minutes' interval in a neighboring _cafe_, and was back at his shop as
the clocks were striking seven. His customer was already there; a man
short and thick in figure, with a characteristic French low hat stuck on
the side of his head; and an old black cutaway coat which was
conspicuously English. He wore gaiters, too--a strange sight in Paris;
and carried under his arm a rattan cane which was quite ridiculously
short. When he turned his head I saw that his hair was cropped quite
close, and that he had a great scar down one side of his face, which
gave him a hideous appearance. Yet he could not have been twenty-five
years of age; and he was one of the gayest customers I have ever met.
"Oh," he said, looking me up and down critically, and with a perky cock
of his head, "you're the cove that wants to speak to me about the
sparklers, are you? and a damned well-dressed cove, too. I thought you
were one of these French hogs."
"I wanted to have a chat about such wonderful imitations," I said, "and
am English like yourself."
At this he raked up the gold which the old dealer had placed upon the
counter for him and went to the door rapidly, where he stood with his
hands upon his hips, and a wondrous knowing smile in his bit of an eye.
"You're a pretty nark, ain't you?" he said, "a fine slap-up Piccadilly
thick-un, s' help me blazes; and you ain't got no bracelets in your
pockets, and there ain't no more of you round the corner. Oh, hell! but
this is funny!"
"I am quite alone," I said quickly, seeing that the game was nearly
lost, "and if you tell me what I want to know, I will give you as much
money as you have in your hand there, and you have my word that you
shall go quite free."
"Your word!" he replied, looking more knowing than ever; "that's a
ripping fine Bank of Engraving to go on bail on, ain't it? Who are you,
and how's your family?"
"Let's stroll down the street, any way you like," said I, "and talk of
it. Choose your own course, and then you will be sure that I am alone."
He looked at me for a minute, walking slowly. Then suddenly he stopped
abruptly, and put his hand upon a pocket at his waist.
"Guv'ner," he said, "lay your fingers on that; do you feel it? it's a
Colt, ain't it? Well, if you want to get me in on the bow, I tell you
I'll go the whole hog, so you know."
"I assure you again that I have no intention of troubling you with
anything but a few questions; and I give you my word that anything you
tell me shall not be used against you afterwards. It's the other man we
want to catch--the man who took the green diamonds which were not
shams."
This thought was quite an inspiration. He considered it for a moment,
standing still under the lamp; but at last he stamped his foot and
whistled, saying:--
"You want him, do you? well, so do I; and if I could punch his head I'd
walk a mile to do it. You come to my room, guv'ner, and I'll take my
chance of the rest."
The way lay past the Chapel of the Trinity, and so through many narrow
streets to one which seemed the center of a particularly dark and
uninviting neighborhood. The man, who told me in quite an affable mood
that his name was Bob Williams, and that he hoped to run against me at
Auteuil, had a miserable apartment on the "third" of a house in this
dingy street; and there he took me, offering me half-a-tumbler of neat
whisky, which, he went on to explain, would "knock flies" out of me. For
himself, he sat upon a low bed and smoked a clay pipe, while I had an
arm-chair, lacking springs; and one of my cigars for obvious reasons.
When we were thus accommodated he opened the ball, being no longer
nervous or hesitating.
"Well, old chap,"--I was that already to him--"what can I tell you, and
what do you know?"
"I know this much," said I; "last month the grave of Madame Brewer at
Raincy was rifled. The man who did it stole a necklace of green
diamonds, real or sham, but the latter, I am thinking."
"As true as gospel--I was the man who took them, and they were sham, and
be damned to them!"
"Well, you're a pretty ruffian," I said. "But what I want to know is,
how did you come to find out that the stones were there, and who was the
man who got the real necklace I made for Madame Brewer only a few months
ago?"
"Oh, that's what you want to know, is it? Well, it's worth something,
that is; I don't know that he ain't a pard of mine; and about no other
necklace I ain't heard nothing. You know a blarmed sight too much, it
seems to me, guv'ner."
"That may be," said I, "but you can add to what I know, and it might be
worth fifty pounds to you."
"On the cushion?"
"I don't understand."
"Well, on that table then?"
"Scarcely. Twenty-five now, and twenty-five when I find that you have
told me the truth."
"Let's see the shiners."
