Chapter One.
It was a pure white stone of over two hundred carats, and since nature
had somehow brewed it ages before it had rested peacefully in its native
`blue' as innocent of harm as the meanest pebble near it. No sooner,
however, was it unearthed by the pick of one Sixpence, a Kaffir in the
employ of the Union Diamond Mining Company of the Kimberley Mine, than
its evil influence began to work. Sixpence's eyes glittered as he saw
it glisten in the South African sunshine, and then he gave one stealthy
glance at an overseer, who was paid to watch over him and keep him from
straying from the paths of honesty, and found that he had little to fear
from that quarter. The overseer was indulging in a day-dream, and in
his imagination was reacting the incident of the previous Saturday
evening, when he had engaged in four fights, three of which he could
quite remember. While he was thus occupied Sixpence clutched the
diamond, and when he had got it up and hidden it away in the rag he wore
round his waist, began to indulge in a delicious day-dream on his own
account. He would sell the diamond to a canteen-keeper he knew of, and
have one last drinking bout and then farewell to the white man and his
troublesome ways. He knew, however, that on leaving the mine he would
have to pass through the searching house, and that it would be dangerous
to take his chance with the diamond. So he hides it somewhere near
where he is working, and when he goes home he has the lump of blue
ground, a few yards from which the diamond is buried, photographed in
his mind with an instinct strange to any civilised man. That night, an
hour after midnight, he steals away from the compound where the Union
Company Kaffirs sleep and makes his way to the side of the mine.
At the far end of the mine a company was working by electric light, and
the brilliant glare in its claims made the rest of the huge pit look
weirdly gloomy, and seem bottomless and infernal. Sixpence, however,
had not much imagination, cared little enough for the picturesque
effect. He had no room in his mind for any other picture but that of
the exact spot where he had concealed the big diamond. Glancing around
to see that there was no one about, he turned down a track which led
from the reef to the bottom of the mine. Without much difficulty he
found the exact spot in the claims where he had hid the diamond. Then,
as he held the stone in his hand and realised that the prize was his, he
felt inclined to give vent to his joy in a wild Kaffir song of triumph.
That bit of a pebble for which the big fools of white men would give so
much money and undergo so much toil was his. His last day's work was
done. No overseer would again awaken him in the morning and compel him
to go to those hateful claims. His future would be made up of days of
delicious loafing, watching his wives hoe in the mealie patch, and his
cows feed round his kraal, while he would have an ever delightful story
to tell to the young men of his tribe, of how he had fooled the white
men, and carried off the biggest diamond that ever turned up in their
claims.
Perhaps it was fate, or some wayward influence exercised by the big
stone he had found, that made him choose another way to ascend by than
that which he had followed when he went down the mine. This brought him
up about fifty yards from where he had gone down. It was just as good a
path to take as the other, or rather it would have been just as good a
path for him to take but for one circumstance.
As Sixpence reached the top of the reef, and was just starting off at a
run, he found himself tumbling over something which when he was on the
ground he discovered to be a pair of long legs. Those legs happened to
belong to one Jack Enderby, a searcher in the employ of the Kimberley
Mining Board. Mr Sixpence, who did not read the local papers, was
unaware of the fact that the Mining Board, in order to put a stop to
exactly the course of proceeding which he was carrying out, had
instituted the system of putting men on guard round the reef at night.
Though the idea was a good one, it was not being carried out in a very
satisfactory and efficient manner by the owner of the legs. Going on
night guard, particularly after one has spent a somewhat convivial
evening, is tiresome work enough. Mr Jack Enderby had found it so, and
after he had walked about for some time, and grumbled at his luck in
having to earn his living in that way, he had settled himself down to
smoke a quiet pipe and think over things. He had yawned, stretched
himself, looked into the mine, and wished devoutly that the infernal
place had never been found at all, or that he at all events had never
seen it. And then his thoughts had begun to stray listlessly over his
somewhat chequered career, which was perhaps all the easier to follow as
it was all downhill. His history was one which he was willing enough to
tell any one who would listen to it.
"Went from Eton to the --th Hussars; about as lively a lot as any in the
service. Went the pace as strong as any of 'em for a time, but couldn't
last. Found myself dead broke when the numbers went up after one Derby.
Had to go after that, and for my sins managed to find my way out to
this forsaken hole of a place," was his oft-told tale. At one time he
had owned some claims in the mine, but he soon gambled them away. Then
he lived by his wits for a period, but falling upon bad times had been
glad to take the billet of a searcher upon the Mining Board, which some
of the few friends who continued to stick to him were able to get for
him.
