Blossom was wearing an exquisite pendant of diamonds and emeralds, small but with large, valuable stones. Evidently it was the subject of conversation. What was my amazement when I saw Victor Bartley lift it up quietly and look at it with admiration. Was that a furtive look in his eye around the room, too?

I glanced at Craig. He was watching Bartley, also, fascinated. Evidently it was perfectly proper, however. Mrs. Blossom laughed at some witticism of his, tapping him lightly on the arm, and turned to greet some other friends. But we were watching him almost continuously, and he was keeping in close attendance in the wake of Mrs. Blossom.

JUST then Mr. Howard Thornton was announced. Thornton was a type of masculinity most popular with girls of a certain type. Tall, with regular features, black hair slicked smoothly back from his forehead, big dark eyes, he strode into the room with the bearing of a Caesar performing with all three parts of Gaul. He could not more have sought to focus attention if he had been the chemical company and Standard Oil both.

Thornton was power, and he was willing to use all of it for the ladies. The rest of the afternoon I saw him developing his muscles sliding chairs under ladies whose embonpoint suggested the actual desirability of using their own muscles. And as for the buds! He seemed to like dancing with Peggy Whitehead, and as she had been trained to be a perfect hostess by a perfectly trained mother, she was too polite and considerate to do other than accept his attentions when there was no obvious excuse.

Also I noticed Peggy wore a bracelet of strands of pearls and one large pearl dangling from the strand nearest her hand. In fact, as I looked them all over, I was struck with wonder at the bravado, if you might call it so, with which they still wore their jewels.

"Walter, I've been watching you." It was Craig whispering aside to me. "The way you are taking in these ladies and their jewels is alarming. You'll be seized as a suspect!"

"Craig! Are you here, too?" Sally Carroll breezed by with Mrs. Gainesborough and her young son.

"Mrs. Gainesborough, I can think only of Little Lord Fauntleroy, one of the best loved child characters in American fiction," inclined Craig.

It seemed to please his mother, who was rather of a nervous, high-strung temperament.

"He is just as good as he looks, toe. I am going to have him educated in America, you know. I am waiting only to place him in the lower forms of a school that prepares for Princeton because its honor system appeals to me. My husband had many interests in America, and, you know, too, he"—here she took a delicate little lace handkerchief and dabbed her eyes gently—"had that fine English sense of honor. I want it developed in his son. At the same time I want Merton to know his America perfectly. He must." She turned quietly, and I firmly believe she was weeping at the memories suggested by the turn of the conversation.

Mrs. Whitehead joined us for a moment as the little boy and his mother were claimed by the Hon. Mr. Thurston, M.P.

Mrs. Whitehead seemed delighted. "And, oh, Mr. Kennedy, I came over to tell you. Please don't permit Mrs. Gainesborough to have the least suspicion that we are harboring an undesirable. I just happened to think of it. She must not even suspect. What would she think of our American society and our institutions? I feel sure she has come over to make a study of them. Herself an Englishwoman of breeding and high social position, she may even have been commissioned by some one high in authority to make this exhaustive study. Please!" Mrs. Whitehead left us with a quick motion of her finger to her lips.

A moment later Craig, encountering her again, was asking about a young chap, Billy Sewall. "Oh, Billy! You don't know him? I think he is all right. Paxton says the Sewalls are living far beyond their means. It may be. I don't know. I have never seen anything other than uprightness. They pay their bills and club dues. They are above reproach, that way."

Norma Whitehead looked over at her daughter before answering. She was sitting on the edge of a big high-backed Philippine chair in the sun room. What a fascinating picture she made! Golden curls that could not be restrained clustered about her face. Her hair was arranged low in back, her slender white arms were resting on the edge of the broad supports of the chair. The folds of her bright blue dress fell gracefully over her small and slender ankles.

Thornton was standing by Peggy Whitehead, on the side where the bracelet was clasping her arm. He leaned over suddenly, put his hand down by the bracelet, and suddenly strolled off in the direction of the ballroom with Peggy. Our hostess looked frightened at Craig, and he at both of us. She did not answer his question.

Taking his arm, she strolled where the young people were dancing. Strains of music from a trio, violin, 'cello, and harp, came softly through the door in a dreamy, enticing waltz.

