on very good terms with them before the season's out. You haven't sold
them any jewels, have you?"
This was such an extraordinary question that I turned upon him with an
angry reply upon my lips; but the word changed to one of amazement when
I saw his face closely in the full sunlight. It was no longer the face
of an Oxford boy, but of a man of my own age at the least.
"Whew!" I remarked, as I looked full at him, "you've made rather a quick
change, haven't you?"
"It's the running," he replied, mopping himself with a handkerchief, and
leaving his countenance like a half-washed chess-board, "we're in for
another six hours' stew, and my phiz is plastic--I'd better be moving
on, lest I meet any of my partners; I might break some hearts, you know;
but what I wanted to say was, Don't go making a fool of yourself, Mr.
Sutton, over that little witch with the black eyes, and don't, if you
love your life, put yourself for a moment in the power of her
long-tongued father."
This utterly surprising rejoinder was given without a suspicion of
concern or bombast. Many people would have resented it as an
impertinence, and a dishonorable slander upon one whose hospitality we
had just enjoyed; but I had not been a dealer in jewels for ten years
without learning to recognize instantly the "professional" tongue; and I
knew that I was talking to a man from Scotland Yard. Yet I must confess
that I laughed inwardly at the absurdity of his fears. Few men had come
to London with stronger recommendation than Kershaw Klein, and even the
banks had trusted him implicitly.
"Are you sure that you are making no mistake?" I asked, as he buttoned
up his coat and looked about for a hansom. "You gentlemen have been
woefully out lately; I can't forget that one of you cautioned me against
Count Hevilick three months ago, and if I'd listened to him I should be
worth five thousand less than I am at this moment. If this man is what
you think, he's managed to blind a good many big people--and his own
Embassy into the bargain."
He thought for some minutes before he answered me, standing with his
hands in his pockets and his cigar pointing upwards from the extreme
corner of his mouth. His reply was given with a pitying smile, and was
patronizing--as are the replies of men convinced but unable to convince.
"Well," he said, exhaling tremendous clouds of smoke, "what I know I
know; and what I don't know my wits will find out for me. I gave you the
tip because you've done me--though you don't know it--a good many
services; but whether you take it or leave it, that's your look out.
Only, and this is my last word, don't come complaining to me if the
witch walks off with your goods--and don't write to the _Times_ if her
father cracks your skull."
He had turned on his heel before I could utter another word; and he left
me to walk slowly and thoughtfully to Bayswater, divided in my musings
between the vision of the Chilian girl's beauty and the jewels of mine
which she wore; but for which her father had not paid. I can only set it
down to absurd infatuation; but I admit unhesitatingly that I did not
very much care then whether the financial part of the business left me
lacking the money or possessed of it. A rash disregard for expense is
the surest sign that a woman has interested you; a longing to pay her
milliner's bills is a necessary instinct to the disposition for
marriage. I was at that time, and in the exhilaration of wish that came
of the power of morning, quite ready to let so perfect a creature remain
indebted to me for anything; and this was natural since the spice of a
little suspicion is often the most attractive flavor in a woman's
character. But the question of the treasure of White Creek was another
matter altogether. The great diamond was not my own, although it lay at
that time in my safe in Bond Street. It was the property of a syndicate,
in which I held a third of the shares; but the others looked to me for
the safe disposal of the stone, and for the profit of ten thousand
pounds which we hoped to get by its sale. My responsibility, then, was
no usual one; and the barest suggestion that I was trafficking with a
swindler was enough to set me itching with anxiety.
I went home in this mood, but not to sleep. A feverish dreaming--chiefly
of a seductive girl with black-brown wavy hair and black eyes that
searched and fascinated with an inexplicable spell--served me for rest;
and at eleven o'clock I was at my office, and the Chilian was with me.