The appointment was grumbled at by some men who cared more about the
interests of the mine than about the welfare of Jack Enderby, and
certainly they would have been able to justify their stricture if they
could have seen him, for he had found his thoughts soothing, and having
found a comfortable place had gone fast asleep.
His peculiar way of looking after the interest of the Kimberley
claimholders, however, was destined to prove as disastrous to Mr
Sixpence as if he had been performing his duty with the most exemplary
zeal.
Sixpence did not know what he was there for, but he realised that all
white men were dangerous to a black man who had a big diamond in his
possession, and he sprung on to his feet and set off at his best pace.
Just then, however, Jack woke up, saw Sixpence making off, and in a
second was on his legs and in pursuit of him. Sixpence had managed to
get about twenty yards' start, and he took a path that led away from the
mine to some ground given up to washing machines, depositing-floors, and
_debris_ heaps. In that direction he would not be likely to meet with a
policeman, and if he got a good start from his pursuer, there would be
plenty of hiding-places where he could take cover and dodge behind.
Unfortunately for him, however, Jack Enderby had once won the `quarter'
at Sandhurst, and though he was not improved by the fifteen years that
had passed since then, he could still go better than most men, so long
as he could keep his wind. Mr Sixpence soon began to know that he had
a good man behind him, and to believe he was outpaced. He would have to
use his hands as well as his legs if he meant to keep the diamond, which
he had in the pocket of the tattered soldier's coat he was wearing.
Sixpence meant to keep that diamond, and he gave the heavy iron-bound
knobkerri he had taken out with him a savage grip, and had a vision of a
smashed white face as he slackened his pace. Then, as his pursuer came
up, he stopped suddenly, and turning upon him before he realised that he
was going to show fight, struck him one blow full on the face. Enderby
staggered back dazed and half stunned, hardly able to avoid the second
blow the Kaffir aimed at him. He had nothing in his hands, having left
his stick at the spot where he was lying asleep, but it chanced on that
particular evening that he had a revolver in the side-pocket of his
coat. As a rule he never carried arms, few men on the Diamond Fields
ever do, but as luck would have it, that evening before he went on duty
he had encountered in a canteen an intoxicated young gentleman, who was
possessed of a revolver, and not having been long on the Diamond Fields
thought it the thing to make a flourish with it, to the great danger of
the company present. Jack had considered that he would be safer without
it, so he had taken it from him. The circumstance turned out to be
rather an unfortunate one for Mr Sixpence.
"You blasted nigger! I'll stop that game," Jack said, as he felt some
blood running down his cheek, and his hand went to his pocket. He fired
without taking particular aim, but the Kaffir's hands went up, and he
fell on his back. "Well, it's not your night out, my boy; there is a
dead run of luck against you. First of all you must tumble over me as
you come out of the mine, and it's long odds against that; then I have a
revolver on me, and then when I do shoot I put a bullet through your
brain instead of missing. Well, we will see what it was you were taking
away with you," Jack said to himself, as he bent over the fallen man and
put his hand into the pocket of the tattered soldier's coat he had on,
and then as he touched the diamond he gave an exclamation of surprise.
"By the Lord, Harry, it was worth going to get," he said, as he pulled
it out and looked at it in the moonlight.
Jack Enderby was a good-hearted fellow enough as men went, but it is no
libel upon him to say that he was far more moved by the sight of the
diamond than by the fate which had befallen the Kaffir. It was his duty
to stop any one whom he found surreptitiously visiting the mine, and
when he had a revolver he could hardly be expected not to use it in
self-defence. Not much trouble would be made about the Kaffir's death.
He would report it to the police, an inquiry would be held, but the
state of his face would show the provocation he had received before he
fired. No, there would be no fuss about the nigger, but the diamond--
that was a very different matter--that would be something to talk about,
when people saw it; and then Jack Enderby thought to himself that for
some time no one should see it. Hitherto in the matter of diamonds he
had been straight; but he had never concealed from himself that if he
got one good chance of getting hold of a big diamond he would make no
bones about it. Well, the chance had come, and he was not going to be
such a fool as not to avail himself of it, he thought, as he put the
diamond into his pocket, and like poor Sixpence began to think of what
he would do with it.
In his case, too, it meant farewell to the Kimberley mine, and work
which he hated. It meant also, if it were as good a stone as he
believed it to be, his having that good fling at home, which he had
longed for without much hope.
