“Somebody’s come to dinner, and you’ve forgotten all about it.”
She shook her head, and whispered back:
“I haven’t asked any one to dinner; I’m sure I haven’t.”
“Well, they’re here, whether we’ve asked them or not,” I hissed, “and
you can’t turn ’em out. They expect to be fed.”
“Who are they?”
“Search me! Friends of yours I’ve never seen.”
“For pity’s sake, don’t look surprised! Try and pretend it’s all
right.”
We lined up by the fireplace, and got our smiles all ready. The
portière was drawn, and Perkins announced:
“Major and Mrs. Thatcher.”
They sailed smilingly into the room, the woman ahead, rustling in a
long, sparkly, black dress. To my certain knowledge, I’d never seen
either of them before. The woman was very pretty; not pretty in the
sense that Daisy is, with beautiful features and a perfect complexion,
but slim, and pale, and aristocratic-looking. She had black hair with
a little wreath of red flowers in it, and the whitest neck I ever saw.
She evidently thought she was all right as far as herself and the
house and the dinner were concerned, for she was perfectly serene,
and easy as an old shoe. The man behind her was a big, handsome, dense
chap--just home from India, they said, and he looked it. He’d that dull
way those dead swell army fellows sometimes have; it goes with a long
mustache and an eye-glass.
I looked out of the tail of my eye at Daisy, and I knew by her face she
couldn’t remember either of them. But they were the genuine article,
and she wasn’t going to be feazed by any situation that could boil up
out of the society pool. She was just as easy as they were. She’d a
smile on her face like a child, and she said the little, mild, milky
things women say just as milkily and mildly as tho she was greeting
her lifelong friends.
Well, it went along as smoothly as a summer sea. They located
themselves as Major and Mrs. Thatcher, and told a lot about their life
and their movements--all of which I could see Daisy greedily gathering
in. I didn’t know whether she remembered them or not, but I didn’t
think she did, she was so careful about alluding to places where
she had met them. They seemed to know her all right--Mrs. Thatcher,
especially. She’d allude to smart houses where Daisy had been asked,
and tony people that were getting to be friends of Daisy’s. She seemed
to be right in the best circles herself. I wouldn’t like to say how
many times she mentioned the names of earls and lords; one of them,
Baron--some name like Fiddlesticks--she said was her cousin.
She didn’t stay long after dinner. I don’t think I sat ten minutes
with the major--and it was a dull ten minutes, and no mistake. There
was nothing light and airy about him. He asked me about Chicago (which
he pronounced “Chick-ago”), and said he had heard there was good
sport in the Rocky Mountains, and thought of going there to hunt the
Great Auk. I didn’t know what the Great Auk was, and I asked him. He
looked blankly at me, and said he believed a “large form of bird,”
which surprised me, as I had an idea it was a preadamite beast, like a
behemoth.
I was glad to have the major go, not only because he was so dull, but
because I was so dying to find out from Daisy if she’d placed them and
who they were. They were hardly on the steps and the front door shut on
them before I was back in the parlor.
“Who are they, for heavens’ sake?” I burst out.
She shook her head, laughing a little, and looking utterly bewildered.
“My dear boy,” she said, “I haven’t the least idea. It’s the most
extraordinary thing I ever knew.”
“Isn’t there anything about them you remember? Didn’t they say
something that gave you a clew?”
“Not a word, and yet they seem to know me so well. The queerest thing
of all was that, when you were in the dining-room with the man, the
woman, in the most confidential tone, began to ask me about some one
called Amelia. It was _too_ dreadful! I hadn’t the faintest notion what
she meant.”
“What did you say? I’ll lay ten to one you were equal to it.”
“I realized it was desperate, and, after going through the dinner so
creditably, I wasn’t going to break down over the coffee. She said:
‘How about poor Amelia?’ I knew by that ‘poor’ and by the expression of
her face it was something unusual and queer. I thought a minute, and
then looked as solemn as I could, and answered: ‘Really, the subject is
a very painful one to me. I’d rather not talk about it.’”
We both roared. It was so like Daisy to be ready that way!
“And then--this is the strangest part of all--she put her hand in the
front of her dress and drew out some little thing of chamois leather,
and told me to give it to Amelia from her. I tried to stop her, but it
was too late. She put it here in the crystal bowl.”
Daisy went to the bowl, and took out a little limp sack of chamois
leather.
“It feels like pebbles,” she said, pinching it.
And then she opened it and shook the “pebbles” into her hand. I bent
down to look at them, my head close to hers. The palm of her hand was
covered with small, sparkling crystals of different sizes and very
bright. We looked at them, and then at one another. They were diamonds!
For a moment we didn’t either of us say anything. Daisy had been
laughing, and her laugh died away into a sort of scared giggle. Her
hand began to shake a little, and it made the diamonds send out gleams
in all directions.
“What--what--does it mean?” she said, in a low sort of gasp.
I just looked at them and shook my head. But I felt a cold sinking in
that part of my organism where my courage is usually screwed to the
sticking-place.
