An African Millionaire Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay

II

THE EPISODE OF THE DI­AMOND LINKS

“Let us take a trip to Switzer­land,” said La­dy Van­drift. And any one who knows Amelia will not be sur­prised to learn that we _did_ take a trip to Switzer­land ac­cord­ing­ly. No­body can drive Sir Charles, ex­cept his wife. And no­body at all can drive Amelia.

There were dif­fi­cul­ties at the out­set, be­cause we had not or­dered rooms at the ho­tels be­fore­hand, and it was well on in the sea­son; but they were over­come at last by the usu­al ap­pli­ca­tion of a gold­en key; and we found our­selves in due time pleas­ant­ly quar­tered in Lucerne, at that most com­fort­able of Eu­ro­pean hostel­ries, the Schweitzer­hof.

We were a square par­ty of four–Sir Charles and Amelia, my­self and Is­abel. We had nice big rooms, on the first floor, over­look­ing the lake; and as none of us was pos­sessed with the faintest symp­tom of that in­cip­ient ma­nia which shows it­self in the form of an in­sane de­sire to climb moun­tain heights of dis­agree­able steep­ness and un­nec­es­sary snowi­ness, I will ven­ture to as­sert we all en­joyed our­selves. We spent most of our time sen­si­bly in loung­ing about the lake on the jol­ly lit­tle steam­ers; and when we did a moun­tain climb, it was on the Ri­gi or Pi­la­tus–where an en­gine un­der­took all the mus­cu­lar work for us.

As usu­al, at the ho­tel, a great many mis­cel­la­neous peo­ple showed a burn­ing de­sire to be spe­cial­ly nice to us. If you wish to see how friend­ly and charm­ing hu­man­ity is, just try be­ing a well-​known mil­lion­aire for a week, and you’ll learn a thing or two. Wher­ev­er Sir Charles goes he is sur­round­ed by charm­ing and dis­in­ter­est­ed peo­ple, all ea­ger to make his dis­tin­guished ac­quain­tance, and all fa­mil­iar with sev­er­al ex­cel­lent in­vest­ments, or sev­er­al de­serv­ing ob­jects of Chris­tian char­ity. It is my busi­ness in life, as his broth­er-​in-​law and sec­re­tary, to de­cline with thanks the ex­cel­lent in­vest­ments, and to throw ju­di­cious cold wa­ter on the ob­jects of char­ity. Even I my­self, as the great man’s al­moner, am very much sought af­ter. Peo­ple ca­su­al­ly al­lude be­fore me to art­less sto­ries of “poor cu­rates in Cum­ber­land, you know, Mr. Went­worth,” or wid­ows in Corn­wall, pen­ni­less po­ets with epics in their desks, and young painters who need but the breath of a pa­tron to open to them the doors of an ad­mir­ing Acade­my. I smile and look wise, while I ad­min­is­ter cold wa­ter in minute dos­es; but I nev­er re­port one of these cas­es to Sir Charles, ex­cept in the rare or al­most un­heard-​of event where I think there is re­al­ly some­thing in them.

Ev­er since our lit­tle ad­ven­ture with the Seer at Nice, Sir Charles, who is con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly cau­tious, had been even more care­ful than usu­al about pos­si­ble sharpers. And, as chance would have it, there sat just op­po­site us at ta­ble d’hôte at the Schweitzer­hof–’tis a fad of Amelia’s to dine at ta­ble d’hôte; she says she can’t bear to be boxed up all day in pri­vate rooms with “too much fam­ily”–a sin­is­ter-​look­ing man with dark hair and eyes, con­spic­uous by his bushy over­hang­ing eye­brows. My at­ten­tion was first called to the eye­brows in ques­tion by a nice lit­tle par­son who sat at our side, and who ob­served that they were made up of cer­tain large and bristly hairs, which (he told us) had been traced by Dar­win to our mon­key an­ces­tors. Very pleas­ant lit­tle fel­low, this fresh-​faced young par­son, on his hon­ey­moon tour with a nice wee wife, a bon­nie Scotch lassie with a charm­ing ac­cent.

I looked at the eye­brows close. Then a sud­den thought struck me. “Do you be­lieve they’re his own?” I asked of the cu­rate; “or are they on­ly stuck on–a make-​up dis­guise? They re­al­ly al­most look like it.”

“You don’t sup­pose–” Charles be­gan, and checked him­self sud­den­ly.

“Yes, I do,” I an­swered; “the Seer!” Then I rec­ol­lect­ed my blun­der, and looked down sheep­ish­ly. For, to say the truth, Van­drift had straight­ly en­joined on me long be­fore to say noth­ing of our painful lit­tle episode at Nice to Amelia; he was afraid if _she_ once heard of it, _he_ would hear of it for ev­er af­ter.

“What Seer?” the lit­tle par­son in­quired, with par­son­ical cu­rios­ity.

I no­ticed the man with the over­hang­ing eye­brows give a queer sort of start. Charles’s glance was fixed up­on me. I hard­ly knew what to an­swer.

“Oh, a man who was at Nice with us last year,” I stam­mered out, try­ing hard to look un­con­cerned. “A fel­low they talked about, that’s all.” And I turned the sub­ject.