As he grasped the diamond a vision of Newmarket Heath rose up, and he
seemed to hear the thud of the horses as they passed the post, and hear
the roar of the ring. He thought of the card-room of his club, and the
pleasant excitement of _ecarte_; and then he thought of the Richmond
dinners he would partake of again in congenial society, and realised
that he would soon be enjoying all these pleasures again.
He remembered that for a wonder he happened to have a little store of
ready money, which he had won a few days before on the Kimberley races,
about twenty-five pounds, enough to get him home if he travelled
steerage in the steamer; and what did a little discomfort matter if it
were only rewarded by the good time he intended to have. Once he was
home with the diamond he was safe. On the Fields he would only get a
small price for it, because of the danger of buying a diamond from a man
like himself who had no right to own one; but in England no troublesome
questions would be asked. For the present, the sooner he got the
diamond hidden away the better, he thought, so he made the best of his
way to the little iron house near the mine where he slept, and found a
hiding-place for it there. Then he went to the police-station.
The sergeant of police looked at his face, which was badly bruised from
the blow he had received. "He gave you that, did he? no wonder you
fired at him. What made him show fight though? Had he a big diamond on
him?"
"No such luck. I disturbed him when he was going to fetch one he had
hid," Jack answered, and when he looked into the other's face and saw
that his story went down all right, he felt a good deal relieved. "Poor
beggar, I don't know what put it into his head to go for me as he did."
He added this as he left the place.
People would wonder whether the Kaffir had had a diamond on him, but
they could never know that he had, he thought. The finest diamond in
South Africa was now his, and he was the only man alive who had seen it.
The inquiry into the death of the luckless Sixpence resulted in the
magistrate coming to the conclusion that it was a case of justifiable
homicide. The crown prosecutor was of the same opinion, and Jack
Enderby was generally considered not to be to blame in the matter. One
circumstance was discussed with a good deal of interest: people asked
why should the Kaffir have shown fight if he had no diamond? Some
people argued that he was going to get one he had hidden away in the
mine, but others, however, more cynically disposed, were inclined to
take a different view. It wasn't likely that a diamond would be found
on him after Jack Enderby had sorted him. No, Jack had his own notions
of what a Searcher's perquisites were, so one or two of his friends
suggested. Jack shrugged his shoulders when he was asked about it. It
was just like his luck, he said; if the poor devil of a Kaffir had had a
diamond on him he supposed he would have been allowed a percentage on
it, which would have come in handy enough. As it was he had got a
smashed face, and was thought a thief for his pains. There would soon
be a searcher's billet open for any one who wanted one, for he was tired
of the job and meant to leave Kimberley and go and try his luck up at
the gold-fields. In a week or two he did clear from the Fields without
leaving any great gap there or causing people to trouble themselves very
much about his absence.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter Two.
Strangers, who find themselves for the first time in Hatton Garden, are
probably somewhat surprised when they learn that they are in the
principal diamond market of the world. If they turn into the street
from Holborn they find it a common place enough at first, and towards
the other end it becomes mean and shabby, and wears an expression
suggestive of anything but riches. The houses seem to suffer from a
premature age and mouldiness, and give one the idea of their being
occupied by persons who are in anything but a large way of business.
From the names on the doors, however, one learns that the majority of
their occupiers profess to be dealers in diamonds and precious stones,
and those who know about diamonds will inform you that they do deal
therein to a very considerable extent, and will have strange tales to
tell of the huge quantities of precious stones which the merchant of
that dingy thoroughfare have in their safes, and will hold until some
long-looked-for turn in the market comes.
Its population is much given to gather in knots on doorsteps and at the
corners of streets. They are as a rule swarthy-visaged, hungry-eyed
men, rejoicing in much jewellery, gorgeous raiment, and glossy hats.
With very few exceptions--who do not often make fortunes--they belong to
the chosen race.
The scraps of the conversation which one hears as one passes along the
street generally relates to matters affecting the trade. That is a
somewhat wide margin, for all public events, from a threatened European
war to the death of some dusky potentate, more or less influence
diamonds. But most of the talk is of the precious stones themselves and
the mines in which they are found--of falls of reef in Kimberley, and of
the price of glassy stones, cape whites, off-coloured stuff, and boart.
Many of the men who gather together there are birds of passage who are
constantly backwards and forwards between London and the Diamond Fields,
and often enough there are one or two men who have just come back from
the Cape with a budget of Diamond Field news which the others are not a
little interested in.
One morning, about two months after the adventure which ended so badly
for Sixpence, Jack Enderby turned into that thoroughfare from Holborn.
