“Yes, that’s the man,” answered Timson.
“I’d have sworn it; it’s Tom Raven; he was in camp the other day. Now, look here, young man, you’d better try and find your friend, Bill Hardman, not that there’s much chance of your coming across him; now that they have got your money they’d be off. I dare say you never heard of Raven’s Rush, that was on Boschfontein. There isn’t a show of a mine there; but Tom Raven and Bill Hardman, who have always been more or less partners, won it at cards off a Dutchman. It’s about as bad a farm as there is in the country; but they meant working it off somehow, so they started a mine there, any one to have a claim for two pounds down. It took for a bit; but as no one could find diamonds there except Bill and Tom Raven, people cooled off it, and there was some talk of starting a prosecution for fraud, as some one split as to where they got the diamonds from they found there, and that’s why Raven, against whom there was most of a case, cleared off. Ziederman is a long, stolid-looking Dutchman; he is not such a fool as he looks, is that Dutchman—‘Slim Pete’ they call him—he has always been more or less in with the firm of Hardman and Raven.”
“Look here, you’re trying to fool me, ain’t you? You don’t mean to tell me that the man who told me how his wife ran away and how he killed her wasn’t genuine!” said Timson.
“Genuine! it was a pretty bit of play-acting, made up by the two of ’em. Tom was always clever at a yarn.”
Mr Timson did not say another word. Something seemed to tell him that the suspicions of the others were well founded; anyhow he would interview his partner and do his best to get back some of his money.
However, Hardman was not so easily to be found. He was not at the hotel where he boarded, nor at the billiard-room he usually patronised, nor at any of his other haunts, and none of his associates had seen him. All day long Mr Timson was making fruitless inquiries; but though he could hear nothing about Hardman, every one could tell him a good deal about the Farm Boschfontein. Every one laughed when they heard his story, and with the exception of one or two men who had formed little plans for the disposal of his fortune, no one sympathised very much with him. There was no doubt about it that he had a case against Mr Hardman and the men who helped to swindle him; but he might just as well have had a case against the man in the moon. For some time Mr Timson cherished a faint hope that the mine might be a genuine one, so he spent a little more money in having it well tested. But the charm was gone when Mr Hardman had vanished. There was no appearance of diamond bearing ground on the Farm Boschfontein, so experts declared; and what was more to the point, there was no appearance of diamonds.
Mr Timson is still the owner of the property, and has not found it very remunerative. The only consolation he has is, that many of the men who laughed at him when he made his unfortunate purchase, invested their money in speculations which seemed at the time very hopeful, but resulted in their becoming the owners of nicely-engraved diamond-mining scrip which, though useful for papering a spare room with, is now even less marketable than that desirable property, the Farm Boschfontein.