# McClure's Magazine/Volume 9/Number 3/Uncle John and the Rubies

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Vol 9, Issue 3, 1897, July 1897
UNCLE JOHN AND THE RUBIES.
By Anthony Hope,
Author of "Phroso," "The Prisoner of Zenda," etc.
THERE may still be some very old men about town who remember the duel between Sir George Marston and Colonel Merridew; there may still be a venerable lawyer or two who recollect the celebrated case of Merridew against Marston. With these exceptions the story probably survives only in the two families interested in the matter and in the neighborhood where both the gentlemen concerned lived and where their successors nourish to this day. The whole affair, of which the duel was the first stage and the lawsuit the second, arose out of the disappearance of the Maharajah's rubies. Sir George and the colonel had both spent many years in India, Sir George occupying various important positions in the company's service, the colonel seeking fortune on his own account. Chance had brought them together at the court of the Maharajah of Nuggetabad, and they had struck up a friendship, tempered by jealousy. The Maharajah favored both; we Merridews maintained that Uncle John was first favorite, but the Marstons declared that Sir George beat him; and I am bound to admit that they had a plausible ground for their contention, since, when both gentlemen were returning to England, the Maharajah presented to Sir George the six magnificent stones which became famous as the Maharajah's rubies, while Uncle John had to content himself with a couple of fine diamonds. The Maharajah could not have expressed his preference more significantly; both his friends were passionate lovers of jewels, and understood very well the value of their respective presents. Uncle John faced the situation boldly, and declared that he had refused the rubies; we, his family, dutifully accepted his version, and were in the habit of laying great stress on his conscientiousness. The Marstons treated this tradition of ours with open incredulity. Whatever the truth was, the Maharajah's action produced no immediate breach between the colonel and Sir George. They left the court together, arrived together at the port of Calcutta, and came home together round the Cape. The trouble began only when Sir George discovered, at the moment when he was leaving the ship, that he had lost the rubies. By this time Uncle John, who had disembarked a few hours earlier, was already at home displaying his diamonds to the relatives who had assembled to greet him.
Into the midst of this family gathering there burst the next day the angry form of Sir George Marston. He had driven posthaste to his own house, which lay some ten miles from the colonel's, and had now ridden over at a gallop; and there, before the whole company, he charged Uncle John with having stolen the Maharajah's rubies. The colonel, he said, was the only man on board who knew that he had the rubies or where the rubies were, and the only man who had enjoyed constant and unrestricted access to the cabin in which they were hidden. Moreover (so Sir George declared), the colonel loved jewels more than honor, honesty, or salvation. The colonel's answer was a cut with his riding-whip. A challenge followed from Sir George. The duel was fought, and Sir George got a ball in his arm. As soon as he was well my uncle, who had been the challenged party in the first encounter, saw his seconds to arrange another meeting. The cut with the whip was disposed of; the accusation remained. But Sir George refused to go out, declaring that the dock, and not the field of honor, was the proper place for Colonel Merridew. Uncle John, being denied the remedy of a gentleman, carried the case into the courts, although not into the court which Sir George had indicated.
An action of slander was entered and tried. Uncle John filled town and country with his complaints. He implored all and sundry to search him, to search his house, to search his park, to search everything searchable. A number of gentlemen formed themselves into a jury and did as he asked, Uncle John himself superintending their labors. No trace of the rubies was found. Sir George was unconvinced; the action went on, the jury gave the colonel £5,000; the colonel gave the ​money to charity, and Sir George Marston, mounting his horse outside Westminster Hall, observed loudly:
"He stole them all the same!"
With this the story ended for the outer world. People were puzzled for a while, and then forgot the whole affair. But the Marstons did not forget it, and would not be consoled for the loss of their rubies. Neither did we, the Merridews, forget. We were very proud of our family honor, and we made a point of being proud of the colonel also, in spite of certain dubious stories which hung about his name. The feud persisted in all its bitterness. We hurled scorn at one another across the space that divided us; we were bitter opponents in all public affairs, and absolute strangers when we met on private occasions. My father, who succeeded his uncle the colonel, was a thoroughgoing adherent of his predecessor. Sir George's son, Sir Matthew, openly espoused his father's cause and accusation. Meanwhile no human eye had seen the Maharajah's rubies from the hour at which they had disappeared from the cabin of the East Indiaman "Elephant."
