Berry and Co Part 70

We turned to see a very old gipsy, seated a little apart upon a backless chair, nodding and smiling in our direction.

Adele inclined her head, and I slid a hand into my pocket.

"Come hither to me, my lady," piped the old dame, "and let your man cross my old palm with silver, and I'll tell you your fortune. Ah, but you have a happy face."

Adele looked at me, and I nodded.

"They're a good folk," I said, "and you'll get better stuff for your money than you would in Bond Street. But don't, if you don't want to."

My words could not have been heard by the gipsy. Yet, before Adele could reply--

"Aye," she said, "the pretty gentleman's right. We're a good folk, and there be some among us can see farther than the dwellers in towns."

Adele started, and the crone laughed. "Come hither, my lady, and let me look in your eyes."

She was an old, old woman, but the snow-white hair that thrust from beneath her kerchief was not thin: her face was shrunken and wrinkled, yet apple-cheeked: and her great sloe-black eyes glowed with a strange brilliance, as if there were fires kindled deep in the wasted sockets.

Adele stepped forward, when, to my amazement, the gipsy put up her hands and groped for the girl's shoulders. The significance of the gesture was plain. She was stone blind.

For a while she mumbled, and, since I had not gone close, I did not hear what she said. But Adele was smiling, and I saw the colour come flooding into her cheeks....

Then the old dame lifted up her voice and called to me to come also.

I went to her side.

An old gnarled hand fumbled its way on to my arm.

"Aye," she piped. "Aye. Tis as I thought. Your man also must lose ere he find. Together ye shall lose, and together gain. And ye shall comfort one another."

The tremulous voice ceased, and the hands slipped away.

I gave her money and Adele thanked her prettily.

She cried a blessing upon us, I whistled to n.o.bby, and we strolled on....

"Look at that baby," said Adele. "Isn't he cute?"

"Half a second," said I, turning and whistling. "Which baby?"

"There," said Adele, pointing. "With the golden hair."

A half-naked sun-kissed child regarded us with a shy smile. It was impossible not to respond....

Again I turned and whistled.

"Where can he be?" said Adele anxiously.

"Oh, he always turns up," I said. "But, if you don't mind going back a little way, it'll save time. With all this noise..."

We went back a little way. Then we went back a long way. Then we asked people if they had seen a little white dog with a black patch. Always the answer was in the negative. One man laughed and said something about "a dog in a fair," and Fear began to knock at my heart. I whistled until the muscles of my lips ached. Adele wanted us to search separately, but I refused. It was not a place for her to wander alone. Feverishly we sought everywhere. Twice a white dog sent our hopes soaring, only to prove a stranger and dash them lower than before. Round and about and in and out among the booths and swings and merry-go-rounds we hastened, whistling, calling and inquiring in vain. n.o.bby was lost.

We had intended to be home in time for tea.

As it was, we got back to White Ladies, pale and dejected, at a quarter to eight.

As she rose to get out of the car, Adele gave a cry and felt frantically about her neck and throat.

"What's the matter?" I cried.

"My pearls," she said simply. "They're not here."

For what it was worth, I called for lights, and we took the cus.h.i.+ons out and looked in the car.

But there was no sign of the necklace. It was clean gone.

The lamentations with which the news of our misfortunes was received were loud and exceeding bitter.

Jill burst into tears; Daphne tried vainly to comfort her, and then followed her example; Berry and Jonah vied with each other in gloomy cross-examination of Adele and myself concerning our movements since we had left White Ladies, and in cheerless speculation with regard to the probable whereabouts of our respective treasures.

After a hurried meal the Rolls was again requisitioned, and all six of us proceeded to Fallow Hill. Not until eleven o'clock would the fun of the fair be suspended, and it was better to be on the spot, even if for the second time we had to come empty away, than to spend the evening in the torment of inactivity.

Of the loss of the Sealyham we could speak more definitely than of that of the necklace. n.o.bby had been by my side when the gipsy hailed us, so that there was no doubt but that he was lost at the fair. Regarding her pearls, Adele could speak less positively. In fact, to say that she had had the necklace before breakfast that morning was really as far as she could go. "I know I had it then," she affirmed, "because I always take it off before taking my bath, and I remember putting it on afterwards.

As luck will have it, I was rather late this morning, and I couldn't fasten the safety-chain, so after two or three shots I gave up trying, intending to do it later on. And this is the result." She had not bathed again.

It was a sweet pretty gaud. So perfectly matched were its hundred and two pearls that many would have believed it unreal. It had belonged to her great-grandmother, and was not insured.

Arrived at Fallow Hill, we went straight to the police. The loss of the jewels we communicated to them alone. Somewhat shamefacedly and plainly against Adele's will, I described the old gipsy and commended her to their vigilance. When they learned that she had laid hands upon Adele, the two inspectors exchanged glances which there was no mistaking....

So far as n.o.bby was concerned, as well as informing the police, we enlisted the sympathy of the Boy Scouts. Also we engaged six rustics to perambulate the fair and cry the loss of the Sealyham for all to hear.

Information leading to his recovery would be rewarded with the sum of five pounds, while the crier to whom the communication was made would receive five more for himself. Our six employees went about their work with a will, bellowing l.u.s.tily. Daphne and Jonah sat in the car, rejecting the luckless mongrels which were excitedly paraded before them, one after another, from the moment that our loss was made known.

The rest of us hunted in couples--Adele with Berry, and Jill with me--scouring the maze of temporary alleys and lanes and crooked quadrangles, till we knew them by heart.

The merry-go-rounds had stopped whirling, and the booths were being shrouded or dismantled, as Jill and I made our way to the car for the last time.

As we came up--

"That you, Boy?" cried Daphne. "Here's a waggoner who thinks he saw n.o.bby being taken away."

A little knot of men parted, and Jill and I thrust our way forward.

"Oi wouldden be sure," said a deep rough voice, "but a was a lil white chap of a dog on en' of a string. 'Twas a grume, simly, a-leadin' 'im Brooch way. An' a didn't want for to go, neither, for a stock toes in, a did, an' collar was 'alf-way over 'ead. Just come forth from _The Three Bulls_, Oi 'ad, oop yonder o' Bear Lane, an' the toime were nigh three o' the aafternoon."

We questioned him closely, but he could tell us no more.

Slight as the clue was, it was infinitely better than none at all. If it was indeed n.o.bby that the waggoner had seen, the thief was taking him out of the village, at least in the direction of White Ladies. This was encouraging. That any one making for the railway station would take the same road was a less pleasant reflection.