LADY FREDERICK’S DIAMONDS.
I, Arnold Blake, have had a queer up-and-down, checkered sort of life, and until I was nearing my fortieth year, was most persistently down in my luck. First, it was in Mexico that I tried my fortune, and failed. Then, tempted by an enthusiastic friend, I went to Genoa and set up there in partnership with him as a merchant. The life was a very healthy and happy one, but not what any one could call profitable, from a pecuniary point of view—in fact, quite the reverse. After a few years, finding it impossible, with both ends stretched to the uttermost, to make them meet, we gave that up; and I moved on to Nice, where I had two or three substantial friends. There, things took a turn for the better, and I gradually formed a niche for myself, in time becoming quite an authority in my own small circle. Then, acting on good advice, I started a branch bank in connection with a well-known one in London. This answered fairly well; I had just as much work as I cared to do, was able to pay my expenses, and had even begun to lay by a little hoard against the proverbial ‘rainy-day.’ Nice was a gay, bright town to live in, and I constantly met old friends, and made many pleasant new ones, who were passing through to the South, or spending two or three months there, or at Monte Carlo, for the fascinating pleasure of either losing their own money, or making a tidy little fortune out of somebody else’s pocket.
One afternoon, I was sitting in my small counting-house, writing for the English mail, when the door opened, and in came an old acquaintance, Sir Frederick O’Connor, with a parcel in his hand. ‘How d’ye do, Blake?’ said he cheerily. ‘I’ve come to you to get me out of a difficulty. These are my wife’s jewels. Why she has brought them with her, family diamonds and all, passes my understanding. I call it insane! Fact is I don’t relish the idea of waking up some fine morning to find my throat cut! I want to know if you will be so good as to keep them in your safe while we are here. Whenever Lady O’Connor wishes to dazzle her friends with them, I can easily come round and ask you for what she wants.’
Naturally, I willingly consented to find a corner for the jewels; and after I had taken an inventory of them, Sir Frederick himself placed them in an inner compartment, and I locked the door. I little thought what a dance those confounded diamonds should lead me!
A few days after this, at a large garden-party I met Lady O’Connor, young, pretty, and happy-looking. She shook hands cordially, expressed pleasure at meeting again, and asked if I thought the season would be a gay one. ‘By-the-by,’ she said, ‘it is very kind of you, Mr Blake, to take care of my valuables. Sir Frederick was quite in despair about them, until a happy thought suggested you as their protector. I am going to trouble you for some of them to-morrow. Fred will call for them; and do not be surprised if you see him bristling with bowie-knives and revolvers, for he has a fixed idea that the Nice ruffian has a keener nose for other people’s property than any other ruffian in the world.’
I answered that her lovely jewels were worthy of an escort armed to the teeth, and that I was very glad indeed to be of use to Sir Frederick and herself in any way.
The morning after this garden-party—it must have been about half-past four or five—my sleepy senses were completely scattered by my door being thrown violently open, and Roscoe, my combined valet and commissionaire, a quiet and respectful treasure, landing beside me as if shot out of a catapult. I knew at once that something very dreadful must have happened. Roscoe’s face of horror and despair would have made a valuable study for an artist.
‘Get up, sir, at once, and come down to the office. The safe has been broken open, and cleaned out, sir, quite empty!’ gasped Roscoe breathlessly, pale with excitement.
I cannot recollect what followed during the few minutes in which I hurriedly dressed, and Roscoe is far too considerate to have ever reminded me of that short scene. The first thing I do remember is, finding myself in my office, clothed in a sketchy and uncomfortable manner, the victim of one of the most audacious burglaries that had taken place in Nice for a very long time. I stood gazing at my ransacked safe and rummaged drawers, and at the floor, strewn with papers, among which, here and there, I noticed a few gold pieces, which seemed as if the robbers had been interrupted or startled in some way or other. I was afraid to move from the spot on which I stood until the detective, whom I had sent Roscoe off in a fiacre to fetch, should arrive, lest I might unwittingly destroy some small but important piece of evidence, which his experienced eyes would discover at a glance. In a very short time he appeared, and after a friendly word or two, commenced his investigations. He carefully examined the safe, the window, and the door. Nothing seemed to escape him. He took voluminous notes; measured a footmark which he discovered on the floor; but the footmark on further inquiry was found to be his own, which rather put him out.