A train of circumstances now began which bade fair to repeat the moving tragedy of Verona in our corner of the world, I myself being cast for the part of Romeo. As I was following the hounds one day, I came upon a young lady who had suffered a fall, fortunately without personal injury, and was vainly pursuing her horse across a sticky plow. I caught the horse and led him to his mistress. To my surprise, I found myself in the presence of Miss Sylvia Marston, who had walked by me with a stony face half a hundred times at county balls and such like social gatherings. She drew back with a sort of horror on her extremely pretty face. I dismounted, and stood ready to help her into the saddle.
"My groom is somewhere," said she, looking around the landscape.
"Anyhow, I didn't steal the rubies," said I. The truth is that on each of the half hundred occasions I have referred to I had regretted that the feud forbade acquaintance between Miss Marston and myself. I was eager to assuage the feud as far as she and I were concerned.
My remark produced an extremely haughty expression on the lady's face. I stood patiently by the horses. The absurdity of the position at last struck my companion; she accepted my assistance, although grudgingly. I mounted with all haste and rode beside her. We were hopelessly out of the run, and Miss Marston turned homeward. I did the same. For two or three miles our way would be the same. For some minutes we were silent. Then Miss Marston observed, with a sidelong glance:
"I wonder you can be so obstinate about them."
"The verdict of the jury——" I began.
"Oh, do let the jury alone," she interrupted, impatiently.
I tried another tack.
"I saw you at the ball the other night," I remarked.
"Did you? I didn't see you."
"I perceived that you were quite convinced of that."
"Well, then, I did see you, but how could I—well, you know, papa was at my elbow. "
I was encouraged by this speech, and quite reasonably.
"SHE LOOKED OVER HER SHOULDER ONCE BEFORE A TURN IN THE ROAD HID HER FROM MY SIGHT."
​"It's a horrid bore, isn't it?" I ventured to suggest.
"What?"
"Why, the feud."
"Oh!"
After this there was silence again till we reached the spot where our roads diverged. I reined up my horse and lifted my hat. Miss Marston looked up suddenly.
"Thank you so much. Yes, it is rather a bore, isn't it?" And with a little laugh and a little blush she trotted off. Moreover, she looked over her shoulder once before a turn of the road hid her from my sight.
"It's a confounded bore," said I to myself as I rode away alone.
My father was a very firm man. I am not Sir Matthew Marston's son, and I do not scruple to describe him as an obstinate man. But in this world the people who say "yes" generally beat the people who say "no"—hence comes progress or decadence, which you will—and although both Sir Matthew and my father insisted that the acquaintance between Miss Marston and myself should not continue, the acquaintance did continue. We met out hunting, and also when we were not hunting anything except one another. The truth is that we had laid our heads together (only metaphorically, I am sorry to say), and determined that the moment for an amnesty had arrived. It was forty years or more since the colonel had—or had not—stolen the Maharajah's rubies. Many suns had gone down on the wrath of both families. A treaty must be made. The Marstons must agree to say no more about the crime, the Merridews must consent to forgive the false accusation. The Maharajah's rubies had vanished from the earth; their evil deeds must live after them no longer. Sylvia and I agreed on all these points one morning in the woods among the primroses.
"Of course, though, the colonel took them," said Sylvia, by way of closing the discussion.
"Nothing of the sort," said I, rather emphatically.
Sylvia sprang away from me; a beautiful, stormy color flooded her cheeks.
"You say," she exclaimed indignantly, "that you—that you—that you—that you—well, that you care for me, and yet——"
"The colonel certainly took them," I cried hastily.
"Of course he did," said Sylvia, with a radiant smile.
I assumed a most aggrieved expression.
"You profess," said I, plaintively, "to have—to have—to have—well, to have some pity on me, and yet——"
"He didn't take them!" cried Sylvia, impulsively.
That matter seemed to be settled quite satisfactorily, and we passed into another.
