THE GEM COLLECTOR
By P. G. WODEHOUSE
Published in _Ainslee's Magazine_,
December 1909.
CHAPTER I.
The supper room of the Savoy Hotel was all brightness and glitter and
gayety. But Sir James Willoughby Pitt, baronet, of the United Kingdom,
looked round about him through the smoke of his cigarette, and felt
moodily that this was a flat world, despite the geographers, and that
he was very much alone in it.
He felt old.
If it is ever allowable for a young man of twenty-six to give himself
up to melancholy reflections, Jimmy Pitt might have been excused for
doing so, at that moment. Nine years ago he had dropped out, or, to
put it more exactly, had been kicked out, and had ceased to belong to
London. And now he had returned to find himself in a strange city.
Jimmy Pitt's complete history would take long to write, for he had
contrived to crowd much into those nine years. Abridged, it may be
told as follows: There were two brothers, a good brother and a bad
brother. Sir Eustace Pitt, the latter, married money. John, his
younger brother, remained a bachelor. It may be mentioned, to check
needless sympathy, that there was no rivalry between the two. John
Pitt had not the slightest desire to marry the lady of his brother's
choice, or any other lady. He was a self-sufficing man who from an
early age showed signs of becoming some day a financial magnate.
Matters went on much the same after the marriage. John continued to go
to the city, Eustace to the dogs. Neither brother had any money of his
own, the fortune of the Pitts having been squandered to the ultimate
farthing by the sportive gentleman who had held the title in the days
of the regency, when White's and the Cocoa Tree were in their prime,
and fortunes had a habit of disappearing in a single evening. Four
years after the marriage, Lady Pitt died, and the widower, having
spent three years and a half at Monte Carlo, working out an infallible
system for breaking the bank, to the great contentment of Mons. Blanc
and the management in general, proceeded to the gardens, where he shot
himself in the orthodox manner, leaving many liabilities, few assets,
and one son.
The good brother, by this time a man of substance in Lombard Street,
adopted the youthful successor to the title, and sent him to a series
of schools, beginning with a kindergarten and ending with Eton.
Unfortunately Eton demanded from Jimmy a higher standard of conduct
than he was prepared to supply, and a week after his seventeenth
birthday, his career as an Etonian closed prematurely. John Pitt
thereupon delivered an ultimatum. Jimmy could choose between the
smallest of small posts in his uncle's business, and one hundred
pounds in banknotes, coupled with the usual handwashing and disowning.
Jimmy would not have been his father's son if he had not dropped at
the money. The world seemed full to him of possibilities for a young
man of parts with a hundred pounds in his pocket.
He left for Liverpool that day, and for New York on the morrow.
For the next nine years he is off the stage, which is occupied by his
Uncle John, proceeding from strength to strength, now head partner,
next chairman of the company into which the business had been
converted, and finally a member of Parliament, silent as a wax figure,
but a great comfort to the party by virtue of liberal contributions to
its funds.
It may be thought curious that he should make Jimmy his heir after
what had happened; but it is possible that time had softened his
resentment. Or he may have had a dislike for public charities, the
only other claimant for his wealth. At any rate, it came about that
Jimmy, reading in a Chicago paper that if Sir James Willoughby Pitt,
baronet, would call upon Messrs. Snell, Hazlewood, and Delane,
solicitors, of Lincoln's Inn Fields, London, he would hear of
something to his advantage, had called and heard something very much
to his advantage.
Wherefore we find him, on this night of July, supping in lonely
magnificence at the Savoy, and feeling at the moment far less
conscious of the magnificence than of the loneliness.
Watching the crowd with a jaundiced eye, Jimmy had found his attention
attracted chiefly by a party of three a few tables away. The party
consisted of a pretty girl, a lady of middle age and stately demeanor,
plainly her mother, and a light-haired, weedy young man of about
twenty. It had been the almost incessant prattle of this youth and the
peculiarly high-pitched, gurgling laugh which shot from him at short
intervals which had drawn Jimmy's notice upon them. And it was the
curious cessation of both prattle and laugh which now made him look
again in their direction.
The young man faced Jimmy; and Jimmy, looking at him, could see that
all was not well with him. He was pale. He talked at random. A slight
perspiration was noticeable on his forehead.
Jimmy caught his eye. There was a hunted look in it.
Given the time and the place, there were only two things which could
have caused that look. Either the light-haired young man had seen a
ghost, or he had suddenly realized that he had not enough money to pay
the check.
Jimmy's heart went out to the sufferer. He took a card from his case,
scribbled the words, "Can I help?" on it, and gave it to a waiter to
take to the young man, who was now in a state bordering on collapse.
The next moment the light-haired one was at his table, talking in a
feverish whisper.
"I say," he said, "it's frightfully good of you, old chap. It's
frightfully awkward. I've come out with too little money. I hardly
like to--What I mean to say is, you've never seen me before, and----"
"That's all right," said Jimmy. "Only too glad to help. It might have
happened to any one. Will this be enough?"
He placed a five-pound note on the table. The young man grabbed at it
with a rush of thanks.
"I say, thanks fearfully," he said. "I don't know what I'd have done.
I'll let you have it back to-morrow. Here's my card. Blunt's my name.
Spennie Blunt. Is your address on your card? I can't remember. Oh, by
Jove, I've got it in my hand all the time." The gurgling laugh came
into action again, freshened and strengthened by its rest. "Savoy
Mansions, eh? I'll come round to-morrow. Thanks, frightfully, again
old chap. I don't know what I should have done."
He flitted back to his table, bearing the spoil, and Jimmy, having
finished his cigarette, paid his check, and got up to go.
It was a perfect summer night. He looked at his watch. There was time
for a stroll on the Embankment before bed.
He was leaning on the balustrade, looking across the river at the
vague, mysterious mass of buildings on the Surrey side, when a voice
broke in on his thoughts.
"Say, boss. Excuse me."
Jimmy spun round. A ragged man with a crop of fiery red hair was
standing at his side. The light was dim, but Jimmy recognized that
hair.
"Spike!" he cried.
The other gaped, then grinned a vast grin of recognition.
"Mr. Chames! Gee, dis cops de limit!"
Three years had passed since Jimmy had parted from Spike Mullins, Red
Spike to the New York police, but time had not touched him. To Jimmy
he looked precisely the same as in the old New York days.
A policeman sauntered past, and glanced curiously at them. He made as
if to stop, then walked on. A few yards away he halted. Jimmy could
see him watching covertly. He realized that this was not the place for
a prolonged conversation.
"Spike," he said, "do you know Savoy Mansions?"
"Sure. Foist to de left across de way."
"Come on there. I'll meet you at the door. We can't talk here. That
cop's got his eye on us."
He walked away. As he went, he smiled. The policeman's inspection had
made him suddenly alert and on his guard. Yet why? What did it matter
to Sir James Pitt, baronet, if the whole police force of London
stopped and looked at him?
"Queer thing, habit," he said, as he made his way across the road.
