‘Get up, sir, at once, and come down to the office. The safe has been broken open, and cleaned out, sir, quite empty!’ gasped Roscoe breathlessly, pale with excitement.
I cannot recollect what followed during the few minutes in which I hurriedly dressed, and Roscoe is far too considerate to have ever reminded me of that short scene. The first thing I do remember is, finding myself in my office, clothed in a sketchy and uncomfortable manner, the victim of one of the most audacious burglaries that had taken place in Nice for a very long time. I stood gazing at my ransacked safe and rummaged drawers, and at the floor, strewn with papers, among which, here and there, I noticed a few gold pieces, which seemed as if the robbers had been interrupted or startled in some way or other. I was afraid to move from the spot on which I stood until the detective, whom I had sent Roscoe off in a fiacre to fetch, should arrive, lest I might unwittingly destroy some small but important piece of evidence, which his experienced eyes would discover at a glance. In a very short time he appeared, and after a friendly word or two, commenced his investigations. He carefully examined the safe, the window, and the door. Nothing seemed to escape him. He took voluminous notes; measured a footmark which he discovered on the floor; but the footmark on further inquiry was found to be his own, which rather put him out.
I told him of the jewels which had been placed in my care so lately.
‘Your man informed me, monsieur, as we came, that you had diamonds of great value in your iron safe.’
A clammy dew broke out suddenly on my forehead, as I remembered that Lady O’Connor was counting on appearing in those same jewels at the prefecture ball that night.
‘On the strength of what your servant told me, monsieur,’ continued the detective, ‘I have already telegraphed to Marseilles, Genoa, and Turin, and have directed some of my most trustworthy men to be on the alert at the railway station and the port. I will send and let monsieur know the moment we get any trace of the stolen property.’
I made out a careful list of all I had lost, gave it to the detective, and then returned to my rooms to dress in a rather less superficial manner. The awful business of breaking the loss of the jewels to Sir Frederick and Lady O’Connor was now staring me in the face, and as I walked to their hotel I became a prey to the most paralysing nervousness I hope it will ever be my lot to endure. I was shown into a charming sitting-room, facing the sea, and though I did not look at anything round me, except the two people I had come to see, I remembered afterwards every detail of the scene.
They were at breakfast. The refreshing, sun-warmed morning air breathed softly in through the open window, scented by the mignonette, which grew thickly in boxes on the balcony outside. Lady O’Connor looked very graceful and pretty in a long loose gown of some soft Indian silk, trimmed with lace. Sir Frederick, also in comfortable unconventional garments, was reading aloud a letter, over which they were both laughing merrily as I was announced. They welcomed me warmly, looking as if early and unexpected visitors were quite a common occurrence, and between them, carried on the usual preliminary chit-chat about the lovely weather, the delight of being able to breakfast with the window open in the month of November, the view, &c., as long as the servant remained in the room, while I stood looking from one to the other, solemnly bowing my head in silent answer to their cheerful remarks. It is not necessary to relate what passed; suffice it to say that both Sir Frederick and Lady O’Connor possessed an unusual share of kindness of heart and of sympathy with other people’s misfortunes, and they endeavoured to make my unpleasant position as easy for me as possible.
Then followed a week of restless activity. I haunted the police bureau; if I was not there two or three times a day myself, I sent Roscoe to find out for me if any telegrams had arrived on the all-important subject, any clue been found to throw the smallest light upon it.
One lovely afternoon, I was walking down the Promenade des Anglais in anything but a cheerful frame of mind, indeed I do not think I ever felt so utterly depressed before. Nothing whatever had been heard of the missing jewels; and during a long consultation that morning with Aigunez the detective, he had told me that he firmly believed that the robbery was the work of one man, and that the jewels were still in Nice. I had been calling at one of the pretty villas beyond the Var, and was now making my way down the side of the Promenade next the houses, to the Hôtel de la Mediterranée, to talk over Aigunez’s last suggestion with Sir Frederick O’Connor. As I was passing the high solid walls of the now quite unused cemetery, I noticed that the door was ajar; and expecting to find there old Baroni the care-taker, whom I knew, I pushed open the door and entered. Nobody was there: all was silent and solitary. Here and there were untidy heaps of rubbish; tangled, overgrown bushes; and propped against the walls were two or three gravestones that had covered graves from which the remains had been removed to some family vault elsewhere. I could not help wondering how much Baroni received for the amount of care and labour he bestowed on the old English burial-ground. When my eyes, which were uncommonly sharp ones, had become accustomed to the dark shadows thrown by the walls, and the brilliant glare where the shadow-line ended, I noticed that a gravestone lying in rather a retired spot appeared, by the fresh-looking footmarks round it, to have been lately moved. I do not think that this circumstance would have roused my curiosity in the then preoccupied state of my mind, had it not been that close beside it a large branch of a neighbouring tree had been bent down and fastened firmly to the ground by means of a stone. This arrested my attention, it was so evidently intended to mark the spot. Exerting all my strength, I pushed the heavy stone sufficiently to one side to enable me to see that it concealed a small pit, recently dug, by the look of the mould round it. It was empty! I managed to replace the gravestone, and left the cemetery, carefully closing the door behind me, and glancing round to see if my actions had been observed.