“The necklace was a present from the Queen of England to the Czarina of
Russia,” began the Queen’s Messenger. “It was to celebrate the occasion
of the Czar’s coronation. Our Foreign Office knew that the Russian
Ambassador in Paris was to proceed to Moscow for that ceremony, and I
was directed to go to Paris and turn over the necklace to him. But when
I reached Paris I found he had not expected me for a week later and was
taking a few days’ vacation at Nice. His people asked me to leave the
necklace with them at the Embassy, but I had been charged to get a
receipt for it from the Ambassador himself, so I started at once for
Nice The fact that Monte Carlo is not two thousand miles from Nice may
have had something to do with making me carry out my instructions so
carefully. Now, how the Princess Zichy came to find out about the
necklace I don’t know, but I can guess. As you have just heard, she was
at one time a spy in the service of the Russian government. And after
they dismissed her she kept up her acquaintance with many of the Russian
agents in London. It is probable that through one of them she learned
that the necklace was to be sent to Moscow, and which one of the Queen’s
Messengers had been detailed to take it there. Still, I doubt if even
that knowledge would have helped her if she had not also known something
which I supposed no one else in the world knew but myself and one other
man. And, curiously enough, the other man was a Queen’s Messenger too,
and a friend of mine. You must know that up to the time of this robbery
I had always concealed my despatches in a manner peculiarly my own. I
got the idea from that play called ‘A Scrap of Paper.’ In it a man wants
to hide a certain compromising document. He knows that all his rooms
will be secretly searched for it, so he puts it in a torn envelope and
sticks it up where any one can see it on his mantel shelf. The result is
that the woman who is ransacking the house to find it looks in all the
unlikely places, but passes over the scrap of paper that is just under
her nose. Sometimes the papers and packages they give us to carry about
Europe are of very great value, and sometimes they are special makes of
cigarettes, and orders to court dressmakers. Sometimes we know what we
are carrying and sometimes we do not. If it is a large sum of money or a
treaty, they generally tell us. But, as a rule, we have no knowledge of
what the package contains; so, to be on the safe side, we naturally
take just as great care of it as though we knew it held the terms of
an ultimatum or the crown jewels. As a rule, my confreres carry the
official packages in a despatch-box, which is just as obvious as a
lady’s jewel bag in the hands of her maid. Every one knows they are
carrying something of value. They put a premium on dishonesty.
Well, after I saw the ‘Scrap of Paper’ play, I determined to put the
government valuables in the most unlikely place that any one would
look for them. So I used to hide the documents they gave me inside my
riding-boots, and small articles, such as money or jewels, I carried
in an old cigar-case. After I took to using my case for that purpose I
bought a new one, exactly like it, for my cigars. But to avoid mistakes,
I had my initials placed on both sides of the new one, and the moment
I touched the case, even in the dark, I could tell which it was by the
raised initials.
“No one knew of this except the Queen’s Messenger of whom I spoke.
We once left Paris together on the Orient Express. I was going to
Constantinople and he was to stop off at Vienna. On the journey I told
him of my peculiar way of hiding things and showed him my cigar-case. If
I recollect rightly, on that trip it held the grand cross of St. Michael
and St. George, which the Queen was sending to our Ambassador. The
Messenger was very much entertained at my scheme, and some months later
when he met the Princess he told her about it as an amusing story. Of
course, he had no idea she was a Russian spy. He didn’t know anything at
all about her, except that she was a very attractive woman.
“It was indiscreet, but he could not possibly have guessed that she
could ever make any use of what he told her.
“Later, after the robbery, I remembered that I had informed this young
chap of my secret hiding-place, and when I saw him again I questioned
him about it. He was greatly distressed, and said he had never seen the
importance of the secret. He remembered he had told several people of
it, and among others the Princess Zichy. In that way I found out that it
was she who had robbed me, and I know that from the moment I left London
she was following me and that she knew then that the diamonds were
concealed in my cigar-case.
“My train for Nice left Paris at ten in the morning. When I travel at
night I generally tell the _chef de gare_ that I am a Queen’s Messenger,
and he gives me a compartment to myself, but in the daytime I take
whatever offers. On this morning I had found an empty compartment, and
I had tipped the guard to keep every one else out, not from any fear of
losing the diamonds, but because I wanted to smoke. He had locked the
door, and as the last bell had rung I supposed I was to travel alone, so
I began to arrange my traps and make myself comfortable. The diamonds
in the cigar-case were in the inside pocket of my waistcoat, and as they
made a bulky package, I took them out, intending to put them in my hand
bag. It is a small satchel like a bookmaker’s, or those hand bags that
couriers carry. I wear it slung from a strap across my shoulder, and, no
matter whether I am sitting or walking, it never leaves me.