But the cu­rate, like a don­key, wouldn’t let me turn it.

“Had he eye­brows like that?” he in­quired, in an un­der­tone. I was re­al­ly an­gry. If this _was_ Colonel Clay, the cu­rate was ob­vi­ous­ly giv­ing him the cue, and mak­ing it much more dif­fi­cult for us to catch him, now we might pos­si­bly have light­ed on the chance of do­ing so.

“No, he hadn’t,” I an­swered testi­ly; “it was a pass­ing ex­pres­sion. But this is not the man. I was mis­tak­en, no doubt.” And I nudged him gen­tly.

The lit­tle cu­rate was too in­no­cent for any­thing. “Oh, I see,” he replied, nod­ding hard and look­ing wise. Then he turned to his wife and made an ob­vi­ous face, which the man with the eye­brows couldn’t fail to no­tice.

For­tu­nate­ly, a po­lit­ical dis­cus­sion go­ing on a few places far­ther down the ta­ble spread up to us and di­vert­ed at­ten­tion for a mo­ment. The mag­ical name of Glad­stone saved us. Sir Charles flared up. I was tru­ly pleased, for I could see Amelia was boil­ing over with cu­rios­ity by this time.

Af­ter din­ner, in the bil­liard-​room, how­ev­er, the man with the big eye­brows si­dled up and be­gan to talk to me. If he _was_ Colonel Clay, it was ev­ident he bore us no grudge at all for the five thou­sand pounds he had done us out of. On the con­trary, he seemed quite pre­pared to do us out of five thou­sand more when op­por­tu­ni­ty of­fered; for he in­tro­duced him­self at once as Dr. Hec­tor Macpher­son, the ex­clu­sive grantee of ex­ten­sive con­ces­sions from the Brazil­ian Gov­ern­ment on the Up­per Ama­zons. He dived in­to con­ver­sa­tion with me at once as to the splen­did min­er­al re­sources of his Brazil­ian es­tate–the sil­ver, the plat­inum, the ac­tu­al ru­bies, the pos­si­ble di­amonds. I lis­tened and smiled; I knew what was com­ing. All he need­ed to de­vel­op this mag­nif­icent con­ces­sion was a lit­tle more cap­ital. It was sad to see thou­sands of pounds’ worth of plat­inum and car-​loads of ru­bies just crum­bling in the soil or car­ried away by the riv­er, for want of a few hun­dreds to work them with prop­er­ly. If he knew of any­body, now, with mon­ey to in­vest, he could rec­om­mend him–nay, of­fer him–a unique op­por­tu­ni­ty of earn­ing, say, 40 per cent on his cap­ital, on unim­peach­able se­cu­ri­ty.

“I wouldn’t do it for ev­ery man,” Dr. Hec­tor Macpher­son re­marked, draw­ing him­self up; “but if I took a fan­cy to a fel­low who had com­mand of ready cash, I might choose to put him in the way of feath­er­ing his nest with un­ex­am­pled ra­pid­ity.”

“Ex­ceed­ing­ly dis­in­ter­est­ed of you,” I an­swered dri­ly, fix­ing my eyes on his eye­brows.

The lit­tle cu­rate, mean­while, was play­ing bil­liards with Sir Charles. His glance fol­lowed mine as it rest­ed for a mo­ment on the mon­key-​like hairs.

“False, ob­vi­ous­ly false,” he re­marked with his lips; and I’m bound to con­fess I nev­er saw any man speak so well by move­ment alone; you could fol­low ev­ery word though not a sound es­caped him.

Dur­ing the rest of that evening Dr. Hec­tor Macpher­son stuck to me as close as a mus­tard-​plas­ter. And he was al­most as ir­ri­tat­ing. I got hearti­ly sick of the Up­per Ama­zons. I have pos­itive­ly wad­ed in my time through ru­by mines (in prospec­tus­es, I mean) till the mere sight of a ru­by ab­so­lute­ly sick­ens me. When Charles, in an un­wont­ed fit of gen­eros­ity, once gave his sis­ter Is­abel (whom I had the hon­our to mar­ry) a ru­by neck­let (in­fe­ri­or stones), I made Is­abel change it for sap­phires and amethysts, on the ju­di­cious plea that they suit­ed her com­plex­ion bet­ter. (I scored one, in­ci­den­tal­ly, for hav­ing con­sid­ered Is­abel’s com­plex­ion.) By the time I went to bed I was pre­pared to sink the Up­per Ama­zons in the sea, and to stab, shoot, poi­son, or oth­er­wise se­ri­ous­ly dam­age the man with the con­ces­sion and the false eye­brows.

For the next three days, at in­ter­vals, he re­turned to the charge. He bored me to death with his plat­inum and his ru­bies. He didn’t want a cap­ital­ist who would per­son­al­ly ex­ploit the thing; he would pre­fer to do it all on his own ac­count, giv­ing the cap­ital­ist pref­er­ence deben­tures of his bo­gus com­pa­ny, and a lien on the con­ces­sion. I lis­tened and smiled; I lis­tened and yawned; I lis­tened and was rude; I ceased to lis­ten at all; but still he droned on with it. I fell asleep on the steam­er one day, and woke up in ten min­utes to hear him dron­ing yet, “And the yield of plat­inum per ton was cer­ti­fied to be–” I for­get how many pounds, or ounces, or pen­ny­weights. These de­tails of as­says have ceased to in­ter­est me: like the man who “didn’t be­lieve in ghosts,” I have seen too many of them.