Norma Whitehead danced with all the grace of the generation that passed out when fools rushed in with hesitation where angels were forced to trot. They danced by Peggy and Thornton. Her mother asked Craig to dance slowly. He did. She looked sharply at Peggy's arm. There was the bracelet, yet, and the pendant. Then she whispered, "All right, now, Mr. Kennedy. Please take me back."

WHILE they were dancing, I decided to investigate among the servants. I found Dick Ashton ahead of me on the same mission. lie could not get the idea out of his head.

"All afternoon I've been watching them carefully, Walter," he said aside. "They have apparently confined all their activities to the domestic duty of service. Not one thing suspicious has taken place. They have not unnecessarily touched any of the people. In fact, I haven't seen any servant very close to a single guest."

It was just at this interval that something very interesting happened for the titillation of the aesthetic palate. Mrs. Montague had arrived a little late, bringing with her an unexpected guest. I recognized her immediately. The gloriously beautiful Vienna diva, Laura Schriza, had made a hasty visit to Stella Montague.

Not singing that night at the Metropolitan, she had come down to the Montagues' to renew a friendship begun in Europe before the world war. Mrs. Montague had worked indefatigably among her many friends to secure the singer a chance before American music lovers, and had succeeded. Fame, fortune, and wonderful friendships had come to the young singer. But of the many new friends, Stella Montague was first.

"Norma, dear," she imparted to Mrs. Whitehead, "Mme. Schriza has consented to sing. A real treat is in store for us. If you don't mind, I'll accompany her, myself."

"Stella! How wonderful you are—to share this delight. I'll go to the ballroom. The acoustics and the air are best there. It will be only a few minutes before I am ready."

Servants bustled about. Everybody was on the qui vive. In an incredibly short time all were assembled in the ball room.

Victor Bartley and Mrs. Blossom were sitting together. Howard Thornton, Peggy Whitehead, and Betty Van Vleck were in the seats just behind Mrs. Blossom.

I looked around for the others we had been watching. Billy Sewall was sitting with a little girl who, I learned afterward, had no jewels to her name, in the corner, making desperate love, his heart in his eyes.

Suddenly a rich, vibrating voice addressed us. "I am going to sing a song the wanderer sings when he is away from his fatherland, his home. It is little known, but the melody of it has crept to my heart and sustains me when I long for my own mountains."

Next to Mrs. Blossom, on the side opposite the attentive Bartley, was the Hon. Mr. Thurston, M.P., and his wife, visibly affected by the singer's little impromptu speech. They were away from Merrie England. It was their homeland, the old country, and it stirred memories. There they were, clasping each other's hands in sympathy.

The sweetness of the ballad found its way to the hearts of all of us in the room. At some time every one in that room had roamed far away from home—so far it would take weeks to get back. To the rich sweet voice that sent quivers of delight over me, I listened raptly. For a minute I forgot to watch. I shut my eyes and floated with the singer on those wonderful waves of melody. Down to the very end. Heart-sickness, home-sickness was vibrant until the singer suddenly and thrillingly realized that the hills may be different, the rivers not the same—but the same God reigns over all and cares—cares....

One could have heard a pin drop, the silence was 30 intense. It lasted several seconds. Then there was a vigorous hand-clapping for an encore.

With a happy little laugh at the genuine appreciation, Mme. Schriza leaned over and whispered to Mrs. Montague. The next was the Berceuse from Jocelyn, beautifully rendered. With smiling bows, blowing kisses to those around, madame seemed to be an exponent of harmony in graceful movement as well as music.

At the end of the improvised concert, Norma Whitehead asked her friends and guests to adjourn to the dining room, which, with the glass-enclosed breakfast room, made a little wing of the rambling house itself. Here tea was to be served.

Craig and I stayed in the neighborhood of Thornton and Bartley. As the Hon. Mr. Thurston, M.P., and Mrs. Thurston, were leaving with Mrs. Blossom, the Honorable M. P. was enthusiastically greeted by Mrs. Gainesborough.

Gently pressing her eyes with her handkerchief, she murmured through her tears, "I could see the old park, the little stream I knew—and my husband—what a voice to bring such memories back to people! I could love her!"

The press was rather urgent to get to the refreshments. The young people had been dancing. Sweets could still be taken by them in considerable amounts without the nightmare of another inch in girth or a pound more on those fatal scales. Hurrying to get through, the older guests were carried along to the same goal. Our little group seemed to break up suddenly, just melt away.

