DELIA SHERMAN

THE PARWAT RUBY

WHETHER THE DISASTER OF the Parwat Ruby would have taken place if Sir Alvord
Basingstoke had not married Margaret Kennedy is a matter of conjecture. Given
his character, Sir Alvord would undoubtedly have married a woman like Margaret
if Margaret herself had never been born. For Sir Alvord was a gentle man, silent
in company, devoted to solitude --in short, the natural mate of a woman who
talked a great deal and loved society. In her youth, Margaret Kennedy had been
much courted, being lively and clever and very well dressed, as well as mistress
of three thousand pounds a year. Over time, she grew domineering and unpleasant
as well, but as Sir Alvord spent the best part of the next thirty years
exploring uncharted wildernesses, it is likely that he did not notice. When
ebbing vital forces put a period to his travels, Lady Glencora Palliser
prophesied a speedy separation. But months passed, and still the reunited couple
showed every sign of mutual affection, demonstrating that even the most
dedicated hunters of human weakness must sometimes draw a blank.

Some two years after returning from his last journey, Sir Alvord called upon his
sister, Mrs. Mildmay. A certain coolness having long ago arisen between Mrs.
Mildmay and Lady Basingstoke, Mrs. Mildmay had seen little of her brother in
that time. Consequently, she was much astonished, one evening as the Season
began, to hear her maid announce the name of Sir Alvord Basingstoke. It was time
to be thinking of changing for supper; nevertheless, she had him shown into her
sitting room, and received him with a sisterly embrace.

"So here you are, Alvord," she said. "Handsome as ever, I see." It had been a
schoolroom joke that they looked very alike, although the heavy jaw and
pronounced nose that made him a handsome man kept her from being considered
anything but plain.

He pressed her hands and put her from him. "I have something very particular to
say to you, Caroline. You're my only sister-- indeed, my only living blood
relation -- and I am an old man."

Somewhat distressed by this greeting, Mrs. Mildmay bade her brother sit and
indicated her readiness to hear what he had to tell her, but he only sighed
heavily and rubbed his forehead with his right hand, which was decorated with a
ring set with a large cabochon ruby. The ring was familiar to her, as much a
part of Sir Alvord as his pale blue eyes and his indifferently tailored coats.
He had brought the stone back from a journey to Ceylon in his youth and it had
never left his hand since. Massy as it was, it had always looked perfectly at
home on his broad hand, but now it hung and turned loosely on his finger.

The white star that lived in its depths slid and winked, capturing Mrs.
Mildmay's eye and attention so fully that when Sir Alvord spoke, she was forced
to beg him to repeat his words.

"It's this ring of mine, Caroline," said Sir Alvord patiently. "It's more than a
trinket."

"Indeed it is, brother. I've never seen such a fine stone."

"A fine stone indeed. Your true, clear star is very rare and very precious in a
ruby of this size. But that is not what I meant. There is a history attached to
this ring and a responsibility."

He seemed to experience some difficulty in continuing, a difficulty not
remarkable in a man who all his life had been accustomed to let first his mother
and then his wife speak for him. Mrs. Mildmay sat quietly until he should find
words.

"This is unexpectedly difficult," he said at length.

Mrs. Mildmay looked down at her hands. "I have often wished us better friends,"
she said.

"I have wished the same. But my wife had a claim upon my loyalty." Mrs. Mildmay
flushed and would have retorted that she hoped that his sister had at least an
equal claim, but he held up his hand to forestall her, his ruby flashing like a
diamond as the star caught the afternoon sun.

He continued, "I have not come to quarrel with you. Margaret has been a good
wife to me. However, I don't mean for her to have this ring. I had hoped to
leave it to a son of mine" -- here he sighed once again m "but that was not to
be. I have it in my mind to put in my Will that you're to have it when I die,
and that it must pass to Wilson after you." Wilson was Mrs. Mildmay's oldest
son, a likely young man of four-and-twenty.

Mrs. Mildmay, much moved, reached out and patted her brother's hand. "There's no
need to be talking of wills and dying, brother. I've no doubt you'll see out
your century with ease."

"And I have no doubt that I will not see out the year. No, Caroline, don't argue
with me. The ring must stay in the family." He rose slowly and tottered as he
stood, so that Mrs. Mildmay sprang to her feet to steady him. Once more he
kissed her cheek. "God bless you, Caroline. I don't suppose I'll see you again."