As he did so he pushed a soft felt hat of a decidedly colonial shape
well over his face, for he saw two men on the opposite side of the
street whom he had known on the Fields, and did not wish the recognition
to be mutual. Taking a quick look at the numbers on the doors, he made
the best of his way along the street and disappeared through a doorway
on which he saw a name he was looking for, namely, that of Mr Le Mert,
diamond merchant.
Mr Le Mert was in his office. He was a man of about fifty, who still
looked mentally and physically not far past his prime. Some people
would have called him a good-looking man, and there was plenty of
strength in his face. But as he scanned some figures he had scribbled
on the back of an envelope, there was rather an ugly gleam in his eye,
which became a little more pronounced when his clerk came into the room
and said, that a gentleman wished to see him. It changed, however, into
one of relief when he read the name which his visitor had written on a
piece of paper.
"Well, Jack, my boy, how goes it? You have just turned up from the
Fields, I should say, from your get up!" he said heartily enough, as he
shook hands with his visitor. "Wonder what that fool wants of me?" was
his inward comment. But though, as a matter of fact, he was not
particularly pleased to see Jack, he had expected an unpleasant visit
from a man who had obtained some very awkward information about a
company he had promoted, and was threatening to make things very
unpleasant. So it was a relief to him to find it was one with whom he
had been pretty friendly in former days on the Diamond Fields.
"Well, Le Mert, so you have become a great swell--one of the great guns
of the diamond trade. Things are altered a bit, are they not, since the
old days?" Jack said, after they had talked together for some time.
"When I kept a roulette-table at Dutoitspan, and you used to punt away
the price of yours and your partner's diamonds at it," the other
answered, wondering to himself what Jack wanted. He had at first been
half inclined to suspect that his visitor was in quest of a loan, but
his manner struck him as being too independent for that.
"I suppose you go in for being quite the straight and upright merchant
now?" Jack asked, evidently remembering some old Diamond Field
transactions.
"Well, I don't suppose you have come all this way to inquire into my
moral character, or bother me about old stories which nobody would
believe, though I should not much care if they did," Le Mert answered,
looking at Jack and wondering what his business could be.
"No, I came on business. I have a diamond I found, which I thought
perhaps you might make me an offer for."
"Oh, one you found, eh? Yes, you were a policeman or something like
that out there at the last, weren't you? still you managed to find a
diamond which you wish to sell to me. Well, let's have a look at it."
"I didn't say I had it with me--it's a pretty big stone, just about the
largest you have ever seen, and I mean to get a price for it."
"Well, bring it out; it's no good talking about the price of a diamond
before one has seen it. You have it on you, I can see," Le Mert said,
for he had noticed Jack's hand fidgeting at his waist, and guessed he
had the diamond on him.
He was right. Jack Enderby undid a leather belt, which he seemed to
wear next his skin, and he took the diamond out of it. The
half-bantering, cynical expression which the diamond merchant's face
generally wore left it as he looked at the stone. He was well able to
judge how valuable it was, though he did not know the exact price it
would fetch. It is not easy to say how much you can get any one to pay
for a single stone, but Le Mert knew that the answer to that question
represented the price of that diamond. He had never seen such a gem
before, and did not believe such another existed above-ground. For some
time he was silent, looking at the stone and thinking what he could do
with it if it were his. It happened that just then his affairs were in
a desperate condition. He had been a poor man, and had made a large
fortune. Had over speculated--gone in for one or two rather doubtful
transactions, and now he was being pushed very hard, and everything
pointed to his having to begin the world again at fifty--a ruined man
without money or character. He looked at the prize that fortune had
thrown `that fool Jack Enderby,' whom he had always despised as a man
never able to get or keep money. Then he thought for a second or two,
for what he saw reminded him of something.
"That was a devilish lucky shot of yours that brought down the Union
Company's nigger that night, Master Jack. You ought to put up a
monument to that poor beggar's memory, for he did _you_ a good turn," he
said at last.
Jack started and looked at the other as if he thought he was in league
with the evil one.
"What on earth do you mean?" he said, snatching up the diamond.
"Don't be so startled, my friend; I read about the nigger in the
Kimberley paper that came a mail or two back, and now I remember it I
understand how you managed to find that diamond, it don't want a very
sharp man to guess that much."
Enderby felt that it was useless to waste any time in trying to argue
the other out of his opinion.
"Look here! the question is not how I got it, but what it's worth," he
said rather sulkily.