He was a man of fine presence, a long black beard falling upon his ample
chest, and a certain refinement of carriage and bearing giving him a
dignity which is not usual in an American. The object of his visit was
twofold, to pay the bill he owed me, and to tell me that his partner,
Hermann Rudisic, would reach London from Valparaiso in a week's time;
when he would bring him to me to complete the purchase of the great
stone. He said further that as the season was over he had taken a place
near Basingstoke, the Woodfields it was named; and that he hoped his
daughter, who did not do well in an English climate, would benefit by
the wealth of pine-trees about the house. He finished by giving me a
reference to his London bankers, and also another to one of the best
known of the financiers in Lombard Street. In due course I communicated
with both firms, and received answers which set every doubt about the
financial position of Kershaw Klein at rest. The bankers declared that I
might trust him unhesitatingly for such a sum as I named. The other
replied that the Colonel's brother was of great standing and position in
Chili, and that he himself carried letters which proved his undoubted
probity. More complete vindication could not be had; and I went home to
laugh consumedly at the gentleman who had found such a mare's nest, and
to wonder if my friends would laugh very much if they heard--how little
I thought at that time of the old pleasantries with which I had once
greeted the tidings of a marriage.
I did not hear more of Klein for some fifteen days, at the end of which
time he wrote saying that Hermann Rudisic was with him at Basingstoke;
and that they hoped to call upon me on the following Friday. The march
of events was from that time quick. On the Thursday I read in a daily
paper of an accident in Berkshire to a Chilian visitor, who had been
thrown from his carriage and seriously hurt. The account said that his
life was despaired of, and that he was then lying at the house of his
host, the well-known Colonel Kershaw Klein, who had taken Lord Aberly's
place, the Woodfields. On the Friday morning I received a long letter
from the Colonel deploring the accident and the delay, more especially
because his commission to purchase the stone extended only to the 10th
of August, and it was then the third. He hoped, however, that matters
would look brighter at the end of that time; and would bring his partner
to London the moment he could travel.
Now, at the first thought, this intelligence set all the inherent
suspicion, which is a part of me, at work once more. Suggestions of
doubt rose again and again, instantly to be suppressed. Had I not
satisfied myself completely as to the Colonel's standing, his means, his
reputation, and his personal character? Was he not staying in Lord
Aberly's house? Had not he passed most brilliantly through a London
season? Were there not twenty members of the Bachelors' Club seeking to
pay for the sake of his daughter the fine imposed upon amorous
backsliders? If one were to suspect every man with such credentials as
these, the sooner one shut one's door, and locked one's safe for good,
the better for all hope of doing business. Of all this I was certain;
and had already come to the determination to put from my mind suspicion
both of the Count and his daughter, when there came to me by the
afternoon delivery another letter concerning the matter; but this was
anonymous, and in a hand I did not know. It was a curious scrawl written
upon a slip of account paper, and its contents were but these words:--
"You will be asked to Kershaw Klein's house in three days. I told you
the other morning not to trust yourself with the man; I say now, accept
the invitation."
This was plainly from my friend of Hyde Park; and I confess that his
pompous mysteriousness and pretence of knowledge amused me. Even he no
longer complained of Colonel Klein's reputation, nor advised me now to
avoid him. His letter finally quieted my scruples, and from that moment
I resolved to dally with them no longer; and to let no silly fears delay
the negotiations for the sale of the treasure of White Creek.
In this resolution I waited rather anxiously for the coming of Klein and
his partner, but three days went, and I saw nothing of them; it being on
the Monday morning at eleven o'clock that the former drove up to Bond
Street in a single brougham, and came with his daughter into my private
office. He seemed in a great state of distress, saying that Rudisic,
although better, was still unable to set foot to the ground: and begging
me as the time was so short to take the great jewel to Berkshire--his
house was just across the line dividing the county from Hampshire--and
there to settle the matter that very day. I heard him mechanically; my
eyes glued on the exquisite picture which his daughter made; her gown of
white delaine showing the mature contour of her figure admirably; and
her deep brown hair rolling from the shelter of a great straw hat in
silken waves upon her shoulders. If she had fascinated me at the dance,
the fascination was intensified there. I would cheerfully have risked
the best parcel of rubies in the place to have had the pleasure of
keeping her in the office even for an hour; and I did not hesitate one
moment in accepting Klein's offer.
