THE MICHAELOVITCH DIAMONDS
M. Pigot, cool and imperturbable, held out to us, with a little
smile, a hand which showed not a quiver of emotion--his gauntleted
hand; and I saw that, on the back of it, were two tiny depressions.
At the bottom of each depression lay a drop of bright red liquid--
blood-red, I told myself, as I stared at it, fascinated. And what
nerves of steel this man possessed! A sudden warmth of admiration for
him glowed within me. "That liquid, gentlemen," he said in his
smooth voice, "is the most powerful poison ever distilled by man.
Those two tiny drops would kill a score of people, and kill them
instantly. Its odour betrays its origin"--and, indeed, the air was
heavy with the scent of bitter almonds--"but the poison ordinarily
derived from that source is as nothing compared with this. This
poison is said to have been discovered by Rémy, the remarkable man
who brought about the death of the Duc d'Anjou. Its distillation was
supposed to be one of the lost arts, but the secret was rediscovered
by this man Crochard. No secret, indeed, is safe from him; criminal
history, criminal memoirs--the mysteries and achievements of the great
confederacy of crime which has existed for many centuries, and whose
existence few persons even suspect--all this is to him an open book.
It is this which renders him so formidable. No man can stand against
him. Even the secret of this drawer was known to him, and he availed
himself of it when need arose." M. Pigot paused, his head bent in
thought; and I seemed to be gazing with him down long avenues of crime,
extending far into the past--dismal avenues like those of Père Lachaise,
where tombs elbowed each other; where, at every step, one came face to
face with a mystery, a secret, or a tragedy. Only, here, the mysteries
were all solved, the secrets all uncovered, the tragedies all
understood. But only to the elect, to criminals really great, were
these avenues open; to all others they were forbidden. Alone of
living men, perhaps, Crochard was free to wander there unchallenged.
Some such vision as this, I say, passed before my eyes, and I had a
feeling that M. Pigot shared in it; but, after an instant, he turned
back to the cabinet.
"Now, M. Simmón," he said, briskly, in an altered voice, "if you will
have the kindness to hold the drawer for a moment in this position, I
will draw the serpent's fangs. There is not the slightest danger," he
added, seeing that Simmonds very naturally hesitated.
Thus assured, Simmonds grasped the handle of the drawer, and held it
open, while the Frenchman took from his pocket a tiny flask of
crystal.
"A little farther," he said; and as Simmonds, with evident effort,
drew the drawer out to its full length, a tiny, two-tined prong
pushed itself forward from underneath the cabinet. "There are the
fangs," said M. Pigot. He held the mouth of the flask under first one
and then the other, passing his other hand carefully behind and above
them. "The poison is held in place by what we in French call
_attraction capillaire_--I do not know the English; but I drive it
out by introducing the air behind it--ah, you see!"
He stood erect and held the flask up to the light. It was half full
of the red liquid.
"Enough to decimate France," he said, screwed the stopper carefully
into place, and put the flask in his pocket. "Release the drawer, if
you please, monsieur," he added to Simmonds.
It sprang back into place on the instant, the arabesqued handle
snapping up with a little click.
"You will observe its ingenuity," said M. Pigot. "It is really most
clever. For whenever the hand, struck by the poisoned fangs, loosened
its hold on the drawer, the drawer sprang shut as you see, and
everything was as before--except that one man more had tasted death.
Now I open it. The fangs fall again; they strike the gauntlet; but
for that, they would pierce the hand, but death no longer follows. By
turning this button, I lock the spring, and the drawer remains open.
The man who devised this mechanism was so proud of it that he
described it in a secret memoir for the entertainment of the Grand
Louis. There is a copy of that memoir among the archives of the
Bibliothèque Nationale; the original is owned by Crochard. It was he
who connected that memoir with this cabinet, who rediscovered the
mechanism, rewound the spring, and renewed the poison. No doubt the
stroke with the poisoned fangs, which he used to punish traitors, was
the result of reading that memoir."
"This Croshar--or whatever his name is,--seems to be a 'strordinary
feller," observed Grady, relighting his cigar.
"He is," agreed M. Pigot, quietly; "a most extraordinary man. But
even he is not infallible; for, since the memoir made no mention of
the other secret drawer--the one in which Madame la Duchesse
concealed her love letters--Crochard knew nothing of it. It was that
fact which defeated his combinations--a pure accident which he could
not foresee. And now, gentlemen, it shall be my pleasure to display
before you some very beautiful brilliants."
