Chapter 1

Mr. Joe Lewinstein slouched to one of the long windows which gave
light to his magnificent drawing-room and stared gloomily across the
lawn.

The beds of geraniums and lobelias were half-obscured by a driving
mist of rain, and the well-kept lawns that were the pride of his many
gardeners were sodden and, in places, under water.

“Of course it had to rain to-day,” he said bitterly.

His large and comfortable wife looked up over her glasses.

“Why, Joe,” she said, “what’s the good of grousing? They haven’t come
down for an al fresco fête; they’ve come down for the dance and the
shooting, and anything else they can get out of us.”

“Oh, shut up, Miriam,” said Mr. Lewinstein irritably; “what does it
matter what they’re coming for? It’s what I want them for myself. You
don’t suppose I’ve risen from what I was to my present position
without learning anything, do you?” Mr. Lewinstein was fond of
referring to his almost meteoric rise in the world of high finance, if
not in the corresponding world of society. And, to do him justice, it
must be added that such companies as he had promoted, and they were
many, had been run on the most straightforward lines, nor had he, to
use his own words, risked the money of the “widows and orphans.” At
least, not unnecessarily.

“It’s knowing the right kind of people,” he continued, “and doing them
the right kind of turns that counts. It’s easier to make your second
million than your first, and I’m going to make it, Miriam,” he added,
with grim determination. “I’m going to make it, and I’m not sticking
at a few thousands in the way of expenses!”

A housewifely fear lest their entertainment that night was going to
cost them thousands floated through Mrs. Lewinstein’s mind, but she
said nothing.

“I’ll bet they’ve never seen a ball like ours is to-night,” her
husband continued with satisfaction, as he turned his back on the
window and came slowly towards his partner, “and the company will be
worth it, Miriam, you believe me. Everybody who’s anybody in the city
is coming. There’ll be more jewels here to-night than even I could
buy.”

His wife put down her paper with an impatient gesture.

“That’s what I’m thinking about,” she said. “I hope you know what
you’re doing. It’s a big responsibility.”

“What do you mean by responsibility?” asked Joe Lewinstein.

“All this loose money lying about,” said his wife. “Don’t you read the
paper? Don’t any of your friends tell you?”

Mr. Lewinstein burst into a peal of husky laughter.

“Oh, I know what’s biting you,” he said. “You’re thinking of Four
Square Jane.”

“Four Square Jane!” said the acid Mrs. Lewinstein. “I’d give her Four
Square Jane if I had her in this house!”

“She’s no common burglar,” said Mr. Lewinstein shaking his head,
whether in admonition or admiration it was difficult to say. “My
friend, Lord Belchester--my friend, Lord Belchester, told me it was an
absolute mystery how his wife lost those emeralds of hers. He was very
worried about it, was Belchester. He took about half the money he made
out of Consolidated Grains to buy those emeralds, and they were lost
about a month after he bought them. He thinks that the thief was one
of his guests.”

“Why do they call her Four Square Jane?” asked Mrs. Lewinstein
curiously.

Her husband shrugged his shoulders.

“She always leaves a certain mark behind her, a sort of printed label
with four squares, and the letter J in the middle,” he said. “It was
the police who called her Jane, and somehow the name has stuck.”

His wife picked up the paper and put it down again, looking
thoughtfully into the fire.

“And you’re bringing all these people down here to stop the night, and
you’re talking about them being loaded up with jewellery! You’ve got a
nerve, Joe.”

Mr. Lewinstein chuckled.

“I’ve got a detective, too,” he said. “I’ve asked Ross, who has the
biggest private detective agency in London, to send me his best
woman.”

“Goodness gracious,” said the dismayed Mrs. Lewinstein, “you’re not
having a woman here?”

“Yes, I am. She’s a lady, apparently one of the best girls Ross has
got. He told me that in cases like this it’s much less noticeable to
have a lady detective among the guests than a man. I told her to be
here at seven.”

Undoubtedly the Lewinstein’s house-party was the most impressive
affair that the county had seen. His guests were to arrive by a
special train from London and were to be met at the station by a small
fleet of motor cars, which he had pressed to his service from all
available sources. His own car was waiting at the door ready to take
him to the station to meet his “special” when a servant brought him a
card.

“Miss Caroline Smith,” he read. On the corner was the name of the Ross
Detective Agency.

