MR. MADGIN'S SECRET JOURNEY.
Mr. Madgin left home by an early train on the morning of the day
following that on which Lady Chillington had received a reply from Sir
John Pennythorne. His first intention had been to make the best of his
way to Windermere, and there ascertain the exact locality of Bon Repos.
But a fresh view of the case presented itself to his mind as he lay
thinking in bed. Instead of taking the train for the North, he took one
for the South, and found himself at Euston as the London clocks were
striking twelve. After an early dinner, and a careful consultation of
the Post-Office Directory, Mr. Madgin ordered a hansom, and was driven
to Hatton Garden, in and about which unfragrant locality the diamond
merchants most do congregate. After due inquiries made and answered, Mr.
Madgin was driven eastward for another mile or more. Here a similar set
of inquiries elicited a similar set of answers. Mr. Madgin went back to
his hotel well pleased with his day's work.
His inquiries had satisfied him that no green diamond of the size and
value attributed to the Great Hara had either been seen or heard of in
the London market during the last twenty years. It still remained to
test the foreign markets in the same way. Mr. Madgin's idea was that
this work could be done better by some trustworthy agent well acquainted
with the trade than by himself. He accordingly left instructions with an
eminent diamond merchant to have all needful inquiries made at Paris,
Amsterdam, and St. Petersburg, as to whether such a stone as the Great
Hara had come under the cognizance of the trade any time during the last
twenty years. The result of the inquiry was to be communicated to Mr.
Madgin by letter.
Next day Mr. Madgin journeyed down to Windermere. Arrived at Bowness, he
found no difficulty in ascertaining the exact locality of Bon Repos, the
house and its owner being known by sight or repute to almost every
inhabitant of the little town. Mr. Madgin stopped all night at Bowness.
Next morning he hired a small boat, and was pulled across the lake to a
point about half a mile below Bon Repos, and there he landed.
Mr. Madgin was travelling _incog_. The name upon his portmanteau was
"Joshua Deedes, Esq." He was dressed in a suit of glossy black, with a
white neck-cloth, and gold-rimmed spectacles. He had quite an episcopal
air. He did not call himself a clergyman, but people were at liberty to
accept him as one if they chose.
Assisted by the most unimpeachable of malaccas, Mr. Madgin took the
high-road that wound round the grounds of Bon Repos. But so completely
was the house hidden in its nest of greenery that the chimney-pots were
all of it that was visible from the road. But under a spur of the hill
by which the house was shut in at the back, Mr. Madgin found a tiny
hamlet of a dozen houses, by far the most imposing of which was the
village inn--hotel, it called itself, and showed to the world the sign
of The Jolly Fishers. Into this humble hostelry Mr. Madgin marched
without hesitation, and called for some refreshment. So impressed was
the landlord with the clerical appearance of his guest that he whipped
off his apron, ushered him into the state parlour, and made haste to
wait upon him himself. He, the guest, had actually called for a bottle
of the best dry sherry, and when the landlord took it in he invited him
to fetch another glass, and come and join him over it. Mr. Joshua Deedes
was a tourist--well-to-do, without doubt; the landlord could see as much
as that--and having never visited Lakeland before, he was naturally
delighted with the freshness and novelty of everything that he saw. The
change from London life was so thorough, so complete in every respect,
that he could hardly believe he had left the great Babel no longer ago
than yesterday. It seemed years since he had been there. He had thought
Bowness a charming spot, but this little nook surpassed Bowness,
inasmuch as it was still farther removed and shut out from the
frivolities and follies of the great world. Here one was almost alone
with Nature and her wondrous works. Then Mr. Deedes filled up his own
glass and that of the landlord.
"Perhaps, sir, you would like to stay here for a night or two,"
suggested the host timidly; "we have a couple of spare beds."
"Nothing would please me better," answered Mr. Deedes, with solemn
alacrity. "I feel that the healthful air of these hills is doing me an
immensity of good. Kindly send to the Crown at Bowness for my
portmanteau, and ascertain what you have in the house for dinner."
After a while came dinner, and a little later on, Mr. Deedes having
expressed a desire to see something of the lake, the landlord sent to
borrow a boat, and then took his guest for an hour's row on Windermere.
From the water they had a capital view of the low white front of Bon
Repos. There were two gentlemen smoking on the terrace. The lesser of
the two, said the landlord, was M. Platzoff. The taller man was Captain
Ducie, at present a guest at Bon Repos. Then the landlord wandered off
into a long, rambling account of Bon Repos and its owner. Mr. Deedes was
much interested in hearing about the eccentric habits and strange mode
of life of M. Platzoff, with the details of which the landlord was as
thoroughly acquainted as though he had formed one of the household.