"How dare I tell papa?" asked Sylvia, apprehensively.
"Well, I shall have a row with the governor," I reflected, ruefully.
"Horrid old rubies! I wish they were at the bottom of the sea!" said Sylvia.
"I wish they were round your neck," said I.
"How can you, Mr. Merridew?" murmured Sylvia.
"I could say a great deal more than that," I cried. But she would not let me.
Now, as I went home from this interview I was, I protest, more filled with regrets that the Maharajah's rubies could not adorn and be adorned by Sylvia's neck than with apprehensions as to the effect my communication might have upon my father. Whether Colonel Merridew had stolen them or not became a subordinate question; the great problem was, Where were they? Why were they not round Sylvia's neck? I suffered a sense of personal loss, hardly less acute than the emotion that had brought Sir George Marston post-haste to the colonel's house forty years before. I was so engrossed with this aspect of the case that, as my father and I sat over our cigarettes after dinner, I exclaimed inadvertently:
"How splendidly they'd have suited her, by Jove!"
Whenever anybody in our family spoke of "they" or "them," without further identification, he was understood to refer to the Maharajah's rubies.
"Who would they have suited?" asked my father.
"Why, Sylvia Marston," I said.
When you have an awkward disclosure to make, there is nothing like committing yourself to it at once by an irremediable discretion. It blocks the way back and clears the way forward. My mention of Sylvia Marston defined the position with absolute clearness.
"What's Sylvia Marston to you?" asked my father, scornfully.
"The whole world, and more," I answered, fervently.
My father rang the bell for coffee. When it had been served he remarked:
"IN THE WOODS AMONG THE PRIMROSES."
the Continent for a few months. Or what do you say to India? My Uncle John——"
"Mind you, I don't believe he took them," I interrupted.
"If you did, I shouldn't be sitting at the same table with you," observed my father.
"But she's the most charming girl I ever saw," I remarked, returning to the real point.
"I don't follow the connection of your thoughts," said my father.
There are one or two points that deserve mention here. The Marston property was a very nice one; combined with ours, it would make a first-class estate. Sir Matthew had no son, and Sylvia was his only daughter; to be perpetually opposed in everything by a neighbor is vexatious; my father was not really a convinced Home Ruler, and had only appeared on platforms in that interest because Sir George was such a strong Unionist. Finally, the duchess had said that her patience was exhausted with the squabbles of the Merridews and the Marstons and that for her part she wouldn't ask either of them. Now, my father cared as little for a duchess as any man alive, but the claret at Sangblew Castle was proverbial.
"If," said my father at the end of a long discussion, "the man (he meant Sir Matthew Marston) will make an absolute and unreserved apology, and withdraw all imputations on Uncle John's memory, I shall be willing to consider the matter."
"You might as well," I protested, "ask him to eat the rubies."
"I believe old Sir George did," answered my father grimly.
I must pass over the next two or three months briefly. Thwarted love ran its usual course. Sylvia (whose interview with Sir Matthew had been even more uncomfortable than mine with my father) peaked and pined and was sent to stay with an aunt at Cheltenham; she returned worse than ever. I went to Paris, where I enjoyed myself very well, but I came back inconsolable. Sylvia's health was gravely endangered. I displayed an alarming inability to settle down to anything. We used to meet every day in highest exultation, and part every day in deepest woe. We talked of death and elopement alternately, and treated our fathers with despairing and most exasperating dutifulness. The month of June found ourselves and our affections exactly where we and they had been in March.
A daughter is, I take it, harder to resist than a son. It was for this reason, and not because Sir Matthew was in any degree less stubborn than my father, that the first overtures came from the Marstons.
Sylvia was brimming over with delight when she met me one morning.
"Papa is ready to be reconciled," she cried. "Oh, Jack, isn't it delightful?"
"What? Will he apologize?" I asked, eagerly, as I caught her hand.
"Yes," said she, with smiling lips and ​dancing eyes. "He'll admit that nothing has occurred to prove Colonel Merridew's guilt, if your father will admit that every sane man must have thought that Colonel Merridew was guilty."
"Hum," said I doubtfully. "I'll tell my father."