I saw that he had stooped to pick up a handkerchief lying on the floor. It was Mrs. Gainesborough's bit of dainty lace which she used so effectively. She was quite Victorian in her manner. To her the ideal feminine charm was still to be pale and interesting.

"Mr. Kennedy! Can you believe it? There's another jewel gone—the Blossom diamond!"

"You mean," I queried excitedly, "the one I saw Bartley touch when he was looking at that pendant of Mrs. Blossom?"

"The whole pendant is gone! The setting is small. The diamond is the thing. She has just told me, Mr. Kennedy. Help me to solve this last—please. I feel terribly about it, happening in my house."

There was an assurance in his manner and voice that thrilled her and puzzled me. What had Craig observed this afternoon that he was keeping back from me?

Mrs. Whitehead was moving among her guests with less vivacity, but game and proud. I think no one knew except Mrs. Blossom, the hostess, and ourselves.

If that thief were to be caught, if the diamond were to be restored to its rightful owner, something would have to be done, and done quickly. Many would be leaving shortly after tea.

Most of the guests as we entered the dining room were standing or seated in little groups still talking of the wonderful Schriza and partaking of the refreshments.

I heard a child cry. The cry ended in a yell, a genuine "holler" of temper—then miserable blubbering sobbing.

It was little Merton Gainesborough, jumping up and down screaming with a temper which is always perfectly unaccounted for in the best trained children. They will do it at most inauspicious moments. In fact, as I have often observed, children are no improvement on grown, folks.

His mother tried to comfort him. And of course everybody wanted to help, which served only to complicate things the more. I thought a little woodshed treatment or a nice slipper would have been the thing. But buttered toast, little cakes, ices, and candies, all were requisitioned and thrust forward as bait to ensnare quiet and peace by the debutantes fluttering about.

I was vexed at the diversion from the main business in hand. Dick Ashton, near me, had somehow, I suspected from Mrs. Blossom herself, been apprised of her loss. Aside Dick and I agreed that suspicion certainly must roost on the officious little Victor Bartley.

"Don't you think, Craig," I whispered, plucking him aside, now that there was this diversion, "you might invite Bartley to the men's dressing room, search him, frisk him? If he refuses, there, clout the little shrimp on his teapot dome I He's so damned oily—he is oil—run to salt water!"

There is nothing more exasperating than for a child to kick up a rumpus when one is trying to show him off. Poor little Mrs. Gainesborough could only sputter. She seemed for the nonce speechless. A great deal of her English dignity slid off her shoulders mighty fast. Even pompous Mrs. Blossom forgot her loss and was the mother trying to soothe a wayward child.

"There! There, dear!" expostulated Mrs. Gainesborough. "We'll go. Right away!" She murmured it, head down, with lips set with apparent vexation.

"That's it. He's tired, the little dear," Mrs. Blossom explained to those around her.

Big tears were running down the little lad's cheeks and his face was not as clean as it might have been. Mrs. Gainesborough fumbled for her own handkerchief, did not find it, leaned over and taking the child's handkerchief from his pocket, wiped away his tears. There were tears of mortification in her own eyes as she hastily wiped them and her face before she put the handkerchief back in Merton's pocket. Everybody was so sympathetic and kindly toward the little fellow that his grief was beginning to be a bit assuaged. She looked up, relief written now all over her face.

"Mrs. Whitehead," she now smiled resignedly, "I fear I must be leaving. Merton is so tired. Could I have my wraps brought down?"

"Of course, my dear. So sorry you feel that you must leave us so soon. But you know best about Merton. Jenkins, will you get the maid to hand you Mrs. Gainesborough's and Merton's wraps, please! You may leave them in the reception room, and let us know when they are ready. Then you may summon her car."

If any of the servants could possibly be suspected, it might have been Jenkins, I thought. He had the freedom of the house, as it were, had superintended arranging the ballroom for the music. But I hadn't seen him near Mrs. Blossom until now, that I recalled.

"Tea, Mr. Kennedy?" It was Peggy Whitehead giving the invitation with smiling graciousness.