“Are they real, do you think?” she said again, and she took the evening
paper and poured them out on it.
Spread out that way, they looked most awfully numerous and rich. There
must have been more than a hundred of them of different sizes, and
shaking around on the surface of the paper made them shine and sparkle
like stars.
“It’s a fortune, Cassius,” she said, almost in a whisper; “it’s a
fortune in diamonds. Why did she leave them?”
“Didn’t she say they were for Amelia?” I said, in a hollow tone.
“Yes; but who is Amelia? How will we ever find her? What shall we do?
It’s too awful!”
We stood opposite one another with the paper between us, and tried to
think. In the lamplight the diamonds winked at us with what seemed
human malice. I turned round and picked up the bag they had come from,
looked vaguely into it, and shook it. A last stone fell out on the
paper, quite a large one, and added itself to the pile.
“Why did she leave them here?” Daisy moaned. “What did she bother us
for? Why didn’t she take them to Amelia herself?”
“Because she was afraid,” I said, in the undertone of melodrama.
“They’re stolen, Daisy.”
I had voiced the fear in both our hearts. We sat down opposite one
another on either side of the table, with the newspaper full of
diamonds between us. I don’t know whether I was as pale as Daisy, but
I felt quite as bad as she looked. And sitting thus, each staring into
the other’s scared face, we ran over the events of the evening.
We couldn’t make much of it; it was too uncanny. But from the first we
both decided we’d felt something to be wrong. Why or how they’d come?
who they were? what they wanted?--we couldn’t answer a single question.
We were in a maze. The only thing that seemed certain was that they had
one hundred and fifty diamonds of varying sizes that they had wanted,
for some reason, to get rid of, and they’d got rid of them to us. And
so we talked and talked till, by slow degrees, we got to the point
where suddenly, with a simultaneous start, we looked at one another,
and breathed out:
“The Castlecourt diamonds!”
We had read it all in the papers, and we had talked it over, and here
we were with a pile of gems in a newspaper that might be the very
stones.
“And next year I’d hoped to know Lady Castlecourt. I’d been sure I
would!” Daisy wailed. “And now--”
“But you haven’t stolen the diamonds, dearest,” I said, soothingly.
“You needn’t get in a fever about that.”
“But, good heavens, I might just as well! Do you suppose there’s any
one in the world fool enough to believe the story of what happened here
to-night? People say it’s hard to believe everything in the Bible! Why,
Jonah and the whale is a simple every-day affair compared to it!”
It did look bad; the more we talked of it the worse it looked. We
didn’t sleep all night, and when the dawn was coming through the
blinds we were still talking, trying to decide what to do. At
breakfast we sat like two graven images, not eating a thing, and all
that day in the office I found it impossible to concentrate my mind,
but sat thinking of what on earth we’d do with those darned diamonds.
I’d suggested, the first thing, to go and give them up at the nearest
police station. But Daisy wouldn’t hear of that. She said that no
one would believe a word of our story--it was too impossible. And
when I came to think of it I must say I agreed with her. I saw myself
telling that story in a court of justice, and I realized that a look
of conscious guilt would be painted on my face the whole time. I’d
have felt, whether it was true or not, that nobody really ought to
believe it, and as an honest, self-respecting citizen I ought not to
expect them to. Here we were, strangers that nobody knew a thing about,
anyway! Daisy said they’d take us for accomplices; and when I said
to her we’d be a pretty rank pair of accomplices to give up the swag
without a struggle, she said they’d think we got scared, and decided to
do what she calls “turn State’s evidence.”
She thought the best thing to do was to keep the stones till we could
think up a more plausible story. We tried to do that, and the night
after our meeting with Major and Mrs. Thatcher we stayed awake till
three, thinking up “plausible stories.” We got a great collection of
them, but it seemed impossible to get a good one without implicating
somebody. I invented a corker, but it cast a dark suspicion on Daisy;
and she had an even better one, but it would have undoubtedly resulted
in the arrest of Perkins and the housemaid, and possibly myself.
It was a horrible situation. Even if we could possibly have escaped
suspicion ourselves, it would have ruined us socially and financially.
Would the Colonial Box, Tub, and Cordage Company have retained as the
head of its London branch a man who had got himself mixed up with a
sensational diamond robbery? Not on your life! That concern demands a
high standard and unspotted record in all its employees. I’d have got
the sack at the end of the month.
And Daisy! How would the bishop and two lords have felt about it? Had
no more use for that little woman, you can bet your bottom dollar! Even
Lady Sara Gyves, who, they say, will go anywhere to get a dinner, would
have given her the Ice-house Laugh. _I_ know them. And I saw my Daisy
sitting at home all alone on her reception day, and taking dinner with
me every night. No, sir! That wouldn’t happen if Cassius P. Kennedy had
to take those diamonds to the Thames and throw them off London Bridge
in a weighted bag.