“I took the cigar-case which held the necklace from my inside pocket
and the case which held the cigars out of the satchel, and while I was
searching through it for a box of matches I laid the two cases beside me
on the seat.
“At that moment the train started, but at the same instant there was a
rattle at the lock of the compartment, and a couple of porters lifted
and shoved a woman through the door, and hurled her rugs and umbrellas
in after her.
“Instinctively I reached for the diamonds. I shoved them quickly into
the satchel and, pushing them far down to the bottom of the bag, snapped
the spring lock. Then I put the cigars in the pocket of my coat, but
with the thought that now that I had a woman as a travelling companion I
would probably not be allowed to enjoy them.
“One of her pieces of luggage had fallen at my feet, and a roll of rugs
had landed at my side. I thought if I hid the fact that the lady was
not welcome, and at once endeavored to be civil, she might permit me
to smoke. So I picked her hand bag off the floor and asked her where I
might place it.
“As I spoke I looked at her for the first time, and saw that she was a
most remarkably handsome woman.
“She smiled charmingly and begged me not to disturb myself. Then she
arranged her own things about her, and, opening her dressing-bag, took
out a gold cigarette case.
“‘Do you object to smoke?’ she asked.
“I laughed and assured her I had been in great terror lest she might
object to it herself.
“‘If you like cigarettes,’ she said, ‘will you try some of these? They
are rolled especially for my husband in Russia, and they are supposed to
be very good.’
“I thanked her, and took one from her case, and I found it so much
better than my own that I continued to smoke her cigarettes throughout
the rest of the journey. I must say that we got on very well. I judged
from the coronet on her cigarette-case, and from her manner, which was
quite as well bred as that of any woman I ever met, that she was some
one of importance, and though she seemed almost too good looking to be
respectable, I determined that she was some _grande dame_ who was so
assured of her position that she could afford to be unconventional. At
first she read her novel, and then she made some comment on the scenery,
and finally we began to discuss the current politics of the Continent.
She talked of all the cities in Europe, and seemed to know every one
worth knowing. But she volunteered nothing about herself except that she
frequently made use of the expression, ‘When my husband was stationed at
Vienna,’ or ‘When my husband was promoted to Rome.’ Once she said to me,
‘I have often seen you at Monte Carlo. I saw you when you won the pigeon
championship.’ I told her that I was not a pigeon shot, and she gave a
little start of surprise. ‘Oh, I beg your pardon,’ she said; ‘I thought
you were Morton Hamilton, the English champion.’ As a matter of fact,
I do look like Hamilton, but I know now that her object was to make
me think that she had no idea as to who I really was. She needn’t have
acted at all, for I certainly had no suspicions of her, and was only too
pleased to have so charming a companion.
“The one thing that should have made me suspicious was the fact that
at every station she made some trivial excuse to get me out of the
compartment. She pretended that her maid was travelling back of us in
one of the second-class carriages, and kept saying she could not imagine
why the woman did not come to look after her, and if the maid did not
turn up at the next stop, would I be so very kind as to get out and
bring her whatever it was she pretended she wanted.
“I had taken my dressing-case from the rack to get out a novel, and had
left it on the seat opposite to mine, and at the end of the compartment
farthest from her. And once when I came back from buying her a cup of
chocolate, or from some other fool errand, I found her standing at my
end of the compartment with both hands on the dressing-bag. She looked
at me without so much as winking an eye, and shoved the case carefully
into a corner. ‘Your bag slipped off on the floor,’ she said. ‘If you’ve
got any bottles in it, you had better look and see that they’re not
broken.’
“And I give you my word, I was such an ass that I did open the case and
looked all through it. She must have thought I _was_ a Juggins. I get
hot all over whenever I remember it. But in spite of my dulness, and her
cleverness, she couldn’t gain anything by sending me away, because what
she wanted was in the hand bag and every time she sent me away the hand
bag went with me.
“After the incident of the dressing-case her manner changed. Either in
my absence she had had time to look through it, or, when I was examining
it for broken bottles, she had seen everything it held.
