The Chronicles of Addington Peace/Mr. Taubery's Diamond
III
MR. TAUBERY'S DIAMOND
“Hi, young fellow! Does Inspector Peace live here?”
He spoke roughly enough, and I returned his stare with an equal irritation. When a man may not indulge in day dreams on his own doorstep, the state of society wants mending. He was a big bully of a fellow, with a red face, a curled, white moustache, and a single eye-glass, through which he regarded me with an air of extreme ill-temper.
“The inspector lodges on the third floor,” I told him coldly.
“Do you live hero too?”
I had a mind not to answer him, but, after all, it was not worth while making trouble over an impudent question.
“Yes,” I said; “I rent the ground-floor and the studio behind. My name is Phillips. I am an artist. For the past four years I have studied abroad. If you would like to see my birth-certificate I will go and fetch it for you.”
To my surprise, he burst into a shout of laughter, swaying his body from side to side. It was quite a time before he recovered himself
“Good, lad—good, lad,” he chuckled; “Gad! but I deserved it. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Gunton, sir—Colonel Theophilus Gunton—and I'm very pleased to meet you.”
He held out his hand, which I shook, without any great degree of enthusiasm.
“Is this Addington Peace at home, do you think?” he continued.
“I don't know,” I told him. “I should walk upstairs and find out, if I were you.”
“There I recognize the practical head. You know him?”
“Yes.”
“Then, we will go together. You can introduce me.”
I was offended at the noise and bluster of the man; but he had grabbed my arm, and I didn't want a scene at my own door. I led him up the stairs, his voice growing silent as his lung capacity weakened. The inspector's voice cried an invitation to my knock, and I entered, with the colonel puffing at my heels like a locomotive on a stiff incline.
“Sorry to disturb you, Peace,” I said; “but this is a gentleman of the name of Gunton, and he appears anxious to make your acquaintance.”
The little man rose from his easy-chair, and stood looking at the stranger with an expression of great good-humour.
For myself, I was about to withdraw when the colonel's hand dropped heavily upon my shoulder.
“Don't you go," he said. “A cosmopolitan, a detective, and a man of the world, as I am, form a unique combination. And, by Gad! gentlemen, we shall want all our brains over this affair.”
I glanced at Peace, who smiled and nodded. So I stayed.
The colonel kindly consented to take the most comfortable chair, sighed, stretched out his legs, lit a cheroot, and then, without further introduction, plunged into his story.
“Perhaps you have heard of Julius Taubery? No? Well, it's a name as well known throughout India as the Viceroy's. He is the head of one of the richest firms in Calcutta. Went out there as a young man, worked well, married well, and ended well in all things, save his constitution, with which he played the very devil. In 1900 he returned and took a fine London house in Portland Place, together with an old hall down in Devonshire. A month ago the doctors ordered him out of England for life. Rough on him, wasn't it, seeing that he had spent two-thirds of his time out of it already? But the south of France is his only chance, they tell him; so, like a wise man, he is selling off his sticks, and settling down at Mentone, without squealing to show how much it hurts him.
“Julius and his wife—she's one of the kindest-hearted women—have been giving some farewell parties to their old friends. They had a lunch to-day, one-thirty sharp, and a lot of people turned up. After the ladies had left us, the talk, as luck would have it, fell on precious stones; and Julius Taubery is a crank on them if there ever was one. His wife wears the finest jewels in London, and the old man is supposed to have many thousand pounds' worth more locked away, which he won't trust even her with the handling.
“'Gentlemen,' says he, 'I will show you something that may interest you. It is a new purchase of mine, and it happens to be a remarkable stone!'
“He pulled a green case from an inside pocket, flipped it open, and there the thing was as big as a walnut. The lights were on, it being dull weather, and the stone blinked and sparkled like the sun on dancing water.
“'My word, Julius,' I said. 'But that's a risky bit of stuff to carry about with you.'
“'It's going to the bank this afternoon,' he answered. 'So if you want to examine the pretty pebble, gentlemen, this is your last chance.'
“And with that he took it from its case, as proud as a young husband of his first baby, and sent it round the table.
“I was sitting on Julius' left. Between us was a fat old boy, who was a stranger to me. He took a long stare at the stone, whistling softly between his teeth, before he passed it on. It went from hand to hand, never out of sight, so far as I could notice, until it came to Sir Andrew Carillon, who fancies himself an expert on gems. They say that when Lady Carillon is in the stalls, the play is finished to the women sitting behind her, for they can't keep their eyes off her pearls. Sir Andrew pulled out a magnifying glass, and began examining the diamond.
