That diamond was to be bought on very good terms, but Enderby wanted ready money, and until he had got ready money he did not intend to let it go out of his possession. Of course something could be done. It was possible to find buyers for the diamond, who would be content if it were worth their while not to ask awkward questions, but they would want to make a very good bargain themselves, and the commission that would fall to his share would be a very paltry sum compared to what he considered he ought to make out of such a chance, knowing what he did about that stone.
“Well, it’s rather a big thing for me to go in for just now, but we will see what can be done; maybe I will get some one to take a share in it,” he said, after they had talked for some time. “By the by,” he added, “what are you going to do with it? it’s rather a valuable piece of property to carry on you.”
“I can look after myself, I fancy,” Jack answered. “I have the six-shooter on me that I had that night, and I mean going about with it and the diamond until I can sell.”
“Why not let me keep it for you? and give you a memorandum—it would be better in that safe than in your belt.”
“No fear, Mr Le Mert! maybe you’re a very respectable diamond merchant, and are worth your thousands, but somehow, remembering old times, I think I would sooner have the diamond on me; you might be inclined to make things rather awkward for me if I wanted it back in a hurry.”
Le Mert took this outwardly with great composure, but inwardly he cursed the other’s pigheaded suspicion.
“By the by,” Jack said, when the conversation about the diamond was concluded, “you must let me have something to go on with—a hundred or so won’t inconvenience you, and will be the very making of me; for I came off the ship with about a pound in my pocket, and when I pay my hotel bill I sha’n’t have a rap.”
Le Mert thought that a hundred or so would inconvenience him a good deal more than the other imagined, but he intended to keep the state of his affairs a secret, so he produced ten ten-pound notes from his nest-egg, and handed them to the other. Jack crushed them up in his hand, and hurried away, eager to spend some of them, and begin to enjoy the good time he had been looking forward to ever since he had put his hand into the pocket of Sixpence’s coat.
When his visitor had taken his departure, the diamond merchant looked at his diminished roll of notes. Four hundred pounds was all he had left, and not another penny did he see his way to raise, except what he hoped to make out of the diamond. Then he made a calculation or two on a piece of paper, and thought out the situation. Here was Jack Enderby with a diamond that he could not sell for one tenth of its value. He had no money to buy it, while the other would not let it go out of his possession, though so long as he kept it and appeared as the seller there would always be a clue to its real history.