“Tell the young lady I’ll see her in the library.”

He found her waiting for him. A personable, pretty girl, with
remarkably shrewd and clever eyes that beamed behind rimless glasses
and a veil, she met him with an elusive smile that came and went like
sunshine on a wintry day.

“So you’re a lady detective, eh?” said Lewinstein with ponderous good
humour; “you look young.”

“Why, yes,” said the girl, “even way home, where youth isn’t any
handicap, I’m looked upon as being a trifle under the limit.”

“Oh, you’re from America, are you?” said Mr. Lewinstein interested.

The girl nodded.

“This is my first work in England, and naturally I am rather nervous.”

She had a pleasant voice, a soft drawl, which suggested to Mr.
Lewinstein, who had spent some years on the other side, that she came
from one of the Southern States.

“Well, I suppose you pretty well know your duties in the game to
suppress this Four Square woman.”

She nodded.

“That may be a pretty tough proposition. You’ll give me leave to go
where I like, and do practically what I like, won’t you? That is
essential.”

“Certainly,” said Mr. Lewinstein; “you will dine with us as our
guest?”

“No, that doesn’t work,” she replied. “The time I ought to be looking
round and taking notice, my attention is wholly absorbed by the man
who is taking me down to dinner and wants my views on prohibition.

“So, if you please, I’d like the whole run of your house. I can be
your young cousin, Miranda, from the high mountains of New Jersey.
What about your servants?”

“I can trust them with my life,” said Mr. Lewinstein.

She looked at him with a half-twinkle in her eyes.

“Can you tell me anything about this she-Raffles?” she asked.

“Nothing,” said her host, “except that she is one of these society
swells who frequent such--well, such parties as I am giving to-night.
There will be a lot of ladies here--some of the best in the land--that
is what makes it so difficult. As likely as not she will be one of
them.”

“Would you trust them all with your life?” she asked mischievously,
and then going on: “I think I know your Four Square woman. Mind,” she
raised her hand, “I’m not going to say that I shall discover her
here.”

“I hope to goodness you don’t,” said Joe heartily.

“Or if I do find her I’m going to denounce her. Perhaps you can tell
me something else about her.”

Mr. Lewinstein shook his head.

“The only thing I know is that when she’s made a haul, she usually
leaves behind a mark.”

“That I know,” said the girl nodding. “She does that in order that
suspicion shall not fall upon the servants.”

The girl thought a moment, tapping her teeth with a pencil, then she
said:

“Whatever I do, Mr. Lewinstein, you must not regard as remarkable. I
have set my mind on capturing Four Square Jane, and starting my career
in England with a big flourish of silver trumpets.” She smiled so
charmingly that Mrs. Lewinstein in the doorway raised her eyebrows.

“It is time you were going, Joseph,” she said severely. “What am I to
do with this young woman?”

“Let somebody show her her room,” said the temporarily flustered Mr.
Lewinstein, and hurried out to the waiting car.

Mrs. Lewinstein rang the bell. She had no interest in detectives,
especially pretty detectives of twenty-three.

Adchester Manor House was a large establishment, but it was packed to
its utmost capacity to accommodate the guests who arrived that night.

All Mrs. Lewinstein had said--that these pretty women and amusing men
had been lured into Buckinghamshire with a lively hope of favours to
come--might be true. Joe Lewinstein was not only a power in the City,
with the control of four great corporations, but the Lewinstein
interests stretched from Colorado to Vladivostock.

It was a particularly brilliant party which sat down to dinner that
night, and if Mr. Lewinstein swelled a little with pride, that pride
was certainly justified. On his right sat Lady Ovingham, a thin woman
with the prettiness that consists chiefly in huge appealing eyes and
an almost alarming pallor of skin. Her appearance greatly belied her
character, for she was an unusually able business woman, and had
partnered Mr. Lewinstein in some of his safer speculations. An arm
covered from wrist to elbow with diamond bracelets testified to the
success of these ventures in finance, for Lady Ovingham had a way of
investing her money in diamonds, for she knew that these stones would
not suddenly depreciate in value.

The conversation was animated and, in many cases, hilarious, for Mr.
Lewinstein had mixed his guests as carefully as his butler had mixed
the cocktails, and both things helped materially towards the success
of the evening.

