_Perplexing a Magistrate._
In after years Philip never forgot the shame of that march through the
staring streets. The everlasting idlers of London's busiest
thoroughfares gathered around the policeman and his prisoner with
grinning callousness.
"Wot's 'e bin a-doin' of?"
"Nicked a lydy's purse, eh?"
"Naw! Bin ticklin' the till, more like."
"Bli-me, don't 'e look sick!"
They ran and buzzed around him like wasps, stinging most bitterly with
coarse words and coarser laughter. An omnibus slowed its pace to let
them cross the road, and Philip knew that the people on top craned their
necks to have a good look at him. When nearing the viaduct steps, the
policeman growled something at the pursuing crowd. Another constable
strode rapidly to the entrance and cut off the loafers, sternly advising
them to find some other destination. But the respite was a brief one.
The pair reached Farringdon Street, and had barely attracted attention
before they passed the restaurant where Philip had lunched. The hour was
yet early for mid-day customers, and the bald-headed proprietor saw them
coming. He rushed out. The greengrocer, too, turned from his wares and
joined in the exclamations of his friend at this speedy _dénouement_ of
the trivial incident of twenty minutes earlier.
The restaurant keeper was made jubilant by this dramatic vindication of
the accuracy of his judgment.
"The thievin' young scamp!" he ejaculated. "That's right, Mr. Policeman.
Lock 'im up. 'E's a reg'lar wrong 'un."
The constable stopped. "Hello!" he said. "Do you know him?"
"I should think I did. 'E kem 'ere just now an' obtained a good blowout
on false pretencies, an'----"
"Old 'ard," put in the greengrocer, "that's not quite the ticket. 'E
asked you to trust 'im, but you wouldn't."
The stout man gurgled.
"Not me. I know 'is sort. But 'e 'ad you a fair treat, Billy."
"Mebbe, an' mebbe not. Ennyhow, two bob won't break me, an' I'm sorry
for the kid. Wot's 'e done, Mr. Policeman?" Mr. Judd was nettled, yet
unwilling to acknowledge he was wholly wrong.
"Stole a heap of diamonds. Do either of you know him?"
"Never saw him afore this mornin'."
"Never bin in my 'ouse before."
"Then come along," and Philip was tugged onward, but not before he found
courage to say:
"Thank you once more, Mr. Judd. I will keep my word, never fear."
"What are you thanking him for?" said the constable.
"For believing in me," was the curt answer.
The policeman tried to extract some meaning from the words, but failed.
He privately admitted that it was an extraordinary affair. How came a
boy who spoke like a gentleman and was dressed like a street Arab to be
wandering about London with a pocketful of diamonds and admitted to the
private office of the chief diamond merchant in Hatton Garden? He gave
it up, but silently thanked the stars which connected him with an
important case.
At last Philip's Via Dolorosa ended in the Bridewell police station. He
was paraded before the inspector in charge, a functionary who would not
have exhibited any surprise had the German Emperor been brought before
him charged with shoplifting.
He opened a huge ledger, tried if his pen would make a hair stroke on a
piece of paper, and said, laconically:
"Name?"
No answer from the prisoner, followed by emphatic demands from inspector
and constable, the former volunteering the information that to refuse
your name and address was in itself an offense against the law.
Philip's _sang-froid_ was coming to his aid. The horror of his passage
through the gaping mob had cauterized all other sentiments, and he now
saw that if he would preserve his incognito he must adopt a ruse.
"Philip Morland," he said, doggedly, when the inspector asked him his
name for the last time before recording a definite refusal.
"Philip Morland!" It sounded curiously familiar in his ears. His mother
was a Miss Morland prior to her marriage, but he had not noticed the odd
coincidence that he should have been christened after the "Sir Philip"
of the packet of letters so fortunately left behind that morning.
"Address?"
"Park Lane."
The inspector began to write before the absurdity of the reply dawned on
him. He stopped.
"Is your mother a caretaker there, or your father employed in a mews?"
"My father and mother are dead."
"Then will you kindly inform us what number in Park Lane you live at?"
"I have not determined that as yet. I intend to buy a house there."