The fresh-​faced lit­tle cu­rate and his wife, how­ev­er, were quite dif­fer­ent peo­ple. He was a crick­et­ing Ox­ford man; she was a breezy Scotch lass, with a whole­some breath of the High­lands about her. I called her “White Heather.” Their name was Brabazon. Mil­lion­aires are so ac­cus­tomed to be­ing be­set by harpies of ev­ery de­scrip­tion, that when they come across a young cou­ple who are sim­ple and nat­ural, they de­light in the pure­ly hu­man re­la­tion. We pic­nicked and went ex­cur­sions a great deal with the hon­ey­moon­ers. They were so frank in their young love, and so proof against chaff, that we all re­al­ly liked them. But when­ev­er I called the pret­ty girl “White Heather,” she looked so shocked, and cried: “Oh, Mr. Went­worth!” Still, we were the best of friends. The cu­rate of­fered to row us in a boat on the lake one day, while the Scotch lassie as­sured us she could take an oar al­most as well as he did. How­ev­er, we did not ac­cept their of­fer, as row-​boats ex­ert an un­favourable in­flu­ence up­on Amelia’s di­ges­tive or­gans.

“Nice young fel­low, that man Brabazon,” Sir Charles said to me one day, as we lounged to­geth­er along the quay; “nev­er talks about ad­vow­sons or next pre­sen­ta­tions. Doesn’t seem to me to care two pins about pro­mo­tion. Says he’s quite con­tent in his coun­try cu­ra­cy; enough to live up­on, and needs no more; and his wife has a lit­tle, a very lit­tle, mon­ey. I asked him about his poor to-​day, on pur­pose to test him: these par­sons are al­ways try­ing to screw some­thing out of one for their poor; men in my po­si­tion know the truth of the say­ing that we have that class of the pop­ula­tion al­ways with us. Would you be­lieve it, he says he hasn’t any poor at all in his parish! They’re all well-​to-​do farm­ers or else able-​bod­ied labour­ers, and his one ter­ror is that some­body will come and try to pau­perise them. ‘If a phi­lan­thropist were to give me fifty pounds to-​day for use at Emp­ing­ham,’ he said, ‘I as­sure you, Sir Charles, I shouldn’t know what to do with it. I think I should buy new dress­es for Jessie, who wants them about as much as any­body else in the vil­lage–that is to say, not at all.’ There’s a par­son for you, Sey, my boy. On­ly wish we had one of his sort at Sel­don.”

“He cer­tain­ly doesn’t want to get any­thing out of you,” I an­swered.

That evening at din­ner a queer lit­tle episode hap­pened. The man with the eye­brows be­gan talk­ing to me across the ta­ble in his usu­al fash­ion, full of his weari­some con­ces­sion on the Up­per Ama­zons. I was try­ing to squash him as po­lite­ly as pos­si­ble, when I caught Amelia’s eye. Her look amused me. She was en­gaged in mak­ing sig­nals to Charles at her side to ob­serve the lit­tle cu­rate’s cu­ri­ous sleeve-​links. I glanced at them, and saw at once they were a sin­gu­lar pos­ses­sion for so un­ob­tru­sive a per­son. They con­sist­ed each of a short gold bar for one arm of the link, fas­tened by a tiny chain of the same ma­te­ri­al to what seemed to my tol­er­ably ex­pe­ri­enced eye–a first-​rate di­amond. Pret­ty big di­amonds, too, and of re­mark­able shape, bril­lian­cy, and cut­ting. In a mo­ment I knew what Amelia meant. She owned a di­amond riv­ière, said to be of In­di­an ori­gin, but short by two stones for the cir­cum­fer­ence of her tol­er­ably am­ple neck. Now, she had long been want­ing two di­amonds like these to match her set; but ow­ing to the un­usu­al shape and an­ti­quat­ed cut­ting of her own gems, she had nev­er been able to com­plete the neck­let, at least with­out re­mov­ing an ex­trav­agant amount from a much larg­er stone of the first wa­ter.

The Scotch lassie’s eyes caught Amelia’s at the same time, and she broke in­to a pret­ty smile of good-​hu­moured amuse­ment. “Tak­en in an­oth­er per­son, Dick, dear!” she ex­claimed, in her breezy way, turn­ing to her hus­band. “La­dy Van­drift is ob­serv­ing your di­amond sleeve-​links.”

“They’re very fine gems,” Amelia ob­served in­cau­tious­ly. (A most un­wise ad­mis­sion if she de­sired to buy them.)

