LongForm8_Pearls

Doris M Holden - Writings

Transcripts, manuscript and published versions

Twelve Priceless Pearls

Short Story by Doris M Holden



  The bell in the inner office rang sharply, and Moyra lifted puzzled eyes from her letters. When Mr. Grimshaw commanded to be left undisturbed, he generally meant so, emphatically! Notebook in hand, she opened his door, to stop suddenly at sight of her employer huddled over his desk.

 “Shut that door" barked the old man. “Don't let those fools gape at met" 

Moyra ignoréd the brusque language. Five years as Mr, Grimshaw's secretary had established such a close understanding between them that it was with a catch at her heart she saw his hand pressed to his side. Before she could speak, he had forced an ironic grin. 

"It's got me, Miss Grey, That quack Dickens told me last month another attack might be fatal. Told him to boil his head. Takes more than an appendix to kill me." He bit his lip as the pain caught him, then grinned again. "Here's his number. Tell him to do his worst.” 

Moyra ran to the telephone. Plucky old man! But how stupidly obstinate to have waited so long: The doctor, caught as he was starting out, was with them in no time. 

"Hospital for you at once," he snapped. “Don't blame me either. I warned you weeks ago.” 


"Not going to die yet," jeered the old man, but as the doctor passed out to make arrangements, his face changed. With shaking hand, he beckoned Moyra. 

"You know where all my papers are?" “Yes, Mr. Grimshaw." 

"Carry on till I get back. When they have tidied me up, I'll be game for another twenty years, eh, Miss Grey?" 

“I hope so," said Moyra, her blue eyes troubled. 

Like a bird's, two black ones peered back. “Believe you mean it too. That's queer” He paused, muttering to himself:" Got to trust someone. Don't trust those fools outside. Doctors... nurses... hate ‘em all. Got to trust someone." 

He beckoned her nearer. "D'ye know what I've been collecting these twenty years?" 

"I guessed.”

 “Smart girl!" he approved. “Pearls, my dear, perfect pearls. Twelve of them so far, and twenty years to get. Have you guessed where I keep them?" 

"I know where pearls should be kept." 

Fumblingly he loosened collar and tie. 

“Worn them night and day - night and day for twenty years. Here, put ‘em on,” 

Moyra stood transfixed, the exquisite string in her hands Twelve huge pearls, each a perfect specimen. 

"But," she protested, "but they would be so much safer in the Bank." 

Frenziedly he beat on the desk. 

"Don't talk like a fool! Would you put your child in the Bank? My beauties would die in a dark, cold strong-room. Put'em on, keep ‘em healthy, - and not s word to a soul, mind." 

There was knocking at the door, voices and tramping feet, and Mr. Grimshaw was carried out fearing to the last, at doctors, ambulance men and pain itself. Then silence, and Moyra with a fortune to guard. 

Fearfully she looked round the office. Was it only natural bitterness made him doubt the staff, or was someone planning to steal this treasure? The pearls seemed to burn her throat; her mouth felt dry. 

"Shall we close down early now the boss has gone?" asked a hopeful junior. 

"Why should we?" countered Moyra, coldly, and heard him mutter audibly. 

"Supposing he wants to look for the pearls..." whispered suspicion in Moyra's mind, and disquieting memories arose of people stabbed in the back for jewels. A fierce anger ousted her pity. What right had her employer to saddle her with this responsibility? Already it was poisoning her mind against a boy who might only want to get off to the pictures, To the pictures? 

Why, in the excitement she had forgotten to-night's appointment with Dick. Dear Dick, who waited for her so faithfully each evening ‘put only looked the things he thought. How shyly he had brought out this first invitation, as if it were presumption to ask anyone as clever as Moyra to honour him. 

And now she must put him off. She simply could not sit in the dark wearing these, imagining hands behind waiting to snatch them! 

"I'm terribly sorry," she telephoned. "Yes, I did specially want to see Gary Cooper.... But Mr, Grimshaw's illness... so much to do..." 

She hung up, miserably. Dick's voice had been hurt and puzzled. 

‘A fortune to guard' rang the rhythm of her steps as, coat collar high, she left the empty office, and too late she realised that, thoughts elsewhere, she had mechanically caught her usual train -- hers and Dick's!

 Across the crowded compartment his surprised eyes met hers. Vainly Moyra's signalled back. He had turned away and the straphangers swung between. She blinked away hot tears. The pearls had robbed her of peace of mind; were they to rob her of love too? 

She had waited so long for Dick to speak, wanting his ring on her hand more than all the perfect pearls in the world, and now he would think himself snubbed unforgivably. 