"Yes, but the second turns on the first. You have got something worth a
good bit of money, but it's something you can't go into the open market
and sell. But don't cut up rough! Sit down again, and we will talk
over the matter. I ain't afraid of buying the diamond from you; there
is no cursed Diamond Trade Act in force in this country," Le Mert said,
and there followed a good deal of talk about the price of the diamond,
but it did not end in anything definite, for the good reason that
Enderby did not mean to part with the stone until he was paid for it,
and the other had not an available penny in the world beyond five
hundred pounds in cash, which he had by him ready for an emergency. It
was very aggravating to think of the lot of money he would have made if
he had only possessed some thousands.
That diamond was to be bought on very good terms, but Enderby wanted
ready money, and until he had got ready money he did not intend to let
it go out of his possession. Of course something could be done. It was
possible to find buyers for the diamond, who would be content if it were
worth their while not to ask awkward questions, but they would want to
make a very good bargain themselves, and the commission that would fall
to his share would be a very paltry sum compared to what he considered
he ought to make out of such a chance, knowing what he did about that
stone.
"Well, it's rather a big thing for me to go in for just now, but we will
see what can be done; maybe I will get some one to take a share in it,"
he said, after they had talked for some time. "By the by," he added,
"what are you going to do with it? it's rather a valuable piece of
property to carry on you."
"I can look after myself, I fancy," Jack answered. "I have the
six-shooter on me that I had that night, and I mean going about with it
and the diamond until I can sell."
"Why not let me keep it for you? and give you a memorandum--it would be
better in that safe than in your belt."
"No fear, Mr Le Mert! maybe you're a very respectable diamond merchant,
and are worth your thousands, but somehow, remembering old times, I
think I would sooner have the diamond on me; you might be inclined to
make things rather awkward for me if I wanted it back in a hurry."
Le Mert took this outwardly with great composure, but inwardly he cursed
the other's pigheaded suspicion.
"By the by," Jack said, when the conversation about the diamond was
concluded, "you must let me have something to go on with--a hundred or
so won't inconvenience you, and will be the very making of me; for I
came off the ship with about a pound in my pocket, and when I pay my
hotel bill I sha'n't have a rap."
Le Mert thought that a hundred or so would inconvenience him a good deal
more than the other imagined, but he intended to keep the state of his
affairs a secret, so he produced ten ten-pound notes from his nest-egg,
and handed them to the other. Jack crushed them up in his hand, and
hurried away, eager to spend some of them, and begin to enjoy the good
time he had been looking forward to ever since he had put his hand into
the pocket of Sixpence's coat.
When his visitor had taken his departure, the diamond merchant looked at
his diminished roll of notes. Four hundred pounds was all he had left,
and not another penny did he see his way to raise, except what he hoped
to make out of the diamond. Then he made a calculation or two on a
piece of paper, and thought out the situation. Here was Jack Enderby
with a diamond that he could not sell for one tenth of its value. He
had no money to buy it, while the other would not let it go out of his
possession, though so long as he kept it and appeared as the seller
there would always be a clue to its real history.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter Three.
Twenty-four hours after Jack Enderby received the hundred pounds he was
dressing in some furnished chambers he had taken in Jermyn Street.
Those twenty-four hours had done a good deal for him. When he first
landed he had felt by no means at his ease. A valuable diamond is all
very well, but it is not ready money, and as Jack had fingered the few
shillings he had left in the pocket of his old pea-coat, he felt
anything but confident, and realised that there was something in the
atmosphere of London which made want of money worse than it is
elsewhere. Then it was not very pleasant for the once brilliant Jack
Enderby of the --th to have no better clothes than the colonial rags he
was wearing, and to have to walk about the street in them. But the
touch of the crisp bank-notes had changed everything, and had acted as a
powerful tonic on his system. They enabled him to get into comfortable
quarters, and order suitable raiment; and as he dressed that morning he
looked at himself in the glass, and felt satisfied that he was not so
very unlike the Jack Enderby of a dozen or so years before. Shaved, and
with the beard that he had been wearing cut off, his face did not look
so very much the worse for wear. There were some streaks of grey in his
moustache, and some lines about the eyes, and on his cheek he had the
scar of the blow he had received from Sixpence's knobkerri, which he
would carry to his grave, still it had been paid for pretty handsomely.
The last years had been hard ones enough, and he had had a rough time of
it, but he had come out all right, and there were not many of his old
friends, he expected, who had made as much money off their own bats as
he would have done when he sold his diamond.