After this conversation, Mrs. Mildmay was not much amazed when, not three days
later, she received word that Sir Alvord had suffered an apoplectic fit. At
first, his life was despaired of, and even when it seemed sure he would live, he
could no longer move his arms or legs, but must be fed and turned and bathed
like an infant. In this great exigency, Lady Basingstoke displayed all the
careful tenderness that could be hoped from a loving wife and, although she was
herself not a young woman, undertook the entire burden of his nursing. To be
sure, there were nurses hired to tend him, but Lady Basingstoke considered them
all worthless baggages and would not leave any of them alone with him for more
than a few moments. So it was that when Mrs. Mildmay called to inquire after her
brother's health, Lady Basingstoke did not come down to her, but received her in
Sir Alvord's dressing-room with the communicating door ajar.

She was seated in a shabby wing-chair, her head inclined upon her hand in an
attitude eloquent of the most complete dejection, but she lifted her head at
Mrs. Mildmay's entrance and waved her feebly to a chair. "Please forgive me not
rising to greet you, dear Caroline," she said. "I am utterly prostrate, as you
see. He had a very bad night, and this morning was discovered to be unable to
speak. Sir Omicron Pie has warned me to prepare myself for the worst."

Mrs. Mildmay may have considered her brother's wife a harpy and a fool, but it
would be a harder heart than hers to have denied Lady Basingstoke a sister's
comfort at such a time. "My dear Margaret," she said. "I am so very sorry. You
must let me know if there is anything I may do to help you. Sit with Alvord,
perhaps, so that you can take some rest?"

"No, no. You are too kind, Caroline, but no. Dear Alvord will suffer no one
about him but me." Her voice faltered and she raised her hand to her eyes, as
though to hide springing tears. The gesture reminded Mrs. Mildmay irresistibly
of her brother's when he had come to call, the more so that it displayed Lady
Basingstoke's hand, well-kept and very large for a woman, just now made to look
delicate by a great gold ring set with a single large, red stone: the Parwat
Ruby.

"I beg your pardon, Margaret," said Mrs. Mildmay, "but is that not Alvord's
ring?"

The question caused Lady Basingstoke to have recourse to her handkerchief, and
it was not until she had composed herself that she said, "He gave it to me last
night. It was as though he knew he'd soon be beyond speech, for he took it from
his finger and put it upon mine, saying that it was the dearest wish of his
heart to see it always upon my hand. It is, of course, far too big; but I have
tied it on with a bit of cotton, which I trust will hold it until I can bear to
be parted with it long enough to have it made to fit."

"How very touching," said Mrs. Mildmay. There was nothing so very exceptionable
in her tone, but Lady Basingstoke absolutely frowned at her and requested her to
explain what she meant.

"Only that dear Alvord was not commonly so fluent in his speech."

"I think, dear Mrs. Mildmay, that you are hardly qualified to have an opinion,"
said Lady Basingstoke, "considering that you have hardly spoken to him twice in
twenty years. I assure you it took place just as I have told you."

"No doubt," answered Mrs. Mildmay, and took her leave not many minutes
afterward. It is not, perhaps, necessary to say that Mrs. Mildmay had every
doubt as to the accuracy of Lady Basingstoke's recollection, but she could
hardly say so. An evening call is not a Will, after all, and her brother had
every right to change his mind as to the distribution of his own property.

NOW LADY BASINGSTOKE was even more indispensable to Sir Alvord than when he had
been merely bed-bound, for she was the only one who could make shift to
understand his gruntings and gesturings and bring him a little ease. In fact,
she dispensed with the nurses altogether and snatched her rest when she might
upon a trundle bed in Sir Alvord's dressing-room, for he would become unbearably
agitated in her absence. Sir Omicron Pie continued to call each morning, but he
could do nothing above prescribing a calming draught. Given the tenor of her
last visit, Mrs. Mildmay was not surprised when the butler turned her from the
door when next she came to call. But she was much astonished the following
morning, when she read the notice of Sir Alvord Basingstoke's death in The
Times.

"It's a bad business," she exclaimed to her husband, who was enjoying the text
of Mr. Gresham's latest speech. "It's a bad business when a sister must read of
her brother's passing in the public press."

"Not at all, my dear. Devoted wife, prostrate widow. Likely it slipped her mind.
Here's Gresham rabbitting on about the poor again, as if he could do anything,
with his party feeling as it does about taxes. It's a crime, that's what it is.
A crime and a sin."