"Come down to-day," said he, "and bring your man with you in case we
don't do business, and you have to return alone. I don't like mailing
with big stuff on me; you never know who gets wind of it. I suppose you
have somebody you could take."
Even with the girl's eyes upon me and her laughing threat to "make me
tramp at tennis awhile," I had a measure of satisfaction in this
request, and thought instantly of Abel.
"Yes," said I, with a light laugh, "I will bring my own detective. He's
down below now."
"That's right," said Klein, "and we'll catch the two-forty from
Waterloo. I've ordered the carriage to meet that, and there's just time
for a snack between whiles. Never forget your food, sir--I don't for all
the business in Europe. I once lost a commission for a railway in
Venezuela through a sandwich--but there, that's another story, and I'll
tell it you over a chop at the Criterion. I guess I've got an appetite
on, and so's Margaret, eh, little girl?"
He slapped his chest to signify that a void was there; and we all went
off down Piccadilly, returning afterwards for the gem which I had placed
in a flat-velvet case. I put it into my jewel pocket, cunningly
contrived in my vest, and with no more delay we got to Waterloo and to
our saloon, Abel traveling second class, by the bye, and in another
compartment. There was a well-turned-out wagonette to meet us when we
reached Basingstoke; and after a drive of something under an hour
through some of that glorious pine scenery of southern Berkshire, we
entered a short drive edged by thick laurels, and were shortly at the
gate of the Woodfields. Of the exterior of the house I saw nothing, for,
as I descended from the wagonette, I chanced to catch the eye of the
footman, who had a finger to his lips; and an exclamation almost broke
from my lips. Notwithstanding his disguise I recognized the man in a
moment. He was the "Oxford youth" who had given me a cigar in the park
on the morning after the dance in Grosvenor Crescent.
The discovery was not a pleasant one. It made discord of all the music
of Margaret Klein's voice--she was quickly babbling to me in the old
Georgian Hall--and forbade my taking considerable notice of the massive
oak of the double staircase, or of the exceedingly bright-nosed
"ancestors" who smiled upon us from twenty gilt frames. Abel had come up
to my room with me, I pretending that he invariably acted as my valet;
and once inside a very large but very ugly square bedchamber, whose
windows overlooked the prim lawn and terrace of flowers, I shut the door
and had a word with him.
"Abel," said I, "that footman who drove us from the station must be one
of the Scotland Yard lot; what's he doing in this house?"
Abel whistled, and by instinct, I suppose, put his hand upon his pistol
pocket.
"Have you got your revolver with you, sir?" he asked.
"Of course I have; and I'll take this opportunity to charge all the
chambers, but I don't believe for a moment there will be occasion to use
it. The man's on a false scent entirely. It's necessary at the same time
to act like wise men, and not like fools; and I must count on you to be
near me while we're in the place. If there's any knavery afoot, we
shan't hear of it until the place is asleep; but come here when I am
going to bed, and then we shall know what to do."
