TOLD BY A DETECTIVE.
"For several years past," began Mr. Bathurst, "the city and many of the
wealthier suburban towns have been undergoing a systematic overhauling.
Through the network of big thefts, and little thefts, petit larcenies
and bank robberies, there has run one clear-cut burglarious specialty--a
style of depredations noticeably similar in case after case; alike in
'design and execution,' and always baffling to the officers.
[Illustration: Bathurst telling the story.]
"I allude to a series of robberies of jewelry and plate, a succession of
provoking thefts, monstrous, enough to be easily traced, but executed
with such exceeding _finesse_ that, in no single instance, has the
property been recovered, or the robbers run to earth.
"These fastidious thieves never took money in large amounts, only took
plate when it was of the purest metal and least cumbersome sort; and
always aimed for the brightest, the purest, the costliest diamonds.
Diamonds indeed seemed their specialty.
"This gang has operated in such a gingerly, gentlemanly, mysterious
manner, and has raided for diamonds so long and so successfully, that
they have come to be called, among New York detectives, The Diamond
Coterie, although no man knew whether they numbered two, or twenty.
"They could always recognize their handiwork, however, and whenever the
news came that some lady in the city, or suburbs, had lost her diamonds,
and that the thieves had made a 'clean job' of it, the officers said,
'that's the work of the Diamond Coterie.'
"I have been much abroad of late, but every time I came back to New York
the Coterie had gathered fresh jewels into its treasure box, and no man
had found a clue to the sly fellows.
"I began to feel interested in the clique and resolved to take a hand at
them, at the first opportunity. That opportunity came, with the news of
the great Wardour robbery, and I came down to W----.
"I saw enough in this robbery to interest me, for various reasons.
"I believed I could see distinctly the handiwork of the Diamond Coterie,
and I saw another thing; it was the first piece of work I had known them
to bungle. And they had bungled in this.
"I made some of my conclusions known to Miss Wardour and her friends,
but I kept to myself the most important ones.
"The story of the chloroform, so carefully administered, was one of the
things over which I pondered much; I borrowed the chloroform bottle and
the piece of linen that had been used to apply the drug, and that night
I accepted the hospitality proffered me by Sir Clifford. I took a wax
impression of the vial, at his house, and I made an important discovery
while there.
"Sir Clifford found me half famished and ordered his housekeeper to
bring in a lunch. Not wishing my identity known, I pretended to be a
patient; and just as my host was leaving the room, he tossed me a
handkerchief, which he took from a side table, bidding me make myself a
bandage to partially conceal my face.
"Now my eyes are trained to see much at a glance, and the moment they
fell upon that bit of white linen they were riveted there.
"The handkerchief was precisely like the mutilated one used with the
chloroform. This might be a coincidence--plain white handkerchiefs with
wide borders were not uncommon, but this handkerchief was _marked_!
"I could scarcely wait until Sir Clifford should show me to my room, so
anxious was I to compare the two pieces of linen.
"The whole one bore the initials F. L., and on the raw, torn edge of the
half square was a black dot that was undoubtedly the fragment of a
letter, or name, that had been torn hastily off. It corresponded exactly
with the lower end of the letter L. upon the whole handkerchief given me
by Sir Clifford.
"This might be a coincidence, but it is one of my rules to suspect two
coincidences coming close together; and I had already discovered three
remarkable ones in this case.
"Sitting alone in my room, I reflected thus:
"Take it for granted that this robbery was perpetrated by the Diamond
Coterie, what are the facts?
"The robbers knew where to enter, and where to look for plunder; _ergo_,
they must have known the premises.
"They administered the deadly chloroform with nicest calculation;
_ergo_, they must have known Miss Wardour.
"One of them was something of a dandy,--witness the superfine bit of
cambric, and the print of jaunty boots where he leaped the garden fence.
"The next morning I took unceremonious leave of my host, and set out on
my explorations. As I approached Wardour Place I met a man, who
immediately drew my interest to himself.
"This man was Jerry Belknap. He wore a disguise quite familiar to me,
and I recognized him easily. He entered at the Wardour gate, and I
sauntered on, having found new food for thought.
"Now, a word concerning this man Belknap.
"At one time he was an honorable member of the best detective force in
the city; but he had too much cupidity, and not enough moral firmness.
Twice he allowed himself to be bribed into letting a case fall through,
and finally I caught him in secret conclave with a gang of bank
burglars, who were conspiring to raise a fortune for each, and escape
with their booty through the connivance of our false detective.
"I exploded this little scheme, and compelled Belknap to withdraw from
the force. Imagine my surprise when, a little later, Miss Wardour told
me that _Mr. Belknap_ was the detective sent down from the city by Mr.
Lamotte!
"Well, Mr. Belknap went to work upon the case, and Miss Wardour
concealed me near her dining room so that I might have the pleasure of
listening to his first report.
"That was a fortunate ambush for me. Mr. Belknap's deductions were as
diametrically opposite to mine as if he had purposely studied out the
contrast; and I was shaking my sides with the thought of how all this
plausibility must be puzzling Miss Wardour and her aunt, when a new
element was introduced into the programme.
"Mr. Frank Lamotte, fresh from an amateur robber hunt, came into the
room. It had been arranged that Mrs. Aliston should break to this young
man the news that his sister had that day eloped with John Burrill; but
first, he was to relate his adventures, and this he did.