My father received my report in a somewhat hostile spirit. At first he was inclined to find a new insult in it, and I had great difficulty in bringing him to a more reasonable view. His suggestion at last was—and I could obtain no better terms from him—that Sir Matthew should admit that nothing had occurred to suggest Colonel Merridew's guilt, but that at the same time it was conceivable that a sane man might have thought Colonel Merridew guilty.
When I next met Sylvia, I communicated my father's suggested modification of the terms of peace. I explained that it covered a real and most material concession.
"Papa will never agree to that," said she sorrowfully; and no more he did.
Negotiations and pourparlers continued. Sylvia grew thinner. I became absent and distrait in manner. After a month Sir Matthew forwarded fresh terms. They were as follows: "Although Colonel Merridew may not have stolen the Maharajah's rubies, yet every reasonable man would naturally have concluded that he had stolen the rubies." My father objected to this, and proposed to substitute, "Although Colonel Merridew did not steal the Maharajah's rubies, yet a reasonable man might not impossibly think that he had stolen the rubies."
Sylvia and I built hopes on this last formula, but Sir Matthew unhappily objected to it. Matters came to a standstill again, and no progress was made until the vicar, having heard of the matter (indeed by now it was common property and excited great interest in the neighborhood), offered his services as mediator. He said that he was a peacemaker by virtue of his office and that he hoped to be able to draw up a statement of the case which would be palatable to both parties. Sir Matthew and my father gladly accepted his friendly offices, and the vicar withdrew to elaborate his eirenicon.
The vicar was a man of great intellectual subtlety, which he found very few opportunities of exercising. Therefore he enjoyed his new function extremely, and was very busy riding to and fro between our house and the Marstons'. Sylvia and I grew impatient, but the vicar assured us that the result of hurrying matters would be an irremediable rupture. We were obliged to submit, and waited as resignedly as we could until the terms of peace should be finally settled. At last the welcome news came that the vicar, lying awake on Sunday night, had suddenly struck on a form of words to which both parties could subscribe with satisfaction and without loss of self-respect. I called on the vicar before breakfast on Monday morning. He greeted me with evident pleasure.
"Yes," said he, rubbing his hands contentedly, "I think I have managed it this time," and he hummed a light-hearted tune.
"What is the form of statement?" I asked, for I could scarcely believe in the good news of his success.
"Why, this," answered the vicar: "‘Although there was no reason whatsoever to think that Colonel Merridew stole the Maharajah's rubies, yet any gentleman may well have supposed, and had every reason for supposing, that Colonel Merridew did steal the Maharajah's rubies.’"
"That seems er—very fair and equal," said I, after a moment's consideration.
"I think so, my dear young friend," said the vicar complacently. "I imagine that it will put an end to all trouble between your worthy father and Sir Matthew."
"I'm sure it must," I agreed.
"I have modeled it," pursued the vicar, holding out the piece of paper before him and regarding it lovingly, "I have modeled the form of it on——"
"On the thirty-nine articles," I suggested thoughtlessly.
"Not at all," said the vicar sharply. "On parliamentary apologies."
As may be supposed, Sylvia and I spent a day of feverish suspense, mitigated only by one another's company. The vicar rode first to Sir Matthew's; he reached there at half-past twelve, and remained to luncheon. Starting again at three (evidently Sir Matthew had been hard to move), he reached my father's at 4:30, and was closeted with him till seven o'clock. I had parted from Sylvia about six, and came to dinner. My father was then alone. I looked at him, but had not the nerve to ask him any questions. Presently he came and patted me on the shoulder.
"I have made a great sacrifice for your sake, my boy," said he. "Sir Matthew Marston and his daughter will dine here to-morrow." And he flung himself into a chair.
​"Hurrah!" I cried, springing to my feet.
"The vicar is coming also," pursued my father, with a sigh; and he looked up at Uncle John's portrait, which hung over the mantelpiece. "I hope I have not done wrong," he added, seeming to ask the colonel's pardon in case any slight had been put upon his hallowed memory. The colonel smiled down upon us peacefully, seeming to enjoy the prospect of the glass of wine which he held between his fingers and was represented as being about to drink.