So there we were! It was a dreadful predicament. Every morning we
read the papers with our hearts thumping like hammers. Every ring at
the bell made us jump, and we had a deadly fear that each time the
portière was lifted and a caller appeared we’d see the buttons and
helmet of a policeman with a warrant of arrest concealed upon his
person. I began to have awful dreams and Daisy didn’t sleep at all,
and got pale and peaked. We thought up more “plausible stories,” but
they seemed to get less probable every time, and all our spare moments
together, which used to be so happy and care free, were now dark and
harassed as the meetings of conspirators.
Even concealing the miserable things was a wearing anxiety. First we
decided to divide them, Daisy to wear her half in the chamois bag hung
around her neck, while I concealed mine in a money-belt worn under
my clothes. We had about decided on that and I’d bought the belt,
when we got the idea that if we were killed in an accident they’d be
found on us, and then our memoirs would go down to posterity blackened
with shame. So we just put them back in the bag and locked them up in
Daisy’s jewel-case, round which we hovered as they say a murderer does
round the hiding-place of his victim.
I never knew before how burglars felt; but if it was anything like
the way Daisy and I did, I wonder anybody ever takes to that perilous
trade. We were the most unhappy creatures in London, feeling ourselves
a pair of thieves, and our unpolluted, innocent home no better than a
“fence.” There was less in the papers about the Castlecourt diamonds
robbery, but that did not give us any peace; for, in the first place,
we didn’t know for certain that we had the Castlecourt diamonds, and,
in the second, when we now and then did see dark allusions to the
sleuths being “on a new and more promising scent,” we modestly supposed
that we might be the quarry to which it led. Daisy began to talk of
“going to prison” as a termination of her career that might not be so
far distant, and to the thought of which she was growing reconciled.
This about covers the ground of my immediate connection with the stolen
diamonds. Their subsequent disposition is a matter in which my wife
is more concerned than I am. She also will be able to tell her part
of the story with more literary frills than I can muster up. I’m no
writing man, and all I’ve tried to do is to state my part of the affair
honestly and clearly.
Statement of John Burns Gilsey, private detective, especially engaged
on the Castlecourt diamond case.
Statement of John Burns Gilsey, private detective, especially engaged
on the Castlecourt diamond case.
At a quarter before eight on the evening of May fourth a telephone
message was sent to Scotland Yard that a diamond necklace, the property
of the Marquis of Castlecourt, had been stolen from Burridge’s Hotel.
Brison, one of the best of their men, was detailed upon the case,
and three days later my services were engaged by the marquis. After
investigations which have occupied several weeks, I have become
convinced that the case is an unusual and complicated one. The reasons
which have led me to this conclusion I will now set down as briefly and
clearly as possible.
As has already been stated in the papers, the diamonds, on the
afternoon of the robbery, were standing in a leather jewel-case on
the bureau in Lady Castlecourt’s apartment. To this room access was
obtained by three doors--that which led into Lord Castlecourt’s room,
that which led into the sitting-room, and that which led into the hall.
Lord Castlecourt’s valet, James Chawlmers, and Lady Castlecourt’s maid,
Sophy Jeffers, had been occupied in this suite of apartments throughout
the afternoon. At six Jeffers had laid out her ladyship’s clothes,
taken the diamonds from the metal despatch-box in which they were
usually carried, and set them on the bureau. She had then withdrawn
into the sitting-room with Chawlmers, where they had remained for half
an hour talking. During this period of time Jeffers deposes that she
heard the rustle of a skirt in the sitting-room, and went to the door
to see if any one had entered. No one was to be seen. She returned
to the sitting-room, and resumed her conversation with Chawlmers. It
is the general supposition--and it would appear to be the reasonable
one--that the diamonds were then taken. According to Jeffers, they
were in the case at six o’clock, and on the testimony of Lord and Lady
Castlecourt they were gone at half-past seven. The person toward whom
suspicion points is a housemaid, going by the name of Sara Dwight, who
had a pass-key to the apartment.
The suspicions of Sara Dwight were strengthened by her actions. At
quarter past seven that evening she left the hotel without giving
warning, and carrying no further baggage than a small portmanteau.
Upon examination of her room, it was discovered that she had left a
gown hanging on the pegs, and her box, which contained a few articles
of coarse underclothing and a wadded cotton quilt. She had been
uncommunicative with the other servants, but had had much conversation
with Sophy Jeffers, who described her as a brisk, civil-spoken girl,
whose manner of speech was above her station.
The natural suspicions evoked by her behavior were intensified in the
mind of Brison by the information that the celebrated crook Laura the
Lady had returned to London. I myself had seen the woman at Earlscourt,
and told Brison of the occurrence. It had appeared to Brison that
Jeffers’ description of the housemaid had many points of resemblance
with Laura the Lady. The theft reminded us both of the affair of the
Comtesse de Chateaugay’s rubies, when this particular thief, who speaks
French as well as she does English, was supposed to have been the
moving spirit in one of the most daring jewel robberies of our time.
