The Little Nugget

Cynthia laughed.

'Oh well,' she said, 'I only talked that mother's love stuff because you looked the sort of girl who would like it. We can drop all that now, and come down to business.'

'I don't understand you.'

'You will. I don't know if you think that I kidnapped Ogden from sheer affection for Mrs Ford. I like Nesta, but not as much as that. No. I'm one of the Get-Rich-Quick-Wallingfords, and I'm looking out for myself all the time. There's no one else to do it for me. I've a beastly home. My father's dead. My mother's a cat. So—'

'Please stop,' said Mrs Sheridan. I don't know why you are telling me all this.'

'Yes, you do. I don't know what salary Mr Ford pays you, but I don't suppose it's anything princely. Why don't you come over to us? Mrs Ford would give you the earth if you smuggled Ogden back to her.'

'You seem to be trying to bribe me,' said Mrs Sheridan.

'In this case,' said Cynthia, 'appearances aren't deceptive. I am.'

'Good afternoon.'

'Don't be a little fool.'

The door slammed.

'Come back!' cried Cynthia. She took a step as if to follow, but gave up the idea with a laugh. She sat down and began to read her illustrated paper again. Presently the bedroom door opened. Mrs Ford came in. She touched her eyes with a handkerchief as she entered. Cynthia looked up.

'I'm very sorry, Nesta,' she said.

Mrs Ford went to the window and looked out.

'I'm not going to break down, if that's what you mean,' she said. 'I don't care. And, anyhow, it shows that it can be done.'

Cynthia turned a page of her paper.

'I've just been trying my hand at bribery and corruption.'

'What do you mean?'

'Oh, I promised and vowed many things in your name to that secretary person, the female one—not Mennick—if she would help us. Nothing doing. I told her to let us have Ogden as soon as possible, C.O.D., and she withered me with a glance and went.'

Mrs Ford shrugged her shoulders impatiently.

'Oh, let her go. I'm sick of amateurs.'

'Thank you, dear,' said Cynthia.

'Oh, I know you did your best. For an amateur you did wonderfully well. But amateurs never really succeed. There were a dozen little easy precautions which we neglected to take. What we want is a professional; a man whose business is kidnapping; the sort of man who kidnaps as a matter of course; someone like Smooth Sam Fisher.'

'My dear Nesta! Who? I don't think I know the gentleman.'

'He tried to kidnap Ogden in 1906, when we were in New York. At least, the police put it down to him, though they could prove nothing. Then there was a horrible man, the police said he was called Buck MacGinnis. He tried in 1907. That was in Chicago.'

'Good gracious! Kidnapping Ogden seems to be as popular as football. And I thought I was a pioneer!'

Something approaching pride came into Mrs Ford's voice.

'I don't suppose there's a child in America,' she said, 'who has had to be so carefully guarded. Why, the kidnappers had a special name for him—they called him “The Little Nugget”. For years we never allowed him out of our sight without a detective to watch him.'

'Well, Mr Ford seems to have changed all that now. I saw no detectives. I suppose he thinks they aren't necessary in England. Or perhaps he relied on Mr Broster. Poor Reggie!'

'It was criminally careless of him. This will be a lesson to him. He will be more careful in future how he leaves Ogden at the mercy of anybody who cares to come along and snap him up.'

'Which, incidentally, does not make your chance of getting him away any lighter.'

'Oh, I've given up hope now,' said Mrs Ford resignedly.

'I haven't,' said Cynthia.

There was something in her voice which made her companion turn sharply and look at her. Mrs Ford might affect to be resigned, but she was a woman of determination, and if the recent reverse had left her bruised, it had by no means crushed her.

'Cynthia! What do you mean? What are you hinting?'

'You despise amateurs, Nesta, but, for all that, it seems that your professionals who kidnap as a matter of course and all the rest of it have not been a bit more successful. It was not my want of experience that made me fail. It was my sex. This is man's work. If I had been a man, I should at least have had brute force to fall back upon when Mr Mennick arrived.'

Mrs Ford nodded.

'Yes, but—'

'And,' continued Cynthia, 'as all these Smooth Sam Fishers of yours have failed too, it is obvious that the only way to kidnap Ogden is from within. We must have some man working for us in the enemy's camp.'

'Which is impossible,' said Mrs Ford dejectedly.

'Not at all.'

'You know a man?'

'I know the man.'

'Cynthia! What do you mean? Who is he?'

'His name is Peter Burns.'

Mrs Ford shook her head.

'I don't know him.'

'I'll introduce you. You'll like him.'

'But, Cynthia, how do you know he would be willing to help us?'

'He would do it for me,' Cynthia paused. 'You see,' she went on, 'we are engaged to be married.'

'My dear Cynthia! Why did you not tell me? When did it happen?'

'Last night at the Fletchers' dance.'

Mrs Ford's eyes opened.

'Last night! Were you at a dance last night? And two railway journeys today! You must be tired to death.'

'Oh, I'm all right, thanks. I suppose I shall be a wreck and not fit to be seen tomorrow, but just at present I feel as if nothing could tire me. It's the effect of being engaged, perhaps.'

'Tell me about him.'

'Well, he's rich, and good-looking, and amiable'—Cynthia ticked off these qualities on her fingers—'and I think he's brave, and he's certainly not so stupid as Mr Broster.'

'And you're very much in love with him?'

'I like him. There's no harm in Peter.'

'You certainly aren't wildly enthusiastic!'

'Oh, we shall hit it off quite well together. I needn't pose to you, Nesta, thank goodness! That's one reason why I'm fond of you. You know how I am situated. I've got to marry some one rich, and Peter's quite the nicest rich man I've ever met. He's really wonderfully unselfish. I can't understand it. With his money, you would expect him to be a perfect horror.'

A thought seemed to strike Mrs Ford.

'But, if he's so rich—' she began. 'I forget what I was going to say,' she broke off.

'Dear Nesta, I know what you were going to say. If he's so rich, why should he be marrying me, when he could take his pick of half London? Well, I'll tell you. He's marrying me for one reason, because he's sorry for me: for another, because I had the sense to make him. He didn't think he was going to marry anyone. A few years ago he had a disappointment. A girl jilted him. She must have been a fool. He thought he was going to live the rest of his life alone with his broken heart. I didn't mean to allow that. It's taken a long time—over two years, from start to finish—but I've done it. He's a sentimentalist. I worked on his sympathy, and last night I made him propose to me at the Fletchers' dance.'

Mrs Ford had not listened to these confidences unmoved. Several times she had tried to interrupt, but had been brushed aside. Now she spoke sharply.

'You know I was not going to say anything of the kind. And I don't think you should speak in this horrible, cynical way of—of—'

She stopped, flushing. There were moments when she hated Cynthia. These occurred for the most part when the latter, as now, stirred her to an exhibition of honest feeling which she looked on as rather unbecoming. Mrs Ford had spent twenty years trying to forget that her husband had married her from behind the counter of a general store in an Illinois village, and these lapses into the uncultivated genuineness of her girlhood made her uncomfortable.