Quick as lightning the landlady whisked up the cloth, diamonds and all, leaving the room to give the officers the opportunity of a private and confidential interview with their startled guests. These gentlemen having explained the object of their visit politely introduced their female companion, and retired to smoke a cigar on the verandah.
The lady visitor, or rather the female searcher, at once took advantage of her position, and sarcastically remarked to her agitated “friends”: “Never mind, my dears, let down your hair; I have had finer ladies than you through my fingers before.”
After expressing satisfaction at the elegance of their coiffure, she then proceeded to admire their entire wardrobe, even the pretty little No. 2’s and silk stockings in which their tiny feet were encased did not escape attention.
Not finding any portion of their apparel encrusted with gems of purest ray, decidedly meant, in this case, to blush unseen, this “perfect lady” proceeded to express her appreciation of the delicate whiteness of their arms, somewhat marring their beauty, however, by leaving marks of sundry pinches which she inflicted to test the genuine nature of their plumpness.[[50]]
This interview being brought to a satisfactory or unsatisfactory conclusion, as the reader may elect to decide, the detectives and their coadjutrix took their departure. Forthwith the ladies rang the bell for the landlady, who promptly answered it, but wonderful to relate denied the most remote knowledge of the contents of the table-cloth, averring that when she shook it there was nothing but bread-crumbs to be seen.
What could be done? These ladies dare not appeal to the police, time pressed, their passages had been taken, so they were compelled to brave the perils of the deep, unsupported by the pleasing hope that they had cherished of a profitable visit to the horticultural domains of Hatton Garden, E. C.
Now would the reader be surprised to hear, that shortly after this incident, the husband of the landlady, whose eyesight had been so very defective, was suddenly seized with a desire to visit the Transvaal, possibly to investigate the gold-bearing qualities of that State, perhaps merely for an agreeable change. He did not, however, confine his peregrinations to the suzerainty, but proceeded to make an amateur survey of the proposed railway route between Pretoria and Delagoa Bay over the Lebombo Mountains. From the latter place he set sail for Rotterdam, which he reached in a much more satisfied frame of mind than his whilom lady boarders possessed on their arrival in London.
As all the world knows diamond cutters are to be found in considerable numbers in Holland, and it did not take him long to renew acquaintance with his old friends, some of whom were skilled in that trade. To one of these he intrusted the cutting of a valuable parcel of gems, which by an almost inexplicable coincidence was the exact counterpart of that which a few months before had disappeared so mysteriously at his antipodean hotel. Now, our Boniface was a gay old dog in his way, so he made up his mind to taste once more the long absent pleasures of the capitals of Europe, serenely conscious that a little extravagance was pardonable in a landlord whose very table linen produced more diamonds in one shaking than many a twelve-foot washing machine, worked by a Davy Paxman, would in thousands of revolutions. While enjoying the gayeties of Vienna, he received a telegram to the effect that his diamonds had been duly cut and were awaiting his disposal. So he at once returned to Holland, received his gems and secured the services of a well-known goldsmith for their setting, which proved in accordance with his orders both elaborate and costly. When all was completed he started once more for his South African home. Many a night, ere the billows rocked him to sleep, though congratulating himself on his lucky journey, he mentally execrated the tyranny of a government which he knew too well would on his arrival in Capetown heartlessly exact from him a certain duty of 30 per cent. ad valorem. The thought of this unwarrantable interference with the liberty of the subject haunted him continually, until one night as his cabin companion told me he was disturbed by a delighted chuckle followed by a semi-audible soliloquy: “Shtrike me dead, I’ve got it, pay the dam duty, not if I knowsh it, sho’elp me. I’ll risk it.”
Arrived at Capetown he induced a female passenger with whom he was acquainted, to conceal about her person the diamonds which already had had so strange a story, and thus endeavor to evade the eagle eyes of the revenue officials stationed at the dock entrance.
The attempt was unsuccessful, the diamonds were discovered and confiscated, and the fair contrabandista, having of course in self-defence revealed the owner, he was tried for the misdemeanor, when in addition to the loss of his jewelry he was sentenced to pay a heavy fine or in default of payment to endure a term of imprisonment.