Brison, confident that Sara Dwight and Laura the Lady were one and
the same, concentrated his powers in an effort to find her. He was
successful to the extent of locating a woman closely resembling Laura
the Lady living quietly in a furnished flat in Knightsbridge with a
man who passed as her husband. He discovered that this couple had left
for a “business trip” on the Continent shortly before Sara Dwight’s
appearance at Burridge’s, and had returned shortly after her departure
therefrom.
He regarded the pair and their movements as of sufficient importance
to be watched, and for a week after their return from the Continent
had the flat shadowed. One foggy night, while he himself was watching
the place, the man and woman came out in evening dress, and took a
hansom that was waiting for them. Brison followed them, and the fog
being dense and their horse fresh, lost them in the maze of streets
about Walworth Crescent. He is positive that the occupants of the cab
realized they were followed and attempted to escape. He assures me that
he saw the driver turn several times and look at his hansom, and then
lash his horse to a desperate speed.
One of the points in this nocturnal pursuit that he thinks most
noteworthy is the manner in which the occupants of the cab disappeared.
After keeping it well in sight for over half an hour, he lost it
completely and suddenly in the short street that runs from Walworth
Crescent, north, into Farley Street; ten minutes later he is under
the impression that he sighted it again near the Hyde Park Hotel. But
if it was the same cab it was empty, and the driver was looking for
fares. For some hours after this Brison patrolled the streets in the
neighborhood, but could find no trace of the suspected pair. It was
midnight when he returned to his surveillance of the flat. The next
morning he heard that its occupants had left. A search-warrant revealed
the fact that they had gone with such haste that they had left many
articles of dress, etc., behind them. There was every evidence of a
hurried flight.
All this was so much clear proof, in Brison’s opinion, of the guilt
of Sara Dwight. Upon this hypothesis he is working, and I have not
disturbed his confidence in the integrity of his efforts. The result
of my investigations, which I have been quietly and systematically
pursuing for the last three weeks, has led me to a different and
much more sensational conclusion. That Sara Dwight may have taken the
diamonds I do not deny. But she was merely an accomplice in the hands
of another. The real thief, in my opinion, is Gladys, Marchioness of
Castlecourt!
My reasons for holding this theory are based upon observations taken at
the time, upon my large and varied experience in such cases, and upon
information that I have been collecting since the occurrence. Let me
briefly state the result of my deductions and researches.
Lady Castlecourt, who was the daughter of a penniless Irish clergyman,
was a young girl of great beauty brought up in the direst poverty. Her
marriage with the Marquis of Castlecourt, which took place seven years
ago this spring, lifted her into a position of social prominence and
financial ease. Society made much of her; she became one of its most
brilliant ornaments. Her husband’s infatuation was well known. During
the first years of their marriage he could refuse her nothing, and he
stinted himself--for, tho well off, Lord Castlecourt is by no means a
millionaire peer--in order to satisfy her whims. The lady very quickly
developed great extravagances. She became known as one of the most
expensively dressed women in London. It had been mentioned in certain
society journals that Lord Castlecourt’s revenues had been so reduced
by his wife’s extravagance that he had been forced to rent his town
house in Grosvenor Gate, and for two seasons take rooms in Burridge’s
Hotel.
This is a simple statement of certain tendencies of the lady. Now let
me state, with more detail, how these tendencies developed and to what
they led.
I will admit here, before I go further, that my suspicions of Lady
Castlecourt were aroused from the first. It was, perhaps, with a
predisposed mind that I began those explorations into her life during
the past five years which have convinced me that she was the moving
spirit in this theft of the diamonds.
For the first two years of her married life Lady Castlecourt lived most
of the time on the estate of Castlecourt Marsh Manor. During this
period she became the mother of two sons, and it was after the birth
of the second that she went to London and spent her first season there
since her marriage. She was in blooming health, and even more beautiful
than she had been in her girlhood. She became the fashion: no gathering
was complete without her; her costumes were described in the papers;
royalty admired her.
I have discovered that at this time her husband gave her six hundred
pounds per annum for a dressing allowance. During the first two years
of her married life she lived within this. But after that she exceeded
it to the extent of hundreds, and finally thousands, of pounds. The
fifth year after her marriage she was in debt three thousand pounds,
her creditors being dressmakers, furriers, jewelers, and milliners
in London and Paris. She made no attempt to pay these debts, and the
tradesmen, knowing her high social position and her husband’s rigid
sense of pecuniary obligations, did not press her, and she went on
spending with an unstinted hand.
It was last year that she finally precipitated the catastrophe by
the purchase of a coat of Russian sable for the sum of one thousand
pounds, and a set of turquoise ornaments valued at half that amount.
Each of these purchases was made in Paris. The two creditors, having
been already warned of her disinclination to meet her bills, had, it
is said, laid wagers with other firms to which she was deeply in debt,
that they would extract the money from her within the year.
It was in the summer of the past year that Lady Castlecourt was first
threatened by Bolkonsky, the furrier, with law proceedings. In the end
of September she went to Paris and visited the man in his own offices,
and--I have it from an eyewitness--exhibited the greatest trepidation
and alarm, finally begging, with tears, for an extension of a month’s
time. To this Bolkonsky consented, warning her that, at the end of that
time, if his account was not settled, he would acquaint his lordship
with the situation and institute legal proceedings.