It was towards the end of the dinner that the first disagreeable
incident occurred. His butler leant over him, ostensibly to pour out a
glass of wine, and whispered:

“That young lady that came this afternoon, sir, has been taken ill.”

“Ill!” said Mr. Lewinstein in dismay. “What happened?”

“She complained of a bad headache, was seized with tremblings, and had
to be taken up to her room,” said the butler in a low voice.

“Send into the village for the doctor.”

“I did, sir,” said the man, “but the doctor had been called away to
London on an important consultation.”

Mr. Lewinstein frowned. Then a little gleam of relief came to him. The
detective had asked him not to be alarmed at anything that might
happen. Possibly this was a ruse for her own purpose. She ought to
have told him though, he complained to himself.

“Very good, wait till dinner is over,” he said.

When that function was finished, and the guests had reached the coffee
and cigarette stage before entering the big ballroom or retiring to
their cards, Mr. Lewinstein climbed to the third floor to the tiny
bedroom which had been allocated by his lady wife as being adequate
for a lady detective.

He knocked at the door.

“Come in,” said a faint voice.

The girl was lying on the bed, covered with an eiderdown quilt, and
she was shivering.

“Don’t touch me,” she said. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me
even.”

“Good Lord!” said Mr. Lewinstein in dismay, “you’re not really ill,
are you?”

“I’m afraid so; I’m awfully sorry. I don’t know what has happened to
me, and I have a feeling that my illness is not wholly accidental. I
was feeling well until I had a cup of tea, which was brought to my
room, when suddenly I was taken with these shivers. Can you get me a
doctor?”

“I’ll do my best,” said Mr. Lewinstein, for he had a kindly heart.

He went downstairs a somewhat anxious man. If, as the girl seemed to
suggest, she had been doped, that presupposed the presence in the
house either of Four Square Jane or one of her working partners. He
reached the hall to find the butler waiting.

“Excuse me, sir,” said the butler, “but rather a fortunate thing has
happened. A gentleman who has run short of petrol came up to the house
to borrow a supply----”

“Well?” said Mr. Lewinstein.

“Well, sir, he happens to be a doctor,” said the butler. “I asked him
to see you, sir.”

“Fine,” said Mr. Lewinstein enthusiastically, “that’s a good idea of
yours. Bring him into the library.”

The stranded motorist, a tall young man, came in full of apologies.

“I say, it’s awfully good of you to let me have this juice,” he said.
“The fact is, my silly ass of a man packed me two empty tins.”

“Delighted to help you, doctor,” said Mr. Lewinstein genially; “and
now perhaps you can help me.”

The young man looked at the other suspiciously.

“You haven’t anybody ill, have you?” he asked, “I promised my partner
I wouldn’t look at a patient for three months. You see,” he explained,
“I’ve had rather a heavy time lately, and I’m a bit run down.”

“You’d be doing us a real kindness if you’d look at this young lady,”
said Mr. Lewinstein earnestly. “I don’t know what to make of her,
doctor.”

“Setheridge is my name,” said the doctor. “All right, I’ll look at
your patient. It was ungracious of me to pull a face I suppose. Where
is she? Is she one of your guests by the way? I seem to have butted in
on a party.”

“Not exactly,” Mr. Lewinstein hesitated, “she is--er--a visitor.”

He led the way up to the room, and the young man walked in and looked
at the shivering girl with the easy confident smile of the experienced
practitioner.

“Hullo,” he said, “what’s the matter with you?”

He took her wrist in his hand and looked at his watch, and Mr.
Lewinstein, standing in the open doorway, saw him frown. He bent down
and examined the eyes, then pulled up the sleeve of his patient’s
dress and whistled.

“Is it serious?” she asked anxiously.

“Not very, if you are taken care of; though you may lose some of that
hair,” he said, with a smile at the brown mop on the pillow.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Scarlet fever, my young friend.”

“Scarlet fever!” It was Mr. Lewinstein who gasped the words. “You
don’t mean that?”

The doctor walked out and joined him on the landing, closing the door
behind him.

“It’s scarlet fever, all right. Have you any idea where she was
infected?”

“Scarlet fever,” moaned Mr. Lewinstein; “and I’ve got the house full
of aristocracy!”

“Well, the best thing you can do is to keep the aristocracy in
ignorance of the fact. Get the girl out of the house.”

“But how? How?” wailed Mr. Lewinstein.

The doctor scratched his head.