"It's a wonderfully characteristic portrait of dear old Uncle John," said my father, sighing again.
Now, reconciliations are extremely wholesome and desirable things; in this case, indeed, a reconciliation was an absolutely essential and necessary thing, since the happiness of Sylvia and myself entirely depended upon it. But it cannot, in my opinion, be maintained that they are in themselves cheerful functions. After all, they are funerals of quarrels, and men love their quarrels. The dinner held to seal the peace between Sir Matthew and my father was not enjoyable, considered purely as an entertainment. Both gentlemen were stiff and distant; Sylvia was shy, I embarrassed; the vicar bore the whole brunt of conversation. In fact, there were great difficulties. It was impossible to touch on the subject of the Maharajah's rubies, and yet we were all thinking of the rubies and of nothing else. At last my father, in despair, took the bull by the horns. He was always in favor of a bold course, as Uncle John had been, he said.
"Over the mantelpiece," said he, turning to his guest with a rather forced smile, "you will observe, Sir Matthew, a portrait of the late Colonel Merridew. It is considered an extremely good likeness."
Sir Matthew examined the colonel through his eyeglasses with a critical stare.
"It looks," said he, "very like what I have always supposed Colonel Merridew to have been; indeed, exactly like."
My father frowned heavily. Sir Matthew's speech was open to unfavorable interpretation.
"You mean," interposed the vicar, "a man of courage and decision? Yes, yes, indeed; the face looks like the face of just such a man."
"Poor Uncle John," sighed my father. "His last years were embittered by the unfounded aspersions——"
"I beg your pardon," said Sir Matthew, politely but very stiffly.
"By the unfounded but very natural accusations," suggested the vicar hastily.
"To which he was subjected," pursued my father.
"Or—er—may we not say, exposed himself?" asked Sir Matthew.
"In fact, which were brought against him—wrongly but most naturally," suggested the vicar.
Matters looked as unpromising as they well could. Sylvia was on the point of bursting into tears, and my thoughts had again turned to an elopement. My father rose suddenly and held out his hand to Sir Matthew. Again he had decided on the bold course.
"Let us say no more about it," he cried, generously.
"With all my heart," cried Sir Matthew, springing up and gripping his hand.
The vicar's eyes beamed through his spectacles. I believe that I touched Sylvia's foot under the table.
"We will," pursued my father, "remember only one thing about the colonel. And that is that one bottle remains of the famous old pipe of port that he laid down. In that, Sir Matthew, let us bury all unkindness."
"My dear sir, I ask no better," cried Sir Matthew.
The heavens brightened—or was it Sylvia's eyes? The butler alone looked perturbed; three butlers had lost their situations in our household for handling the colonel's port in a manner that lacked heart and tenderness. "I cannot bear a callous butler," my father used to say.
"Fetch," said my father, "the last bottle of the colonel's port, a decanter, a cork-screw, a funnel, a piece of muslin, and a napkin. I will decant Sir Matthew's wine myself."
"Sir Matthew's wine!" Could there have been a more delicate compliment?
"The colonel," my father continued, "purchased this wine himself, brought it home himself, and I believe bottled a large portion of it with his own hands."
"He could not have been better employed," said Sir Matthew cordially. But I think there was a latent hint that the colonel had sometimes been much worse employed.
MY FATHER TILTED THE BOTTLE A LITTLE MORE TOWARD THE FUNNEL. THEN HE STOPPED SUDDENLY.
"You have not shaken it?" asked my father.
"Upon my word; no, sir," answered Dawson earnestly. The poor man had a wife and family.
My father gripped the bottle delicately with the napkin, and examined the point of the corkscrew.
"It would be a great pity," he observed, gravely, "if anything happened to the cork."
Nothing happened to the cork. With infinite delicacy my father persuaded it to leave the neck of the bottle. Sir Matthew was ready with decanter, funnel, and muslin.
"We must take care of the crust," remarked my father, and we all nodded solemnly.
My father cast his eyes up to Uncle John's portrait for an instant, much as if he were asking the old gentleman's benediction, and gently inclined the bottle toward the muslin-covered mouth of the funnel.
