Many of our most important modern inventions have been forestalled by
the Chinese, for whom we should have the greater regard in that they are
not Christians. Gunpowder, False Money, the art of Printing, Diplomacy,
Propaganda, Prison Fortunes, Taximeters and the Strike--all these are of
the extreme Orient. But what have I to do with all these? It is of the
Mariner's Compass that I sing--which also was first spotted by the
Chink.
Now of the various forms of Mariner's Compass there is one with which
some few of my readers may be acquainted. It is used in certain
scientific experiments which have nothing to do with pointing to the
North, but with the measurement of delicate electrical hints. The needle
swings on a jewelled pivot, very nicely balanced, encased in a small
round box about an inch across, covered in with glass so that no dust
can affect the very sensitive affair; and at the side there is a little
stud on a spring which you press with your finger when you want to fix
and register the pointing of the needle. So long as you press the stud
the needle stands firm. When you release the stud the needle trembles
again.
All very interesting. But what of it?
Wait a moment. Retain this clearly in your mind, and I will proceed to
the second point.
It has been remarked by the less stupid of psychologists--and that is
not saying much--that cunning and intelligence are not often combined.
Conversely, as Dr. Nancy Neerly shrewdly remarked, when her assistant at
the Hospital for Nervous Diseases, gonophed her microscope, extreme
incompetence is often accompanied by cunning. Nothing is more cunning
than your half-wit.
Getting that principle firmly into your head, you will appreciate that
when Professor de Bohun slunk out in the evening after his cousin's
departure for town, into the neighbouring suburban villas of Bakeham
(which, for one thing, fringed the Park--the de Bohuns had long ago
screened it by a dense row of quickly-growing timber--and for another,
provided the Home Secretary with a considerable part of his insufficient
income) his action was not unconnected with that upon which his mind had
been exercised for now nearly twenty-four hours.
He sought a policeman, and said with a sudden squeak which made that
high official jump:
"Oh! Can you tell me if anyone round here sells scientific instruments?
Optical instruments? Electrical instruments? ... Instruments?"
"Wot?" said the policeman.
"Let us say ... ah, for instance," went on the squeaky voice,
"clinometers.... Shall we say Clinometers? Clinometers? ... Yes!
Clinometers!"
"Pass along!" said the policeman. "Pass along!" And there was that in
his eye of a man who hesitates between a verdict of lunacy and arrest
for leg-pull.
"But, Constable ..." pleaded the unfortunate cadet of an ancient house.
"Pass on! Pass on!" boomed the tyrant, and as there was a difference of
at least three octaves between the two men's voices, the unfortunate
Professor obeyed the double bass, crossed the street at the risk of his
life, and wandered inanely past the shop windows.
But there is a Providence for such as he, as also for drunkards and
babes; and there, right before him, was an ancient bow window of
bottle-glass panes; the name of the shop in old Georgian script; the
information that it had been founded in 1805; and, behind the glass, two
telescopes, a microscope, a clock, several watches, and a sextant of
immense age.
The Professor went in.
"What I want ... ah!" he said. Then his eye fell upon the very thing he
desired. It lay there in a glass case, and the owner of the shop, no
younger than his customer, brought it out with a palsied hand.
"That's it," said the Professor, nodding genially. "That's it. That's
what I want. That's it." Slipping it into his pocket, he made for the
door, nodding good day.
"Hi! Mister! That'll be five guineas," said the ancient. Oh! vileness of
avaricious age! He had seen his client coming out by the garden gate by
the Great House, he had noted guilty haste, he had noted academic
idiocy, and he charged accordingly.
"Oh, yes! Of course ... ah! _What_! Five guineas? ... five _guineas_!
FIVE GUINEAS!"
It was a sickener. But the wages of Sin is Death. He must have it--or
something of the sort. And he must have it now, before Humphrey got
home. Sin will not wait.
[Illustration: _Deplorable moral lapse of Professor de Bohun
(pronounced Boon)._]
Believe me or not, but there was positively a flush upon the yellow
cheek of the hoary intriguer, a flush that contrasted charmingly with
his straggling white whiskers, as he parted with two half crowns and a
note. It was a severe struggle. To comfort himself he pressed the stud
again. Yes, it worked all right. He toddled back, and got in at the very
moment when his cousin's car was buzzing up the drive, back from London.
Professor de Bohun was determined to lose no time. He got rid of his
overcoat and his hat with surprising agility, and met the master of the
house at the door as though he had been in for hours.
But his was not a temperament to introduce a subject with finesse. He
went blindly at it.
"Humphrey," he said, ere ever the Home Secretary was across the step, "I
want to see you. I want to see you now ... yes, now ... rather
urgently.... I want to see you now."
The Man of Little Peace nodded wearily.
"Come along," he said.
His mind jumped back to the false scent of the morning. He suddenly
wondered whether, after all, Cousin Bill was going to confess? Galton's
statement had been clear enough. He had said in so many words that he
had _seen_ an emerald in the Professor's hand. And the head of the
family would have believed anything, almost of the Professor in the way
of such follies since the great Mullingar affair.
"What is it, Bill?" he said, as he shut the door of his study.
"Ah!" said the Ancient, almost archly. "What do you think? The
E-M-E-R-A-L-D! Eh? Eh?"
He searched in his pocket. Humphrey de Bohun looked to see the jewel
appear. Not at all. What appeared was a little round brass box, glass
cased, and in it a trembling needle, that shook and shivered like a
gossamer in a breeze.