“From that moment she must have been certain that the cigar-case, in
which she knew I carried the diamonds, was in the bag that was fastened
to my body, and from that time on she probably was plotting how to get
it from me. Her anxiety became most apparent. She dropped the great lady
manner, and her charming condescension went with it. She ceased talking,
and, when I spoke, answered me irritably, or at random. No doubt her
mind was entirely occupied with her plan. The end of our journey was
drawing rapidly nearer, and her time for action was being cut down with
the speed of the express train. Even I, unsuspicious as I was, noticed
that something was very wrong with her. I really believe that before we
reached Marseilles if I had not, through my own stupidity, given her the
chance she wanted, she might have stuck a knife in me and rolled me out
on the rails. But as it was, I only thought that the long journey had
tired her. I suggested that it was a very trying trip, and asked her if
she would allow me to offer her some of my cognac.
“She thanked me and said, ‘No,’ and then suddenly her eyes lighted, and
she exclaimed, ‘Yes, thank you, if you will be so kind.’
“My flask was in the hand bag, and I placed it on my lap and with my
thumb slipped back the catch. As I keep my tickets and railroad guide in
the bag, I am so constantly opening it that I never bother to lock
it, and the fact that it is strapped to me has always been sufficient
protection. But I can appreciate now what a satisfaction, and what a
torment too, it must have been to that woman when she saw that the bag
opened without a key.
“While we were crossing the mountains I had felt rather chilly and had
been wearing a light racing coat. But after the lamps were lighted
the compartment became very hot and stuffy, and I found the coat
uncomfortable. So I stood up, and, after first slipping the strap of the
bag over my head, I placed the bag in the seat next me and pulled off
the racing coat. I don’t blame myself for being careless; the bag was
still within reach of my hand, and nothing would have happened if
at that exact moment the train had not stopped at Arles. It was the
combination of my removing the bag and our entering the station at the
same instant which gave the Princess Zichy the chance she wanted to rob
me.
“I needn’t say that she was clever enough to take it. The train ran into
the station at full speed and came to a sudden stop. I had just thrown
my coat into the rack, and had reached out my hand for the bag. In
another instant I would have had the strap around my shoulder. But at
that moment the Princess threw open the door of the compartment and
beckoned wildly at the people on the platform. ‘Natalie!’ she called,
‘Natalie! here I am. Come here! This way!’ She turned upon me in the
greatest excitement. ‘My maid!’ she cried. ‘She is looking for me. She
passed the window without seeing me. Go, please, and bring her back.’
She continued pointing out of the door and beckoning me with her other
hand. There certainly was something about that woman’s tone which made
one jump. When she was giving orders you had no chance to think of
anything else. So I rushed out on my errand of mercy, and then rushed
back again to ask what the maid looked like.
[Illustration: 09 This gave the Princess Zichy the chance]
“‘In black,’ she answered, rising and blocking the door of the
compartment. ‘All in black, with a bonnet!’
“The train waited three minutes at Aries, and in that time I suppose I
must have rushed up to over twenty women and asked, ‘Are you Natalie?’
The only reason I wasn’t punched with an umbrella or handed over to the
police was that they probably thought I was crazy.
“When I jumped back into the compartment the Princess was seated where
I had left her, but her eyes were burning with happiness. She placed her
hand on my arm almost affectionately, and said in a hysterical way, ‘You
are very kind to me. I am so sorry to have troubled you.’
“I protested that every woman on the platform was dressed in black.
“‘Indeed I am so sorry,’ she said, laughing; and she continued to laugh
until she began to breathe so quickly that I thought she was going to
faint.
“I can see now that the last part of that journey must have been a
terrible half hour for her. She had the cigar-case safe enough, but she
knew that she herself was not safe. She understood if I were to open my
bag, even at the last minute, and miss the case, I would know positively
that she had taken it. I had placed the diamonds in the bag at the very
moment she entered the compartment, and no one but our two selves had
occupied it since. She knew that when we reached Marseilles she would
either be twenty thousand pounds richer than when she left Paris, or
that she would go to jail. That was the situation as she must have read
it, and I don’t envy her her state of mind during that last half hour.
It must have been hell.
[Illustration: 10 She knew she would be twenty thousand pounds richer]
“I saw that something was wrong, and in my innocence I even wondered if
possibly my cognac had not been a little too strong. For she suddenly
developed into a most brilliant conversationalist, and applauded and
laughed at everything I said, and fired off questions at me like a
machine gun, so that I had no time to think of anything but of what she
was saying. Whenever I stirred she stopped her chattering and leaned
toward me, and watched me like a cat over a mouse-hole. I wondered how I
could have considered her an agreeable travelling companion. I thought
I would have preferred to be locked in with a lunatic. I don’t like to
think how she would have acted if I had made a move to examine the bag,
but as I had it safely strapped around me again, I did not open it, and
I reached Marseilles alive. As we drew into the station she shook hands
with me and grinned at me like a Cheshire cat.