Some constables lounging about the office laughed, and the inspector,
incensed out of his routine habits, shouted, angrily:
"This is no place for joking, boy. Answer me properly, or it will be
worse for you."
"I have answered you quite properly. The constable who brought me here
has in his possession diamonds worth many thousands of pounds belonging
to me. I own a hundred times as many. Surely I can buy a house in Park
Lane if I like."
The inspector was staggered by this well-bred insolence. He was
searching for some crushing legal threat that would frighten the boy
into a state of due humility when Mr. Isaacstein entered.
The Hatton Garden magnate again related the circumstances attending
Philip's arrest, and the inspector promptly asked:
"What charge shall I enter? You gave him into custody. Do you think he
has stolen the diamonds?"
Isaacstein had been thinking hard during a short cab drive. His reply
was unexpectedly frank.
"He could not have stolen what never existed. There is no such known
collection of meteoric diamonds in the world."
"But there must be, because they are here."
By this time the parcel of dirty-white stones was lying open on the
counter, and both Jew and policeman were gazing at them intently. There
was a nettling logic in the inspector's retort.
"I cannot answer riddles," said Isaacstein, shortly. "I can only state
the facts. If any other man in the city of London is a higher authority
on diamonds than I, go to him and ask his opinion."
"Mr. Isaacstein is right," interposed Philip. "No one else owns diamonds
like mine. No one else can obtain them. I have robbed no man. Give me my
diamonds and let me go."
The inspector laughed officially. He gazed intently at Philip, and then
sought illumination from the Jew's perturbed countenance, but Isaacstein
was moodily examining the contents of the paper and turning over both
the stones and the scraps of iron with an air of profound mystification.
"I'll tell you what," said the inspector, jubilantly, after a slight
pause. "We will charge him with being in unlawful possession of certain
diamonds, supposed to have been stolen. He has given me a false name and
a silly address. Park Lane, the young imp said he lived in."
"A man in your position ought to be more accurate," interposed Philip.
"I did not say I lived in Park Lane. I told you I intended to buy a
house there."
Seldom, indeed, were the minor deities of the police station bearded in
this fashion, and by a callow youth. But the inspector was making the
copperplate hair strokes which had gained him promotion, and his brain
had gone back to its normal dullness.
"I will just see if we cannot bring him before a magistrate at once," he
said, addressing Mr. Isaacstein. "Can you make it convenient to attend
the court within an hour, sir? Then we will get a week's remand, and we
will soon find out----"
"A week's remand!" Philip became white again, and those large eyes of
his began to burn. "What have I done----"
"Silence! Search him carefully and take him to the cells."
The boy turned despairingly to the Jew.
"Mr. Isaacstein," he said, with a pitiful break in his voice, "why do
you let them do this thing? You are a rich man, and well known. Tell
them they are wrong."
But Isaacstein was wobbling now in a renewed state of excitement.
"What can I do, boy!" he vociferated, almost hysterically. "You must say
where you got these stones, and then, perhaps, you can clear up
everything."
Philip's lips met in a thin seam.
"I will never tell you," he answered, and not another word would he
utter.
They searched him and found nothing in his pockets save a key, a broken
knife, some bits of string neatly coiled, and a couple of buttons. He
spent the next hour miserably in a whitewashed cell. He refused some
coffee and bread brought to him at twelve o'clock, and this was the only
sentient break in a wild jumble of conflicting thoughts. The idea came
to him that he must be dreaming--that soon he would awaken amidst the
familiar surroundings of Johnson's Mews. To convince himself that this
was not so, he reviewed the history of the preceding twenty-four hours.
At that time yesterday he was going to Fleet Street with a capital of
ninepence to buy a quire of newspapers. He remembered where he had sold
each of the five copies, where he bought a penny bun, and how he came to
lose his stock and get cuffed into the bargain for rescuing a girl from
an overturning carriage.