As he ate his breakfast--enjoying his food wonderfully, the tea, toast,
and even eggs, seeming better than they did in Africa--he glanced at a
daily and saw that it was Ascot week. Why should he not go down? he
asked himself. There was nothing to prevent him now, for though he
might come across some of the men who were looking for him very
anxiously one Monday some dozen years before, even if they remembered
him they would be appeased when they learnt that he would soon be able
to settle with them. He was soon dressed--how strange it seemed to be
wearing a black coat and a tall hat again--and was in a hansom bound for
the station.
As he was paying for his entrance to the enclosure he felt some one
touch him on the shoulder, and somewhat to his surprise heard his name
spoken by a shabby, horsey-looking man, whose gloomy countenance for a
second was lit up with something like satisfaction as he seemed to
recognise him.
"How are you, Captain?" he said; "why I haven't seen you a-racing for
this ever so long. You've been letting it alone, and you're right--wish
I had; but you must have just one more shy at it this time for the
stakes. Do you remember how I put you on to the winner at
Cambridgeshire at thirties to one. Well, I've got as good a thing as
that for you."
Jack recognised the man who had kept a public-house in a Berkshire
village, near where he had been at a tutor's, before he went into the
army. There was a training-stable in the village, whose fortunes the
publican used to follow very faithfully. He had had one wonderful tip,
which he had imparted to Jack, and they had both backed it to their
profit.
"Ah, Captain, things ain't what they used to be with me by a long chalk.
I haven't got the `Horse and Jockey' no longer; and that bit o' land I
had is gone; and now that I knows a good thing, blessed if I can raise
enough to back it to win me a fiver; and mark my words, Captain, there
never was a better thing than Revolver for the stakes. Now look 'ere,
Captain, it's putting last year's Derby winner in at 7 stone 4--how'd
that be, ay? I saw the trial, and I knows what I see, and you know that
it's not from knowing too little but too much that I've hurt myself
betting."
There was a note in the man's husky voice which convinced Enderby that
he believed in his information. Revolver too, he rather liked the name.
It was owing to a revolver that he was at Ascot and not in South
Africa.
"What can I get about it?" he asked.
"They have got it at fifteens on the lists, but they are laying twenties
in the ring--there is a price! Well, well, one don't know what's in
store for one, but I'd lay against there being any worse torment than
knowing a real good thing and not having a mag to back it with," the
lout said, looking the picture of gloom, but his face lit up with
pleasure when Jack promised to back the horse and put a sovereign on for
him at the odds.
And then Enderby hurried away to back the horse, the other urging him to
make haste and lose no time, as he believed that the horse would be
backed for a good bit at the post, and its price was sure to shorten.
Going up to a ready-money bookmaker whom he remembered as a good man,
Jack took twenty to one to twenty-five pounds. Then he saw another man
back the horse for a little, and that made him feel more confident, so
he doubled his bet. Then he went on to the top of the stand, and
smoking a cigar as he looked over the grand stretch of Berkshire
landscape one sees from it, he thought of the years that had passed
since he drove over from Aldershot to Ascot, a cheery, happy-go-lucky
young subaltern. Then some shouts from the ring caught his ear, and he
learnt that Revolver was evidently being backed, for a hundred to eight
against Revolver was taken by some one near him on the stand. Though he
would not have much of Le Mert's hundred left if he lost, he felt
curiously confident, and began to have a belief in his luck.
It was a capital start for the Ascot Stakes, and the horses were all
together till they were about three furlongs from home, then the
favourite looked like winning, but Jack, as he caught sight of the horse
he had backed, felt pretty confident that he was not done for. Then
there was a cry of "It's a race!" as Revolver came up with a rush. And
a grand race it was, and even Jack Enderby was hardly certain, till the
numbers went up, that Revolver had won the stakes by a head, and he had
won a thousand pounds.
Yes, there was no doubt about his having got into a streak of luck, he
thought, as he travelled back to town that day, having won a little more
on the other races, and being altogether some twelve hundred pounds to
the good.
That evening, Enderby and Le Mert had arranged to dine together, and
have some more talk about the sale of the diamond. The latter, as he
eat his dinner, began to feel anything but pleased at the turn matters
had taken. When he lent the other the hundred pounds he thought the
loan would help to make their relations more confidential, and to keep
Enderby to some extent in his power, and that the latter would spend the
money soon enough, and when it was gone be ready to sell the diamond and
fill his pockets again. He had not taken into consideration the chances
of his gambling and winning.
