"It was high noon in the city of Antwerp. From slender steeples
floated the mellow music of the Flemish bells, and in the spire of the
great cathedral across the square the cracked chimes clashed discords
until my ears ached.
"When the fiend in the cathedral had jerked the last tuneless clang
from the chimes, I removed my fingers from my ears and sat down at one
of the iron tables in the court. A waiter, with his face shaved blue,
brought me a bottle of Rhine wine, a tumbler of cracked ice, and a
siphon.
"'Does monsieur desire anything else?' he inquired.
"'Yes--the head of the cathedral bell-ringer; bring it with vinegar
and potatoes,' I said, bitterly. Then I began to ponder on my
great-aunt and the Crimson Diamond.
"The white walls of the Hôtel St. Antoine rose in a rectangle around
the sunny court, casting long shadows across the basin of the
fountain. The strip of blue overhead was cloudless. Sparrows twittered
under the eaves the yellow awnings fluttered, the flowers swayed in
the summer breeze, and the jet of the fountain splashed among the
water-plants. On the sunny side of the piazza the tables were vacant;
on the shady side I was lazily aware that the tables behind me were
occupied, but I was indifferent as to their occupants, partly because
I shunned all tourists, partly because I was thinking of my
great-aunt.
"Most old ladies are eccentric, but there is a limit, and my
great-aunt had overstepped it. I had believed her to be wealthy--she
died bankrupt. Still, I knew there was one thing she did possess, and
that was the famous Crimson Diamond. Now, of course, you know who my
great-aunt was.
"Excepting the Koh-i-noor and the Regent, this enormous and unique
stone was, as everybody knows, the most valuable gem in existence. Any
ordinary person would have placed that diamond in a safe-deposit. My
great-aunt did nothing of the kind. She kept it in a small velvet bag,
which she carried about her neck. She never took it off, but wore it
dangling openly on her heavy silk gown.
"In this same bag she also carried dried catnip-leaves, of which she
was inordinately fond. Nobody but myself, her only living relative,
knew that the Crimson Diamond lay among the sprigs of catnip in the
little velvet bag.
"'Harold,' she would say, 'do you think I'm a fool? If I place the
Crimson Diamond in any safe-deposit vault in New York, somebody will
steal it, sooner or later.' Then she would nibble a sprig of catnip
and peer cunningly at me. I loathed the odor of catnip and she knew
it. I also loathed cats. This also she knew, and of course surrounded
herself with a dozen. Poor old lady! One day she was found dead in her
bed in her apartments at the Waldorf. The doctor said she died from
natural causes. The only other occupant of her sleeping-room was a
cat. The cat fled when we broke open the door, and I heard that she
was received and cherished by some eccentric people in a neighboring
apartment.
"Now, although my great-aunt's death was due to purely natural causes,
there was one very startling and disagreeable feature of the case. The
velvet bag containing the Crimson Diamond had disappeared. Every inch
of the apartment was searched, the floors torn up, the walls
dismantled, but the Crimson Diamond had vanished. Chief of Police
Conlon detailed four of his best men on the case, and, as I had
nothing better to do, I enrolled myself as a volunteer. I also offered
$25,000 reward for the recovery of the gem. All New York was agog.
"The case seemed hopeless enough, although there were five of us after
the thief. McFarlane was in London, and had been for a month, but
Scotland Yard could give him no help, and the last I heard of him he
was roaming through Surrey after a man with a white spot in his hair.
Harrison had gone to Paris. He kept writing me that clews were plenty
and the scent hot, but as Dennet, in Berlin, and Clancy, in Vienna,
wrote me the same thing, I began to doubt these gentlemen's ability.
"'You say,' I answered Harrison, 'that the fellow is a Frenchman, and
that he is now concealed in Paris; but Dennet writes me by the same
mail that the thief is undoubtedly a German, and was seen yesterday in
Berlin. To-day I received a letter from Clancy, assuring me that
Vienna holds the culprit, and that he is an Austrian from Trieste.
Now, for Heaven's sake,' I ended, 'let me alone and stop writing me
letters until you have something to write about.'
"The night-clerk at the Waldorf had furnished us with our first clew.
On the night of my aunt's death he had seen a tall, grave-faced man
hurriedly leave the hotel. As the man passed the desk he removed his
hat and mopped his forehead, and the night-clerk noticed that in the
middle of his head there was a patch of hair as white as snow.
"We worked this clew for all it was worth, and, a month later, I
received a cable despatch from Paris, saying that a man answering to
the description of the Waldorf suspect had offered an enormous crimson
diamond for sale to a jeweller in the Palais Royal. Unfortunately the
fellow took fright and disappeared before the jeweller could send for
the police, and since that time McFarlane in London, Harrison in
Paris, Dennet in Berlin, and Clancy in Vienna had been chasing men
with white patches on their hair until no gray-headed patriarch in
Europe was free from suspicion. I myself had sleuthed it through
England, France, Holland, and Belgium, and now I found myself in
Antwerp at the Hôtel St. Antoine, without a clew that promised
anything except another outrage on some respectable white-haired
citizen. The case seemed hopeless enough, unless the thief tried again
to sell the gem. Here was our only hope, for, unless he cut the stone
into smaller ones, he had no more chance of selling it than he would
have had if he had stolen the Venus of Milo and peddled her about the
Rue de Seine. Even were he to cut up the stone, no respectable gem
collector or jeweller would buy a crimson diamond without first
notifying me; for although a few red stones are known to collectors,
the color of the Crimson Diamond was absolutely unique, and there was
little probability of an honest mistake.