Not until that instant had I thought of what the drawer contained; I
had been too fascinated by the poisoned fangs and by the story told
so quietly but so effectively by the French detective; but now I
perceived that the drawer was filled with little rolls of cotton,
which had been pressed into it quite tightly.
M. Pigot removed the first of these, unrolled it and spread it out
upon the desk, and instantly we caught the glitter of diamonds
--diamonds so large, so brilliant, so faultlessly white that I drew a
deep breath of admiration. Even M. Pigot, evidently as he prided
himself upon his imperturbability, could not look upon those gems
wholly unmoved; a slow colour crept into his cheeks as he gazed down
at them, and he picked up one or two of the larger ones to admire
them more closely. Then he unfolded roll after roll, stopping from
time to time for a look at the larger brilliants.
"These are from the famous necklace which the Grand Duke inherited
from his grandmother," he said, calling our attention to a little
pile of marvellous gems in one of the last packets. "Crochard, of
course, removed them from their settings--that was inevitable. He
could melt down the settings and sell the gold; but not one of these
brilliants would be marketable in Europe for many years. Each of them
is a marked gem. Here in America, your police regulations are not so
complete; but I fancy that, even here, he would have had difficulty
in marketing this one," and he unfolded the last packet, and held up
to the light a rose-diamond which seemed to me as large as a walnut,
and a-glow with lovely colour.
"Perhaps you have stopped to admire the Mazarin diamond in the
_galérie d'Apollon_ at the Louvre," said M. Pigot. "There is always a
crowd about that case, and a special attendant is installed there to
guard it, for it contains some articles of great value. But the
Mazarin is not one of them; for it is not a diamond at all; it is
paste--a paste facsimile of which this is the original. Oh, it is all
quite honest," he added, as Grady snorted derisively. "Some years
ago, the directors of the Louvre needed a fund for the purchase of
new paintings; needed also to clean and restore the old ones. They
decided that it was folly to keep three millions of francs imprisoned
in a single gem, when their Michael Angelos and da Vincis and
Murillos were encrusted with dirt and fading daily. So they sought a
purchaser for the Mazarin; they found one in the empress of Russia,
who had a craze for precious stones, and who, at her death, left this
remarkable collection to her favourite son, who had inherited her
passion. A paste replica of the Mazarin was placed in the Louvre for
the crowds to admire, and every one soon forgot that it was not
really the diamond. For myself, I think the directors acted most
wisely. And now," he added, with a gesture toward the glittering
heaps, "what shall we do with all this?"
"There's only one thing to do," said Grady, awaking suddenly as from
a trance, "and that's to get them in a safe-deposit box as quick as
possible. There's no police-safe I'd trust with 'em! Why, they'd tempt
the angel Gabriel!" and he drew a deep breath.
"Can we find a box of safe-deposit at this hour of the night?" asked
M. Pigot, glancing at his watch. "It is almost one o'clock and a
half."
"That's easy in New York," said Grady. "We'll take 'em over to the
Day and Night Bank on Fifth Avenue. It never closes. Wait till I get
something to put 'em in."
He went out and came back presently with a small valise.
"This will do," he said. "Stow 'em away, and I'll call up the bank
and arrange for the box."
Simmonds and Pigot rolled up the packets carefully and placed them in
the valise, while I sat watching them in a kind of daze. And I
understood the temptation which would assail a man in the presence of
so much beauty. It was not the value of the jewels which shook and
dazzled me--I scarcely thought of that; it was their seductive
brilliance, it was the thought that, if I possessed them, I might
take them out at any hour of the day or night and run my fingers
through them and watch them shimmer and quiver in the light.
"The Grand Duke Michael must have been considerably upset," remarked
Simmonds, who, throughout all this scene, had lost no whit of his
serenity of demeanour.
"He has been like a madman," said M. Pigot, smiling a little at
Simmonds's unemotional tone. "These jewels are a passion with him; he
worships them; he never has parted with them, even for a day; where
he goes, they have gone. In his most desperate need of money--and he
has had such need many times--he has never sold one of his
brilliants. On the contrary, whenever he has money or credit, and the
opportunity comes to purchase a stone of unusual beauty, he cannot
resist, even though his debts go unpaid. Since the loss of these
stones, he has raved, he has cursed, he has beat his servants--one of
them has died, in consequence. We are all a little mad on some one
subject, I have heard it said; well, the Grand Duke Michael is very
mad on the subject of diamonds."
"Why didn't he offer a reward for their return?" queried Simmonds.