Before the month was up--that was in October of the past year--his
account was paid in full by Lady Castlecourt herself. At the same
time other accounts in Paris and London were entirely settled or
compromised. I find that, during the months of October and November,
Lady Castlecourt paid off debts amounting to nearly four thousand
pounds. In most instances she settled them personally, paying them in
bank-notes. A few claims were paid by check. I have it from those with
whom she transacted these monetary dealings that she seemed greatly
relieved to be able to discharge her obligations, and that in all
cases she requested silence on the subject as the price of her future
patronage.
I now come to a feature of the case that I admit greatly puzzles me.
Lady Castlecourt was still wearing the diamonds when this large sum
was disbursed by her. As far as can be ascertained, she had made no
effort to sell them, and I can find no trace of a frustrated attempt to
steal them. She had suddenly become possessed of four thousand pounds
without the aid of the diamonds. They were not called into requisition
till nearly six months later.
The natural supposition would be that “some one”--an unknown donor--had
put up the four thousand pounds; in fact, that Lady Castlecourt had a
lover, to whom, in a desperate extremity, she had appealed. But the
most thorough examination of her past life reveals no hint of such a
thing. Frivolous and extravagant as she undoubtedly was, she seems to
have been, as far as her personal conduct goes, a moral and virtuous
lady. Her name has been associated with no man’s, either in a foolish
flirtation or a scandalous and compromising intrigue; in fact, her
devotion to Lord Castlecourt appears to have been of an absolutely
genuine and sincere kind. While she did not scruple to deceive him
as to her pecuniary dealings, she unquestionably seems to have been
perfectly upright and honest in the matter of marital fidelity.
Where, then, did Lady Castlecourt secure this large sum of money? My
reading of the situation is briefly this:
Her creditors becoming rebellious and Lady Castlecourt becoming
terrified, she appealed to some woman friend for a loan. Who this is
I have no idea, but among her large circle of acquaintances there
are several ladies of sufficient means and sufficiently intimate with
Lady Castlecourt to have been able to advance the required sum. This
was done, as I have shown above, in the month of October, when Lady
Castlecourt was in Paris, where she at once began to pay off her debts.
After this she continued wearing the diamonds, and, in my opinion--such
is her shallowness and irresponsibility of character--forgot the
obligations of the loan, which had probably been made under a promise
of speedy repayment, either in full or in part.
It was then--this, let it be understood, is all surmise--that Lady
Castlecourt’s new and unknown debtor began to press for a repayment.
There might be many reasons why this should so closely have followed
the loan. With a woman of Lady Castlecourt’s lax and unbusinesslike
methods, unusual conditions could be readily exacted. She is of the
class of persons that, under a pressing need for money, would agree
to any conditions and immediately forget them. That she did agree
to a speedy reimbursement I am positive; that once again she found
herself confronted by an angry and threatening creditor; and that,
in desperation and with the assistance of Sara Dwight, she stole the
diamonds, intending probably to pawn them, is the conclusion to which
my experience and investigations have led me.
How she came to select Sara Dwight as an accomplice I am not qualified
to state. In my opinion, fear of detection made her seek the aid of a
confederate. Sara’s flight, with its obviously suspicious surroundings,
has an air of prearrangement suggestive of having been carefully
planned to divert suspicion from the real criminal. Sophy Jeffers
assured me that Lady Castlecourt had never, to her knowledge, conversed
at any length with the housemaid. But Jeffers is a very simple-minded
person, whom it would be an easy matter to deceive. That Sara Dwight
was her ladyship’s accomplice I am positive; that she took the jewels
and now has them is also my opinion.
Being convinced of her need of ready money, and of the rashness and
lack of balance in her character, I have been expecting that Lady
Castlecourt would make some decisive move in the way of selling the
diamonds. With this idea agents of mine have been on the watch, but
without so far finding any evidence that she has attempted to place the
stones on the market. We have found no traces of them either in London
or Paris, or the usual depots in Holland or Belgium. It is true that
the Castlecourt diamonds, not being remarkable for size, would be easy
to dispose of in small, separate lots, but our system of surveillance
is so thorough that I do not see how they could escape us. I am of the
opinion that the stones are still in the hands of Sara Dwight, who,
whether she is an accomplished thief or not, is probably more wary and
more versed in such dealings than Lady Castlecourt.
That her ladyship should have been the object of my suspicions from
the start may seem peculiar to those to whom she appears only as a
person of rank, wealth, and beauty. Before the case came under my
notice at all, I had heard her uncontrolled extravagance remarked upon,
and that alone, coupled with the fact that Lord Castlecourt is not a
peer of vast wealth, and that the lady’s moral character is said to be
unblemished, would naturally arouse the suspicion of one used to the
vagaries and intricacies of the evolution of crime.