“‘I cannot tell you,’ she said, ‘how much I have to thank you for.’ What
do you think of that for impudence!
“I offered to put her in a carriage, but she said she must find Natalie,
and that she hoped we would meet again at the hotel. So I drove off by
myself, wondering who she was, and whether Natalie was not her keeper.
“I had to wait several hours for the train to Nice, and as I wanted to
stroll around the city I thought I had better put the diamonds in the
safe of the hotel. As soon as I reached my room I locked the door,
placed the hand bag on the table and opened it. I felt among the things
at the top of it, but failed to touch the cigar-case. I shoved my hand
in deeper, and stirred the things about, but still I did not reach it.
A cold wave swept down my spine, and a sort of emptiness came to the pit
of my stomach. Then I turned red-hot, and the sweat sprung out all over
me. I wet my lips with my tongue, and said to myself, ‘Don’t be an ass.
Pull yourself together, pull yourself together. Take the things out, one
at a time. It’s there, of course it’s there. Don’t be an ass.’
“So I put a brake on my nerves and began very carefully to pick out the
things one by one, but after another second I could not stand it, and
I rushed across the room and threw out everything on the bed. But the
diamonds were not among them. I pulled the things about and tore them
open and shuffled and rearranged and sorted them, but it was no use. The
cigar-case was gone. I threw everything in the dressing-case out on the
floor, although I knew it was useless to look for it there. I knew that
I had put it in the bag. I sat down and tried to think. I remembered I
had put it in the satchel at Paris just as that woman had entered the
compartment, and I had been alone with her ever since, so it was she
who had robbed me. But how? It had never left my shoulder. And then I
remembered that it had--that I had taken it off when I had changed
my coat and for the few moments that I was searching for Natalie. I
remembered that the woman had sent me on that goose chase, and that at
every other station she had tried to get rid of me on some fool errand.
[Illustration: 11 I threw out everything on the bed]
“I gave a roar like a mad bull, and I jumped down the stairs six steps
at a time.
“I demanded at the office if a distinguished lady of title, possibly a
Russian, had just entered the hotel.
“As I expected, she had not. I sprang into a cab and inquired at two
other hotels, and then I saw the folly of trying to catch her without
outside help, and I ordered the fellow to gallop to the office of the
Chief of Police. I told my story, and the ass in charge asked me to calm
myself, and wanted to take notes. I told him this was no time for taking
notes, but for doing something. He got wrathy at that, and I demanded
to be taken at once to his Chief. The Chief, he said, was very busy, and
could not see me. So I showed him my silver greyhound. In eleven years I
had never used it but once before. I stated in pretty vigorous language
that I was a Queen’s Messenger, and that if the Chief of Police did not
see me instantly he would lose his official head. At that the fellow
jumped off his high horse and ran with me to his Chief,--a smart young
chap, a colonel in the army, and a very intelligent man.
“I explained that I had been robbed in a French railway carriage of a
diamond necklace belonging to the Queen of England, which her Majesty
was sending as a present to the Czarina of Russia. I pointed out to him
that if he succeeded in capturing the thief he would be made for life,
and would receive the gratitude of three great powers.
[Illustration: 12 Threw everything in the dressing-case out on the floor]
“He wasn’t the sort that thinks second thoughts are best. He saw Russian
and French decorations sprouting all over his chest, and he hit a bell,
and pressed buttons, and yelled out orders like the captain of a penny
steamer in a fog. He sent her description to all the city gates, and
ordered all cabmen and railway porters to search all trains leaving
Marseilles. He ordered all passengers on outgoing vessels to be
examined, and telegraphed the proprietors of every hotel and pension to
send him a complete list of their guests within the hour. While I was
standing there he must have given at least a hundred orders, and sent
out enough commissaires, sergeants de ville, gendarmes, bicycle police,
and plain-clothes Johnnies to have captured the entire German army.
When they had gone he assured me that the woman was as good as arrested
already. Indeed, officially, she was arrested; for she had no more
chance of escape from Marseilles than from the Chateau D’If.
“He told me to return to my hotel and possess my soul in peace. Within
an hour he assured me he would acquaint me with her arrest.