I counted out the money on to the bed--five English bank notes, which he
eyed suspiciously.
"May, his mark," he said, thumbing the paper. "Well, as I'm shifting for
Newmarket to-morrow that's not much odds, if you're not shoving the
queer on me."
"Do you think they're bad?"
"I'll tell you in a moment; i broken, e broken, watermark right;
guv'ner, I'll put up with 'em. Now, what do you want to know?"
"I want to know how you came to learn that the stones were in Madame
Brewer's grave?"
"A straight question. Well, I was told by a pal."
"Is he here in Paris?"
"He ought to be; he told me his name was Mougat, but I found out that it
ain't. He is a chap that writes for the papers and runs that rag with
the rum pictures in it; what do you call it, Paris and something or
other?"
"_Paris et Londres_," I ventured at hazard.
"Ay, that's the thing; I don't read much of the lingo myself, but I gave
him tips at Longchamps last month, and we came back in a dog-cart
together. It was then that he put me on to the stones and planted me
with a false name."
"What did he say?"
"Said that some mad cove at Raincy had buried a necklace worth two
thousand pounds with his wife, and that the dullest chap out could get
into the vault and lift it. I'd had a bad day, and was almost stony. He
kept harping on the thing so, suggesting that a man could get to America
with five thousand in his pocket, and no one be a penny the wiser or a
penny the worse, that I went off that night and did it, and got a fine
heap for my pains. That's what I call a mouldy pal--a pal I wouldn't
make a doormat of."
"And you sold the booty to the old Frenchman in the Rue de Stockholm?"
"Exactly! he gave me a tenner for it, and I'm crossing to England
to-night. No place like the old shop, guv'ner, when the French hogs are
sniffing about you. I guess there's a few of them will want me in Parry
in a day or two; and that reminds me, you can do the noble if you like,
and send the other chips to the Elephant Hotel at Cambridge last post
to-morrow."
I told him that I would, and left. You may ask why I had any truck with
such a complete blackguard, but the answer is obvious: I had guessed
from the first that there was something in the mystery of the green
diamonds which would not bear exposure from Brewer's point of view, and
his tale confirmed the opinion. I had learnt from it two obvious facts:
one that Jules Galimard was anything but the friend of my friend; the
other, that this man knew perfectly well that a sham diamond necklace
was buried with Madame Brewer. It came to me then, as in a flash, that
he, and he alone, must have stolen, or at least have come into
possession of, the real necklace which I had made.
How to undeceive the good soul who had entrusted me with his case was
the remaining difficulty. He had loved this woman so; and yet instinct
suggested to me that she had been unworthy of his deep affection. That
she had been untrue to him I did not know. Galimard might have stolen
the jewels from her, and have replaced them with a false set; on the
other hand, she might have been a party to the fraud. What, then, should
I say, or how much should I dare with the great responsibility before me
of crushing a man whose heart was already broken?
With such thoughts I re-entered the apartment in the Rue de Morny. As I
did so, the servant put a telegram into my hand, and told me that M.
Jules Galimard was with his master. Fate, however, seemed to have given
the man another chance, for the cipher said,--
"Green and Co. in error, they should have sent the stones only; necklace
not for sale; client's name unknown, acting for Paris agents."
I walked into the room with this message in my pocket; and when Brewer
saw me he jumped up with delight, and introduced me to a well-dressed
Frenchman who had the red rosette in the buttonhole of his faultless
frock-coat, and who showed a row of admirable teeth when he smiled to
greet me.
"Here is Jules," said Brewer, "my friend I have spoken of, M. Jules
Galimard; he has come to help us, as I said he would; there is no one
whose advice I would sooner take in this horrible matter."
I bowed stiffly to the man, and seated myself on the opposite side of
the table to him. As they seemed to wait for me to speak, I took up the
question at once.
"Well," I said, speaking to Brewer; but turning round to look at his
friend, as I uttered the words, "I have found out who sold the sham
necklace to the man in the Rue de Stockholm; the rogue is a racing tout
named Bob Williams!"
Galimard turned right round in his chair at this, and put his elbows on
the table. Brewer said, "God bless me, what a scamp!"