But Jack Enderby with his pockets full of notes was a very different
person from the man who had dodged into the office in Hatton Garden a
day or two before. When Le Mert mentioned a price he laughed, and asked
him if he thought he was dealing with a baby.
"Look here, I've been thinking over matters, and maybe it's better to
wait a bit till people have forgotten that yarn about the nigger. I
shall stick my diamond into a bank, and hold on till I get a good offer
for it."
"And in the mean time how'll you live?" asked Le Mert.
"Live! why I have over a thou, and I've my luck."
"Luck!" snarled Le Mert.
"Well, luck! I believe in it, don't you?"
Le Mert did believe a good deal more in what gamblers call luck than he
would have confessed. Enderby's luck, however, seemed likely to upset
his last chance of getting out of his difficulties, and he felt savage
enough, though he answered carelessly--
"I expect your luck will mean your getting to the bottom of that money
in a week or two, and in a year that diamond will be sold, and you will
be dead broke, and wishing yourself back again at Kimberley searching
niggers."
After dinner Jack announced his intention of going home, and asked the
other to come with him and smoke a pipe and drink a glass of grog. He
did not feel easy with the diamond on him, he said, while he did not
like leaving it at home, though no one except Le Mert knew that he had
in his possession a stone worth fifty thousand pounds.
Le Mert said nothing, his thoughts were busy with his own affairs.
Things had begun to look as if he must make a bolt for it. What a
convenient piece of portable property that diamond would be to take with
him, he thought.
Enderby in his own rooms, with a glass or two of grog on board, did not
become much more companionable; on the contrary, he began to indulge in
some not very civil pleasantry on the subject of the diamond.
"You would like to fool me out of that stone and get your claws on it,
wouldn't you? If you were a better plucked one than you are I shouldn't
feel so comfortable smoking my pipe and watching you glare at me, though
you are the respectable Mr Le Mert, the director of a dozen flourishing
companies, and the big diamond merchant; but you'd--soon follow that
Union Company's boy if you tried that game on."
Le Mert growled out something about the diamond not being worth quite as
much as Jack fancied, but the other paid very little attention to him,
and taking another gulp of brandy-and-water, began to follow out a train
of thought which something he said had suggested to him with sublime
indifference to his guest's feelings.
"Le Mert the millionnaire! Hah, hah! you weren't a millionnaire in the
old days down at Dutoitspan, were you? I can see you now. What a
hatched-faced thief you used to look, grinning at one across that patent
spring-fitted roulette-table--that was a profitable bit of furniture for
you, that was."
"Yes, it was, or I would not have been able to pay you as good a
commission as I did for introducing custom to it," answered Le Mert,
getting up as if he were going away.
"Sit down, old chap; don't cut up rough because I talk about old times.
Take another cigar, they are up there, and mix for yourself," Enderby
said.
If he had been able to read the expression on Le Mert's face he would
not have been very anxious for his company. The latter, however, did
not go, and took another cigar from the mantelshelf.
"Hullo! what's that? you don't drink that stuff, do you?" he said, as he
touched a little bottle that was near the cigar-box.
"Drink it, no! I have had a bad tooth, and I have been rubbing my gums
with it," Enderby answered, as he looked at the bottle the other was
holding up. "Look here, Le Mert," he continued, when his guest had sat
down again, "why don't you give me a fair price for that stone? you can
afford to go in for a spec like that, and make a pot of money out of
it."
"Perhaps I can afford it, but you want too much. I will treat you as
well as any one, you will find; we are old friends, and none the worse
friends because we know each other pretty well," Le Mert answered with a
peculiar smile. It amused him to think how little the other knew about
his real circumstances.
For some time the two sat smoking, Jack rambling away about the earlier
days of their acquaintance, and Le Mert saying very little. After a
little time Le Mert asked for some more water, and Jack left the room to
get some from a tap in the passage outside. As he left the room a look
of triumph came into Le Mert's face, and he got up, took up the little
bottle on the mantelshelf, and poured some of its contents into the
glass of brandy-and-water Enderby had just mixed. He had just time to
get back to his seat, when Enderby came into the room with the water.
It would have startled the latter if he could have read the meaning of
the look with which Le Mert watched him as he sat down in his chair,
glancing listlessly for a second or two at his brandy-and-water before
he lifted his glass to his lips. Was he going to sip it, or would he
gulp it down as he generally did? Le Mert was wondering. If he took
the former course, then Le Mert knew that his chances of getting the
diamond would vanish, for Enderby probably would detect the taste of the
laudanum.