"I daresay, Quintus, but do pay attention. When I called yesterday afternoon,
the curtains were not drawn, there was no crepe on the knocker, and the butler
said only that his mistress was not at home to visitors."

"Man wasn't dead yet," said Mr. Mildmay reasonably.

"Nonsense," said his wife. "I defy even the most energetic widow to get a notice
of death in The Times in anything under a day, and if he were alive when I
called, she could have had only a few hours. I call it a bad business."

"Odd, anyway," said Mr. Mildmay. "Wonder if he left you anything?"

"As if I cared about that! He did mention his ruby ring to me when last

I saw him, but I doubt that anything will come of it."

Mr. Mildmay put down his paper. "His ruby, eh? Worth a good few hundred pounds,
I'd think. The ruby would be worth having indeed."

"The ring may be worth what it will, Quintus. My point is that Alvord expressed
the wish that it remain in the family, and yet I saw it upon Lady Basingstoke's
hand."

"Woman's his wife, Caroline. A wife is part of a man's family, I hope."

"Not when she's a widow, Quintus, for she may then marry again and take her
husband's property into another man's family."

"Then we must hope that your brother put the thing down in his Will." Mr.
Mildmay took up his paper again to show that the subject was closed, firing as
he did so a warning shot around its crackling edges: "Won't look well to make a
fuss, Caroline."

Mrs. Mildmay so far agreed with her husband that she was able to pay her
condolence call and support the grieving widow at Sir Alvord's funeral without
adverting to the subject of Sir Alvord's last visit. Yet as she stood next to
Lady Basingstoke at the graveside, she could not suppress a shudder at the sight
of the Parwat Ruby glowing balefully against the deep black of the widow's
wash-leather gloves. She could not think it well-done of Margaret to have worn
it, hoping only that her grief had blinded her to the impropriety of flaunting a
ruby at a funeral. Yet, as the first shovelfuls of dirt fell upon the casket,
Mrs. Mildmay could have sworn that the widow was smiling.

"But she was heavily veiled," exclaimed her bosom friend Lady Fitzaskerly when
Mrs. Mildmay had unburdened herself of her righteous anger.

"Nonetheless," said Mrs. Mildmay. "You know what she looks like."

"A horse in a flaxen wig," replied Lady Fitzaskerly, who disliked Lady
Basingstoke as heartily as the most exacting friend could wish.

"Precisely. And the heaviest veil to be purchased at Liberty's would be
insufficient to hide the most subtle of her expressions. The woman was grinning
like an ape. And there was no mention of the ring in the Will not a single word,
though many of his collections are dispersed and the entire contents of his
library are to be given to his club."

"Perhaps he fell ill before the lawyer might be called."

"Perhaps. And perhaps he didn't. I thought Mr. Chess wished to speak to me when
the document had been read, but Lady Basingstoke entirely engaged his attention.
And now here is a note from Mr. Chess in the first mail this morning, begging me
to receive him at four this very afternoon. What do you think of that?"

Lady Fitzaskerly did not know what to think, but she found the whole matter so
very interesting that she could not forbear mentioning it to Lady Glencora
Palliser when next she had occasion to call upon her. Lady Glen was sitting, as
she often was, with Madam Max Goesler of Park Lane.

"Why, it's just like the Eustace diamonds!" Lady Glencora exclaimed when Lady
Fitzaskerly had done. "You remember the fuss, when that silly girl Lizzie
Eustace stole her own diamonds to keep them from the hands of her husband's
family?"

"It's not so very much like it, not to my mind," said Madam Max. "No one has
stolen anything, so far as I can tell. A gentleman in his dotage has changed his
mind about the disposition of his personal property and created an
unpleasantness."

"Well, I think Mrs. Mildmay is hardly used in the matter."

"Consider, my dear. Lady Basingstoke is his widow. She cared for him in his last
illness and shared his interests."

"His interests!" Lady Glencora was scornful. "We best not inquire too closely
into his interests, if all I hear be true."

"Surely, Lady Glen, you can't believe he was a wizard," exclaimed Lady
Fitzaskerly. "Why, he wasn't even interested in politics."

"Well, he was a member of the Magus," said Lady Glen. "And he left all his books
to his club. What else am I to believe?"

"If he was a wizard," said Lady Fitzaskerly, "he was a decidedly odd one."

"Perhaps he wasn't, then," Lady Glen said. "Wizards like nothing better than
talking, and they seldom travel. Well, how could they? Sir Alvord barely said a
word in company, and he was forever in some foreign land or another."