"If I can hear a voice, before seeing the face, I can usually measure
its truth or falsity. Now, I had not seen Mr. Frank Lamotte, but his
voice told me that he was rehearsing a well studied part; and,
furthermore, I was assured that Belknap knew this, and purposely helped
him on.
"By and by Miss Wardour withdrew, and Mrs. Aliston fulfilled her
mission. Then I was more than ever convinced of the fellow's
insincerity. I heard how he received the news of his sister's flight;
and when Mrs. Aliston went, in a panic, to call her niece, I heard him,
when he fancied himself alone.
"It seems he had been the bearer of a note from his sister to Miss
Wardour, and he was now intent upon learning if that note had contained
any thing damaging to himself. This much I learned from his solitary
mutterings, and then Miss Wardour re-entered the room. He was half wild,
until she had assured him that the note contained nothing that could
injure him; and then he became calmer, and went out into the air to
recover his breath.
"Miss Wardour made haste to release me, and I came out of my concealment
congratulating myself that I had been so lucky.
"And now I found myself compelled to leave W---- just as things were
growing very interesting; I had made my flying visit in a moment of
leisure, but my vacation had run out; duty, honor and interest, alike
impelled me in another direction.
"I left my address with Miss Wardour, and I promised myself that at the
first opportunity I would return to W---- and take up my abode here for
a time.
"I had been in W---- not quite three days. I had not seen Jasper
Lamotte, I had barely seen Frank, and I had added to my deductions made
on the night of my arrival, until the case stood like this in my mind:
"1st. The robbers were familiar with Wardour, outside and in.
"2d. They knew Miss Wardour, and her sensitiveness to the effects of
chloroform.
"3d. One of them was a man of gentlemanly propensities, and probably
young.
"4th. They or a part of their number approached by the river, using a
boat with muffled oars.
"So much for my deductions. Now for some coincidences.
"It was a coincidence that the handkerchief I got from Sir Clifford
should bear Frank Lamotte's initials, and should be precisely like the
one left behind by the robbers.
"It was a coincidence that Frank Lamotte should be a student of
medicine, who might have been quite as capable of administering
chloroform as was the burglar himself.
"It was a coincidence that Miss Sybil Lamotte should have eloped on the
very day when her best friend was robbed, and that father, mother, and
brother were all absent in behalf of the robbed friend, thus leaving the
way open to the fugitives, and giving them plenty of time to escape.
"Now for some _facts_ that looked strange.
"It was strange that Sybil Lamotte should leave her home to marry a man
like John Burrill, when she was known to have bestowed her heart
elsewhere.
"It was strange that Jasper Lamotte, going to the city to employ a
detective, should so soon have stumbled upon Jerry Belknap, who was
identified with no agency, and could only be reached through private
means.
"It was strange that Frank Lamotte should set himself up as an amateur
detective, and should bring back a report that tallied so perfectly with
the deductions of Jerry Belknap.
"It was strange that Miss Wardour, having just been robbed of jewels to
the amount of fifty thousand dollars, should be so little distressed, so
little agitated by her loss.
"From deductions, coincidences and strange facts, I evolved the
following theory, which certainly looked well from my standpoint, but
might not hold water. You will see, that from the first I connected the
Wardour robbery and the Lamotte elopement.
"Now, Sybil Lamotte's strange flight gave proof that there was a
skeleton in the Lamotte closet. I said:
"If this unseen Mr. Lamotte had planned this robbery, and if for some
reason it seemed good that his daughter should elope, how well all was
arranged.
"His son assisting him, they could drop down from Mapleton in their row
boat; come up from the river, and, with their plans all laid, and
knowing their ground, could make quick headway. Frank Lamotte's boot
heel would leave just such a print, as one of the robbers left in the
loose dirt beside the garden fence. Frank Lamotte would know just how to
administer the chloroform. Then, Mr. Lamotte, in going to the city,
ostensibly to procure the services of a detective, could easily take the
spoils along; and his wife also, that she might be well out of his
daughter's way. Such a man would naturally select a fellow like Jerry
Belknap, who would keep up a farce of investigation, and keep away all
who might, perhaps, stumble upon the truth. Frank's eagerness to be
absent on this day of his sister's flight, and to assist in the search
for the robbers, would be thus explained; and his anxiety concerning the
contents of his sister's letter might be easily traced to a guilty
conscience.
"But my theories were doomed to be laid aside for a time. Other duties
claimed me and it was four weeks before I could turn so much as a
thought toward W----.
"Before leaving the city, however, I had placed my wax cast of the
chloroform bottle in the hands of one of my best men, and had also given
him a clue upon which to work.
"My agent was wonderfully successful. He found the counterparts to the
chloroform bottle, and then he began shadowing the owner of said vials.
It proved to be a young woman who had formerly lived in W----, as a
factory hand, but who had been transplanted to the city by Frank
Lamotte.
"It is not necessary to enlarge upon the story of this girl as connected
with Lamotte; but this must be borne in mind. During the time that my
agent had this girl under surveillance, Frank Lamotte visited her, and,
it is supposed that he removed the remaining bottles of the set, for one
was afterward exhumed, in fragments, from Doctor Heath's ash heap, by
the industrious Jerry Belknap, and the others have disappeared."
At the mention of this factory girl Mrs. Aliston turned her face toward
Constance, its expression saying as plainly as any language could, "I
told you so." But Mr. Bathurst took no notice of this, and hurried on
with his story.