"You're infernally silent--what robbery are you hatching now?" Enderby
said, as he sat with the glass provokingly held in his hand, while his
visitor's nerves began to jump with excitement. He was not afraid of
the consequences being found out, other than losing all chance of the
diamond. Enderby, if he suspected him of having tried to drug his
drink, would most likely treat him rather roughly, but he would do no
more. At last the glass went up to the mouth and was tipped up and put
down empty, Enderby saying that there was a queer taste in the brandy.
"Queer taste! I don't notice it; and I will take some more," Le Mert
said. "Why you remind me of that story of Sam Gideon, of Dutoitspan,"
he continued, and he began to tell a story. It was rather a long and
involved narrative, and required a good deal of harking back and
explanations. Before he got to any point, Le Mert stopped. Enderby's
head had fallen down over his chest and he was insensible.
"Ah! I thought that would do for you. You'd have sat up drinking
brandy-and-water all night, and the only effect it would have had on
you, would have been to make you more insolent; but that's done the
trick," Le Mert said, as he looked at the other who was huddled up in a
heap in his chair, and going up to him felt for the belt and undid it.
Then, as he looked at the diamond, and then at the heavy form of Enderby
lying back in the chair, he laughed to himself. The revolver which
Enderby had trusted in had not proved of much service to him. When he
came to again he would know what the robbery was that he had been
hatching. Then Le Mert went to the door.
"Good-bye, Mr Enderby. When you wake you will find Le Mert, the great
diamond merchant, a rather more difficult man to come across than you
think he is," he said, as he put on the belt and looked at the figure in
the chair. A change seemed to have come over the face, and Le Mert
started and went back and bent over it. Then he listened at the heart,
and turned pale and shuddered; something told him that Enderby was not
merely stupefied. He tried to think what he ought to do, but a panic
came over him, and he was mastered by a longing to get out of the room
and away. Then he left the room and went down-stairs and out into the
streets.
The next morning the servant found Enderby in the chair, and could not
wake him up. A doctor was sent for, and when he came his verdict was
that he was dead. The bottle of laudanum on the table near him
suggested that he had taken an overdose, and a _post-mortem_ examination
bore out this theory.
Jack Enderby, though he looked tough enough, had a weak heart, so it
seemed, and the dose, which would only have stupefied most men, had
caused his death. The diamond had proved as fatal to him as it did to
Sixpence, and his run of luck had suddenly come to an end.
One circumstance which was thought rather strange, was the absence at
the inquest of the man who had been in his rooms the night before, and
who must have been the last man to see him alive. This, perhaps, was
the reason why the jury found an open verdict, though all the other
circumstances pointed towards his having taken too much laudanum by
accident.
The police, however, when they made inquiries, and found out from a
waiter at the restaurant that Le Mert was the man who had dined with the
deceased, thought that his absence was explained. That gentleman was
wanted at other places as well as the inquest. He was not to be found
at his office or anywhere else, and the accounts of some companies he
had been connected with, and what came out about the state of his
finances, fully explained his absence. Shareholders in his companies
and men in Hatton Garden were vowing vengeance against him, without much
hope of ever seeing or hearing of him again. People were asking
themselves, as is so often the case after a smash, why they had put any
trust in a man of whom they knew so very little which was at all to his
credit?
At last the police, who were put on his track as a defaulting bankrupt,
got a clue which enabled them to say that he had taken a passage in a
steamer bound for a South American port, where there was no extradition
treaty.
His creditors, however, did not give up all hopes of bringing him to an
account until they got some news which told them that he had gone
further from their clutches than they supposed. The ship in which he
had sailed had gone down, and though all the other passengers were
saved, he was missing. The ship had been run down by another vessel,
and after the collision had begun to sink rapidly. Le Mert, with
several of the passengers, had been in the smoking cabin, and when he
had seen that the boats were being lowered he had turned to go down
below to fetch something from his cabin. One of the officers had warned
him not to leave the deck, and told him that if he went below he would
not get up again, but he would not listen, but had rushed down to his
cabin. He was never seen again, for the boat had only time to put off
and get clear of the ship, before she settled and sank. His creditors
wondered what it was he went below to get, and some believed that he had
a store of embezzled money. Others, however, who heard the particulars
of Enderby's death, and rumours of the diamond that had been found by
the Kaffir he had shot, put two and two together and formed a theory,
which agreed with the history of the fatal diamond that Le Mert clutched
as he went down in the sinking ship. It had claimed its last victim,
and it lies at the bottom of the sea, and is as harmless as it was
before it was unearthed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The End.