"Be that as it may," said Madam Max. "If he was a wizard, it is foolhardy at
best for Lady Basingstoke to keep his ring if he wished it to go otherwhere."

"No doubt," said Lady Fitzaskerly dryly. "But I knew Margaret Kennedy at school.
She was the sort of girl who always ate too many cream buns, even though she was
invariably sick after."

So Mrs. Mildmay had her partisans among the most highly placed persons in the
land -- a fact that might have brought her some comfort as she sat listening to
her brother's lawyer set forth his dilemma in her drawing-room. Mr. Chess was a
man of substance, silver-haired and solid as an Irish hound, with something of a
hound's roughness of coat and honesty of spirit, which had brought him to
confess to Mrs. Mildmay that he had misplaced the most recent codicil to her
brother's Will.

"It was the day he was taken ill, you know, or perhaps a day or two before that.
He came by my chambers without the least notice, and would have it drawn up then
and there and witnessed by two clerks. It described the ring most particularly
-- `The stone called the Parwat Ruby, and the Ring in which it is set, the bezel
two Wings of gold tapering into the Shank' and gave it to you for your lifetime
and to your son Wilson on your death, with the testator's recommendation that
neither ring nor stone be allowed to pass out of the hands of his descendants.
He insisted on the exact wording."

"And you said that the codicil was not in the document-box when you removed the
Will to read it?"

"The document-box was quite empty, Mrs. Mildmay, save for the Will itself, some
few papers pertaining to his investments, and a quantity of fine dust.
Nevertheless, knowing his wishes in the matter, I did not think it wise to drop
the matter without consulting with Lady Basingstoke."

"And Lady Basingstoke laughed in your face," said Mrs. Mildmay.

"I only wish she had done something so relatively predictable." Mr. Chess
extracted his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead with it. "She
heard me out quietly, then gave me to understand that the ring would have to be
cut from her hand before she'd give it up. Furthermore, she impugned my memory,
my competence as a lawyer, even my motives in coming to see her, and all in such
a tone of voice as I hope never in my life to hear again."

"It was doubtless very rude of her," said Mrs. Mildmay soothingly.

"Rude!" Mr. Chess gave his neck a surreptitious dab. "She was most intemperate.
If she were not very recently widowed, I would question her sanity."

"And the ring?"

"Unless the codicil should come to light, the ring is hers, along with all her
husband's chattels and possessions not otherwise disposed of. We might file a
case in Chancery on the basis of my recollection of the afternoon call,
supported by affidavits from my two clerks who witnessed the document, but it
would almost certainly cost more than the ring is worth, and success is by no
means sure."

Mrs. Mildmay thought for a moment, than gave a decided nod. "I'll let it go,
then. It's only a ring, after all. May she have joy of it, poor woman."

And there the matter would have rested had it not been for Lady Basingstoke
herself, who, some two weeks after her husband's death, wrote to Caroline
Mildmay requiring her attendance in Grovesnor Square. You know I would come to
you if I might, she wrote, but I am grown so ill that I cannot stir a foot
abroad.

"I shouldn't go," said Mr. Mildmay when his wife showed him Lady Basingstoke's
letter. "You owe her nothing and she'll only be unpleasant."

"I owe her kindness as my brother's widow, and if she is unpleasant, I need not
prolong my visit."

Mr. Mildmay smiled knowingly upon his wife. "I know how it is, Caroline. You're
eaten up with curiosity over what she could have to say to you. Wild horses
would not keep you from her, were she five times worse than she is."

"I don't expect to find her so ill as all that," said Mrs. Mildmay provokingly.
But she did not deny her husband's allegation, nor, in good conscience, could
she. Indeed, she did not think Lady Basingstoke likely to be ill at all. But
when she was shown into the parlor where Lady Basingstoke was laid down upon a
sofa with a blanket over her feet, Mrs. Mildmay observed that she looked
withered and drawn, with the bones of her cheeks staring out through her skin
and great dark smudges beneath her eyes, which seemed to have retreated under
her brows. The Parwat Ruby glowed like a live coal on her hand.

She was attended by a dark-skinned person in a white turban, who was introduced
to Mrs. Mildmay as Mr. Ahmed, an Arab gentleman learned in the study of medicine
and the arcane arts.