"If only my poor uncle could be here," he sighed. Uncle John had been very fond of port.
"I should be delighted to meet him!" cried Sir Matthew, in genuine friendliness.
The vicar took off his spectacles, wiped them, and replaced them. My father tilted the bottle a little more toward the funnel. Then he stopped suddenly, and a strange, puzzled look appeared on his face. He looked at Sir Matthew, and Sir Matthew looked at him; and we all looked at the bottle.
"Does old port wine generally make that noise?" asked Sylvia.
For a most mysterious sound had proceeded from the inside of the bottle, as my father carefully inclined it toward the funnel. It sounded as if—but it was absurd to suppose that a handful of marbles could have found their way into a bottle of old port.
"The crust——" began the vicar, cheerfully.
"It's not the crust," said my father, decisively.
"Let us see what it is," suggested Sir Matthew, very urbanely.
"I've done nothing to the bottle, sir," cried Dawson.
My father cleared his throat, and gave the bottle a further inclination toward the funnel. A little wine trickled out and found its way through the muslin. My father smelt the muslin anxiously, but seemed to gain no enlightenment. He poured on under the engrossed gaze of the whole party. The marbles, or what they were, thumped in the bottle; and with a little jump something sprang out into the muslin. Sir Matthew stretched out a hand. My father waved him away.
"We will go on to the end," said he solemnly, and he took it up, the object that had fallen into the muslin, between his ​finger and thumb and placed it on his plate.
It was round in shape, the size of a very large pill or a smallish marble, and of a dull color, like that of rusted tin. My father poured on, and by the time that the last of the wine was out no less than seven of these strange objects lay in a neat group on my father's plate, one lying by itself a little removed from the others.
"I have placed this one apart," observed my father, pointing to the solitary marble, "because it is much lighter than any of the others. Let us examine it first."
"I propose that we examine the six first," said Sir Matthew, in a tone of suppressed excitement.
"As you will, Sir Matthew," said my father gravely, and he took up one of the six that lay in a group. "The surface," said he, looking round, "appears to be composed of tin."
We all agreed. The surface was composed of tin; a line running down the middle showed where the tin had been carefully and dexterously soldered together. Sir Matthew having felt in his pocket, produced a large penknife and opened a strong blade. He held out the knife toward my father blade foremost, such was his agitation.
"Thank you, Sir Matthew," said my father in courteous and calm voice, reaching round the blade and grasping the handle.
Absolute silence now fell on the company; my father was perfectly composed. He forced the point of the knife into the surface of the object and made a gap; then he peeled off the surface of tin. I felt Sylvia's eyes turn to mine, but I did not remove my gaze from my father's plate. Five times did my father repeat his operation, placing what was left in each case on the table-cloth in front of him. When he had finished his task he looked up at Sir Matthew. Sir Matthew's face bore a look of mingled bewilderment and triumph; he opened his mouth to speak; a gesture of my father's hand imposed silence on him.
"It remains," said my father, "to examine the seventh object.
The seventh object was treated as its companions had been; the result was different. From the shelter of the sealed tin covering came a small roll of paper. My father unfolded it; faded lines of writing appeared on it.
"Uncle John's hand," said my father solemnly. "I propose to read what he says."
"An explanation is undoubtedly desirable," remarked Sir Matthew.
"Aren't they beautiful?" whispered Sylvia longingly.
A glance from my father rebuked her; he began to read what Colonel Merridew had written. Here it is:
"That old fool Marston, having made the life of everybody on board the ship a burden to them on account of his miserable rubies, and having dogged my footsteps and spied upon my actions in a most offensive manner, I determined to give him a lesson. So I took these stones from his cabin and carried them to my house. I was about to return them when he found his way into my house and accused me—me, Colonel John Merridew—of being a thief. What followed is known to my family. The result of Sir George's intemperate behavior was to make it impossible for me to return the rubies without giving rise to an impression most injurious to my honor, I have therefore placed them in this bottle. They will not be discovered during my life-time or in that of Sir George. When they are discovered, I request that they may be returned to his son with my compliments and an expression of my hope that he is not such a fool as his father,
"John Merridew, Colonel."