"Now, my dear Humphrey," said the Professor, "let us take two chairs;
yes ... two chairs ... two chairs. Ah! yes, two chairs." They took two
chairs. "And let me pull up this little table...." He had become almost
businesslike, not to say sprightly, in concentrating upon what he was
about to do.
"Now, then; here we are, we two on these two chairs as it were, are we
not? Yes! And here you see this little instrument, do you not? Yes! And
do you know what it does ... what it is? What it is ...? It's a
talcometer."
"A what?" said the Home Secretary.
"A talcometer," said Professor de Bohun, lying freely, and puffing
slightly after the effort. "Now, Humphrey, I want you to watch
something. To watch something, eh! Ah! yes. You have, I take it--ah!--or
Marjorie has, or some one has a jewel--sure to have one. A diamond, say.
Any stone--crystal. A stone, at any rate...."
"I don't know," began Humphrey de Bohun, wondering what was to be. "Will
this do?" he asked, leaning over towards his writing table and pulling
off it the little crystal Chinese god which was used to weight down the
papers which he had abandoned there so many days.
Anything would do for the deceitful pedant. He nodded cheerfully.
[Illustration: _Professor de Bohun explains to the head of the
family his theory--or rather, certitude--upon
the whereabouts of the Great Emerald._]
"Yes," he said, "so long as it's crystal. Anything crystal. Crystal."
Then he added, "Now, Humphrey, watch. Here," holding the little round
brass disk with its trembling needle, "I have our talcometer. Now here,"
moving the Chinese god into line with the axis round which the tiny
filament of metal trembled, "here we have this talcometer, _and_ the
crystal. Eh! _And_ the crystal.... Now watch, Humphrey!"
Holding the little round brass case with his left finger and thumb, he
gradually with his right hand approached the heathenish idol, sliding
the False God slowly along the polished table-top towards the
instrument. It came closer and closer. It was at 9 inches, 6 inches, 3
inches, ... but there was as yet no apparent effect, when, suddenly,
with the Pot-bellied Dwarf Deity at about 2 inches off, or a little
less, the needle behaved like a pointer: it stood immovable, held
rigidly by some strange force. The stud, dear friends, but how could
Humphrey de Bohun know that?
"There! You see that? See that? See that?" squeaked the Professor
triumphantly. "Now I want you to test it for yourself. Move the little
devil away! Move it yourself! Humphrey, move it yourself!"
Humphrey de Bohun very slowly pushed back the crystal, and almost
immediately the needle trembled again.
"There!" said the Professor in happy confidence, leaning back. "There!
What did I tell you?"
"Well, what of it, Bill?" said the harassed master.
"What of it?" answered his cousin. "The Emerald. Ah! the Emerald!" and
he rubbed his hands together.
"I don't understand a word you're saying," said poor Humphrey.
The Professor leaned forward and tapped his cousin twice upon the
shoulder with that knotted forefinger.
"That instrument," he said, as solemnly as such a voice can say
anything, "tells a crystal close at hand. According to the cube of the
distance. I have to use it perpetually. Very well known. German, you
know--wonderful people, the Germans. It was Meitz's idea," he went on,
adding verisimilitude by the effective use of detail. "But _he_ couldn't
have done it without Speitzer. Often like that in research work. Any
doubt about a crystal's character. Even amorphous--put that thing close
enough, and it points at once. Now do you see? Eh! Now do you see?"
"Not exactly," said Humphrey de Bohun.
"Why, it's plain enough! I hadn't thought of it. It suddenly occurred to
me. It suddenly came to me while you were off to London. Here I had what
could solve all our troubles. I put it first here, then there.
Everywhere I could. Went on for an hour--all over the room! All over the
rug where it dropped. Then one of your guests came in. I didn't want to
be seen at it. I was putting it back into my pocket when my hand came
close by the side of his coat. Bless my heart! It pointed!"
He leant forward again and tapped his cousin more solemnly still, this
time on the chest. "Mark my words! That young man's got it!"
"Which young man?" said Humphrey, remembering what counter accusation
the Professor would naturally make, and thinking at once of Galton.
"That young writing fellow," said Cousin Bill. "That newspaper chap
McTaggart. McTaggart, McTaggart, McTaggart, McTaggart, McTaggart."
Humphrey de Bohun hesitated. "My dear Bill," he said, "you never know.
He might have had something else in his pocket--also crystal, or--I
don't know ... something."
The Professor wagged his head with all the dignity of a goat.
"Won't work, Humphrey!" he said. "Won't work! One can always tell the
size by the distance. It wasn't some ring or small thing of that kind.
Besides which, he wouldn't have such a small thing of his own in his
pocket. No, the Emerald's there all right. And I'll tell you something
that makes me surer still. I took occasion to brush up against
him--there was a hard slab in that pocket, Humphrey. In that pocket. A
small, hard slab! Slab! ... Hard slab! ..."
An awful task arose in the conscience of Humphrey de Bohun. He must play
the spy again. He must mistrust yet another guest.
But wait! Should he tell the great detective when he arrived? No. It
would be only fair to seek the young man first and warn him. But he
hesitated and he put it off. He would wait till dinner time, or nearly
dinner, when the poor fellow was changing. He would make it quite clear
that there would be no consequences--only, he must confess and restore.
Then he suddenly thought of what would happen if he drew blank, as he
had in the case of the strange being before him. But he was in some
agony.