"Mr. Ahmed has been invaluable to me," said Lady Basingstoke, and held out her
hand, which he kissed with great grace; though it seemed to Mrs. Mildmay,
looking on with some disgust, that the salute was bestowed rather upon the
Parwat Ruby than on the gaunt hand that bore it. "It is at his suggestion, in
fact, that I called you here, Caroline. You know, of course, that dear Alvord
was a great wizard?"

Mrs. Mildmay drew off her gloves to cover her confusion. "A wizard, Margaret?"

"I think I spoke clearly. Are you going to pretend that you don't believe in
wizards when the country is ruled by them? Why, half the members of the House of
Lords, two-thirds of the Cabinet, and the Prime Minister himself are members of
the Magus!"

"I hardly know what I do believe, Margaret."

"There was never a wizard living as powerful as Alvord, and it was all the ruby,
Caroline, the ruby."

"The ruby?" Mrs. Mildmay faltered, convinced that Lady Basingstoke's complaint
was more serious than a mere perturbation of the spirit. Alvord a wizard! What
would the woman say next?

Lady Basingstoke plucked angrily at the fringe of her shawl. "Why do you mock
me, Caroline? You must know what I mean. Alvord must have spoken to you. Why
else would he have called on you so soon before he fell ill?"

"I assure you, Margaret, that Alvord told me nothing. Only...."

Lady Basingstoke leaned forward, a horrid avidity suffusing her countenance.
"Only what, dear Caroline? It is of the utmost importance that you tell me every
word."

"I'm afraid it must cause you some distress."

The Arab gentleman added his voice to Lady Basingstoke's, and reluctantly Mrs.
Mildmay recounted her conversation with Sir Alvord substantially as it has been
recorded here, noting Lady Basingstoke's almost comical expression of malicious
triumph when Caroline mentioned her brother's intention to change his will. When
she had made an end, Lady Basingstoke turned to the Arab gentleman and burst
out, "Is there anything there, Ahmed? Is she telling the truth?"

"As to that, gracious lady, I cannot say without subjecting the lady to certain
tests."

He smiled beguilingly at Mrs. Mildmay as he spoke, as if proposing a rare treat.
Mrs. Mildmay was not to be beguiled. "Tests!" she exclaimed. "Are you both mad?"

Both Lady Basingstoke and the Arab gentleman ignored her. "Your husband
certainly meant his sister to have the ring, lady, and I do not think he told
her why."

"Well, I think he did. I think he told her all about it, and she's come here to
frighten me out of it. Well, I won't frighten, do you hear? I won't frighten and
I won't give up the Parwat Ruby. It's going to make me great, isn't it, Ahmed?
Greater than Mr. Gresham, greater than the Queen herself, and once I learn its
secret, the first thing I shall do is destroy you, Caroline Mildmay!"

With every, word of this extraordinary speech, Lady Basingstoke's voice rose,
until at last she was all but screaming at her hapless sister-in-law, at the
same time rising from her sofa and menacing her with such energy that Mrs.
Mildmay thought it best to take her leave.

AFTER SUCH an interview, Mrs. Mildmay did not, of course, call in Grovesnor
Place again. Nor did she ever tell a soul, saving only her husband, what had
passed between her and her sister-in-law. She did, however, hear what the world
had to say concerning Lady Basingstoke's subsequent behavior. For that lady, far
from hiding herself in the seclusion expected of a widow, began to go abroad in
the world.

"I saw her in Hyde Park, my dear, astride her horse, if you please. I would not
have credited it had I not seen it with my own eyes. And looking quite brown and
dried-up, for all the world like a farm-wife, and so hideously plain you'd think
that horrid Darwin justified in declaring us all the grandchildren of apes."

"Lady Glencora!" Madam Max admonished her, with a glance at Mrs. Mildmay.

Lady Glencora was at once contrite. "Oh, Mrs. Mildmay, I beg your pardon to
speak so of a close connection, but surely the woman is not mistress of herself,
to be riding astride in the company of a gentleman in a turban."

"Mr. Ahmed," murmured Mrs. Mildmay.

"He might be the Grand Cham of Arabia if he chose; it still wouldn't be proper.
And it is common knowledge that her servants have left her without notice, and
Lizzie Berry says her new boot boy tells such bloodcurdling stories of Lady
Basingstoke's household that the servants all suffer from nightmares."