An urgent message took her to the hospital the next day. 

"Mir, Grimshaw's secretary?" enquired an impersonal starched figure. “I regret to tell you that Mr. Grimshaw died this afternoon. He left a message to be given to you personally.” 

Moyra, her eyes blurred with pity for the queer, obstinate man, took the -pencilled scrawl: "Take to Cripps at Portsmouth. Don't trust my niece." 

Cripps? Memories rose of insulting letters, gleefully dictated, and of even more insulting replies masking, she knew, a real and life-long friendship. She would wire at once. If the pearls could be handed over tomorrow, she could meet Dick and explain. Vain hope! A week passed before a casual note:"Been Paris. Come Saturday" arrived to lift the strain.

 A week of winding-up, accounts, telephone calls; a difficult interview with Mr. Grimshaw's lawyer, and a worse one with his niece, a hard-faced woman scenting the pearls, whose coarse insinuations left Moyra shaken. A week of avoiding Dick, lest the stupid secret should come between them. 

"A few hours more and I'm free!" she sighed, booking for the Portsmouth train, and then, with intense conviction, knew herself watched. Someone knew; someone had waited for this move to follow her. Her heart thumped, as she turned abruptly. Was it fancy or did a man in a black hat dodge back? 

She chose a corner seat and, watching the platform, saw the man slowly pass. His eyes rested on her, coolly staring and instinctively Mayra drew her collar closer. He smiled, as if satisfied, and Moyra bit her lip. That stupid gesture! Hadn't it as good as told him she was hiding something? She huddled in her corner, desperately afraid. The week's worry had culminated in a fit of panic, in which visions of robbery and murder rose unasked. 


Across her thoughts broke a high-pitched voice: 

"Why, Miss Grey, are you off to Portsmouth too? How strange!" 

At the corridor door stood the tall figure of Mr. Grimshaw's niece, and over her shoulder the man in the black hat smiled sardonically. 

“My husband and I are going down to see a friend of my uncle's. We can keep you company. Sit down, Maurice.” 

She swooped to Moyra's side and, without a word, Maurice slumped into the seat opposite. "They can't do a thing here," thought Moyra, grateful for the countrywoman sitting square in the further corner, and forced a light reply. 

Guildford. The countrywoman climbed slowly out, while Moyra's thoughts cried:'Hurry, hurry, or no one else will get in.‘ From his corner Maurice gazed meditatively at her throat. Then, with a rush, a family party tumbled in,and the woman at Moyra's sidé drew in her breath sharply. 

The wheels ticked on. “I'm safe to Portsmouth,"thought Moyra, “but what then?” If they offered to drive her to her destination, could she slip them? Could she get there first? She looked up suddenly; Maurice's newspaper moved and she knew he still watched her. 

Portsmouth Town. If she jumped out quickly...? She reached for the door handle, but Maurice's hand was there first, his smooth voice saying:"Allow me", and the way was barred. He had stepped to the platform and stretched a hand to Moyra when it was suddenly flung aside, a cheerful voice cried: “Cousin Moyra. Eh, but it's fine to see you!" and two strangely familiar eyes twinkled at her. 

"Dick"! she breathed, as his arms enclasped her, but his head bent lower. 

“I'm Cousin Henry of Portsmouth. Play up." Then, louder, 

‘Mother is longing to see you, Come on, the car is outside!”

 In a rush she was swept down the platform, across the yard and into a taxi. Through the streets it raced to a quiet house where, behind locked doors, the old man's friend received the shining globes with tender fingers.

 "He loved pearls too," said Moyra later, seated in the London-bound train. "I understand now why he had to have them. But I still don't see how you knew about them," 

Dick threw back his head and laughed. “How I knew? When you walked as if pickpockets were after you? When you huddled your coat up instead of throwing it open? Why, I could see a mile off you were guarding a secret that worried you to death, so I just hung round, and when you struck off for Waterloo I drifted that way too." 

"You were on the train all the time?" "In the corridor. Nasty looking pair, those two. I'd have given him a sock on the jaw if he had interfered with you." 

Moyra looked at him in wonder. 

“What has come over you, Dick? You were always so shy, almost afraid...” 

"I was, my dear ~~ dead scared of you. You were so terribly competent, the complete secretary! But I'm not scared of Little Cousin Moyra, who fell out all of a tremble, and she is not going back on what she said to Cousin Henry, either.” 

"What did she say?" demanded Moyra. 

“Take care of me, darling!' And she is going to say it again." 

With great decision Dick pulled down the blind in the face of an astonished passenger from Godalming. 



The original manuscript, this does not appear to have been published or submitted for publication:

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