"And," I continued, "the extraordinary part of the affair is that this
scoundrel was put to the business by a man he met at Longchamps last
month. It is obvious that this man stole the real necklace, and now
desired all traces of his handiwork to be removed from Madame Brewer's
coffin. I have his name," with which direct remark I looked hard at the
fellow, and he rose straight up from his chair and clutched at the back
of it with his hand. For a moment he seemed speechless; but when he
found his tongue, he threw away, with dreadful maladroitness, the
opening I had given him.
"Madame gave me the jewels," he blurted out, "that I will swear before
any court."
The situation was truly terrible, the man standing gripping his chair,
Brewer staring at both of us as at lunatics.
"What do you say? What's that?" he cried; and the assertion was
repeated.
"I am no thief!" cried the man, drawing himself up in a way that was
grotesquely proud, "she gave me the jewels, your wife, a week after you
gave them to her. I had a false set made so that you should not miss
them; here is her letter in which she acknowledges the receipt of
them."
The old man--for he was an old man then in speech, in look, and in the
fearful convulsions of his face--sprung from his chair, and struck the
rascal who told him the tale full in the mouth with his clenched fist.
The fellow rolled backwards, striking his head against the iron of the
fender; and lay insensible for many minutes. During that time I called a
cab, and when he was capable of being moved, sent him away in it. I saw
clearly that for Brewer's sake the matter must be hushed at once,
blocked out as a page in a life which had been false in its every line.
Nor did I pay any attention to Galimard's raving threat that his friends
should call upon me in half an hour; but went upstairs again to find the
best soul that ever lived sitting over the fire which had been lighted
for him, and chattering with the cackle of the insane. He had the
letter, which Galimard had thrown down, in his hands, and he read it
aloud with hysterical laughter and awful emphasis.
I tried to speak to him, to reason with him, to persuade him. He heard
nothing I said, but continued to chuckle and to chatter in a way that
made my blood run cold. Then suddenly he became very calm, sitting bolt
upright in his chair, with the letter clutched tightly in his right
hand; and I saw that tears were rolling down his cheeks.
An hour later the friends of M. Jules Galimard called. They entered the
room noisily, but I hushed them, for the man was dead!
THE COMEDY OF THE JEWELED LINKS.
THE COMEDY OF THE JEWELED LINKS.
I do not know if there be any drug in the Pharmacopoeia, or any clearly
defined medical treatment, which may ever hope to grapple effectively
with the strange disease of jewel-hunger, but if there be not, I have
much pleasure in recommending this most singular ill to the notice of a
rising generation of physicians. That it is a branch of that mystery of
mysteries, _la nevrose_, I have no manner of doubt, for I have seen it
in all its forms--a malignant growth which makes night of the lives it
plays upon; and flourishes to exceeding profit down in the very heart of
tragedies. For the matter of that, the flunkies, who study in the
kitchen--as the great master has told us--the characters of their
governing acquaintances in the boudoir above over a quart pot and the
_Police News_, get no little insight into the development of the social
disaster which treads often upon the heels of jewel-hunger, as they read
those extravagantly ornate reports of robbery and of mystery in which a
highly moral people revels. These are but gleaners in the field--to them
the inner life must remain hidden. No physician hoping to cope with the
affection should turn either to gossips or to slanderers for his
diagnosis. Let him get down into the caves of the trade, give his ear to
the truer narrative which the jewel dealer alone can write for him, and
he may hope for material and for success. And if he be wise, he will
study both the comedy and the tragedy which such an investigation will
bring before him, and will by this means alone set himself up as a
specialist.
It is to such a one that I would recommend perusal of the following case
which I record here as one of the comedies of my note-book--a story of
meanness, cupidity, and stupid cunning; I doubt if there be any
philosophy of medicine which could make pretense of solving it. There
were but two principal actors mentioned in the argument, and, indeed, it
might fairly be called a one-part play. The chief person concerned, Lord
Harningham, I had known for many years. He was a man of whom a
biographer wrote "that his long and unblemished career was a credit to
his country," and to whom a book on the Decalogue was inscribed as to
one _sans peur et sans reproche_. Yet they told you in the smoking-rooms
that he had starved his first wife, and left his only son as the partner
of a horse-coper in Melbourne, on the princely allowance of one hundred
and fifty pounds per annum. His wealth, said common report, was anything
from fifty thousand to a hundred thousand pounds per annum; and in his
second childhood, for he was a septuagenarian when this comedy was
played, he was suckled on the nourishing food of expiring leases and
forfeited improvements until he seemed to exude sovereigns from every
pore in his enormous body.