Her mother was busy trying to make Mrs. Gainesborough feel at ease over the interruption, and also trying to engross the attention of the child, to divert him from a recurrence of his troubles, whatever they had been. Besides, she was secretly anxious to speed the departing guest, lest she should by any mischance learn of the latest faux pas.

I looked at Craig in astonishment. Were his senses wool-gathering? How could Craig take time for tea when there was a jewel robber, one of the cleverest I had ever heard of, to be caught, and at once?

Peggy looked incredulous. But she thought it was a joke, and her youth pardoned and indulged it. Those near by who had heard, smiled, supposing Craig was going to do some little trick for the benefit of the still sniveling child.

Craig smiled at the boy, smiled harder, made a funny face. The tears were drier, now. Merton kept looking at Craig, solemn but interested and amused. His attention was not allowed to wander. Each face Craig made was funnier than the preceding.

"Mr. Kennedy, are you going to use the whole lemon, or shall I have it sliced for you?" Mrs. Whitehead asked it, a little perturbed at Craig's behavior before some of her guests.

He held the lemon up so that Master Merton could see it. The boy watched wondering what he was about to witness. His mouth was open. He was fascinated.

With a flourish of the knife, a tightening of his cuffs and sleeves of his coat, Craig deliberately sliced the lemon, slowly, making a mess of it. The juice was running all over. The girls were giggling; there were suppressed snickers from the young fellows.

I wondered. Was Craig going to do a trick, produce the missing Blossom diamond from the lemon, like a magician on the stage?

Mrs. Whitehead was nervous. Was Kennedy falling down in catching the thief by his absorbing efforts to interest Merton? Would these people never go?

Craig was slowly cutting the lemon, still. He put a few drops on his tongue from one piece. Mrs. Whitehead gasped. There was a titter of amusement in back of me at Craig's manners.

Merton, watching Craig, came a step closer. Craig smiled invitingly. The boy's mouth began to water. The smell of the lemon was beginning to work. He was drooling. Down his chin from the corners of his mouth the saliva was running at the sight of the lemon.

At the end of the reception hall I could make out Jenkins approaching. Merton moved still nearer, drooling, as Kennedy smiled an invitation to share the lemon with him.

He reached over, unbuttoned the pocket, and pulled out Merton's handkerchief. He shook out the handkerchief to wipe Merton's lips.

"Why, bless me, it's a diamond—of the first water!" he exclaimed, seeming to hang on that word water. "You are shedding them?"

Then he looked fixedly at Mrs. Gainesborough. I had fully expected that weepy lady to collapse. Instead, she seized Merton's hand roughly and started suddenly toward the door. Merton set up the wail again.

For a moment their eyes met. Neither wavered. "Mrs. Gainesborough—really, I should say, Roszika Ginsberg—internationally famous, if I recall the old Victoria, for your sleight of hand stunts on the stage, years before the war. The hand is quicker than the eye!"

Sally Carroll stood aghast between Kennedy and me. The shock was something as if Vesuvius had been found guilty of surreptitiously freezing ice cream.

Craig smiled down at Sally's shocked upturned face. "I think you told me of the Ashton robbery, first, at the Current Events Club? That cut the suspects into half right there. It was a woman, then, not a man."

"Presto! The diamond—in the mouth—then to the weepy lace handkerchief, unsuspected. But I had that weepy handkerchief. I saw that it was dropped by you. You could not talk while the diamond was in your mouth. It interfered with that wonderful acquired broad 'a.' You are a quick thinker. The vaudeville gave you that; what nature did not in the first place. You pinched this 'stall' kid, Merton, and made him cry, ostentatiously cry.

"It would make an excuse, too, for a hasty getaway, now that you had the diamond. His handkerchief wiped his tears, then your own eyes, and your lips. And back into his pocket, buttoned over carefully—with the Blossom diamond. Merton didn't know, even, that it was there. But I did. The lemon detected it. Water was the excuse to conceal it. Water was the means of discovering it! Mrs. Blossom, permit me. If any of you others miss anything, I would advise holding this lady and an immediate search of her effects."

THE END

"The Fourteen Points," Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1925

ARTHUR B. REEVE

CRAIG KENNEDY AND THE ELEMENTS AIR—WATER—EARTH—FIRE

WATER

THE END

CRAIG KENNEDY AND THE ELEMENTS
AIR—WATER—EARTH—FIRE