I told him of the jewels which had been placed in my care so lately.
‘Your man informed me, monsieur, as we came, that you had diamonds of great value in your iron safe.’
A clammy dew broke out suddenly on my forehead, as I remembered that Lady O’Connor was counting on appearing in those same jewels at the prefecture ball that night.
‘On the strength of what your servant told me, monsieur,’ continued the detective, ‘I have already telegraphed to Marseilles, Genoa, and Turin, and have directed some of my most trustworthy men to be on the alert at the railway station and the port. I will send and let monsieur know the moment we get any trace of the stolen property.’
I made out a careful list of all I had lost, gave it to the detective, and then returned to my rooms to dress in a rather less superficial manner. The awful business of breaking the loss of the jewels to Sir Frederick and Lady O’Connor was now staring me in the face, and as I walked to their hotel I became a prey to the most paralysing nervousness I hope it will ever be my lot to endure. I was shown into a charming sitting-room, facing the sea, and though I did not look at anything round me, except the two people I had come to see, I remembered afterwards every detail of the scene.
They were at breakfast. The refreshing, sun-warmed morning air breathed softly in through the open window, scented by the mignonette, which grew thickly in boxes on the balcony outside. Lady O’Connor looked very graceful and pretty in a long loose gown of some soft Indian silk, trimmed with lace. Sir Frederick, also in comfortable unconventional garments, was reading aloud a letter, over which they were both laughing merrily as I was announced. They welcomed me warmly, looking as if early and unexpected visitors were quite a common occurrence, and between them, carried on the usual preliminary chit-chat about the lovely weather, the delight of being able to breakfast with the window open in the month of November, the view, &c., as long as the servant remained in the room, while I stood looking from one to the other, solemnly bowing my head in silent answer to their cheerful remarks. It is not necessary to relate what passed; suffice it to say that both Sir Frederick and Lady O’Connor possessed an unusual share of kindness of heart and of sympathy with other people’s misfortunes, and they endeavoured to make my unpleasant position as easy for me as possible.
Then followed a week of restless activity. I haunted the police bureau; if I was not there two or three times a day myself, I sent Roscoe to find out for me if any telegrams had arrived on the all-important subject, any clue been found to throw the smallest light upon it.
One lovely afternoon, I was walking down the Promenade des Anglais in anything but a cheerful frame of mind, indeed I do not think I ever felt so utterly depressed before. Nothing whatever had been heard of the missing jewels; and during a long consultation that morning with Aigunez the detective, he had told me that he firmly believed that the robbery was the work of one man, and that the jewels were still in Nice. I had been calling at one of the pretty villas beyond the Var, and was now making my way down the side of the Promenade next the houses, to the Hôtel de la Mediterranée, to talk over Aigunez’s last suggestion with Sir Frederick O’Connor. As I was passing the high solid walls of the now quite unused cemetery, I noticed that the door was ajar; and expecting to find there old Baroni the care-taker, whom I knew, I pushed open the door and entered. Nobody was there: all was silent and solitary. Here and there were untidy heaps of rubbish; tangled, overgrown bushes; and propped against the walls were two or three gravestones that had covered graves from which the remains had been removed to some family vault elsewhere. I could not help wondering how much Baroni received for the amount of care and labour he bestowed on the old English burial-ground. When my eyes, which were uncommonly sharp ones, had become accustomed to the dark shadows thrown by the walls, and the brilliant glare where the shadow-line ended, I noticed that a gravestone lying in rather a retired spot appeared, by the fresh-looking footmarks round it, to have been lately moved. I do not think that this circumstance would have roused my curiosity in the then preoccupied state of my mind, had it not been that close beside it a large branch of a neighbouring tree had been bent down and fastened firmly to the ground by means of a stone. This arrested my attention, it was so evidently intended to mark the spot. Exerting all my strength, I pushed the heavy stone sufficiently to one side to enable me to see that it concealed a small pit, recently dug, by the look of the mould round it. It was empty! I managed to replace the gravestone, and left the cemetery, carefully closing the door behind me, and glancing round to see if my actions had been observed.