During my first interview with her ladyship I watched her closely, and
was struck by her pallor, her impatience under questioning, her hardly
concealed nervousness, and her indignant repudiation of the suspicions
cast upon her servants. All the domestics in her employment agree that
she is a kind and generous mistress, and it would be particularly
galling to one of her disposition to think that her employees were
suffering for her faults. Her answers to many of my questions were
vague and evasive, and to both Brison and myself, at two different
times, she suggested the possibility of the jewels not being stolen at
all, but having been “mislaid.” Even Brison, whose judgment had been
warped by her beauty and rank, was forced to admit the strangeness of
this remark.
The description given me by Sophy Jeffers of her ladyship’s deportment
when the theft was discovered still further strengthened my suspicions.
Lady Castlecourt’s behavior at this juncture might have passed as
natural by those not used to the very genuine hysteria which often
attacks criminals. That she was wrought up to a high degree of nervous
excitement is acknowledged by all who saw her. It is alleged by
Jeffers--quite innocently of any intention to injure her mistress,
to whom she appears devoted--that her ladyship’s first emotion on
discovering the loss was a fear of her husband; that when he entered
the room she instinctively tried to conceal the empty jewel-case behind
her, and that almost her first words to him were assurances that she
had not been careless, but had guarded the jewels well.
Fear of Lord Castlecourt was undoubtedly the most prominent feeling she
then possessed, and it showed itself with unrestrained frankness in
the various ways described above. Afterward she attempted to be more
reticent, and adopted an air of what almost appeared indifference,
surprising not only myself and Brison, but Jeffers, by her remarks,
made with irritated impatience, that they still might “turn up
somewhere,” and “that she did not see how we could be so sure they were
stolen.” This change of attitude was even more convincing to me than
her former exhibition of alarm. The very candor and childishness with
which she showed her varying states of mind would have disarmed most
people, but were to me almost conclusive proofs of her guilt. She is a
woman whose shallow irresponsibility of mind is even more unusual than
her remarkable beauty. No one but an old and seasoned criminal, or a
creature of extraordinary simplicity, could have behaved with so much
audacity in such a situation.
Having arrived at these conclusions, I am not reduced to a passive
attitude. I will wait and watch until such time as the diamonds
are either pawned or sold. This may not occur for months, tho I am
inclined to think that her ladyship’s need of money will force her to
a recklessness which will be her undoing. Sara Dwight may be able to
control her to a certain point, but I am under the impression that her
ladyship, frightened and desperate, will be a very difficult person to
handle.
This brings my statement up to date. At the present writing I am simply
awaiting developments, confident that the outcome will prove the verity
of my original proposition and the exactitude of my subsequent line of
argument.
The Statement of Daisy K. Fairweather Kennedy, late of Necropolis City,
Ohio, at present a resident of 15 Farley Street, Knightsbridge, London.
The Statement of Daisy K. Fairweather Kennedy, late of Necropolis City,
Ohio, at present a resident of 15 Farley Street, Knightsbridge, London.
I believe it is not necessary for me to state how a chamois-skin bag
containing one hundred and sixty-two diamonds came into my hands on the
evening of May 14th. That it did come into my possession was enough for
me. I never before thought that the possession of diamonds could make
a woman so perfectly miserable. When I was a young girl in Necropolis
City I used to think to own a diamond--even one small one--would be
just about the acme of human joy. But Necropolis City is a good way
behind me now, and I have found that the owning of a handful of them
can be about the most wearing form of misery.
I suppose there are fearless, upright people in the world who would
have taken those diamonds straight back to the police station and
braved public opinion. It would have been better to have had your word
doubted, to be tried for a thief, put in jail, and probably complicated
the diplomatic relations between England and the United States, than
to conceal in your domicile one hundred and sixty-two precious stones
that didn’t belong to you. I hope every one understands--and I’m sure
every one does who knows me--that I did not want to keep the miserable
things. What good did they do me, anyway, locked up in my jewel-box,
in the upper right-hand bureau drawer?
We knew no peace from that tragic evening when Major and Mrs.
Thatcher dined with us. First we tried to think of ways of getting
rid of them--of the diamonds, I mean. Cassius, who’s just a simple,
uncomplicated man, wanted to take them right to the nearest police
station and hand them in. I soon showed him the madness of _that_. Was
there a soul in London who would have believed our story? Wouldn’t the
American ambassador himself have had to bow his crested head and tame
his heart of fire, and admit it was about the fishiest tale he had ever
heard?
It would have ruined us forever. Even if Cassius hadn’t been deposed
from his place as the head of the English branch of the Colonial
Box, Tub, and Cordage Company (Ltd), of Chicago and St. Louis, who
would have known me? The trail of the diamonds would have been over
us forever. Lady Sara Gyves would have gone round saying she always
thought I had the face of a thief, and the bishop and the two lords
I’ve collected with such care would have cut me dead in the Park. I
would have received my social quietus forever. And, I just tell you,
when I’ve worked for a thing as hard as I have for that bishop and the
two lords and Lady Sara Gyves, I’m not going to give them up without a
struggle.