Feeling Lady Glencora's curious eyes upon her, Mrs. Mildmay schooled her
features to gentle dismay. "How difficult for Lady Berry," was all she said, but
her heart burned within her, and she thought of Lady Basingstoke's astonishing
remark, that England was governed by wizards. Lady Glencora's husband,
Plantagenet Palliser, was said to be performing miracles as Chancellor of the
Exchecquer. Were they miracles indeed? Did Lady Glencora think she knew, or was
she deriving amusement from her ignorance? Prey to melancholy reflections, Mrs.
Mildmay brought her visit to an end as soon as she might do so without betraying
the agitation the conversation had caused her, and went home again wishing that
Alvord had seen fit to take her more fully into his confidence.

A month passed. The Season's round of balls and card-parties was enlivened by
stories of Lady Basingstoke's eccentricities, which grew wilder with each
telling. Lady Basingstoke had thrown scones at the waiter at Liberty's Tea Room;
Lady Basingstoke had snatched a fruit-woman's basket of apples and run away with
it; Lady Basingstoke had bitten a policeman on the arm. Mrs. Mildmay was
privately mortified by her sister-in-law's behavior, and took full advantage of
her own state of mourning to regret all invitations that might bring her into
Lady Basingstoke's erratic orbit. But she could not avoid the morning-calls of
ladies eager to commiserate and analyze, nor the occasional glimpse of her
brother's widow, gaunt, unkempt, and draped in black, dragging on Mr. Ahmed's
arm as if it were all that kept her upright.

Then, as suddenly as she'd emerged, Lady Basingstoke disappeared once again into
Grovesnor Place. Society looked elsewhere for its amusement, and as the Season
wore on, Mrs. Mildmay ventured to hope that she had heard the end of the matter.
In mid-July, her hope was frustrated by Mr. Chess, who called upon her once
again, this time accompanied by one of his clerks.

"I don't know how sufficiently to beg your pardon," Mr. Chess told her, his
honest hound's eyes dark with distress.

"It wasn't Mr. Chess's fault, madam," his clerk said. "It was all mine. If you
intend to go to law with someone, it'll have to be me, and I won't contest the
charge, indeed I won't."

"Let us have no talk of going to law," said Mrs. Mildmay. "Please, tell me what
has happened."

And so the unhappy story came out. Apparently, the afternoon of the day upon
which Sir Alvord had changed his will, he had returned to Mr. Chess's chambers
and left in the possession of the clerk (whose name was Mr. Rattler) a thick
packet, with instructions that it be conveyed to Mrs. Mildmay as soon as
possible.

"But it wasn't possible, not if it were ever so, not with the Queen vs. Phineas
Finn coming up to trial, and me run clear off my feet until ten of the clock. So
I took it home so as to be sure and deliver it next morning on my way to
chambers, and my old mother was taken ill in the night, and that's the last I
thought of the packet until I was sorting through things yesterday -- for she
died of her illness, I grieve to say, and the house is to be sold -- and found
it, dropped behind the boot-rack."

The poor man looked so close to tears that Mrs. Mildmay was moved to give him
her full forgiveness. "I have the packet in my hand now, after all, and we must
hope that there's not too much harm done. Why don't you wait in the library
while I read it, Mr. Chess, in case there is something in it I don't
understand?"

"Certainly, Mrs. Mildmay," said Mr. Chess, and withdrew, herding the wretched
clerk before him.

Now, if the reader be tempted, like Mrs. Mildmay, to pity Mr. Rattler, the
reader may put his mind at ease. Mr. Rattler, less honest than provident, was
not to be pitied; for upon discovering Sir Alvord's packet behind the boot-rack,
he had lifted its seal with the aid of a heated knife, read it through, whistled
thoughtfully, and immediately set himself to copy it all over. It was a long
document, and the task took him the better part of the night, but his labor was
well paid, for he sold the copy to one of the more sensational papers for a sum
sufficient to buy passage to America, where we may only hope he found honest
employment. Mr. Rattler's industry, in the meantime, has relieved the present
writer of reproducing the whole text of Sir Alvord's letter to his sister, as
the document was published in full soon after the Grovesnor Place affair became
public, and may be read by anyone who cares to ask for the July -- edition of
The People's Banner.

In brief, the letter recounted how, not long after his marriage to Margaret
Kennedy, Sir Alvord Basingstoke had taken himself off to Ceylon, where he had
wandered, lost in impenetrable forests, for nearly two years. His adventures in
this period were numerous, but in the letter, he restricted himself to the month
he spent with a tribe of savages who worshipped an idol in the shape of a great
ape carved of wood and inlaid with gold and precious stones.