Continued silence followed the reading of this document. The Maharajah's rubies glittered and gleamed on the table-cloth. My father looked up at Uncle John's picture. To my excited fancy the old gentleman seemed to smile more broadly than before. My father gathered the rubies into his hand and held them out to Sir Matthew.
"You have heard Colonel Merridew's message, sir," said my father. "There is, I presume, no need for me to repeat it. Allow me to hand you the rubies."
Sir Matthew bowed stiffly, took the Maharajah's rubies, counted them carefully, and dropped them one by one into his waistcoat pocket,
"Take away that bottle of port," said my father. "The tin will have ruined the flavor."
"What shall I do with it, sir?" asked Dawson.
"Whatever you please," said my father, and looking up again at Uncle John's picture, he exclaimed in an admiring tone,
"An uncommon man, indeed! How few would have contrived so perfect a hiding-place!"
"Sylvia," said Sir Matthew, "get your ​cloak." Then he turned to my father and continued, "If, sir, to be an expert thief——"
My father sprang to his feet. Sylvia caught Sir Matthew by the arm; I was ready to throw myself between the enraged gentlemen. Uncle John smiled broadly down on us. The vicar looked up with a mild smile. He had taken a nut and was in the act of cracking it.
"Dear, dear!" said he. "What's the matter?"
"Sir Matthew Marston," said my father, "ventures to accuse the late Colonel Merridew of theft. And that in the house which was Colonel Merridew's."
"Mr. Merridew," said Sir Matthew, in a cold, sarcastic voice, "must admit that any other explanation of the colonel's action is—well, difficult. And that in any house, whether Colonel Merridew's or another's."
"My dear friends," expostulated the vicar, "pray hear reason. The presence of these—er—articles in this bottle of port, taken in conjunction with the explanation afforded by the late Colonel Merridew's letter, makes the whole matter perfectly clear." The vicar paused, swallowed his nut, and then continued with considerable and proper pride. "In fact, although there is no reason whatsoever to think that Colonel Merridew stole the Maharajah's rubies, yet any gentleman may well suppose, and has every reason for supposing, that Colonel Merridew did steal the Maharajah's rubies."
Sir Matthew tugged at his beard, my father rubbed the side of his nose with his forefinger. The vicar rose and stood between them with his hands spread out and a smile of candid appeal on his face.
"There is no reason at all to suppose Uncle John meant to steal them," observed my father.
"I have every reason for supposing that he meant to steal them," said Sir Matthew.
"Exactly, exactly," murmured the vicar; "what I say, gentlemen; just what I say."
My father smiled; a moment later Sir Matthew smiled. My father slowly stretched out his hand; Sir Matthew's hand came slowly to meet it.
"That's right," cried the vicar, approvingly. "I felt sure that you would both listen to reason."
My father looked up again at Uncle John.
"My uncle was a most uncommon man, Sir Matthew," said he.
"So I should imagine, Mr. Merridew," answered Sir Matthew.
"And now, papa," said Sylvia, "give me the Maharajah's rubies."
"A moment," said Sir Matthew; "there was a matter of £5,000."
"We cannot," said my father, "go behind the verdict of the jury."
Sir Matthew turned away and took a step toward the door.
"But," my father added, "I will settle twice the amount on my daughter-in-law."
"We will say no more about it," agreed Sir Matthew, turning back to the table.
So the matter rested, and before long I saw the Maharajah's rubies round Sylvia's neck. But as I sit opposite the rubies and under Uncle John's portrait, I wonder very much what the true story was. Uncle John was very fond of rubies, yet he was also very fond of a joke. Was the letter the truth? Or was it written in the hope of protecting himself in case his hiding-place was by some unlikely chance discovered? Or was it to save the feelings of his descendants? Or was it to annoy Sir George Marston's descendants? I cannot answer these questions. As the vicar says, there is no reason to suppose that Uncle John stole the rubies; yet any gentleman may well suppose that he stole the rubies. Uncle John smiles placidly down on me, with his glass of port between his fingers, and does not solve the puzzle. He was an uncommon man, Uncle John!
At any rate, the vicar was very much pleased with himself.