"Drawings made by George Edenborough for the First Lord of the
Admiralty, and shown to you because you were the stronger character and
insisted on seeing them, but only in such confidence as might almost be
justified between future man and wife?"
"I didn't sell his drawings," said Miss Trevellyn, impatiently. "I
copied them, more or less from memory, and sold my own efforts."
"Of course I know that! It was a slip of the tongue," he admonished
her, while marveling more and more. "And you can put the whole thing
plainly without so much as a blush!"
"I am going to put you to the blush instead, Doctor Dollar," returned
the lady, with a lighter touch. "You are very clever at finding out what
I did, but you don't ask why I did it; that's not so clever of such a
clever man, and I must just enlighten you before I go. The first drawing
was not a copy; it was the original they got that time, and it was
stolen from Mr. Edenborough on his way home from the Admiralty. He never
knew exactly where it was stolen, but I always thought I knew. You are a
bit of a detective, Doctor Dollar; well, so am I in my way. You have not
let me into the secret of your success, and I shouldn't think of boring
you with mine. I thought it happened at Prince's, and I suspected
Rocchi, that was all. It was last spring, and I had all the summer to
think about it. But when Prince's opened I set to work, for there was
Rocchi making up to us both as before. He didn't get much change out of
George, but perhaps I made amends when George wasn't there, and
sometimes even when he was! He could waltz, you see, and so can I,"
said Lucy Trevellyn, with something like a sigh for her bereavement on
the rink.
"Yet you copied the other two drawings, and you even admit you sold him
the copies?"
"I sold them quite well," said Miss Trevellyn, with sparkling eyes--"and
you may guess what I did with the money--but it's not fair to call them
copies. I made them as inaccurate as possible without spoiling
everything, and indeed I couldn't have made them very accurate from
memory, and they were only rough sketches to begin with! Of course
George was wrong to let me see them, but he was assisting in the best of
causes. Rocchi was an expert professional spy. I soon sized him down as
one. But he was not a naval expert--and I'm that as well! That's my last
boast, Doctor Dollar; but it's not unjustifiable, if you come to think
of George and me between us keeping a national enemy out of serious
mischief, feeding a friendly Power with false plans, and giving the
money to our own dear Navy League!"
Dollar surveyed the radiant minx with eyes that needed rubbing. His only
sorrow was that Edenborough did not burst through the curtains without
more ado; he must have extraordinary self-control, when he liked.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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