“'I congratulate you, Taubery,' he said, after about a minute. 'You have acquired a historical stone!'
“Old Julius leant back, with a smile half-way round his head, but he didn't say a word.
“'This stone,' said Sir Andrew, in the heavy, pompous way that he has, tapping it with his magnifying glass to attract attention, 'this stone is the celebrated Hyderapore diamond, to which first historical reference is made in the year 1584. It was captured by the Rajah of Hyderapore from a ruling chief in the Deccan after a battle, in which four thousand men lost their lives. In 1680 it was stolen from the Rajah's palace by a Spaniard, who escaped to Bombay, where he was robbed and murdered. The stone disappeared for about sixty years.
“'It subsequently came into the possession of one of the East India Company's agents, who was stabbed to death in his bungalow near Calcutta about 1760. The diamond, which is held to have inspired the attack, was saved from the robbers by the appearance of his guests and servants. The widow brought it to Europe and sold it to the Duc d'Alembert, who lost his diamond and incidentally his life in the French Revolution. It turned up again at the Court of Napoleon III., being then in the possession of Henri Marvin, the well-known financier. Until to-day I thought- it was still in his family.
“'It is one of the very few large diamonds that is absolutely without flaw, and its value in the open market to-day would be approaching thirty thousand pounds. Any one who takes an interest in historical stones might be tempted to give even a higher price; for there has been enough blood spilt over it, gentlemen, to fill the bath of its fortunate possessor.'
“He laid down the diamond on the table and looked at his host with a malicious grin. But all connoisseurs are alike; they are as covetous of each other's pet treasures as so many cats.
“All the time that Sir Andrew had been speaking, the fat fellow next to me had been snorting and swelling until, 'pon my soul, I thought he was in for a stroke of apoplexy. I am the best-tempered of men, but I have my limits, and the old grampus was one of them.
“'Are you in pain, sir?' I asked him.
“'Yes, I am, sir,' he said, in such a high, squeaky voice that all the table could hear him. 'I object to listening to the definitions of so-called experts, who cannot tell a diamond from a glass marble. Experts? Humbugs, that's what I call them!'
“'Do you refer to me, Professor Endicott?' began Sir Andrew, leaning forward, with a very red face.
“'Most certainly I do.'
“'Then I must ask you for an explanation or an immediate apology.'
“'A man who can make so ludicrous an error deserves neither the one nor the other,' cried the professor, in great excitement. 'That stone has been in the possession of the Princes of Pavaloff for three hundred years. Prince Peter, the present head of the family, kindly allowed me to examine it when I was at Moscow in 1894. I was not aware that he had sold it. I trust, Mr. Taubery, that you obtained it from a respectable source; if not, I should be no true friend did I hide from you my belief that it has been stolen.'
“If a man had said such a deucedly insulting thing to me I should have knocked him down there and then. I would, 'pon my soul, without thinking more about it. But Julius lay back in his chair, smiling all over his face. I suppose those collectors get accustomed to each other's little ways; they're a queer lot, anyway.
“'You can be quite easy on that point, Professor Endicott,' he said. 'Prince Peter was, unfortunately, involved in the late Dolorouski conspiracy, but had time to slip across the Russian frontier before the police could arrest him. I bought the diamond from his agent in Paris.'
“'You interest me deeply, Mr. Taubery,' struck in Sir Andrew, speaking very softly, though we could all see he was in a devil of a rage. 'Even I was not unaware of the existence of the Pavaloff diamond. If my memory does not fail me, it is slightly disfigured by a flaw on the eighth facet?'
“'Certainly, Sir Andrew,' said our host; 'if you examine the stone you will see that such is the case.'
“'There is no such blemish on the diamond I have before me. Therefore I humbly suggest that you have been deceived by this Parisian agent as to its origin.'
“Professor Endicott climbed to his feet, with a grunt of dissatisfaction, and leant over the table, thrusting out his podgy fist to receive the jewel. He remained standing, with his body swayed forward, so that the electric lights above the silver centre-piece might shine the brighter upon what he held. Presently he dropped his hands to his sides and stood staring about him like a ploughman lost in Piccadilly.
“'This is not the stone I examined five minutes ago,' he stuttered.
“'Nonsense,' said old Julius, with a shadow of fear in his eyes. 'Nonsense, Endicott; look again.'
“'Can it be that two such famous experts have made a mistake?' sneered Sir Andrew. 'Can it be that a humble amateur like myself is right and that they are wrong? As I told you, gentlemen, the Hyderapore diamond'
“'Hyderapore diamond be d—d!' squealed the fat man. 'This thing is a fake, a clumsy imitation. Taubery, you have been robbed!'