"Its teeth were pearls, perfectly matched, the largest I have ever seen, and it
was crowned with beaten gold set, in the Eastern manner, with rough-cut
sapphires, emeralds, and rubies. But its chiefest glory were its eyes, that were
perfectly matched cabochon rubies of great size, each imprisoning a perfect,
clear, bright star that gave the creature an air of malevolent intelligence. I
chaffered with the king of those people, who was a wise and far-sighted woman,
and brought her to understand that it would be much to her advantage to accept
from me half the arms and ammunition I had brought with me, along with certain
cantrips I had learned of a warrior-wizard in Katmandu. In exchange for all
this, which would almost certainly ensure her victory over some two or three
neighboring tribes, I would receive the left eye of the ape-god.

"The gift came hedged around with warnings and restrictions, the greater part of
which I have been able to circumvent or neutralize. I could do little, however,
with the fundamental nature of the stone, which is likely to manifest itself in
the form of a dreadful curse. I am exempt from this curse, as are all persons
related to me by blood. But anyone else who wears it upon his finger, be it the
Queen of England or Mr. Gresham or His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, will
most assuredly and inevitably regret it. If you do not feel equal to the role of
caretaker, dear Caroline, or harbor any doubts as to the fitness of young Wilson
to undertake this responsibility, I enjoin you to send to (mentioning the name
and direction of a gentleman whose position in Society commands our complete
discretion) and tell him how the land lies. He'll know what to do. You'll need
to call upon him in any case, to initiate you and your boy into the uses and
rituals of the stone."

In the course of reading this extraordinary document, Mrs. Mildmay was forced to
ring for brandy, and when she had finished, sat for a few minutes with the
sheets of her brother's narrative spread on her knees. Poor Alvord, she thought.
And poor Margaret. She rang again for Mr. Chess and his clerk, and her hat and
cloak, and her carriage to take them all to Grovesnor Place.

"For I'll certainly want you for witnesses or help, or both," she told them.
"And there's not a moment to be lost, not that it probably isn't too late
already."

When the carriage pulled up to Lady Basingstoke's house, all seemed as it should
be, save that the steps clearly had not been swept nor the door brass polished
in some time.

"There, you see?" said Mrs. Mildmay. "Something is dreadfully amiss. It is
unlike Margaret not to have hired new servants."

"Perhaps she couldn't hire any," Mr. Chess suggested.

"Servants are always to be had in London," said Mrs. Mildmay, "times being hard
as they are."

A distant crash within put an end to idle conversation and inspired Mr. Chess to
try the door, which was locked. A thin, inhuman screech from an upper floor sent
him backing hastily down the steps, drawing Mrs. Mildmay, protesting, by the
arm. "This is a matter for the police, dear lady, or perhaps a mad doctor.
Rattler, find a constable."

While Rattler was searching out a member of the constabulary, Mr. Chess
suggested that some tale be agreed on to explain the necessity of breaking into
the town residence of a respectable baronet's widow, but in the event, no
explanation was demanded, for such a screeching and crashing greeted the
constable's advent as to lend considerable weight to Mrs. Mildmay's plea that
the door be forced at once.

With a blow of the constable's truncheon, the lock was broken. He set his broad
shoulder to the door, and, with the help of Mr. Chess and Mr. Rattler, thrust it
open upon a scene of chaos. The rugs had been tumbled about and smeared with
filth. Furniture had been overturned, paintings ripped from the walls, draperies
tom, and a display of native weapons cast down from the wall. The noise had
ceased upon their entrance, and a deathly, listening silence brooded over the
ruined hall.

Mrs. Mildmay was the first of the quartet to regain her presence of mind. She
stepped forward to the foot of the stairs and called: "Margaret, are you there?
It is Caroline Mildmay, with Mr. Chess and a constable. Answer us if you can."

At the sound of her voice, the noise began again, a wild gibbering and
screeching like a soul in torment, and suddenly a figure appeared upon the
gallery above the hall. Mrs. Mildmay at first supposed it to be Lady
Basingstoke, rendered thin and stooped by illness, for it was wrapped in a
voluminous pale dressing-gown. But then the figure tore off the gown, threw it
down upon the pale faces turned up to it, and swung itself from the gallery high
over their heads to the great central chandelier, where it crouched, chattering
angrily.

"It's an ape," said Mr. Chess unnecessarily.

"And a bleedin' 'uge un," said the constable, "beggin' the lady's parding."