But the pleas­ant lit­tle cu­rate was too trans­par­ent­ly sim­ple a soul to take ad­van­tage of her slip of judg­ment. “They _are_ good stones,” he replied; “very good stones–con­sid­er­ing. They’re not di­amonds at all, to tell you the truth. They’re best old-​fash­ioned Ori­en­tal paste. My great-​grand­fa­ther bought them, af­ter the siege of Seringa­patam, for a few ru­pees, from a Se­poy who had loot­ed them from Tip­poo Sul­tan’s palace. He thought, like you, he had got a good thing. But it turned out, when they came to be ex­am­ined by ex­perts, they were on­ly paste–very won­der­ful paste; it is sup­posed they had even im­posed up­on Tip­poo him­self, so fine is the im­ita­tion. But they are worth–well, say, fifty shillings at the ut­most.”

While he spoke Charles looked at Amelia, and Amelia looked at Charles. Their eyes spoke vol­umes. The riv­ière was al­so sup­posed to have come from Tip­poo’s col­lec­tion. Both drew at once an iden­ti­cal con­clu­sion. These were two of the same stones, very like­ly torn apart and dis­en­gaged from the rest in the mêlée at the cap­ture of the In­di­an palace.

“Can you take them off?” Sir Charles asked bland­ly. He spoke in the tone that in­di­cates busi­ness.

“Cer­tain­ly,” the lit­tle cu­rate an­swered, smil­ing. “I’m ac­cus­tomed to tak­ing them off. They’re al­ways no­ticed. They’ve been kept in the fam­ily ev­er since the siege, as a sort of val­ue­less heir­loom, for the sake of the pic­turesque­ness of the sto­ry, you know; and no­body ev­er sees them with­out ask­ing, as you do, to ex­am­ine them close­ly. They de­ceive even ex­perts at first. But they’re paste, all the same; un­mit­igat­ed Ori­en­tal paste, for all that.”

He took them both off, and hand­ed them to Charles. No man in Eng­land is a fin­er judge of gems than my broth­er-​in-​law. I watched him nar­row­ly. He ex­am­ined them close, first with the naked eye, then with the lit­tle pock­et-​lens which he al­ways car­ries. “Ad­mirable im­ita­tion,” he mut­tered, pass­ing them on to Amelia. “I’m not sur­prised they should im­pose up­on in­ex­pe­ri­enced ob­servers.”

But from the tone in which he said it, I could see at once he had sat­is­fied him­self they were re­al gems of un­usu­al val­ue. I know Charles’s way of do­ing busi­ness so well. His glance to Amelia meant, “These are the very stones you have so long been in search of.”

The Scotch lassie laughed a mer­ry laugh. “He sees through them now, Dick,” she cried. “I felt sure Sir Charles would be a judge of di­amonds.”

Amelia turned them over. I know Amelia, too; and I knew from the way Amelia looked at them that she meant to have them. And when Amelia means to have any­thing, peo­ple who stand in the way may just as well spare them­selves the trou­ble of op­pos­ing her.

They were beau­ti­ful di­amonds. We found out af­ter­wards the lit­tle cu­rate’s ac­count was quite cor­rect: these stones _had_ come from the same neck­let as Amelia’s riv­ière, made for a favourite wife of Tip­poo’s, who had pre­sum­ably as ex­pan­sive per­son­al charms as our beloved sis­ter-​in-​law’s. More per­fect di­amonds have sel­dom been seen. They have ex­cit­ed the uni­ver­sal ad­mi­ra­tion of thieves and con­nois­seurs. Amelia told me af­ter­wards that, ac­cord­ing to leg­end, a Se­poy stole the neck­let at the sack of the palace, and then fought with an­oth­er for it. It was be­lieved that two stones got spilt in the scuf­fle, and were picked up and sold by a third per­son–a look­er-​on–who had no idea of the val­ue of his booty. Amelia had been hunt­ing for them for sev­er­al years to com­plete her neck­let.

“They are ex­cel­lent paste,” Sir Charles ob­served, hand­ing them back. “It takes a first-​rate judge to de­tect them from the re­al­ity. La­dy Van­drift has a neck­let much the same in char­ac­ter, but com­posed of gen­uine stones; and as these are so much like them, and would com­plete her set, to all out­er ap­pear­ance, I wouldn’t mind giv­ing you, say, 10 pounds for the pair of them.”

Mrs. Brabazon looked de­light­ed. “Oh, sell them to him, Dick,” she cried, “and buy me a brooch with the mon­ey! A pair of com­mon links would do for you just as well. Ten pounds for two paste stones! It’s quite a lot of mon­ey.”

She said it so sweet­ly, with her pret­ty Scotch ac­cent, that I couldn’t imag­ine how Dick had the heart to refuse her. But he did, all the same.

“No, Jess, dar­ling,” he an­swered. “They’re worth­less, I know; but they have for me a cer­tain sen­ti­men­tal val­ue, as I’ve of­ten told you. My dear moth­er wore them, while she lived, as ear-​rings; and as soon as she died I had them set as links in or­der that I might al­ways keep them about me. Be­sides, they have his­tor­ical and fam­ily in­ter­est. Even a worth­less heir­loom, af­ter all, _is_ an heir­loom.”

Dr. Hec­tor Macpher­son looked across and in­ter­vened. “There is a part of my con­ces­sion,” he said, “where we have rea­son to be­lieve a per­fect new Kim­ber­ley will soon be dis­cov­ered. If at any time you would care, Sir Charles, to look at my di­amonds–when I get them–it would af­ford me the great­est plea­sure in life to sub­mit them to your con­sid­er­ation.”