"Oh, he did," said M. Pigot. "He offered immediately his whole
fortune for their return. But his fortune was not large enough to
tempt Crochard, for the Grand Duke really has nothing but the income
from his family estates, and you may well believe that he spends all
of it. It will be a great joy to him that we have found them."
The thought flashed through my mind that doubtless M. Pigot was in
the way of receiving a handsome present.
"There they are," said Simmonds, and closed the bag with a snap, as
Grady came in again.
"I've arranged for the box," said Grady, "and one of our wagons is at
the door. I thought we'd better not trust a taxi--might turn over or
run into something, and we can't afford to take any chances--not this
trip. Simmonds, you go along with Moosseer Piggott, and put an extra
man on the seat with the driver. Maybe that Croshar might try to hold
you up."
The same thought was in my own mind, for Crochard must have learned
of M. Pigot's arrival; and I could scarcely imagine that he would sit
quietly by and permit the jewels to be taken away from him--to say
nothing of his chagrin over his unfulfilled boast to Godfrey. So I
was relieved that Grady was wise enough to take no risk.
"You'd better get a receipt," Grady went on, "and arrange that the
valise is to be delivered only when you and Moosseer Piggott appear
together. That will be satisfactory, moosseer?" he added, turning to
the Frenchman.
"Entirely so, sir."
"Very well, then; I'll see you in the morning. I congratulate you on
the find. It was certainly great work."
"I thank you, sir," replied M. Pigot, gravely. "Au revoir, monsieur,"
and with a bow to me, he followed Simmonds into the outer room.
Grady sat down and got out a fresh cigar.
"Well, Mr. Lester," he said, as he struck a match, "what do you think
of these Frenchmen, anyway?"
"They're marvellous," I said. "Even yet I can't understand how he
knew so much."
"Maybe he was just guessing at some of it," Grady suggested.
"I thought of that; but I don't believe anybody could guess so
accurately. For instance, how did he know about those letters?"
"Fact is," broke in Grady, "that's the first I'd heard of 'em. What
_is_ that story?"
I told him the story briefly, carefully suppressing everything which
would give him a clue to the identity of the veiled lady.
"There were certain details," I added, "which I supposed were known
to no one except myself and two other persons--and yet M. Pigot knew
them. Then again, how did he know so certainly just how the mechanism
worked? How did he know which roll of cotton contained that Mazarin
diamond? You will remember he told us what was in that roll before he
opened it."
Grady smiled good-naturedly and a little patronisingly.
"That was the last roll, wasn't it?" he demanded. "Since that big
diamond hadn't shown up in any of the others, he knew it had to be in
that roll. It was just one of the little plays for effect them
Frenchies are so fond of."
"Perhaps you are right," I agreed. "But it seemed to me that he
handled that mechanism as though he was familiar with it. Of course,
he may have prepared himself by studying the drawings which no doubt
accompany the secret memoir. He may even have had a working model
made."
Grady nodded tolerantly.
"Them fellers go to a lot of trouble over little things like that,"
he said. "They like to slam their cards down on the table with a big
hurrah, even when the cards ain't worth a damn."
"He certainly held trumps this time, anyway," I commented. "And he
played his hand superbly. He is an extraordinary man."
"And a great actor," Grady supplemented. "Them fellers always behave
like they was on the stage, right in the spot-light. It makes me a
little tired, sometimes. Hello! Who's that?"
The front door had been flung open; there was an instant's colloquy
with the desk-sergeant, then a rapid step crossed the outer room, and
Godfrey burst in upon us.
He cast a rapid glance at the Boule cabinet, at the secret drawer
standing open, empty; and then his eyes rested upon Grady.
"So he got away with it, did he?" he inquired.
"Who in hell do you think you are?" shouted Grady, his face purple,
"coming in here like this? Get out, or I'll have you thrown out!"
"Oh, I'll go," retorted Godfrey coolly. "I've seen all I care to see.
Only I'll tell you one thing, Grady--you've signed your own
death-warrant to-night!"
"What do you mean by that?" Grady demanded, in a lower tone.
"I mean that you won't last an hour after the story of this night's
work gets out."
Grady's colour slowly faded as he met the burning and contemptuous
gaze Godfrey turned upon him. As for me, an awful fear had gripped my
heart.
"Do you mean to say it wasn't Piggott?" stammered Grady, at last.
Godfrey laughed scornfully.
"No, you blithering idiot!" he said. "It wasn't Pigot. It was
Crochard himself!"
And he stalked out, slamming the door behind him.