A meaner man never lived. All similes in converse were based upon his
exploits. "As mean as old Harningham" was a phrase you heard every day
at the "Bachelors." In the countless old stories they put upon him,
telling how, at a tenants' lunch in Bedfordshire, he had cried, "Here's
another quart of cider, and hang the expense!" how he had been seen in
Farringdon Market buying his own fish; how he haggled with cabmen
innumerable; how he had been stricken with a malignant fever on the day
he gave away a sovereign for a shilling--there was but the echo of the
general sentiment. The society prints were hilarious at the mere mention
of his name. I recollect well his anger when a wag said in one of them,
"It is rumored that Lord Harningham is shortly about to give something
away." He was in my office next day--a week rarely passed but what I saw
him--and he laid the journal upon my table, beating it flat with a
stick, and pointing at it with his ample finger as though his very touch
would wither the writer.
"Please to read that," he said with forced calm but considerable
emphasis, "and tell me if the scoundrel doesn't deserve to be hanged. He
dares to mention my name, d'ye see! To mention _me_, and speak about my
concerns. Ha! but I wish I had him under this stick!"
"Of course you don't know who wrote it," said I.
"How should I know?" he gabbled testily. "Do I go round to the taverns
swilling gin-and-water with such gutter birds? Do I hobnob with all the
half-starved limners in Fleet Street? Pshaw, you talk like a fool!"
I suffered his temper, for he was worth a couple of thousand a year to
me. Presently he became calmer, and the humor of the thing dawned upon
his dull mind.
"Ha!" he said, snuffing ferociously from the great diamond-studded box
he always carried, "I shouldn't wonder if that's Master Bertie
Watts--you know my nephew, eh? he owes you something, eh?--well, that's
like him, and his scoundrelly impudence--the vagabond!"
"Did not I read somewhere that he was going to be married?" I remarked
at hazard; but the notion tickled him immensely, and he rolled about in
his chair, shaking the snuff from his box over his fur coat, and even
upon my papers.
"Yes, you read it," he gasped at last, "a fine tale too. Why, what's he
got?--four hundred a year in Whitehall, and what he can draw out of
me--not much, Mr. Sutton--not much."
I had no doubt of that, but I kept my face while he went on to mutter
and to chortle; and I showed him a bracelet of rubies, which he desired
instantly to purchase. I had put a price of four hundred and twenty
pounds upon it, meaning to accept three hundred, so that we haggled for
two hours by the clock and had then done business. He took the rubies
away with him, while I caused the further sum to be set against him in
the ledger, where already there were so many unpaid items under the
name. He owed me eight thousand pounds at the least, but I could not
press the account, or should have lost him; and while I was often sore
troubled for lack of the money, I knew that I should get it at his
death, and so aided his jewel-hunger. This was prodigious. All the gems
that I sold--watches, necklaces, tiaras, brooches, and breastpins, were
conveyed at once to the great safe in his bedroom and there immured. No
one ever saw them but himself. His wives, both of whom were dead, had
scarce enjoyed the possession of a barmaid's jewelry. The passion of the
collector, of the hungerer after stones, alone consumed him. Of all his
meanness, this was the most contemptible--this hiding of fair treasure
from the light it lived upon--this gross hoarding of beautiful things
for one man's selfish enjoyment.
When he left Bond Street that day, crying at my door, "So I'm going to
give something away, am I?--but I ain't, Sutton, I ain't"--and walking
off as though he had found satisfaction in the negative thus conveyed to
me, I picked up the paper, and read again that young Bertie Watts was at
last engaged to the Hon. Eva Benley, and that the wedding was to be
celebrated in a month's time. Every one in town said that old Harningham
would do something for Watts when the time for the marriage actually
came; and it was gossip in the clubs that her people had given their
consent--for they were historically poor--only upon the sincere
assurance from their daughter's _fiance_ that his uncle really was very
fond of him, and would present him with a handsome check on the wedding
day. But here was the announcement of the wedding, and the old
curmudgeon had just said--being readier in speech with me, perhaps, than
with any one of his few acquaintances--that he did not mean to give the
young people a halfpenny. It did occur to me that possibly he might have
bought the ruby bracelet for the exceedingly pretty girl to whom his
nephew was engaged; but in this I was mistaken, as you shall presently
see; and the interest of the whole problem deepened when I learnt later
on in the smoking-room of my club that the marriage was likely to be
postponed, and something of a scandal to ensue. Bertie Watts, they said,
was going about like a ravenous beast, seeking what financier he could
devour. His opinion of his uncle was expressed in phrases of which the
chief ornament was appalling curses and maledictions. He declared he
would have the whip-hand of him yet, would make him pay handsomely for
all the trouble he had put people to--in short, behaved like a man who
was absurdly in love, regardless of that financial prudence which is so
dear to the sight of parents and of guardians. Even he, however, could
not foresee the strange thing about to happen to him, or the very
curious opportunity which was shortly to be his.