Sir Charles could stand it no longer. “Sir,” he said, gaz­ing across at him with his sternest air, “if your con­ces­sion were as full of di­amonds as Sind­bad the Sailor’s val­ley, I would not care to turn my head to look at them. I am ac­quaint­ed with the na­ture and prac­tice of salt­ing.” And he glared at the man with the over­hang­ing eye­brows as if he would de­vour him raw. Poor Dr. Hec­tor Macpher­son sub­sid­ed in­stant­ly. We learnt a lit­tle lat­er that he was a harm­less lu­natic, who went about the world with suc­ces­sive con­ces­sions for ru­by mines and plat­inum reefs, be­cause he had been ru­ined and driv­en mad by spec­ula­tions in the two, and now re­couped him­self by imag­inary grants in Burmah and Brazil, or any­where else that turned up handy. And his eye­brows, af­ter all, were of Na­ture’s hand­icraft. We were sor­ry for the in­ci­dent; but a man in Sir Charles’s po­si­tion is such a mark for rogues that, if he did not take means to pro­tect him­self prompt­ly, he would be for ev­er over­run by them.

When we went up to our sa­lon that evening, Amelia flung her­self on the so­fa. “Charles,” she broke out in the voice of a tragedy queen, “those are re­al di­amonds, and I shall nev­er be hap­py again till I get them.”

“They are re­al di­amonds,” Charles echoed. “And you shall have them, Amelia. They’re worth not less than three thou­sand pounds. But I shall bid them up gen­tly.”

So, next day, Charles set to work to hig­gle with the cu­rate. Brabazon, how­ev­er, didn’t care to part with them. He was no mon­ey-​grub­ber, he said. He cared more for his moth­er’s gift and a fam­ily tra­di­tion than for a hun­dred pounds, if Sir Charles were to of­fer it. Charles’s eye gleamed. “But if I give you _two_ hun­dred!” he said in­sin­uat­ing­ly. “What op­por­tu­ni­ties for good! You could build a new wing to your vil­lage school-​house!”

“We have am­ple ac­com­mo­da­tion,” the cu­rate an­swered. “No, I don’t think I’ll sell them.”

Still, his voice fal­tered some­what, and he looked down at them in­quir­ing­ly.

Charles was too pre­cip­itate.

“A hun­dred pounds more or less mat­ters lit­tle to me,” he said; “and my wife has set her heart on them. It’s ev­ery man’s du­ty to please his wife–isn’t it, Mrs. Brabazon?–I of­fer you three hun­dred.”

The lit­tle Scotch girl clasped her hands.

“Three hun­dred pounds! Oh, Dick, just think what fun we could have, and what good we could do with it! Do let him have them.”

Her ac­cent was ir­re­sistible. But the cu­rate shook his head.

“Im­pos­si­ble,” he an­swered. “My dear moth­er’s ear-​rings! Un­cle Aubrey would be so an­gry if he knew I’d sold them. I daren’t face Un­cle Aubrey.”

“Has he ex­pec­ta­tions from Un­cle Aubrey?” Sir Charles asked of White Heather.

Mrs. Brabazon laughed. “Un­cle Aubrey! Oh, dear, no. Poor dear old Un­cle Aubrey! Why, the dar­ling old soul hasn’t a pen­ny to bless him­self with, ex­cept his pen­sion. He’s a re­tired post cap­tain.” And she laughed melo­di­ous­ly. She was a charm­ing wom­an.

“Then I should dis­re­gard Un­cle Aubrey’s feel­ings,” Sir Charles said de­ci­sive­ly.

“No, no,” the cu­rate an­swered. “Poor dear old Un­cle Aubrey! I wouldn’t do any­thing for the world to an­noy him. And he’d be sure to no­tice it.”

We went back to Amelia. “Well, have you got them?” she asked.

“No,” Sir Charles an­swered. “Not yet. But he’s com­ing round, I think. He’s hes­itat­ing now. Would rather like to sell them him­self, but is afraid what ‘Un­cle Aubrey’ would say about the mat­ter. His wife will talk him out of his need­less con­sid­er­ation for Un­cle Aubrey’s feel­ings; and to-​mor­row we’ll fi­nal­ly clench the bar­gain.”

Next morn­ing we stayed late in our sa­lon, where we al­ways break­fast­ed, and did not come down to the pub­lic rooms till just be­fore dé­jeûn­er, Sir Charles be­ing busy with me over ar­rears of cor­re­spon­dence. When we _did_ come down the concierge stepped for­ward with a twist­ed lit­tle fem­inine note for Amelia. She took it and read it. Her coun­te­nance fell. “There, Charles,” she cried, hand­ing it to him, “you’ve let the chance slip. I shall _nev­er_ be hap­py now! They’ve gone off with the di­amonds.”

Charles seized the note and read it. Then he passed it on to me. It was short, but fi­nal:–

“Thurs­day, 6 a.m.