“We were all on our feet in an instant amid a clamour of tongues. But there was one man amongst us that kept his head; one man who realized that his honour was in peril; that immediate action was necessary. His name—if I am not too egotistical—his Theophilus Gunton.
“Fortunately, I have a voice of some power, and a manner that, when my feelings are strongly moved, is perhaps, not unimpressive. I commanded and obtained silence. I begged them to resume their seats; they obeyed.
“'Julius Taubery,' I said, 'has your diamond disappeared?'
“He answered that it had, looking at the imitation stone, which they had returned to him, in a silly, scared way.
“'Julius Taubery,' I continued, 'we, your guests, lie under a stigma, an imputation. We cannot leave the house under such circumstances. Some one must have brought the imitation stone with him for a purpose that it is needless to define. The real jewel must be in his pocket at this moment. Let us, therefore, be searched.'
“They all sat silent as mice under my eye, save the Professor, who grunted as if in dissent.
“'Do I understand that you object to my plan, sir?' I asked him. 'Do you refuse to be searched? And if so, may I ask why?'
“He gave me an angry look, but he had not the courage to contest the point.
“'Then, I may take it that we are all agreed. Taubery, you have a library upon this floor. As I passed the door before lunch I noticed that there was an excellent fire there. Professor Endicott and myself will retire to that room. I will search the Professor; the Professor shall search me. After that the rest of the guests will come, one by one, into the room, where we will search them in turn. Let us have no delay. Professor Endicott, I am very much at your service.'
“I went through that party, gentlemen, as our Transatlantic cousins would express it, with a fine-tooth comb. And I feel it my duty to say that not one of them raised the smallest objection to the severity of my methods. They were like lambs, gentlemen, they were, by thunder! But I obtained no result. The Taubery diamond had disappeared.
“Poor old Julius was quite broken down about it. He placed the whole matter in my hands. On my way to Scotland Yard I remembered what an old friend of mine had told me about you. 'If you are ever in a hole, Gunton,' he said, 'get Addington Peace—he is the man.' You were off duty. I inquired your address; I am here. And, now, what are you going to do?”
“Can you remember who it was that introduced the subject of precious stones at your luncheon-party?” asked Inspector Peace.
“'Pon my life, I don't know,” said the colonel, polishing his eye-glass with a red silk pocket-handkerchief. “It was one of the fellows at the other end of the table, but I can't say which of them.”
“Yet, it is presumable that the guest who came with an imitation diamond in his pocket is the man who started a discussion which resulted in Mr. Taubery producing his latest treasure.”
“So it is, by Jove!” cried the colonel; “I never thought of it. Clever work, Inspector, eh?”
“Exactly,” said Peace, blandly. “And, now, as regards the place in which the robbery was committed.”
“I locked the door,” answered the colonel, smacking his trousers'-pocket.
“Please let me have the key. Thank you. And now as to the windows. Were they closed and fastened?”
“I saw to it myself.”
“After the search in the library, did any of the guests return to the dining-room?”
“I am no fool, Inspector. I left old Julius there to see to that. No one went back. When I had finished searching I joined Julius, and we locked up together. The butler had called in the policeman on the beat, and I left him sitting in the passage watching the door and drinking beer.”
“I must go to Portland Place. What is the number?”
“I will drive you there with all the pleasure in the world, Inspector,” said the colonel, cheerfully. “Come along.”
I left them at the foot of the stairs, obtaining a whispered promise from the detective that he would give me a call that night if it was not too late when he returned.
I spent a disconsolate evening at the club. Never did I play a more degraded hand at bridge, though I should certainly have taken exception to the remarks of my partner under more ordinary circumstance. There is a point at which fair criticism ends and deliberate insult begins.
By ten o'clock I was back again in my rooms, where I loitered, amongst my books and pictures, in restless expectation. It was chiming midnight when there came a discreet tap at my outer door, and Addington Peace walked in. He sat himself down in the easy-chair I offered, and permitted me to mix him a whisky and soda.
“Tell me, have you found the diamond?” I said eagerly.
“No.”
“Nor the thief?”
“I know him to be one of five men—that is all.”
“Five? And how do you make that out?”
“It is very simple. The real diamond was examined by Professor Endicott; it was an imitation that reached Sir Andrew Carillon. Therefore it is reasonable that one of the five who sat between them changed the one for the other.”
“So you strike out the Professor and Sir Andrew?”
“If either of them had been implicated they would hardly have raised the quarrel that resulted in the discovery of the theft.”
