Then he read the letter carefully through again, weighing it sentence by sentence. When he had done, he put it back into its envelope, and looked up with quite a frightened expression in his eyes.
"What does the old fool mean by 'fighting Fraud with its own weapons?' and by 'compelling me to disgorge my ill-gotten gains?' In what way has he 'gulled' me? He has taken nothing of mine, unless----"
He was too sick at heart to finish the sentence even to himself, but with a hand that trembled like that of an old man, he drew forth his sealskin sachet, opened it, and took out of it the Great Mogul Diamond. He took it out with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, and laid it on the palm of his left. There it rested, lustrous, glowing, unmatchable, absorbing the purest rays of the morning into itself, and then flinging them back intensified a thousandfold. The colour came back to Captain Ducie's cheek, his heart resumed its equable beating, and nothing save an almost imperceptible trembling of the hand betrayed the crisis of feeling through which he had just passed.
"What a precious idiot I must be to allow myself to be frightened by the riddles of an old ass like Van Loal! The fellow must be crazy. No doubt he felt an attack coming on, and that was the reason why he left so abruptly. And so enough of him. Not even for the fair Mirpah's sake could I tolerate a lunatic father-in-law. Ah! my beauty," apostrophising the Diamond, "so long as I have you, or the worth of you, what care I how the world wags? You are my only true consolation--my only real friend! Come, _amigo mio_, let you and I, for the benefit and information of such persons as may tenant this chamber in time to come, write down Mr. Solomon Van Loal as an ass. On the middle pane of the middle window, in prominent letters, we will write him down an ass."
The conceit pleased him, and he crossed the floor with the Diamond in his hands, and a malicious smile on his lips, to work out his poor morsel of revenge. He selected the spot with care, right in the centre of the middle pane. He gave a preliminary flourish with his hand, and was about to make the first stroke, but paused. "I'll put my initials, E.D., under it," he said, and the malicious smile deepened as he spoke, "so that if the old rascal ever comes here again he may know to whom he is indebted for his brief immortality."
Then he gave his arm a second flourish, and essayed the first stroke.
With one of the facets of the Diamond he made the first curve of the letter S. But no mark followed.
Again he essayed to make the stroke, and again the glass remained as free from scratch or mark as if he had striven to write on it with a common quill. A mist came over his eyes, and he sank, half fainting, into the nearest chair.
"Ruined! irretrievably ruined!" he cried aloud in a voice of utter anguish. "That consummate villain has stolen the real Diamond, and has left me a worthless imitation in its place! Now--now I understand his letter. Now I understand why I was befooled by his daughter."
The worthless gem had dropped from his fingers, and lay unheeded on the floor. He sat staring at it with lacklustre eyes for a full half-hour. All his patience, his ingenuity, his underhand working--the death of Platzoff, the stealing of the Diamond, the murder of Cleon--had ended in this, that he had been outwitted by one more cunning than himself. And could he complain that he had been otherwise than rightly punished for what he had done? But he did not complain. Hope had died out utterly in his heart; and when that is the case with any one, he is beyond vain repinings. The future? He dared not look at it. The dull, dead present was quite as much as his brain could dwell on just now.