“It seems that the crystal was at that time in the possession of the family in the rooms below ours.”
“What! The trumpeter and the boy who bear the name Kovalski?”
“Yes, though that is not their name. They are Charnetskis and lived formerly in the Ukraine.”
“I see—and the thieves? Tartars and Cossacks who followed them perhaps from the Dnieper country?”
“Yes, the crystal was actually in the hands of the leader when I surprised him with an explosive powder. In the surprise and pain occasioned by my attack he dropped the crystal—the powder blazed about his face and burned his hair—the crystal rolled upon the floor and I pounced upon it.”
“But how had it come into the possession of the Charnetski family?” asked Tring eagerly.
“It was in this fashion. When the Tartars devastated the Polish country in the thirteenth century the village that stood where now is Tarnov was inhabited by the Charnetskis, among others, of course. It was Andrew Charnetski of that day who performed heroic feats in the defense of the city against the Tartars, and to him was presented for safe-keeping the great crystal which has come to be known as the Great Tarnov Crystal. It was the chief ornament of the old town, and even kings had come there to see it. For besides its qualities as a thing of rare value and beauty, it had those reputed properties you have mentioned: that a man who looked into it might there read the secrets of the past and the future; that he might find out the intimate thoughts of other men and women; that he might learn to overcome the elements, to fly through the air like a bird, to walk invisibly, to transmute base metals into gold. In those times no man was allowed to look more than three minutes upon it, for even in three minutes a man might find his head swimming and curious thoughts coming into his brain.”
“But how did the Charnetskis save it from the Tartars?”
“They fled with it to the Carpathian Mountains and remained there until Batu the Tartar was forced to return to the land of the Golden Horde. Then as it passed from eldest son to eldest son, it went to an ancestor of this Andrew Charnetski who settled in the Ukraine after the country had been put under Polish dominion in the days of Vladislas Jagiello. Of course the name Andrew Charnetski is by no means an uncommon one throughout Poland, so little did I think when this man came into the humble lodgings below that he belonged to the Charnetski family which had possession of the Tarnov Crystal.”
“Did he tell you his story?”