Then his mind reverted to his fixed resolve to hang himself, and his
stolid preparations for the last act in his young life's tragedy. Was
that where the dream started, or was the whole thing a definite reality,
needing only a stout heart and unfaltering purpose to carry him through
triumphantly? Yes. That was it. "Be strong and brave and all will be
well with you." Surely his mother had looked beyond the grave when she
uttered her parting words. Perhaps, if he lay down and closed his eyes,
he would see her. He always hoped to see her in his dreams, but never
was the vision vouchsafed to him. Poor lad, he did not understand that
his sleep was the sound sleep of health and innocence, when dreams, if
they come at all, are but grotesque distortions of the simple facts of
everyday existence. Only once had he dimly imagined her presence, and
that was at a moment which his sane mind now refused to resurrect.
Nevertheless, he was tired. Yielding to the conceit, he stretched
himself on the wooden couch that ran along one side of his narrow cell.
Some one called to him, not unkindly.
"Now, youngster, jump up. The van is here."
He was led through gloomy corridors and placed in a receptacle just
large enough to hold him uncomfortably in a huge, lumbering vehicle. He
thought he was the only occupant, which was true enough, the prisoners'
van having made a special call for his benefit.
After a rumbling journey through unseen streets, he emerged into another
walled-in courtyard. He was led through more corridors, and told to
"skip lively" up a winding staircase. At the top he came out into a big
room, with a well-like space in front of him, filled with a huge table,
around which sat several gentlemen, among them Mr. Isaacstein, while on
an elevated platform beyond was an elderly man, who wore eyeglasses and
who wrote something in a book without looking up when Philip's name was
called out.
A police inspector, whom Philip had not seen before, made a short
statement, and was followed by the constable who effected the arrest.
His story was brief and correct, and then the inspector stated that Mr.
Wilson, of Grant & Sons, Ludgate Circus, would be called at the next
hearing, as he--the inspector--would ask for a remand to enable
inquiries to be made. Meanwhile, Mr. Isaacstein, of Hatton Garden, had
made it convenient to attend that day, and would be pleased to give
evidence if his worship desired to hear him.
"Certainly," said Mr. Abingdon, the magistrate. "This seems to be a
somewhat peculiar case, and I will be glad if Mr. Isaacstein can throw
any light upon it."
But Mr. Isaacstein could not do any such thing. He wound up a succinct
account of Philip's visit and utterances by declaring that there was no
collection of meteoric diamonds known to him from which such a
remarkable set of stones could be stolen.
This emphatic statement impressed the magistrate.
"Let me see them," he said.
The parcel was handed up to him, and he examined its contents with
obvious interest.
"Are you quite sure of their meteoric origin, Mr. Isaacstein?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Can you form any estimate of their probable value?"
"About fifty thousand pounds!"
The reply startled the magistrate, and it sent a thrill through the
court.
"Really! So much!" Mr. Abingdon was almost scared.
"If, after cutting, they turn out as well as I expect, that is a
moderate estimate of their worth."
"I take it, from what you say, that meteoric diamonds are rare?"
Isaacstein closed his throat with a premonitory cough and bunched up his
shoulders. A slight wobble was steadied by his stumpy hands on the rail
of the witness box. He was really the greatest living authority on the
subject, and he knew it.
"It is a common delusion among diamond miners that diamonds fall from
the skies in meteoric showers," he said. "There is some sort of
foundation for this mistaken view, as the stones are found in volcanic
pipes or columns of diamantiferous material, and the crude idea is that
gigantic meteors fell and plowed these deep holes, distributing diamonds
in all directions as they passed. But the so-called pipes are really the
vents of extinct volcanoes. Ignorant people do not realize that the
chemical composition of the earth does not differ greatly from that of
the bodies which surround it in space, so that the same process of
manufacture under high temperature and at great pressure which creates
a diamond in a meteor has equal powers here. In a word, what has
happened in the outer universe has also happened at Kimberley. Iron acts
as the solvent during the period of creation, so to speak. Then, in the
lapse of ages, it oxidizes by the action of air or water, and the
diamonds remain."
The magistrate nodded.
"There are particles of a mineral that looks like iron among these
stones?" he said.
The question gave Isaacstein time to draw a fresh supply of breath. Sure
of his audience now, he proceeded more slowly.