But Mrs. Mildmay hardly noticed, for she was examining the creature --which was
indeed one of the great apes that make their homes in the remoter reaches of the
East -- with more dismay than fear. "Why, it's Margaret," she exclaimed. "I'd
know that chin anywhere. Oh, Mr. Chess!"

"Pray calm yourself, Mrs. Mildmay. Mr. Rattler shall alert this rude fellow's
superiors of our predicament so that he may have help in subduing the creature,
after which we may search the house for news of Lady Basingstoke."

"But we have news of Lady Basingstoke, I tell you! Look at her!" Mrs. Mildmay
indicated the ape in the chandelier, whereupon the creature burst into a frenzy
of hooting and bounced furiously up and down.

"Pray, Mrs. Mildmay, don't agitate it, or you'll have it down on our heads.
Perhaps you'd best step outside until it is disposed of. This is no place for a
lady, madam. Let the official gentlemen do their jobs and we'll sort it all out
later."

But Mrs. Mildmay would not have it so, not unless Mr. Chess were to carry her
bodily from the house. They were still arguing the point when the ape gave an
almost human scream of rage and leapt from the chandelier.

Its intention was clearly to land upon Mrs. Mildmay's head, which would
certainly have snapped her neck, given the height of the chandelier and the
weight of the ape. Fortunately, the constable, who had in the interval snatched
a wicked-looking spear from the pile of weapons, cast it at the ape, catching it
squarely in the chest. The ape screamed again and fell to the marble floor with
a terrible thud.

In a moment, Mrs. Mildmay was kneeling beside it, careless of the spreading pool
of blood, examining its leathery paws while Mr. Chess wrung his hands and begged
her for heaven's sake to come away and leave the filthy thing to the
authorities.

"Do be silent, Mr. Chess," said Mrs. Mildmay abstractedly. "I can't find the
ring. We must find it -- don't you see? -- before it does further harm. I made
sure it would be upon her finger, but it is not."

As she commenced gently to feel over the inert body, the ape groaned and opened
its eyes. Mrs. Mildmay's hand flew to her mouth, and at this last extremity, she
was at some trouble to stifle a scream. For the ape's right eye was grey and
filled with pain and fear. And the ape's left eye the ape's left eye was red as
fire, smooth and clouded save for a clear star winking and sliding in its
depths: the Parwat Ruby.

"Poor Margaret," said Mrs. Mildmay, and plucked the stone from the creature's
head. As soon as the ruby was in her hand, the ape was an ape no more, but the
corpse of an elderly woman with a spear in her breast.

As to the aftermath of this terrible story, there is little to say. Soon after
the appearance of the ape, Mr. Rattler crept out the door to the offices of the
sensational paper and thence to the shipping office. Mr. Chess and the constable
together searched the house in Grovesnor Place. Of Mr. Ahmed, no trace was
found, saving a quantity of bloody water in a copper hip-bath and some
well-chewed bones in my lady's bedchamber. In the ruins of Sir Alvord's study,
Mr. Chess discovered some papers that suggested that Lady Basingstoke had
extracted the codicil from the document-box in Mr. Chess' chambers by means into
which he thought it best not to delve too deeply. He thought it likely, also,
that Lady Basingstoke had been instrumental in her husband's death, an opinion
shared by Mrs. Mildmay and her husband, when she told him the story. Yet all
were agreed that Lady Basingstoke, having suffered the most extreme punishment
for her crimes, should not go to her grave with the stigma of murder upon her
name. There was a brief period when no London jeweler could sell any kind of
ruby, even at discounted prices, and no fashionable gathering was complete
without a thorough discussion of the curse, its composition, and effect. But
then came August and grouse-shooting, with house-parties in the country and
cubbing to look forward to, and the nine-day's wonder came to an end.

As for the ruby itself, Mrs. Mildmay wore it on her finger. It was perhaps a
coincidence that Mr. Mildmay's always lively interest in politics soon became
more active, and that he successfully stood for the seat of the borough of
Lessingham Parva for the Liberals. After he became Minister of Home Affairs, he
introduced and forced through the House the famous Poor Law of 18--, which
guaranteed employment to all able-bodied men and women, and a stipend for the
old and helpless. In all his efforts, he was ably seconded by his wife, who
became in her later years a great political hostess and promoter of young and
idealistic Liberal MPs. After her husband's death, at an age when most women are
thinking of retiring to the country, Mrs. Caroline Mildmay mounted an expedition
to the impenetrable forests of Ceylon, from which journey neither she nor the
Parwat Ruby ever returned.