Their row on the lake was prolonged for a couple of hours, and Mr.
Deedes went back to the hotel much edified.
In the dusk of evening he encountered Cleon, M. Platzoff's valet, as he
was lounging slowly down the village street on his way to The Jolly
Fishers. Mr. Deedes scrutinised the dark-skinned servant narrowly in
passing. "The face of a cunning, unscrupulous rascal, if ever I saw
one," he muttered to himself. "Nevertheless, I must make his
acquaintance."
And he did make his acquaintance. As Cleon and the landlord sat
hob-nobbing together in the little snuggery behind the bar, Mr. Deedes
put in his head to ask a question of the latter. Thereupon the landlord
begged permission to introduce his friend Mr. Cleon to the notice of his
guest, Mr. Deedes. The two men bowed, Mr. Cleon rather sulkily; but Mr.
Deedes was all affability and smiling _bonhommie_. He had several
questions to ask, and he sat down on the only vacant chair in the little
room. He wanted to know the distance to Keswick; how much higher
Helvellyn was than Fairfield; whether it was possible to get any potted
char for breakfast, and so on; on all which questions both Cleon and the
landlord had something to say. But talking being dry work, as Mr. Deedes
smilingly observed, brought naturally to mind the fact that the landlord
had some excellent dry sherry, and that one could not do better this
warm evening than have another bottle fetched up out of the cool depths
of the cellar. Mr. Cleon, being pressed, was nothing loth to join Mr.
Deedes over this bottle. Mr. Deedes, without condescending into
familiarity, made himself very agreeable, but did not sit long. After
imbibing a couple of glasses, he bade the landlord and the valet an
affable good-night, and went off decorously to bed.
Mr. Deedes was up betimes next morning, and took a three miles' trudge
over the hills before breakfast. He spent a quiet day mooning about the
neighbourhood, and really enjoying himself after his own fashion,
although his mind was busily engaged all the time in trying to solve the
mystery of the Great Diamond. In the evening he took care to have a few
pleasant words with Cleon, and then early to bed. Two more days passed
away after a similar quiet fashion, and then Mr. Deedes began to chafe
inwardly at the small progress he was making.
Although he had been so successful in tracing out M. Platzoff, and in
working the case up to its present point in a remarkably short space of
time, he acknowledged to himself that he was completely baffled when he
came to consider what his next step ought to be. He could not, indeed,
see his way to a single step beyond his present standpoint. Much as he
seemed to have gained at a single leap, was he in reality one
hair's-breadth nearer the secret object of his quest than on that day
when the name of the Great Hara Diamond first made music in his ears? He
doubted it greatly.
When he first decided on coming down to Bon Repos, he trusted that the
chapter of accidents and the good fortune which had so far attended him
would somehow put it in his power to scrape an acquaintance with M.
Platzoff himself, and such an acquaintance once made, it would be his
own fault if, in one way or another, he did not make it subservient to
the ambitious end he had in view.
But in M. Platzoff he found a recluse: a man who made no fresh
acquaintanceships; who held the whole tourist tribe in horror, and who
even kept himself aloof from such of the neighbouring families as might
be considered his equals in social position. It was quite evident to Mr.
Deedes that he might reside close to Bon Repos for twenty years, and at
the end of that time not have succeeded in addressing half-a-dozen words
to its owner.
Then again he had succeeded little better with regard to Cleon than with
regard to Cleon's master. All his advances, made with a mixture of
affability and _bonhommie_ which Mr. Deedes flattered himself was
irresistible with most people, were productive of little or no effect
upon the mulatto. He received them, not with suspicion, for he had
nothing of which to suspect harmless Mr. Deedes, but with a sort of
sulky indifference, as though he considered them rather a nuisance than
otherwise, and would have preferred their being offered to anyone else.
Did Mr. Deedes, in conversation with him and the landlord, venture to
bring the talk round to Bon Repos and M. Platzoff; did he hazard the
remark that since his arrival in Lakeland several people had spoken to
him of the strange character and eccentric mode of life of Mr. Cleon's
employer--he was met with a stony silence, which told him as plainly as
any words could have done that M. Platzoff and his affairs were matters
that in no wise concerned him. It was quite evident that neither the
Russian nor his dark-skinned valet was of any avail for the furtherance
of that scheme which had brought Mr. Deedes all the way to the wilds of
Westmoreland.
He began to despair, and was on the point of writing to Mirpah, thinking
that her shrewd woman's wit might be able to suggest some stratagem or
mode of attack other than that made use of by him, when suddenly a
prospect opened before him such as in his wildest dreams of success he
dared not have bodied forth. He was not slow to avail himself of it.