"Thinking of all these things, I sat sipping my Rhine wine in the
shadow of the yellow awnings. A large white cat came sauntering by and
stopped in front of me to perform her toilet, until I wished she would
go away. After a while she sat up, licked her whiskers, yawned once or
twice, and was about to stroll on, when, catching sight of me, she
stopped short and looked me squarely in the face. I returned the
attention with a scowl, because I wished to discourage any advances
towards social intercourse which she might contemplate; but after a
while her steady gaze disconcerted me, and I turned to my Rhine wine.
A few minutes later I looked up again. The cat was still eying me.
"'Now what the devil is the matter with the animal,' I muttered; 'does
she recognize in me a relative?'
"'Perhaps,' observed a man at the next table.
"'What do you mean by that?' I demanded.
"'What I say,' replied the man at the next table.
"I looked him full in the face. He was old and bald and appeared
weak-minded. His age protected his impudence. I turned my back on him.
Then my eyes fell on the cat again. She was still gazing earnestly at
me.
"Disgusted that she should take such pointed public notice of me, I
wondered whether other people saw it; I wondered whether there was
anything peculiar in my own personal appearance. How hard the creature
stared! It was most embarrassing.
"'What has got into that cat?' I thought. 'It's sheer impudence. It's
an intrusion, and I won't stand it!' The cat did not move. I tried to
stare her out of countenance. It was useless. There was aggressive
inquiry in her yellow eyes. A sensation of uneasiness began to steal
over me--a sensation of embarrassment not unmixed with awe. All cats
looked alike to me, and yet there was something about this one that
bothered me--something that I could not explain to myself, but which
began to occupy me.
"She looked familiar--this Antwerp cat. An odd sense of having seen
her before, of having been well acquainted with her in former years,
slowly settled in my mind, and, although I could never remember the
time when I had not detested cats, I was almost convinced that my
relations with this Antwerp tabby had once been intimate if not
cordial. I looked more closely at the animal. Then an idea struck
me--an idea which persisted and took definite shape in spite of me. I
strove to escape from it, to evade it, to stifle and smother it; an
inward struggle ensued which brought the perspiration in beads upon my
cheeks--a struggle short, sharp, decisive. It was useless--useless to
try to put it from me--this idea so wretchedly bizarre, so grotesque
and fantastic, so utterly inane--it was useless to deny that the cat
bore a distinct resemblance to my great-aunt!
"I gazed at her in horror. What enormous eyes the creature had!
"'Blood is thicker than water,' said the man at the next table.
"'What does he mean by that?' I muttered, angrily, swallowing a
tumbler of Rhine wine and seltzer. But I did not turn. What was the
use?
"'Chattering old imbecile,' I added to myself, and struck a match, for
my cigar was out; but, as I raised the match to relight it, I
encountered the cat's eyes again. I could not enjoy my cigar with the
animal staring at me, but I was justly indignant, and I did not intend
to be routed. 'The idea! Forced to leave for a cat!' I sneered. 'We
will see who will be the one to go!' I tried to give her a jet of
seltzer from the siphon, but the bottle was too nearly empty to carry
far. Then I attempted to lure her nearer, calling her in French,
German, and English, but she did not stir. I did not know the Flemish
for 'cat.'
"'She's got a name, and won't come,' I thought. 'Now, what under the
sun can I call her?'
"'Aunty,' suggested the man at the next table.
"I sat perfectly still. Could that man have answered my thoughts?--for
I had not spoken aloud. Of course not--it was a coincidence--but a
very disgusting one.
"'Aunty,' I repeated, mechanically, 'aunty, aunty--good gracious, how
horribly human that cat looks!' Then, somehow or other, Shakespeare's
words crept into my head and I found myself repeating: 'The soul of my
grandam might haply inhabit a bird; the soul of--nonsense!' I
growled--'it isn't printed correctly! One might possibly say, speaking
in poetical metaphor, that the soul of a bird might haply inhabit
one's grandam--' I stopped short, flushing painfully. 'What awful
rot!' I murmured, and lighted another cigar. The cat was still
staring; the cigar went out. I grew more and more nervous. 'What rot!'
I repeated. 'Pythagoras must have been an ass, but I do believe there
are plenty of asses alive to-day who swallow that sort of thing.'
"'Who knows?' sighed the man at the next table, and I sprang to my
feet and wheeled about. But I only caught a glimpse of a pair of
frayed coat-tails and a bald head vanishing into the dining-room. I
sat down again, thoroughly indignant. A moment later the cat got up
and went away.