I hurried on to the hotel, wondering and conjecturing as to the possible meaning of the curious little mystery I had just discovered. That small oblong pit, for what purpose could it have been prepared? My first idea was that a murder had been or was about to be committed, and in this way it was intended to get rid of the victim’s body; but the hole was certainly not large enough for a grown person. Was it possible that it was to be the unblessed, unadorned tomb of some little one, done to death by pitiless earthly guardians, who found its frail helpless life a burden to them? That was too hideous a fancy. Suddenly, the thought struck me that it might be a hiding-place for property! By Jove, the diamonds!
At that moment I reached the Mediterranée, and going up the broad stairs three at a time in my excitement, I knocked at the door of the O’Connors’ sitting-room. Sir Frederick was alone, smoking, with the last number of the World in his hand.
‘I felt sure that you would come in this afternoon,’ he said, as he pushed his cigar case towards me, ‘so I put off going to the club.—What is the latest intelligence?’
I first told him of Aigunez’s opinion, that the jewels were still in Nice, an opinion which had now gained for me a double significance. Then I unfolded my own budget, and told him of all I had seen in the old cemetery which had been closed for so many years.
This put Sir Frederick into the wildest spirits. ‘We’ve got them now, Blake!’ he exclaimed, ‘and no mistake about it. They’ve run themselves into a nice trap. Of course, these are the rascals we’re after.—What do you say?—Don’t set my heart upon it, in case of disappointment. Nonsense! my dear fellow. Don’t you see they cannot get rid of diamonds like those in a hurry; and not being able to leave the town puts them in a regular fix? It is very dangerous for them to keep such valuable things about them, and now, they flatter themselves that they have found an uncommonly safe hiding-place. Why, Fate must have led you by the very nose to that door this afternoon!’
I laughed. ‘It is as well for us, perhaps, that I did not feel her fingers, or things might have turned out differently. We had better settle our plan of action for to-night, as it won’t do to let this chance slip. How fortunate there is no moon. It will be as black as Erebus inside those high walls.’
‘Our best plan,’ said Sir Frederick, ‘is, I think, to hide ourselves there as soon as it is dark. We may have a long time to wait; but then, again, we may not, and we are much less likely to be observed if we slip in early in the evening.’
‘Then I will call for you, Sir Frederick, as soon as it is dark enough,’ I answered. ‘And allow me to suggest that we do not take Aigunez into our confidence, for it will be a triumph indeed to cut out the far-famed French detective in his own line of business.’
I left the hotel with a lighter heart than I had carried about with me for some time. Though I had cautioned Sir Frederick not to be too sanguine, I was myself convinced that we should have the diamonds in our possession before morning. I went back to my rooms, wrote some letters, dined, and then tried to quiet my excited mind by pacing up and down the sitting-room, smoking my usual post-prandial cigar, till I thought it was sufficiently dark to venture forth. The church clocks were striking ten as I arrived at the Mediterranée Hôtel, and I found Sir Frederick performing the same restless quarter-deck constitutional on the pavement outside.
‘So glad you’ve come, Blake; I’m anxious to be off now.—What is that in your hand?’
‘A small lantern,’ I answered. ‘We shall find it useful.’
‘Got a revolver?’ inquired Sir Frederick in a solemn whisper.
‘No,’ said I, in an equally sepulchral voice; ‘fists are my weapons.’
‘Pooh!’ returned he. ‘Of what use are English fists when you have an Italian knife in your ribs?—Here we are!’
The door was exactly as I had left it. There was not a sign of anybody near us, so we went quickly through, closing it again behind us. We, stood for a minute silent and still, until our eyes had become more accustomed to the intense darkness round us; then we groped our way, with two or three stumbles against tombstones and over mounds of earth, to the spot where I fancied the marked stone must be, and in a few seconds I discovered it without doubt, by falling over it. As I was collecting myself and my scattered senses together again, after this sudden and unpleasant downfall, I heard close beside me a volley of muttered execrations from Sir Frederick, who declared, in an agitated whisper, that he was sure he had caught a ghost or something very like it. At the risk of discovery, I opened the lantern, and for one second threw the light on the object he held in his hands. It was an unusually large bat, which, disturbed by our intrusion on its own domain, must have flown or dropped on to Sir Frederick from the tree under which he was standing. He quickly shook it off; and without further adventure we concealed ourselves in some thick bushes near the grave. It would have required the eyes of a lynx to discover us, hidden as we were in the midst of a mass of evergreens, overgrown with a network of tangled creepers, and the high black wall behind. There we waited, keenly watchful. Not a leaf stirred. A perfectly dead silence lay over everything, as if the fairy of the Sleeping Beauty story of our childhood held nature bound under her spell. A mouldy, damp, earthy vapour rose from the ground at my feet, and seemed to weigh me down as if it were something solid.