“DEAR LA­DY VAN­DRIFT–_Will_ you kind­ly ex­cuse our hav­ing gone off hur­ried­ly with­out bid­ding you good-​bye? We have just had a hor­rid tele­gram to say that Dick’s favourite sis­ter is _dan­ger­ous­ly_ ill of fever in Paris. I want­ed to shake hands with you be­fore we left–you have all been so sweet to us–but we go by the morn­ing train, ab­surd­ly ear­ly, and I wouldn’t for worlds dis­turb you. Per­haps some day we may meet again–though, buried as we are in a North-​coun­try vil­lage, it isn’t like­ly; but in any case, you have se­cured the grate­ful rec­ol­lec­tion of Yours very cor­dial­ly, JESSIE BRABAZON.

“P.S.–Kind­est re­gards to Sir Charles and those _dear_ Went­worths, and a kiss for your­self, if I may ven­ture to send you one.”

“She doesn’t even men­tion where they’ve gone,” Amelia ex­claimed, in a very bad hu­mour.

“The concierge may know,” Is­abel sug­gest­ed, look­ing over my shoul­der.

We asked at his of­fice.

Yes, the gen­tle­man’s ad­dress was the Rev. Richard Pe­ploe Brabazon, Holme Bush Cot­tage, Emp­ing­ham, Northum­ber­land.

Any ad­dress where let­ters might be sent at once, in Paris?

For the next ten days, or till fur­ther no­tice, Hô­tel des Deux Mon­des, Av­enue de l’Opéra.

Amelia’s mind was made up at once.

“Strike while the iron’s hot,” she cried. “This sud­den ill­ness, com­ing at the end of their hon­ey­moon, and in­volv­ing ten days’ more stay at an ex­pen­sive ho­tel, will prob­ably up­set the cu­rate’s bud­get. He’ll be glad to sell now. You’ll get them for three hun­dred. It was ab­surd of Charles to of­fer so much at first; but of­fered once, of course we must stick to it.”

“What do you pro­pose to do?” Charles asked. “Write, or tele­graph?”

“Oh, how sil­ly men are!” Amelia cried. “Is this the sort of busi­ness to be ar­ranged by let­ter, still less by tele­gram? No. Sey­mour must start off at once, tak­ing the night train to Paris; and the mo­ment he gets there, he must in­ter­view the cu­rate or Mrs. Brabazon. Mrs. Brabazon’s the best. She has none of this stupid, sen­ti­men­tal non­sense about Un­cle Aubrey.”

It is no part of a sec­re­tary’s du­ties to act as a di­amond bro­ker. But when Amelia puts her foot down, she puts her foot down–a fact which she is un­nec­es­sar­ily fond of em­pha­sis­ing in that iden­ti­cal propo­si­tion. So the self-​same evening saw me safe in the train on my way to Paris; and next morn­ing I turned out of my com­fort­able sleep­ing-​car at the Gare de Stras­bourg. My or­ders were to bring back those di­amonds, alive or dead, so to speak, in my pock­et to Lucerne; and to of­fer any need­ful sum, up to two thou­sand five hun­dred pounds, for their im­me­di­ate pur­chase.

When I ar­rived at the Deux Mon­des I found the poor lit­tle cu­rate and his wife both great­ly ag­itat­ed. They had sat up all night, they said, with their in­valid sis­ter; and the sleep­less­ness and sus­pense had cer­tain­ly told up­on them af­ter their long rail­way jour­ney. They were pale and tired, Mrs. Brabazon, in par­tic­ular, look­ing ill and wor­ried–too much like White Heather. I was more than half ashamed of both­er­ing them about the di­amonds at such a mo­ment, but it oc­curred to me that Amelia was prob­ably right–they would now have reached the end of the sum set apart for their Con­ti­nen­tal trip, and a lit­tle ready cash might be far from un­wel­come.

I broached the sub­ject del­icate­ly. It was a fad of La­dy Van­drift’s, I said. She had set her heart up­on those use­less trin­kets. And she wouldn’t go with­out them. She must and would have them. But the cu­rate was ob­du­rate. He threw Un­cle Aubrey still in my teeth. Three hun­dred?–no, nev­er! A moth­er’s present; im­pos­si­ble, dear Jessie! Jessie begged and prayed; she had grown re­al­ly at­tached to La­dy Van­drift, she said; but the cu­rate wouldn’t hear of it. I went up ten­ta­tive­ly to four hun­dred. He shook his head gloomi­ly. It wasn’t a ques­tion of mon­ey, he said. It was a ques­tion of af­fec­tion. I saw it was no use try­ing that tack any longer. I struck out a new line. “These stones,” I said, “I think I ought to in­form you, are re­al­ly di­amonds. Sir Charles is cer­tain of it. Now, is it right for a man of your pro­fes­sion and po­si­tion to be wear­ing a pair of big gems like those, worth sev­er­al hun­dred pounds, as or­di­nary sleeve-​links? A wom­an?–yes, I grant you. But for a man, is it man­ly? And you a crick­eter!”

He looked at me and laughed. “Will noth­ing con­vince you?” he cried. “They have been ex­am­ined and test­ed by half a dozen jew­ellers, and we know them to be paste. It wouldn’t be right of me to sell them to you un­der false pre­tences, how­ev­er un­will­ing on my side. I _couldn’t_ do it.”