“Of course, I don’t want to do it,” he said slowly; “but I can’t very
well leave a girl in a mess like this. May I use your telephone?”

“Certainly, use anything you like; but, for goodness’ sake, get the
girl away!”

Mr. Lewinstein showed him the library, where the young man called up a
number and gave some instructions. Apparently his telephone interview
was satisfactory, for he came back to the hall, where Mr. Lewinstein
was nervously drumming his fingers on the polished surface of a table,
with a smile.

“I can get an ambulance out here, but not before three in the
morning,” he said; “anyway, that will suit us, because your guests
will be abed and asleep by then, and most of the servants also, I
suppose. And we can get her out without anybody being the wiser.”

“I’m awfully obliged to you, doctor,” said Mr. Lewinstein, “anything
you like to charge me----”

The doctor waved fees out of consideration.

Then a thought occurred to Mr. Lewinstein.

“Doctor, could that disease be communicated to the girl by means of a
drug, or anything?”

“Why do you ask?” said the other quickly.

“Well, because she was all right till she had a cup of tea. I must
take you into my confidence,” he said, lowering his voice. “She is a
detective, brought down here to look after my guests. There have been
a number of robberies committed lately by a woman who calls herself
‘Four Square Jane,’ and, to be on the safe side, I had this girl down
to protect the property of my friends. When I saw her before dinner
she was as well as you or I; then a cup of tea was given to her, and
immediately she had these shiverings.”

The doctor nodded thoughtfully.

“It is curious you should say that,” he said; “for though she has the
symptoms of scarlet fever, she has others which are not usually to be
found in scarlet fever cases. Do you suggest that this woman, this
Four Square person, is in the house?”

“Either she or her agent,” said Mr. Lewinstein. “She has several
people who work with her by all accounts.”

“And you believe that she has given this girl a drug to put her out of
the way?”

“That’s my idea.”

“By jove!” said the young man, “that’s rather a scheme. Well, anyway,
there will be plenty of people knocking about to-night, so your guests
will be safe for to-night.”

The girl had been housed in the servants’ wing, but fortunately in a
room isolated from all the others. Mr. Lewinstein made several trips
upstairs during the course of the evening, saw through the open door
the doctor sitting by the side of the bed, and was content. His guests
retired towards one o’clock and the agitated Mrs. Lewinstein, to whom
the news of the catastrophe had been imparted, having been
successfully induced to go to bed, Mr. Lewinstein breathed more
freely.

At half-past one he made his third visit to the door of the sick room,
for he, himself, was not without dread of infection, and saw through
the open door the doctor sitting reading a book near the head of the
bed.

He stole quietly down, so quietly that he almost surprised a slim
figure that was stealing along the darkened corridor whence opened the
bedrooms of the principal guests.

She flattened herself into a recess, and he passed her so closely that
she could have touched him. She waited until he had disappeared, and
then crossed to one of the doors and felt gingerly at the key-hole.
The occupant had made the mistake of locking the door and taking out
the key, and in a second she had inserted one of her own, and softly
turning it, had tip-toed into the room.

She stood listening; there was a steady breathing, and she made her
way to the dressing-table, where her deft fingers began a rapid but
silent search. Presently she found what she wanted, a smooth leather
case, and shook it gently. She was not a minute in the room before she
was out again, closing the door softly behind her.

She had half-opened the next door before she saw that there was a
light in the room and she stood motionless in the shadow of the
doorway. On the far side of the bed the little table-lamp was still
burning, and it would, she reflected, have helped her a great deal, if
only she could have been sure that the person who was lying among the
frilled pillows of the bed was really asleep. She waited rigid, and
with all her senses alert for five minutes, till the sound of regular
breathing from the bed reassured her. Then she slipped forward to the
dressing-table. Here, her task was easy. No less than a dozen little
velvet and leather cases lay strewn on the silk cover. She opened them
noiselessly one by one, and put their glittering contents into her
pocket, leaving the cases as they had been.

As she was handling the last of the jewels a thought struck her, and
she peered more closely at the sleeping figure. A thin pretty woman,
it seemed in the half-light. So this was the businesslike Lady
Ovingham. She left the room as noiselessly as she had entered it, and
more quickly, and tried the next door in the passage.

This one had not been locked.