A week passed. There was no definite announcement of any postponement of
the arrangements noted by _The Hyde Park Gazette_, nor did such part of
society as is represented by the tonguesters, hear that Bertie had
persuaded his uncle. The thing was a kind of deadlock in its financial
aspect, until at last the world of Belgravia knew that the young lady's
father, Lord Varnley, had consented to let the wedding be, and to trust
to Harningham's better sense when the time of the accomplishment came. I
saw Watts one day driving with his _fiancee_ near the Achilles Statue,
and thought that he looked glum enough; but he came to me on the
following morning for a diamond aigrette, and although he couldn't pay
for it I let him have it.
"It'll be all right in a month, Sutton," said he; "you know the old
chap's hard enough, but he can't let me marry on nothing a year, can he
now?"
I said that the thing was possible; and for his own sake ventured to
hint that it was even probable, an opinion which he took in no good
part, sucking his stick silently for a while, and then laughing with a
poor little chuckle that seemed to come from the very top of his head.
"Well," he exclaimed at last, "it's devilish rough on a fellow to have a
relation of that sort, isn't it?--a positive disgrace to the family. I
wonder what the old blackguard is going to give me for a wedding
present. Did he ask you to show him any American tickers, by the way? I
shouldn't wonder if he presented me with a brass clock, and Eva with a
guinea set in jet--he's mean enough."
"He bought a ruby bracelet here some days ago," I remarked, as in
parenthesis.
"Did he now?" he exclaimed in a tone of pleasure. "I wonder if it's for
the girlie! but, of course, it couldn't be. He'd die to give away
anything that once went into his old safe. Look here, Sutton, couldn't
you charge him an extra hundred, and go halves? I feel like something
desperate."
I told him that that was impossible, and he went away with the aigrette
in his pocket, and a very thoughtful expression upon his face. Before he
did so, however, he had uttered the pious wish that his uncle might die
of some tormenting visitation; and that he might be alive to dance on
the day of the funeral. I must say that I sympathized with him, for he
was a good-looking and kindly-hearted young fellow, who for many years
had been led to believe that his relations would do something for him;
and who was about to be grievously disappointed. Nor could I forget that
he was engaged to one of the prettiest girls in town--and for her sake
enjoyed a kind of reflected sympathy which was sincere enough on the
part of every man who knew him.
The date of the wedding was now fixed, being the 21st of January, to be
well ahead of Lent. I saw Watts very frequently during the following ten
days, he coming with expectant persistency to ask me if his uncle had
yet bought him anything; and remaining disappointed almost to the very
eve of his marriage. In fact, the wedding was to take place on the
Wednesday, and it was only on the previous Monday that Lord Harningham
ascended my stairs puffing and blowing, and in a shocking temper, to
make his purchase of a present.
"Sutton," he said, "this is the greatest tomfoolery on earth--that young
rascal is going to get married after all, and I suppose I'll have to
give him something."
"You can scarce do less," I said with a smile.
"Of course I can do less," he replied garrulously. "I can give him
nothing at all, d'ye see; not a brass halfpenny. Look at the ass,
maudling about the first pretty face he sees over a dinner table when he
might marry money twenty times for the asking of it. Did I make such a
fool of myself when I was his age?"
I assured him that he did nothing of the sort.
"Then what's he want to do it for? Thinks he's going to get something
out of me, perhaps--out of _me_, but he ain't--not sixpence; not if they
hadn't enough to get to the station with. Ha, ha! I'm not such a
spendthrift as I look."