“Well, then,” I said, go­ing up a bit in my bids to meet him, “I’ll put it like this. These gems are paste. But La­dy Van­drift has an un­con­quer­able and un­ac­count­able de­sire to pos­sess them. Mon­ey doesn’t mat­ter to her. She is a friend of your wife’s. As a per­son­al favour, won’t you sell them to her for a thou­sand?”

He shook his head. “It would be wrong,” he said,–“I might even add, crim­inal.”

“But we take all risk,” I cried.

He was ab­so­lute adamant. “As a cler­gy­man,” he an­swered, “I feel I can­not do it.”

“Will _you_ try, Mrs. Brabazon?” I asked.

The pret­ty lit­tle Scotch­wom­an leant over and whis­pered. She coaxed and ca­joled him. Her ways were win­some. I couldn’t hear what she said, but he seemed to give way at last. “I should love La­dy Van­drift to have them,” she mur­mured, turn­ing to me. “She _is_ such a dear!” And she took out the links from her hus­band’s cuffs and hand­ed them across to me.

“How much?” I asked.

“Two thou­sand?” she an­swered, in­ter­rog­ative­ly. It was a big rise, all at once; but such are the ways of wom­en.

“Done!” I replied. “Do you con­sent?”

The cu­rate looked up as if ashamed of him­self.

“I con­sent,” he said slow­ly, “since Jessie wish­es it. But as a cler­gy­man, and to pre­vent any fu­ture mis­un­der­stand­ing, I should like you to give me a state­ment in writ­ing that you buy them on my dis­tinct and pos­itive dec­la­ra­tion that they are made of paste–old Ori­en­tal paste–not gen­uine stones, and that I do not claim any oth­er qual­ities for them.”

I popped the gems in­to my purse, well pleased.

“Cer­tain­ly,” I said, pulling out a pa­per. Charles, with his unerring busi­ness in­stinct, had an­tic­ipat­ed the re­quest, and giv­en me a signed agree­ment to that ef­fect.

“You will take a cheque?” I in­quired.

He hes­itat­ed.

“Notes of the Bank of France would suit me bet­ter,” he an­swered.

“Very well,” I replied. “I will go out and get them.”

How very un­sus­pi­cious some peo­ple are! He al­lowed me to go off–with the stones in my pock­et!

Sir Charles had giv­en me a blank cheque, not ex­ceed­ing two thou­sand five hun­dred pounds. I took it to our agents and cashed it for notes of the Bank of France. The cu­rate clasped them with plea­sure. And right glad I was to go back to Lucerne that night, feel­ing that I had got those di­amonds in­to my hands for about a thou­sand pounds un­der their re­al val­ue!

At Lucerne rail­way sta­tion Amelia met me. She was pos­itive­ly ag­itat­ed.

“Have you bought them, Sey­mour?” she asked.

“Yes,” I an­swered, pro­duc­ing my spoils in tri­umph.

“Oh, how dread­ful!” she cried, draw­ing back. “Do you think they’re re­al? Are you sure he hasn’t cheat­ed you?”

“Cer­tain of it,” I replied, ex­am­in­ing them. “No one can take me in, in the mat­ter of di­amonds. Why on earth should you doubt them?”

“Be­cause I’ve been talk­ing to Mrs. O’Ha­gan, at the ho­tel, and she says there’s a well-​known trick just like that–she’s read of it in a book. A swindler has two sets–one re­al, one false; and he makes you buy the false ones by show­ing you the re­al, and pre­tend­ing he sells them as a spe­cial favour.”

“You needn’t be alarmed,” I an­swered. “I am a judge of di­amonds.”

“I shan’t be sat­is­fied,” Amelia mur­mured, “till Charles has seen them.”

We went up to the ho­tel. For the first time in her life I saw Amelia re­al­ly ner­vous as I hand­ed the stones to Charles to ex­am­ine. Her doubt was con­ta­gious. I half feared, my­self, he might break out in­to a deep mono­syl­lab­ic in­ter­jec­tion, los­ing his tem­per in haste, as he of­ten does when things go wrong. But he looked at them with a smile, while I told him the price.

“Eight hun­dred pounds less than their val­ue,” he an­swered, well sat­is­fied.

“You have no doubt of their re­al­ity?” I asked.

“Not the slight­est,” he replied, gaz­ing at them. “They are gen­uine stones, pre­cise­ly the same in qual­ity and type as Amelia’s neck­let.”

Amelia drew a sigh of re­lief. “I’ll go up­stairs,” she said slow­ly, “and bring down my own for you both to com­pare with them.”

One minute lat­er she rushed down again, breath­less. Amelia is far from slim, and I nev­er be­fore knew her ex­ert her­self so ac­tive­ly.

“Charles, Charles!” she cried, “do you know what dread­ful thing has hap­pened? Two of my own stones are gone. He’s stolen a cou­ple of di­amonds from my neck­let, and sold them back to me.”

She held out the riv­ière. It was all too true. Two gems were miss­ing–and these two just fit­ted the emp­ty places!

A light broke in up­on me. I clapped my hand to my head. “By Jove,” I ex­claimed, “the lit­tle cu­rate is–Colonel Clay!”