I sent him off with this to the servants' quarters, and dressed, though
an indescribable sense of nervousness had taken hold of me; and I found
myself peering into every cupboard and cranny like an old woman looking
for a burglar. The situation was either as dangerous as it could be, or
I was the victim of farcical fears. Yet the very shadows across the
immense floor, and the aureola upon the carpet about the dressing table
seemed to give gloom to the chamber. So thick were the walls of the old
house that no sound reached me from the rooms below; and when the gong
struck the hour for dinner its note reverberated as a wave of deadened
sound through some curtained chapel or chill vault. What did it mean, I
kept asking myself; the illness, was it sham? the man from London, was
he on a fool's errand? my visit, was it foolhardy? Had I walked into a
trap at the bidding of a pretty woman? Were all the guarantees I had
received in the Colonel's favor fraudulent or mistaken? I could not
think so. Again and again I told myself that the fellow from Scotland
Yard was an absurd crank upon a false scent, and that ninety jewelers of
a hundred would have done as I had done, and have brought the stone to
Berkshire. And with this thought I took a better courage and hastily
finished my dressing. I need scarce say that I had the jewel in my
pocket when I went to the drawing-room, and that I had already
determined that it should not leave me for a moment. I got rid, however,
of more of my fears when I entered the artistic and homely room where
Margaret Klein was waiting; and in the brighter scene of light and
laughter the absurdity of suspicion again occurred to me.
The meal was an excellent one, admirably served; the wine was perfect. I
sat at my host's right facing his daughter, who seemed to exert herself
unusually to fascinate, making delicate play with her speaking eyes; and
promising me all the possibilities of Berkshire rest, if I cared to stay
with them over the week. To this her father, the Colonel, who had the
ribbon of an Order in his buttonhole, and looked exceedingly handsome,
added:
"And I hope you will, for you're not seeming as well as you were last
week. You people in England live in too narrow a circle. A voyage across
the pond makes an epoch in your lives; you are scarce prepared to admit
yet that there is any other city but London. If you would enlarge the
scope of your actions, you would grumble less--and perhaps, if I may
say so, allow that other nations share some of your best boasted
qualities. Now I am truly cosmopolitan; I regard no city as my home; I
would as soon set out on a voyage of three thousand miles as of five. I
come to England, and I do it in ten days from Land's End to John o'
Groat's; and when I think I'll rest awhile I ask, Where is your pretty
county? and I settle for three weeks to explore it."
"I hope Mr. Sutton will do the same," said Margaret, following up his
invitation. "I want to learn all about the dames who won't know you
unless you had a grandfather; and I should like to see a curate who is
passing rich on forty pounds a year. I guess we mean to go right in now
we're amongst your best folk."
"I'll stay a day or two with pleasure if you will pilot me," said I, as
she rose to go to the drawing-room; but I little knew that my visit was
to terminate abruptly in three hours or less, or what was to happen in
the between-time.
A lean, lank-looking butler served the Colonel and myself with coffee
when she had gone; and after that my host took me to the drawing-room,
where I found her engaged in the pursuit of trying over a "coster" song.
The Colonel suggested business at once, saying:
"I'll leave you with Margaret while I go up to Hermann and learn if he's
well enough to receive us; I dare say you can amuse yourselves. I shan't
be gone five minutes."
He was really away for twenty minutes; but I did not count the time. The
whole situation seemed so curious--on the one hand a London detective
playing footman in the house, on the other a delightful host, and a girl
whose every word fascinated and whose every motion drew you
instinctively to her--that I gave up any attempt to solve it; and beyond
the knowledge that I had reason to be watchful, I put no restraint upon
myself; but sat at her side while she played the lightest of music; or
occasionally leant back to speak to me, so that her hair brushed my face
and her eyes almost looked into mine.
"It was good of you to come," she almost whispered in one of these
pauses, glancing up timorously, and speaking altogether in the
sympathetic tone.
"Do you miss the excitement of London?" I asked, letting my hand rest
for a moment on hers.
"I guess not," she replied; "but I miss some one who can talk to me as
you talk; you're going to stop awhile, aren't you?"
"I'll stop as long as you ask me to."
When he was gone she went on playing for some minutes, turning away at
last impatiently from the piano, and facing round with a serious, almost
alarmed look. What she meant to say or do I cannot tell, for at that
moment the Colonel came back and told us that his partner was in the
dressing-room upstairs, and would be glad to see me at once.
"Margaret may come too?" he asked me. "She would like to see the great
stone."
