ALL HE KNEW
"The tramp was missing," continued the man in the corner, "and Mr.
Francis Howard tried to find the missing tramp. Going round to the
front, and seeing the lights at No. 26 still in, he called upon Mr.
Shipman. The jeweller had had a few friends to dinner, and was giving
them whiskies-and-sodas before saying good night. The servants had just
finished washing up, and were waiting to go to bed; neither they nor Mr.
Shipman nor his guests had seen or heard anything of the suspicious
individual.
"Mr. Francis Howard went on to see Mr. Ferdinand Knopf. This gentleman
was having his warm bath, preparatory to going to bed. So Robertson told
the detective. However, Mr. Knopf insisted on talking to Mr. Howard
through his bath-room door. Mr. Knopf thanked him for all the trouble he
was taking, and felt sure that he and Mr. Shipman would soon recover
possession of their diamonds, thanks to the persevering detective.
"He! he! he!" laughed the man in the corner. "Poor Mr. Howard. He
persevered--but got no farther; no, nor anyone else, for that matter.
Even I might not be able to convict the thieves if I told all I knew to
the police.
"Now, follow my reasoning, point by point," he added eagerly.
"Who knew of the presence of the diamonds in the house of Mr. Shipman
and Mr. Knopf? Firstly," he said, putting up an ugly claw-like finger,
"Mr. Shipman, then Mr. Knopf, then, presumably, the man Robertson."
"And the tramp?" said Polly.
"Leave the tramp alone for the present since he has vanished, and take
point number two. Mr. Shipman was drugged. That was pretty obvious; no
man under ordinary circumstances would, without waking, have his keys
abstracted and then replaced at his own bedside. Mr. Howard suggested
that the thief was armed with some anaesthetic; but how did the thief
get into Mr. Shipman's room without waking him from his natural sleep?
Is it not simpler to suppose that the thief had taken the precaution to
drug the jeweller _before_ the latter went to bed?"
"But--"
"Wait a moment, and take point number three. Though there was every
proof that Mr. Shipman had been in possession of £25,000 worth of goods
since Mr. Knopf had a cheque from him for that amount, there was no
proof that in Mr. Knopf's house there was even an odd stone worth a
sovereign.
"And then again," went on the scarecrow, getting more and more excited,
"did it ever strike you, or anybody else, that at _no_ time, while the
tramp was in custody, while all that searching examination was being
gone on with, no one ever saw Mr. Knopf and his man Robertson together
at the same time?
"Ah!" he continued, whilst suddenly the young girl seemed to see the
whole thing as in a vision, "they did not forget a single detail--follow
them with me, point by point. Two cunning scoundrels--geniuses they
should be called--well provided with some ill-gotten funds--but
determined on a grand _coup_. They play at respectability, for six
months, say. One is the master, the other the servant; they take a house
in the same street as their intended victim, make friends with him,
accomplish one or two creditable but very small business transactions,
always drawing on the reserve funds, which might even have amounted to a
few hundreds--and a bit of credit.
"Then the Brazilian diamonds, and the Parisians--which, remember, were
so perfect that they required chemical testing to be detected. The
Parisian stones are sold--not in business, of course--in the evening,
after dinner and a good deal of wine. Mr. Knopf's Brazilians were
beautiful; perfect! Mr. Knopf was a well-known diamond merchant.
"Mr. Shipman bought--but with the morning would have come sober sense,
the cheque stopped before it could have been presented, the swindler
caught. No! those exquisite Parisians were never intended to rest in Mr.
Shipman's safe until the morning. That last bottle of '48 port, with the
aid of a powerful soporific, ensured that Mr. Shipman would sleep
undisturbed during the night.
"Ah! remember all the details, they were so admirable! the letter posted
in Brighton by the cunning rogue to himself, the smashed desk, the
broken pane of glass in his own house. The man Robertson on the watch,
while Knopf himself in ragged clothing found his way into No. 26. If
Constable D 21 had not appeared upon the scene that exciting comedy in
the early morning would not have been enacted. As it was, in the
supposed fight, Mr. Shipman's diamonds passed from the hands of the
tramp into those of his accomplice.
"Then, later on, Robertson, ill in bed, while his master was supposed to
have returned--by the way, it never struck anybody that no one saw Mr.
Knopf come home, though he surely would have driven up in a cab. Then
the double part played by one man for the next two days. It certainly
never struck either the police or the inspector. Remember they only saw
Robertson when in bed with a streaming cold. But Knopf had to be got out
of gaol as soon as possible; the dual _rôle_ could not have been kept up
for long. Hence the story of the diamonds found in the garden of No. 22.
The cunning rogues guessed that the usual plan would be acted upon, and
the suspected thief allowed to visit the scene where his hoard lay
hidden.
"It had all been foreseen, and Robertson must have been constantly on
the watch. The tramp stopped, mind you, in Phillimore Terrace for some
moments, lighting a pipe. The accomplice, then, was fully on the alert;
he slipped the bolts of the back garden gate. Five minutes later Knopf
was in the house, in a hot bath, getting rid of the disguise of our
friend the tramp. Remember that again here the detective did not
actually see him.
"The next morning Mr. Knopf, black hair and beard and all, was himself
again. The whole trick lay in one simple art, which those two cunning
rascals knew to absolute perfection, the art of impersonating one
another.
"They are brothers, presumably--twin brothers, I should say."
"But Mr. Knopf--" suggested Polly.
"Well, look in the Trades' Directory; you will see F. Knopf & Co.,
diamond merchants, of some City address. Ask about the firm among the
trade; you will hear that it is firmly established on a sound financial
basis. He! he! he! and it deserves to be," added the man in the corner,
as, calling for the waitress, he received his ticket, and taking up his
shabby hat, took himself and his bit of string rapidly out of the room.