Charles clapped his own hand to his brow in turn. “And Jessie,” he cried, “White Heather–that in­no­cent lit­tle Scotch­wom­an! I of­ten de­tect­ed a fa­mil­iar ring in her voice, in spite of the charm­ing High­land ac­cent. Jessie is–Madame Pi­cardet!”

We had ab­so­lute­ly no ev­idence; but, like the Com­mis­sary at Nice, we felt in­stinc­tive­ly sure of it.

Sir Charles was de­ter­mined to catch the rogue. This sec­ond de­cep­tion put him on his met­tle. “The worst of the man is,” he said, “he has a method. He doesn’t go out of his way to cheat us; he makes us go out of ours to be cheat­ed. He lays a trap, and we tum­ble head­long in­to it. To-​mor­row, Sey, we must fol­low him on to Paris.”

Amelia ex­plained to him what Mrs. O’Ha­gan had said. Charles took it all in at once, with his usu­al sagac­ity. “That ex­plains,” he said, “why the ras­cal used this par­tic­ular trick to draw us on by. If we had sus­pect­ed him he could have shown the di­amonds were re­al, and so es­caped de­tec­tion. It was a blind to draw us off from the fact of the rob­bery. He went to Paris to be out of the way when the dis­cov­ery was made, and to get a clear day’s start of us. What a con­sum­mate rogue! And to do me twice run­ning!”

“How did he get at my jew­el-​case, though?” Amelia ex­claimed.

“That’s the ques­tion,” Charles an­swered. “You _do_ leave it about so!”

“And why didn’t he steal the whole riv­ière at once, and sell the gems?” I in­quired.

“Too cun­ning,” Charles replied. “This was much bet­ter busi­ness. It isn’t easy to dis­pose of a big thing like that. In the first place, the stones are large and valu­able; in the sec­ond place, they’re well known–ev­ery deal­er has heard of the Van­drift riv­ière, and seen pic­tures of the shape of them. They’re marked gems, so to speak. No, he played a bet­ter game–took a cou­ple of them off, and of­fered them to the on­ly one per­son on earth who was like­ly to buy them with­out sus­pi­cion. He came here, mean­ing to work this very trick; he had the links made right to the shape be­fore­hand, and then he stole the stones and slipped them in­to their places. It’s a won­der­ful­ly clever trick. Up­on my soul, I al­most ad­mire the fel­low.”

For Charles is a busi­ness man him­self, and can ap­pre­ci­ate busi­ness ca­pac­ity in oth­ers.

How Colonel Clay came to know about that neck­let, and to ap­pro­pri­ate two of the stones, we on­ly dis­cov­ered much lat­er. I will not here an­tic­ipate that dis­clo­sure. One thing at a time is a good rule in life. For the mo­ment he suc­ceed­ed in baf­fling us al­to­geth­er.

How­ev­er, we fol­lowed him on to Paris, tele­graph­ing be­fore­hand to the Bank of France to stop the notes. It was all in vain. They had been cashed with­in half an hour of my pay­ing them. The cu­rate and his wife, we found, quit­ted the Hô­tel des Deux Mon­des for parts un­known that same af­ter­noon. And, as usu­al with Colonel Clay, they van­ished in­to space, leav­ing no clue be­hind them. In oth­er words, they changed their dis­guise, no doubt, and reap­peared some­where else that night in al­tered char­ac­ters. At any rate, no such per­son as the Rev­erend Richard Pe­ploe Brabazon was ev­er af­ter­wards heard of–and, for the mat­ter of that, no such vil­lage ex­ists as Emp­ing­ham, Northum­ber­land.

We com­mu­ni­cat­ed the mat­ter to the Parisian po­lice. They were _most_ un­sym­pa­thet­ic. “It is no doubt Colonel Clay,” said the of­fi­cial whom we saw; “but you seem to have lit­tle just ground of com­plaint against him. As far as I can see, messieurs, there is not much to choose be­tween you. You, Mon­sieur le Cheva­lier, de­sired to buy di­amonds at the price of paste. You, madame, feared you had bought paste at the price of di­amonds. You, mon­sieur the sec­re­tary, tried to get the stones from an un­sus­pect­ing per­son for half their val­ue. He took you all in, that brave Colonel Caoutchouc–it was di­amond cut di­amond.”

Which was true, no doubt, but by no means con­sol­ing.

We re­turned to the Grand Ho­tel. Charles was fum­ing with in­dig­na­tion. “This is re­al­ly too much,” he ex­claimed. “What an au­da­cious ras­cal! But he will nev­er again take me in, my dear Sey. I on­ly hope he’ll try it on. I should love to catch him. I’d know him an­oth­er time, I’m sure, in spite of his dis­guis­es. It’s ab­surd my be­ing tricked twice run­ning like this. But nev­er again while I live! Nev­er again, I de­clare to you!”

“Ja­mais de la vie!” a couri­er in the hall close by mur­mured re­spon­sive. We stood un­der the ve­ran­dah of the Grand Ho­tel, in the big glass court­yard. And I ver­ily be­lieve that couri­er was re­al­ly Colonel Clay him­self in one of his dis­guis­es.

But per­haps we were be­gin­ning to sus­pect him ev­ery­where.