“And this suspected five—who are they?”
“Our friend Colonel Gunton, Mr. Thomas Craddock, a clerk in the War Office; the Hon. George Carstairs, Lord Wintone's brother; Mr. Abel Field, of Grey and Field, car manufacturers; and the Rev. Aubrey Power, a minor canon of Westminster Abbey. I have made some light inquiries and find nothing against them. Carstairs, Craddock, and Power, are men of moderate income, the other two are rich.
“Yet this gives us one important conclusion. The actual thief is an amateur in crime. So far as any one knows, this is his first offence. But it was not a sudden temptation to which he yielded. On the contrary, he was carrying out his share in a plot that had been long and carefully prepared. He substituted an imitation diamond for the original as it passed through his hands—an easy matter; but who thought out the scheme, who had this admirable imitation made, who knew that Taubery was leaving the country and that the diamond was to be sent immediately to the strong-room of a bank, where the substitution that had taken place might not be discovered for months, perhaps years?
“Who, in short, had the clever brain, the far-sighted judgment, the familiarity with jewels and those who deal in them, all of which would be required in the originator of such a fraud? Not Gunton, nor Craddock, nor Carstairs, nor Field, nor the Rev. Aubrey Power. There is some one who has influence over one of these men, some one pulling the strings behind the curtain. I shall consider it an honour to make that person's arrest, Mr. Phillips.”
Inspector Addington Peace beamed upon me as he concluded with an expression of hopeful enthusiasm, and lit a cigarette at my reading-lamp.
“This unknown criminal genius has got the diamond, anyway,” I said.
“I am not so sure of that. Consider the position of the actual thief on the discovery that the stone was false. He must have been in a state of blind terror. If we may suppose that Colonel Gunton is innocent, the bellowing of that worthy gentleman must have frightened him the more. To be searched, discovered, and actually disgraced—a pleasant prospect, surely! We may take it that he was heartily sorry for the part he had played; that he wished the diamond a thousand miles away. To get rid of it previous to the ordeal before the Colonel and Professor Endicott in the library—that would be his object.”
“Yet here I am met by the simple difficulty that I cannot find the diamond. I have made the closest investigation without result. As Colonel Gunton told us, Mr. Taubery remained in the dining-room to see that none of the guests returned after they had been searched. The door was subsequently locked and a policeman stationed in the passage outside; the windows were fastened. Therefore the thief could not come back to recover what he had temporarily hidden. All which might seem to prove that, though Colonel Gunton affirms that he went through the guests with an expert hand, one of them managed to keep the diamond about him and carry it away. Yet such an achievement suggests rather the professional than the amateur criminal. And, if for that reason alone, I believe that the stone is still in the house. However, we ought to be able to decide that point within a week.”
“I can't see why, Peace,” I said.
“No? Then, pray don't trouble about it. And really, Mr. Phillips, as I have a long day's work before me, it is time I was off to bed. Do you know it is one o'clock?”
I knew how useless it was to question the little man when he thought he had told enough. So I bade him good night with the best grace that disappointment would permit. It had been kind of him to trouble about me, after all.
Three days went by, and I had not had the chance of asking Peace for news. For two nights, as I discovered by inquiry, he slept out, only appearing for an hour about noon to change his linen; for he was most careful of his appearance and as cleanly as a cat. Indeed, I had a secret belief that his nails were regularly manicured in Bond Street. When I did see him it was by accident, and, to be frank, nothing he had done gave me a greater surprise.
I was walking through Kensington Gardens about eleven o'clock on a visit to a friend whose studio lay to the north of the park. It was charming weather. The fresh leaves on the smoke-black boughs, the flower-beds rich in variegated colouring, the deep-throated coo of the pigeons, the chatter of innumerable sparrows, all told that winter was passed and spring was calling a welcome to summer. I had just turned from a long shrub- walled walk into an open space when I came upon the amazing spectacle of Addington Peace flirting with a very pretty nursemaid.
Whatever the little inspector had been, whatever he was, there was nothing of the Don Juan in his composition. I had already noticed that he took pains to avoid the opposite sex, with that uneasy consciousness of their presence which marks the bachelor with principles. Yet there he sat, sharing the same bench and talking earnestly into her ear, while before them a little boy pedalled industriously up and down upon a tricycle-horse, a long-maned, long-tailed toy set on three wheels, and propelled by indifferent pedals. It was idyllic, domestic, but distinctly surprising.
As I passed the bench, Peace stared at me without a glimmer of recognition in his keen grey eyes.