The clock of Notre-Dame struck eleven. Another long weary hour went slowly by, and then the clock struck midnight. I believe I had sunk into a sort of doze, when every faculty was suddenly roused by hearing a soft movement at the door, which was very gently opened. There was a pause, as if the new-comers were listening; the door was shut, and a lantern shed its narrow streak of light over the graves at their feet. One, two, three dark forms, two of whom carried between them what seemed to be a box. Sir Frederick gently nudged me—of course that contained the jewels. They came quietly to the side of the mysterious tombstone, and, setting their burden down on another one close by, they set to work, and quickly moved it to one side. I then discovered, to my surprise, that the one that held the lantern was a woman. Their faces were deep in shadow; I did not once get a glimpse of their features. All their movements were quiet and free from haste; they evidently had not the smallest notion that discovery was possible. The two men carefully laid the box in the hole prepared for it, covered it with mould, and, after replacing the stone stretched themselves, and held the lantern aloft, the better to survey their handiwork. It seemed very satisfactory to their female companion, for I distinctly heard her breathe a sigh of unmistakable relief. They left the place as quietly as they had come to it, not having, as far as we knew, spoken a word to each other the whole time.
It was our turn now. As soon as we were quite sure that we again had this dismal solitude to ourselves, we emerged from our damp hiding-place and shook ourselves into shape, for naturally we both felt very stiff and numb after our long weird vigil. I opened my lantern, and we began eagerly to undo the work we had just seen so neatly accomplished. It did not take long to remove the stone and scatter the thin layer of mould. In a few minutes we had the box—a boy’s oblong deal play-box, clamped with iron—lying on a tombstone before us.
‘Open it, Blake,’ said Sir Frederick.
‘Locked,’ I answered as I shook the lid.
‘Take my knife,’ continued the baronet, as he drew from his pocket one of the formidable weapons at which his wife had laughed.
It was a common lock, and easily forced. As I threw back the lid, Sir Frederick held up the lantern. ‘Take them out, Blake, and see if they are all there; it will be a wonderful thing if none are missing.—What on earth is that?’
‘It looks to me like a dog-collar,’ I answered, as I shook out a black Cashmere shawl in which was wrapped a silver curb chain with a small silver bell attached to it.
‘Stolen from somebody else,’ cried Sir Frederick. ‘Get on with the rest.’
‘This beats everything,’ said I, and drew forth a small pale-blue garment fashioned like a horse’s body-cloth, with a monogram in gold thread at one side. ‘It is a dog’s coat.—And what the deuce is this?’
‘A dog!’ we exclaimed simultaneously.
Carefully folded in a piece of soft linen lay the body of a small silky white, long-haired terrier—to judge by all its surroundings, a lady’s cherished pet. For a few seconds, disgust and disappointment kept us silent; then Sir Frederick broke out into a series of execrations more amusing than effective.
We had been befooled by our own enthusiasm as amateur detectives, and at first were angry, but by-and-by came to see the situation in its more grotesque aspect. After giving vent to our feelings in a burst of suppressed laughter, we put the little pet back into his play-box coffin, being careful to see that everything was just as we had found it; and quickly shovelling the mould and pushing the tombstone over it, we crept out of the old cemetery. Our feelings were very different from those with which we had entered it. We were greatly cheered, however, on reaching the hotel to find a line from Aigunez, which had come during Sir Frederick’s absence; ‘I am on the right track.’
We heard no more for two days, when the detective reappeared with a captive, a valet whom Sir Frederick had dismissed before leaving England, who, knowing the great value of the jewels which Lady O’Connor was taking with her, had thought it worth his while to follow them, and being a clever hand at that sort of work, had succeeded as we have seen.