"Go way!" was the reply. "How do you know?"
"I saw it entered in his bank book. I was in his dressing-room, and I
saw it on the table. When he went out I looked in it out of curiosity.
He deposited forty thousand dollars last week."
"Where do you suppose he got it?"
"Search me."
"Some fellows have all the luck, don't they?"
Then the voices passed out of hearing.
6
I have not mentioned Mr. Alfred Mount lately though I saw him often on
matters connected with the case. He was an interesting character. It
was only by degrees that I realised what an extraordinary man I had to
deal with. After our first meeting his manner towards me completely
changed. He appeared to be sorry for his brusqueness on that occasion.
Now he was all frankness and friendliness. Nothing crude, you
understand, just the air of one man of the world towards another. I
could not help but feel flattered by it.
While we worked together so amicably the mutual antagonism remained. I
knew he still resented Miss Hamerton's having employed me without
consulting him, and I believed that he was working independently. For
my part, you may be sure, I told him nothing but what I had to. I
found no little pleasure in blocking his subtle questioning by my air
of clumsy innocence. I told him nothing about the cryptogram.
I never called at his office again. Sometimes he dropped into mine,
his bright eyes wandering all around, but more often I called on him at
his apartment over the store. For he occupied the second floor of the
beautiful little building which housed his business. There was however
nothing of the old-fashioned shop-keeper about his place. I never saw
such splendour before or since. But it took you a while to realise
that it was splendour, for there was nothing showy or garish.
Everything he possessed was the choicest of its kind in the world.
Even with my limited knowledge, when I stopped to figure up the value
of what I saw, I was staggered. I saw enough at different times to
furnish several millionaires.
Mount had a strange love for his treasures in which there was nothing
of the usual self-glorification of millionaires. He had a modest,
almost a tender, way of referring to his things, of handling them. I
learned quite a lot about tapestries, rugs, Chinese porcelains,
enamels, ivories and gold workmanship from his talk. He did not care
for paintings.
"Too insistent," he said. "Paintings will not merge."
The man was full of queer sayings, which he would drawl out with an eye
to the effect he was creating on you.
He never allowed daylight to penetrate to his principal room, a great
hall two stories high, lined with priceless tapestries.
"Daylight is rude and unmanageable," he said. "Artificial light I can
order to suit my mood."
Another odd thing was his antipathy to red. That colour almost never
appeared in his treasures. In the tapestries greens predominated; the
rugs were mostly old blues and yellows. The great room never looked
quite the same. Sometimes it was completely metamorphosed over night.
I understood from something he let fall that the other floors of the
building were stored with his treasures. He had them brought down and
arranged according to his fancy. The only servant ever visible was a
silent Hindoo, who sometimes appeared in gorgeous Eastern costume,
encrusted with jewels. It occurred to me that that was how his master
ought to dress. The sober clothes of a business man, however elegant,
were out of place on Mount. Long afterwards I learned that it was his
custom when alone to array himself like an Eastern potentate, but I
never saw him dressed that way.
One day, to see what he would say, I asked him point blank what was the
value of Miss Hamerton's lost pearls.
He consulted a note-book. "She paid me at different times exactly
twenty-five thousand, seven hundred for them."
"I know," I said quietly. "But what was their value?"
He bored me through and through with his jetty eyes before answering.
Finally he smiled--he had a charming smile when he chose, and spread
out his hands in token of surrender. His hands were too white and
beautiful for a man's.
"I see you know the truth," he said. "Well--I am in your hands. I
hope you will keep the secret. Only a great deal of unhappiness could
result from its becoming known."
"I shall not tell," I said. "But how much are they worth."
"I really couldn't say," he said frankly. "There is nothing like them
in the world, nothing to measure them by, I mean. It would depend
simply on how far the purchaser could go."
"Wouldn't they be difficult to dispose of?"
"Very. That is our hope in the present situation."
"Do you suppose the thief knew what he was getting?"
"I doubt it. To distinguish the blue cast is a fad of my own. They
ordinarily go with the black pearls."
Later he returned to the subject of his own accord. "Since you have
learned or guessed so much, I should tell you the whole story, for fear
you might have a doubt of Miss Hamerton."
"No danger of that," I said quickly.
He looked at me strangely. I suppose he was wondering if I presumed to
rival him there. He immediately went on smoothly:
"She, of course, has no suspicion of the true value of the pearls. Nor
does she guess that they were in my possession for years. I let her
have them one or two at a time. Do you blame me--" he spread out his
expressive hands again.
"They are the most beautiful pearls in all the world," he murmured
softly, "the fruit of all my knowledge and my patience. Pearls in a
case are not pearls. Only when they lie on the warm bosom of a woman
are pearls really pearls. I wished to have the pleasure of seeing
Irma--Miss Hamerton wearing them. I could not give them to her. So I
devised this innocent deception. Wouldn't you have done the same?"
Maybe I would. Anyhow I didn't feel called upon to argue the matter
with him, so I kept my mouth shut.
His long eyes narrowed. "If you had seen her wear the real pearls you
would understand better," he said dreamily. "They glowed as if with
pleasure in their situation. Her skin is so tender that the veins give
it a delicate bluish cast exactly matched by my exquisite pearls!"
To me there was something--what would you say, something delicately
indecent in the way Mount spoke of Miss Hamerton. It made me indignant
deep down. But I said nothing.
"I am a fool about precious stones," he went on with that disarming
smile. "No shop-keeper has any right to indulge in a personal passion
for his wares. Pearls come first with me, then diamonds. Would you
like to see my diamonds?"
Without waiting for any answer he disappeared into the next room. I
heard the ring of a burglar-proof lock. Presently he returned bearing
a little black velvet cushion on which lay a necklet of gleaming fire.
"I am no miser," he said smiling. "Quantity does not appeal to me, nor
mere bigness. Only quality. This is my whole collection, seventy-two
stones, the result of thirty years' search for perfection."
I gazed at the fiery spots speechlessly. Before taking this case I had
never thought much of precious stones. They had seemed like pretty
things to me, and useless. But upon looking at these I could
understand Miss Hamerton's reference to her pearls as living things.
These diamonds were alive--devilishly alive. They twinkled up at Mount
like complaisant little slaves outvying each other to flatter their
master. The sheer beauty of them caught at the breast. Their fire bit
into a man's soul. Seeing it, I could understand the ancient lusts to
rob and murder for bits of stone like these.
"Aren't they lovely?" Mount murmured.
"Yes, like a snake," I blurted out.