It was Mrs. Lewinstein’s own room, but she was not sleeping quietly.
The door had been left open for her lord, who had made a promise to
see his wife to make arrangements for the morrow. This promise he had
quite forgotten in his perturbation. There was a little safe let into
the wall, and the keys were hanging in the lock; for Mr. Lewinstein,
who, being a prudent, careful man, was in the habit of depositing his
diamond studs every night.

The girl’s fingers went into the interior of the safe, and presently
she found what she wanted. Mrs. Lewinstein stopped breathing heavily,
grunted, and turned, and the girl stood stock-still. Presently the
snoring recommenced, and she stole out into the corridor.

As she closed each door she stopped only long enough to press a small
label against the surface of the handle before she passed on to the
next room.

Downstairs in the library, Mr. Lewinstein heard the soft purr of a
motor car, and rose with a sigh of relief. Only his butler had been
let into the secret, and that sleepy retainer, who was dozing in one
of the hall chairs, heard the sound with as great relief as his
employer. He opened the big front door.

Outside was a motor-ambulance from which two men had descended. They
pulled out a stretcher and a bundle of blankets, and made their way
into the hall.

“I will show you the way,” said Mr. Lewinstein. “You will make as
little noise as possible, please.”

He led the procession up the carpeted stairs, and came at last to the
girl’s room.

“Oh, here you are,” said the doctor, yawning. “Set the stretcher by
the side of the bed. You had better stand away some distance, Mr.
Lewinstein,” he said, and that gentleman obeyed with alacrity.

Presently the door opened and the stretcher came out, bearing the
blanket-enveloped figure of the girl, her face just visible, and she
favoured Mr. Lewinstein with a pathetic smile as she passed.

The stairs were negotiated without any difficulty by the attendants,
and carefully the stretcher was pushed into the interior of the
ambulance.

“That’s all right,” said the doctor; “if I were you I would have that
bedroom locked up and fumigated to-morrow.”

“I’m awfully obliged to you, doctor. If you will give me your address
I would like to send you a cheque.”

“Oh, rubbish,” said the other cheerfully, “I am only too happy to
serve you. I will go into the village to pick up my car and get back
to town myself.”

“Where will you take this young woman?” asked Mr. Lewinstein.

“To the County Fever Hospital,” replied the other carelessly. “That’s
where you’re taking her, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir,” said one of the attendants.

Mr. Lewinstein waited on the steps until the red lights of the car had
disappeared, then stepped inside with the sense of having managed a
very difficult situation rather well.

“That will do for the night,” he said to the butler. “Thank you for
waiting up.”

He found himself walking, with a little smile on his lips, along the
corridor to his own room.

As he was passing his wife’s door he stumbled over something.
Stooping, he picked up a case. There was an electric switch close by,
and he flooded the corridor with light.

“Jumping Moses!” he gasped, for the thing he held in his hand was his
wife’s jewel case.

He made a run for her door, and was just gripping the handle, when the
label there caught his eye, and he stared in hopeless bewilderment at
the sign of Four Square Jane.

* * * * *

An ambulance stopped at a cross-road, where a big car was waiting, and
the patient, who had long since thrown off her blankets, came out. She
pulled after her a heavy bag, which one of the two attendants lifted
for her and placed in the car. The doctor was sitting at the wheel.

“I was afraid I was going to keep you waiting,” he said. “I only just
got here in time.”

He turned to the attendant.

“I shall see you to-morrow, Jack.”

“Yes, doctor,” replied the other.

He touched his hat to Four Square Jane, and walked back to the
ambulance, waiting only to change the number plates before he drove
away in the opposite direction to London.

“Are you ready?” asked the doctor.

“Quite ready,” said the girl, dropping in by his side. “You were late,
Jim. I nearly pulled a real fit when I heard they’d sent for the local
sawbones.”

“You needn’t have worried,” said the man at the wheel, as he started
the car forward. “I got a pal to wire calling him to London. Did you
get the stuff?”

“Yards of it,” said Four Square Jane laconically. “There will be some
sad hearts in Lewinstein’s house to-morrow.”

He smiled.

“By the way,” she said, “that lady detective Ross sent, how far did
she get?”

“As far as the station,” said the doctor, “which reminds me that I
forgot to let her out of the garage where I locked her.”

“Let her stay,” said Four Square Jane. “I hate the idea of
she-detectives, anyway--it’s so unwomanly.”