“Certainly it opens,” Mr. Handkin answered, while I trembled with anxiety as he lightly felt it round the edges with fingers engrained with corundum. “I could open it in one instant, but the enamel might fly. Will you risk it?”
The Major looked at me, and I said, “Oh no; please not to risk any thing, if any slower process will do it without risk. We want it done without injury.”
“Then it will cost a good bit,” he replied. “I can open it for five shillings, if you run the risk; if that rests with me, I must charge five pounds.”
“Say three,” cried the Major. “Well, then, say four guineas: I have a lot of work in store for you.”
“I never overcharge, and I never depart from my figures,” the lapidary answered. “There is only one other man in London who knows the secret of this enamel, and he is my brother. They never make such enamel now. The art is lost, like that of the French paste of a hundred years ago, which almost puzzles even me until I go behind it. I will give you my brother's address if you like; but instead of five pounds, he will charge you ten guineas—if it must be done in private. Without that condition, I can do it for two pounds. You wish to know why that should make such a difference. Well, for this simple reason: to make sure of the job, it must be done by daylight; it can be done only in my chief work-room; if no one is to see what I am about (and my men have sharp eyes, I can tell you), all my hands must be sacked for the afternoon, but not without their wages. That alone would go far toward the difference, and then there is the dropping of the jobs in hand, and waste of power, and so on. I have asked you too little, Major Hockin, I assure you; but having said, I will stick to it, although I would much rather you would let me off.”
“I have known you for many years,” the Major answered—“ever since you were a boy, with a flat box, working at our Cornish opals. You would have done a lot of work for five pounds then. But I never knew you overcharge for any thing. We agree to your terms, and are obliged to you. But you guarantee no damage?”
“I will open this locket, take out its contents, whatever they may be, and reclose it so that the maker, if still alive—which is not very probable—should not know that it had been meddled with.”
“Very well; that is exactly what we want; for I have an idea about it which I may try to go on with afterward. And for that it is essential to have no symptom that it ever has been opened. What are these brilliants worth, Mr. Handkin?”
“Well, Sir, in the trade, about a hundred and fifty, though I dare say they cost three hundred. And the portrait is worth another hundred, if I find on the back the marks I expect.”
“You do not mean to say that you know the artist?” I could not help exclaiming, though determined not to speak. “Oh, then, we shall find out every thing!”