"That is a certain proof of a meteoric source. A striking confirmation
of the fact is supplied by a district in Arizona. Here, on a plain five
miles in diameter, are scattered thousands of masses of metallic iron,
varying in weight from half a ton to a fraction of one ounce. An
enormous meteoric shower fell there at some period, and near the center
is a crater-like hole which suggests the impact of some very large body
which buried itself in the earth. All mineralogists know the place as
the Canyon Diabolo, or Devil's Gulch, and specimens of its ore are in
every collection. Ordinary tools were spoiled, and even emery wheels
worn by some hard ingredient in the iron, and analysis has revealed the
presence therein of three distinct forms of diamond--the ordinary stone,
like these now before you, both transparent and black graphite, and
amorphous carbon; that is, carbon without crystallization."
"I gather that the diamantiferous material was present in the form of
tiny particles and not in stones at all approaching these in size?" said
Mr. Abingdon.
"Exactly. I have never either seen or heard of specimens like those. In
1886 a meteor fell in Russia, and contained one per cent. of diamond in
a slightly metamorphosed state. In 1846 the Ava meteorite fell in
Hungary, and it held crystalline graphite in the bright as well as the
dark form. But, again, the distribution was well diffused, and of slight
commercial value. Sir William Crookes, or any eminent chemist, will bear
me out in the assumption that the diamonds now before your eyes are
absolutely matchless by the product of any recorded meteoric source."
Isaacstein, having delivered his little lecture, looked and felt
important. The magistrate bent forward with a pleasant smile.
"I am very much obliged to you for the highly interesting information
you have given," he said. "One more question--the inevitable corollary
of your evidence is that the boy now in the dock has either found a
meteor or a meteoric deposit. Can you say if it is a matter of recent
occurrence?"
"Judging by the appearance of the accompanying scraps of iron ore, I
should say that they have been quite recently in a state of flux from
heat. The silicates seem to be almost eliminated."
The magistrate was unquestionably puzzled. Queer incidents happen in
police courts daily, and the most unexpected scientific and technical
points are elucidated in the effort to secure an accurate comprehension
of matters in dispute. But never, during his long tenancy of the court,
had he been called on to deal with a case of this nature. He smiled in
his perplexity.
"We all remember the copy-book maxim: 'Let justice be done though the
heavens fall,'" he said; "but here it is clearly shown that the ideal
is not easily reached."
Of course, everyone laughed, and the reporters plied pen and pencil with
renewed activity. Here was a sensation with a vengeance--worth all the
display it demanded in the evening papers. Headlines would whoop through
a quarter of a column, and Philip's meteor again run through space.
The boy himself was apparently the most disinterested person present.
While listening to Isaacstein, he again experienced the odd sensation of
aloofness, of lofty domination, amidst a commonplace and insignificant
environment. The Jew was clever, of course, but his cleverness was that
of the text-book, a dry record of fact which needed genius to illuminate
the printed page. And these lawyers, reporters, policemen, with the
vacuous background of loungers, the friends and bottle holders of
thieves and drunkards--the magistrate, even, remote in his dignity and
sense of power--what were they to him?--of no greater import than the
paving stones of the streets to the pulsating life of London as it
passed.
The magistrate glanced at Isaacstein and stroked his chin. The Jew gazed
intently at the packet of diamonds and rubbed his simous nose. There was
a deep silence in court, broken only by the occasional shuffle of feet
among the audience at the back--a shuffle which stopped instantly when
the steely glance of a policeman darted in that direction.
At last the magistrate seemed to make up his mind to a definite course
of action.
"There is only one person present," he said, "who can throw light on
this extraordinary case, and that is the boy himself."
He looked at Philip, and all eyes quickly turned toward the thin, ragged
figure standing upright against the rail that shut him off from the well
of the court. The professional people present noted that the magistrate
did not allude to the strange-looking youth as "the prisoner."
What was going to happen? Was this destitute urchin going to leave the
court with diamonds in his pocket worth fifty thousand pounds? Oddly
enough, no one paid heed to Philip's boast that he owned far more than
that amount. It was not he, but his packet of diamonds, that evoked
wonder. And had not Isaacstein, the great merchant and expert, appraised
them openly! Was it possible that those dirty-white pebbles could be
endowed with such potentiality. Fifty thousand pounds! There were men in
the room, and not confined to the unwashed, whose palates dried and
tongues swelled at the notion.