Cassius and I spent two feverish, agonized weeks trying to think what
we would do with the diamonds. I never knew before I had so much
inventive ability. It was wonderful the things we thought of. One of
our ideas was to put a personal in the papers advertising for “Amelia.”
We spent five consecutive evenings concocting different ones that would
have the effect of rousing “Amelia’s” curiosity and deadening that of
everybody else. It did not seem capable of construction. Twist and turn
it as you would, you couldn’t state that you had something valuable
in your possession for “Amelia” without making the paragraph bristle
with a sort of mysterious importance. It was like a trap set and
baited to catch the attention of a detective. We did insert one--“Will
Amelia kindly publish her present address, and oblige Major and Mrs.
Thatcher?”--which, after all, didn’t involve us. And for two weeks we
read the papers with beating, hopeful hearts, but there was no reply. I
thought “Amelia” never saw it. Cassius thought there was no such person.
A month dragged itself away, and there we were with those horrible gems
locked in my jewel-box. I began to look pale and miserable, and Cassius
told me he thought the diamonds were becoming a “fixed idea” with me,
and he’d have to take me away for a change. Once I told him I felt as
if I’d never have any peace or be my old gay self again while they were
in my possession. He said, that being the case, he’d take them out some
night and throw them in the Serpentine, the pond where the despondent
people commit suicide. But I dissuaded him from it.
“Perhaps they’ll never be claimed,” I said. “And some day when we’re
old we can have them set and Elaine can wear them.”
“You might even wear them yourself,” Cassius said, trying to cheer me
up.
“What would be the good?” I answered, gloomily. “I’d be at least sixty
before I’d dare to.”
All through June I lived under this wearing strain, and I grew thinner
and more nervous day by day. The season which is always so lovely and
gay was no longer an exciting and joyous time for me. I drove down
Bond Street with a frowning face, and it did not cheer me up at all
to see how many people I seemed to know. Looking down the vistas of
quiet, asphalted streets, where the lines of sedate house fronts are
brightened by polished brasses on the doors and flower-boxes at the
windows, I was no longer filled with an exhilarating determination to
some day be an honored guest in every house that was worth entering.
When I drove by the green ovals of the little parks, which you can’t
enter without a private key, I experienced none of my old ambition to
have a key too, and go in and mingle with the aristocracy sitting on
wooden benches.
Even meeting the Countess of Belsborough at a reception, and being
asked by her, in a sociable, friendly way, if I knew her cousin
John, who was mining somewhere in Mexico or Honduras--she wasn’t sure
which--did not cheer me up at all. The change in me was extraordinary.
When I first came to London, if even a curate or a clerk from the city
had asked me such a question, I’d have made an effort to remember John,
as if Mexico had been my front garden and I’d played all round Honduras
when I was a child. Now I said to Lady Belsborough that neither Mexico
nor Honduras were part of the United States quite snappishly, as if I
thought she was stupid. And all because of those accursed diamonds!
It was toward the end of June, and the days were getting warm, when the
climax came.
The pressure of the season was abating. The rhododendrons were dead in
the Park, and there was dust on the trees. In St. James’ the grass was
quite worn and patchy, and strangely clad people lay on it, sleeping in
the sun. One met a great many American tourists in white shirt-waists
and long veils. I thought of the time when I, too, innocently and
unthinkingly, had worn a white shirt-waist, and it didn’t seem to me
such a horrible time, after all--at least, I did not then have one
hundred and sixty-two stolen diamonds in my jewel-box. My heart was
lighter in those days, even if my shirt-waist had only cost a dollar
and forty-nine cents at a department store in Necropolis City.
The month ended with a spell of what the English call “frightful
heat.” It was quite warm weather, and we sat a good deal on the little
balcony that juts out from my window over the front door. Farley
Street is quiet and rather out of the line of general traffic, so we
had chairs and a table there, and used to have tea served under the
one palm, which was all there was room for. We could not have visitors
there, for it opened out of my bedroom. So our tea-parties on the
balcony were strictly family affairs--just Cassius, and Elaine, and I.
The last day of the month was really very warm. Every door in the
house was open, and the servants went about gasping, with their faces
crimson. I dined at home alone that evening, as one of the members of
the Box, Tub, and Cordage Company was in London, at the Carlton, and
Cassius was dining with him. I did not expect him home till late, as
there would be lots to talk over.
I had not felt well all day. The heat had given me a headache, and
after dinner I lay on the sofa in the sitting-room, feeling quite
miserable. Only a few of the lamps were lit, and the house was dim
and extremely quiet. Being alone that way in the half dark got on my
nerves, and I decided I’d go up-stairs and go to bed early. I always
did hate sitting about by myself, and now more than ever, with the
diamonds on my conscience.
Our stairs are thickly carpeted, and as I had on thin satin slippers
and a crêpe tea-gown I made no noise at all coming up. I always have
a light burning in my room, so when I saw a yellow gleam below the
door I did not think anything of it, but just softly pushed the door
open and went in. Then I stopped dead where I stood. A man with a soft
felt-hat on, and a handkerchief tied over the lower part of his face,
was standing in front of the bureau!