“I thanked him, and complimented him on his energy, and left him. But I
didn’t share in his confidence. I felt that she was a very clever woman,
and a match for any and all of us. It was all very well for him to be
jubilant. He had not lost the diamonds, and had everything to gain if he
found them; while I, even if he did recover the necklace, would only
be where I was before I lost them, and if he did not recover it I was a
ruined man. It was an awful facer for me. I had always prided myself on
my record. In eleven years I had never mislaid an envelope, nor missed
taking the first train. And now I had failed in the most important
mission that had ever been intrusted to me. And it wasn’t a thing that
could be hushed up, either. It was too conspicuous, too spectacular. It
was sure to invite the widest notoriety. I saw myself ridiculed all over
the Continent, and perhaps dismissed, even suspected of having taken the
thing myself.
“I was walking in front of a lighted cafe, and I felt so sick and
miserable that I stopped for a pick-me-up. Then I considered that if I
took one drink I would probably, in my present state of mind, not want
to stop under twenty, and I decided I had better leave it alone. But
my nerves were jumping like a frightened rabbit, and I felt I must
have something to quiet them, or I would go crazy. I reached for my
cigarette-case, but a cigarette seemed hardly adequate, so I put it back
again and took out this cigar-case, in which I keep only the strongest
and blackest cigars. I opened it and stuck in my fingers, but instead
of a cigar they touched on a thin leather envelope. My heart stood
perfectly still. I did not dare to look, but I dug my finger nails into
the leather and I felt layers of thin paper, then a layer of cotton, and
then they scratched on the facets of the Czarina’s diamonds!
“I stumbled as though I had been hit in the face, and fell back into one
of the chairs on the sidewalk. I tore off the wrappings and spread out
the diamonds on the cafe table; I could not believe they were real. I
twisted the necklace between my fingers and crushed it between my palms
and tossed it up in the air. I believe I almost kissed it. The women
in the cafe stood tip on the chairs to see better, and laughed and
screamed, and the people crowded so close around me that the waiters
had to form a bodyguard. The proprietor thought there was a fight, and
called for the police. I was so happy I didn’t care. I laughed, too, and
gave the proprietor a five-pound note, and told him to stand every one
a drink. Then I tumbled into a fiacre and galloped off to my friend the
Chief of Police. I felt very sorry for him. He had been so happy at the
chance I gave him, and he was sure to be disappointed when he learned I
had sent him off on a false alarm.
“But now that I had found the necklace, I did not want him to find the
woman. Indeed, I was most anxious that she should get clear away, for
if she were caught the truth would come out, and I was likely to get a
sharp reprimand, and sure to be laughed at.
“I could see now how it had happened. In my haste to hide the diamonds
when the woman was hustled into the carriage, I had shoved the cigars
into the satchel, and the diamonds into the pocket of my coat. Now that
I had the diamonds safe again, it seemed a very natural mistake. But I
doubted if the Foreign Office would think so. I was afraid it might not
appreciate the beautiful simplicity of my secret hiding-place. So, when
I reached the police station, and found that the woman was still at
large, I was more than relieved.
“As I expected, the Chief was extremely chagrined when he learned of my
mistake, and that there was nothing for him to do. But I was feeling so
happy myself that I hated to have any one else miserable, so I suggested
that this attempt to steal the Czarina’s necklace might be only the
first of a series of such attempts by an unscrupulous gang, and that I
might still be in danger.
“I winked at the Chief and the Chief smiled at me, and we went to Nice
together in a saloon car with a guard of twelve carabineers and twelve
plain-clothes men, and the Chief and I drank champagne all the way.
We marched together up to the hotel where the Russian Ambassador was
stopping, closely surrounded by our escort of carabineers, and delivered
the necklace with the most profound ceremony. The old Ambassador was
immensely impressed, and when we hinted that already I had been made the
object of an attack by robbers, he assured us that his Imperial Majesty
would not prove ungrateful.
“I wrote a swinging personal letter about the invaluable services of
the Chief to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, and they gave him
enough Russian and French medals to satisfy even a French soldier. So,
though he never caught the woman, he received his just reward.”
The Queen’s Messenger paused and surveyed the faces of those about him
in some embarrassment.
“But the worst of it is,” he added, “that the story must have got about;
for, while the Princess obtained nothing from me but a cigar-case and
five excellent cigars, a few weeks after the coronation the Czar sent
me a gold cigar-case with his monogram in diamonds. And I don’t know yet
whether that was a coincidence, or whether the Czar wanted me to know
that he knew that I had been carrying the Czarina’s diamonds in my
pigskin cigar-case. What do you fellows think?”