The Statement of Daisy K. Fairweather
Kennedy, late of Necropolis
City, Ohio, at present a resident of 15
Farley Street, Knightsbridge, London.
I BELIEVE it is not necessary for me to state how a chamois-skin bag containing one hundred and sixty-two diamonds came into my hands on the evening of May 14th. That it did come into my possession was enough for me. I never before thought that the possession of diamonds could make a woman so perfectly miserable. When I was a young girl in Necropolis City I used to think to own a diamond—even one small one—would be just about the acme of human joy. But Necropolis City is a good way behind me now, and I have found that the owning of a handful of them can be about the most wearing form of misery.
I suppose there are fearless, upright people in the world who would have taken those diamonds straight back to the police station and braved public opinion. It would have been better to have had your word doubted, to be tried for a thief, put in jail, and probably complicated the diplomatic relations between England and the United States, than to conceal in your domicile one hundred and sixty-two precious stones that didn’t belong to you. I hope every one understands—and I’m sure every one does who knows me—that I did not want to keep the miserable things. What good did they do me, anyway, locked up in my jewel-box, in the upper right-hand bureau drawer?
We knew no peace from that tragic evening when Major and Mrs. Thatcher dined with us. First we tried to think of ways of getting rid of them—of the diamonds, I mean. Cassius, who’s just a simple, uncomplicated man, wanted to take them right to the nearest police station and hand them in. I soon showed him the madness of that. Was there a soul in London who would have believed our story? Wouldn’t the American ambassador himself have had to bow his crested head and tame his heart of fire, and admit it was about the fishiest tale he had ever heard?
It would have ruined us forever. Even if Cassius hadn’t been deposed from his place as the head of the English branch of the Colonial Box, Tub, and Cordage Company (Ltd), of Chicago and St. Louis, who would have known me? The trail of the diamonds would have been over us forever. Lady Sara Gyves would have gone round saying she always thought I had the face of a thief, and the bishop and the two lords I’ve collected with such care would have cut me dead in the Park. I would have received my social quietus forever. And, I just tell you, when I’ve worked for a thing as hard as I have for that bishop and the two lords and Lady Sara Gyves, I’m not going to give them up without a struggle.
Cassius and I spent two feverish, agonized weeks trying to think what we would do with the diamonds. I never knew before I had so much inventive ability. It was wonderful the things we thought of. One of our ideas was to put a personal in the papers advertising for “Amelia.” We spent five consecutive evenings concocting different ones that would have the effect of rousing “Amelia’s” curiosity and deadening that of everybody else. It did not seem capable of construction. Twist and turn it as you would, you couldn’t state that you had something valuable in your possession for “Amelia” without making the paragraph bristle with a sort of mysterious importance. It was like a trap set and baited to catch the attention of a detective. We did insert one—“Will Amelia kindly publish her present address, and oblige Major and Mrs. Thatcher?”—which, after all, didn’t involve us. And for two weeks we read the papers with beating, hopeful hearts, but there was no reply. I thought “Amelia” never saw it. Cassius thought there was no such person.
A month dragged itself away, and there we were with those horrible gems locked in my jewel-box. I began to look pale and miserable, and Cassius told me he thought the diamonds were becoming a “fixed idea” with me, and he’d have to take me away for a change. Once I told him I felt as if I’d never have any peace or be my old gay self again while they were in my possession. He said, that being the case, he’d take them out some night and throw them in the Serpentine, the pond where the despondent people commit suicide. But I dissuaded him from it.
“Perhaps they’ll never be claimed,” I said. “And some day when we’re old we can have them set and Elaine can wear them.”
“You might even wear them yourself,” Cassius said, trying to cheer me up.
“What would be the good?” I answered, gloomily. “I’d be at least sixty before I’d dare to.”