He had not heard me, and for a moment I stood without making a sound,
watching him. The two gas-jets on either side of the bureau were lit,
and that part of the room was flooded with light. Very quickly and
softly he was turning over the contents of the drawers, taking out
laces, gloves, and veils, throwing them this way and that out of his
way, and opening every box he found. My heart gave a great leap when I
saw him seize upon the jewel-box, and my mouth, unfortunately, emitted
some kind of a sound--I think it was a sort of gasp of relief, but I’m
not sure.
Whatever it was, he heard. He gave a start as if he had been
electrified, raised his head, and saw me. For just one second he
stood staring, and then he said something--of a profane character, I
think--and ran for the balcony.
And I ran too. There was something in the way--a little table, I
believe--and he collided with it. That checked him for a moment, and I
got to the window first. I threw myself across it with my arms spread
out, in an attitude like that assumed by Sara Bernhardt when she is
barring her lover’s exit in “Fedora.” But I don’t think any actress
ever barred her lover’s exit with as much determination and zeal as I
barred the exit of that burglar.
“You can’t go!” I cried, wildly. “You’ve forgotten something!”
He paused just in front of me, and I cried again:
“You haven’t got them; they’re in the jewelry-box.”
He moved forward and laid his hand on my arm, to push me aside. I felt
quite desperate, and wailed:
“Oh, don’t go without opening the jewelry-box. There are some things in
it I know you will like.”
He tried to push me out of the way--gently, it is true, but with
force. But I clung to him, clasped him by the arm with what must have
appeared quite an affectionate grip, and continued, imploringly:
“Don’t be in such a hurry. I’m sorry I interrupted you. If you’ll
promise not to go till you’ve looked through my things and taken what
you want, I’ll leave the room. It was quite by accident that I came in.”
The burglar let go my arm, and looked at me over the handkerchief with
a pair of eyes that seemed quite kind and pleasant.
“Really,” he said, in a deep, gentlemanly voice that seemed
familiar--“really, I don’t quite understand--”
“I know you don’t,” I interrupted, impulsively. “How could you be
expected to? And I can’t explain. It’s a most complicated matter, and
would take too long. Only don’t be frightened and run away till you’ve
taken something. You’ve endangered your life and risked going to prison
to get in here; and wouldn’t it be too foolish, after that, to go
without anything? Now, in the jewelry-box”--I indicated it, and spoke
in what I hoped was a most insinuating tone--“there are some things
that I think you’d like. If you’d just look at them--”
“You’re a most persuasive lady,” said the burglar, “but--”
He moved again toward the window. A feeling of absolute anguish that
he was going without the diamonds pierced me. I threw myself in front
of him again, and in some way, I can’t tell you how, caught the
handkerchief that covered his face and pulled it down. There was the
handsome visage and long mustache of Major Thatcher!
I backed away from him in the greatest confusion. He too blushed and
looked uncomfortable.
“Oh, Major Thatcher,” I murmured, “I beg your pardon! I’m so sorry. I
don’t know how it happened. I think the end of the handkerchief caught
in my bracelet.”
“Pray don’t mention it,” answered the major, “nothing at all.”
Then we were both silent, standing opposite one another, not knowing
what to say. It is not easy to feaze me, but it must be admitted that
the situation was unusual.
“How is Mrs. Thatcher?” I said, desperately, when the silence had
become unbearable. And the major replied, in his deepest voice, and
with his most abrupt military air:
“Ethel’s very fit. Never was better in her life, thank you. Mr. Kennedy
is quite well, I hope?”
“Cassius is enjoying the best of health,” I answered. “He’s out
to-night, I’m sorry to say.”
“Just fancy,” said Major Thatcher. Then there was a pause, and he
added: “How tiresome!”
I could think of nothing more to say, and again we were silent. It was
really the most uncomfortable position I ever was in. The major was a
burglar beyond a doubt, but he looked and talked just like a gentleman;
besides, he’d dined with us. That makes a great difference. When a man
has broken bread at your table as a respectable fellow creature, it’s
hard to get your mind round to regarding him severely as a criminal. I
felt that the only thing to do was to graciously ignore it all, as you
do when some one spills the claret on your best table-cloth. At the
same time, there were the diamonds! I could not let the chance escape.
“Oh, Major Thatcher!” I said, with an air of suddenly remembering
something. “I don’t know whether you know that your wife left a little
package here that evening when you dined with us. It was for Amelia.”
Major Thatcher looked at me with the most heavily solemn expression.
“To be sure,” he murmured, “for Amelia.”
“Well,” I went on, trying to impart to my words a light society tone,
“you know we can’t find her. Very stupid of us, I have no doubt. But
we’ve tried, and we can’t, anywhere.”
Major Thatcher stared blankly at the dressing-table.
“Strange, ’pon my word!” he said.
“So, Major Thatcher, if you don’t mind, I’ll give it back to you. I
think, all things considered, it will be best for you to give it to
Amelia yourself.”