"Of course," I replied; "it will be a pleasure to show it to her."
I cannot tell you why it was, but as we rose together to leave the room
I seemed in a moment to realize that the affair had come to a crisis. In
that instant, notwithstanding guarantees, references, Margaret Klein's
fascinations, and the hundred arguments I had so often used to convince
myself of the folly of suspicion, there came to me as distinct and clear
a warning as though some human voice had given speech to it. The very
silence of the others--for they said no word, and a curious hesitation
seemed to come upon them--impressed the conviction of the monition. Once
in the hall, my uneasiness became stronger, for there at a table was the
footman I had recognized, and as he glanced at me when I passed him his
face was knit up as the face of a man thinking; and he let a glass fall
at the very moment we reached the stairs. What he wished to convey I do
not know; but although I felt there was danger in leaving the ground
floor, another force dragged me on behind the Colonel, and kept me
advancing unhesitatingly until I had reached the end of the long
picture-gallery with him, and he had knocked upon a door in the eastern
wing of the rambling mansion. What this force was I do not pretend to
explain. It may have been merely the influence of the woman; it may have
been my inherent obstinacy and belief in myself; or simple lack of
conviction which forbade any public expression of the fears I had
fomented. I know only that we waited for some seconds in the passage
until a hospital nurse opened the door, and that I found myself at last
in a very pretty boudoir, where a pale and sickly-looking man was lying
upon a couch, but propped up to greet us. The formalities of
introduction were accomplished by the Colonel with great suavity and
grace; and the nurse having set chairs at the side of the sick man's
couch, and placed a table there, she withdrew, and we were ready for the
business.
That you should understand what happened in the next few minutes it is
necessary for me to say a word upon the construction of the boudoir. It
was a room hung in pink silk and white, and it had two doors in it,
giving off to other rooms, whose size I could not see since they were in
darkness. For light, we had a lamp with a white shade upon the invalid's
table, and two others upon the mantelshelf; while we were seated in a
fashion that allayed any fears I might have had of personal and sudden
attack. The Colonel lounged in an American rocking-chair, he being
nearest to the head of the couch; his daughter leant back against a
buhl-work cabinet, she being a little way from the sick man's feet; I
had a library-chair, and was alone in an attitude which would allow me
to spring to my defence--if that were necessary--without delay. I
looked, too, at Hermann Rudisic, the Colonel's partner, and I confess
that contempt for his physical powers was my first thought. I was
convinced that if it were a question of fight, I could hold the two men
until Abel, who was in the servants' hall, came to my assistance; and
while the others were present I had no fear of any of those wild
machinations which are chiefly the property of imaginative
fiction-makers. This knowledge gave to me my nerve again, and without
more ado I took the case from my pocket and showed the stone.
The vision of the glorious gem, rippling on its surface with a myriad
lights, white, and golden, and many-colored, in the play of radiating
fire, was one that compelled the silence of amazed admiration for many
minutes. Margaret Klein first spoke, her face bent to the diamond so
that its waves of color seemed to float up to her ravished eyes; and
with a little cry wrung from her satisfaction she said,--
"Oh, Mr. Sutton, it's too beautiful to look at!"
"I am glad that it does not disappoint," said I.
"It could disappoint no one," the invalid said, stretching out a hand
which trembled to draw the treasure closer to his eyes.
"It's the whitest stone I've seen for three years," the Colonel remarked
coolly, and then, as with a new thought, he added,--
"I believe it's whiter than the Brazilian stone in my old ring. I should
like to compare them, if you'll let me? The other stuff is in my
dressing-room there; Margaret, will you get it?"
He gave her his keys, and taking a lamp from the shelf, she passed into
the chamber which was behind me. In the same moment Rudisic asked his
host to prop him up higher upon the couch, and the Colonel had just
begun to place the pillows when I heard Margaret's voice crying,--
"Father, I can't open the drawer--it's stuck; do come and help."