I had just finished my breakfast next morning, when in walked the inspector. I laughed, indeed I could not help it; and he answered me with a quick glance, half annoyance, half reproach.
“Something is going to happen to-day in the matter of the diamond,” he said. “But, I warn you, Mr. Phillips, that if you intend to make fun of me you shan't know a word about it.”
“You entirely misjudge me,” I said, sticking my nose into my coffee-cup to hide a grin.
“Very well. There is a sale of furniture to-day, at the house of Mr. Julius Taubery, No. 204 Portland Place, the 'property of a gentleman going abroad for the benefit of his health,' as the catalogue has it. I should advise you to be here a little before four o'clock this afternoon.”
“I am very much obliged to you, Peace,” I said, making a note of the number on my shirt-cuff.
He nodded, with a faint shadow of a smile at the corners of his mouth, shook a finger of warning, and trotted out of the room.
I was punctual at my appointment and shouldered my way through the crowd of chattering dealers, into the big dining-room of No. 204. A. private auction to me always seems a melancholy business. True, I knew that in this case the owner was a rich man, that his furniture and carpets and fittings had been bought only a year or two before, and were not the loved collection of years. But the tumbled disorder, the mud of many feet upon the floor, the noise of the bidders answering the raucous voice of the auctioneer, were all an insult to the peace, the privacy, and the hospitable memories of a stately home. It was with relief that I saw Colonel Gunton's eyeglass shining near the window, and elbowed my way towards him. He had a little boy with him, whom he carried perched on his shoulder, well out of the way of the crowd.”
“Hello, Phillips,” he shouted, in a tone that successfully competed with the auctioneer's. “Come to see the last of old Taubery's household gods, eh? Confound those dealers, what a noise they make bidding for that table. 'Pon my soul, when I think how many good dinners I've had with my toes underneath it, I feel quite sentimental, I do, Phillips, strike me.”
To emphasize his sensations he glared ferociously at a weak individual who was pressed against him by a swirl in the crowd, and asked him what in thunder he thought he was doing.
The great table was bought, the last of the heavy furniture; and there only remained a few details that were auctioned, some separately, some in oddly assorted lots. It was during their sale that my talk with the colonel was interrupted by the little boy upon his shoulder.
“Oh, father,” he cried, “there's George's bicycle-horse! Won't you buy me George's bicycle-horse?”
A long-tailed, long-maned toy was raised by one of the auctioneer's men, who grinned under a running fire of chaff. I had an idea that I had seen that gallant charger before, though where I could not remember.
“Who is George?” I asked the colonel.
“It's Taubery's grandson. His daughter's a widow, you know; she and the boy live with the old people. Hi, there! ten shillings.”
A grey-haired man in an overcoat who stood near by nodded his head at the auctioneer.
“Eleven shillings—going at eleven shillings.”
“Fifteen,” bawled the colonel.
“One pound,” said the grey-haired man.
I had no idea what the cost of such toys might be; but the price, second-hand, seemed high. Several of the dealers gathered about the chair on which the auctioneer was standing looked back at us over their shoulders.
“Confound those dealers!” cried the colonel. “If an outside buyer wants anything they try to squeeze him out. They're all in league. It ought to be stopped. It's a monstrous shame. It's iniquitous. Twenty-five shillings to you, sir.”
“Thirty,” said the grey-haired man.
“Two pounds.”
As the bids increased the temper of the colonel grew worse and worse. Those who were well out of his reach began to chuckle, and finally to laugh outright. At four pounds ten he hesitated. With a supreme effort he made it five.
“Guineas,” said the grey-haired man.
I am sorry to say that the colonel swore. In one stupendous oath he denounced all who dealt in second-hand goods of any description whatsoever. Then, with the little boy sobbing on his shoulder, he surged through the crowd like a battleship in a head sea, and disappeared amid a burst of disrespectful laughter. It was before the auctioneer had sufficiently recovered from his surprise that I felt a gentle touch on my arm. It was Addington Peace.
“There is a four-wheeled cab waiting about thirty yards up the street,” he whispered. “Go and get into it. I will join you presently.”
Quite half an hour had dragged by when the cab door was swung open and the detective sprang in. At the same time I noticed a covered cart with a black pony in the shafts pass the other window at a leisurely pace. Our driver must have had his orders, for he turned his horse and followed in the same direction.
Peace remained silent, so I left him alone and contented myself with staring out of the window. We were going northward towards Hampstead. The lines of houses broke up into separate villas. Lilac and laburnum bushes peeped over the garden walls. The throng of traffic grew thinner, the pavement less crowded. It was past five when we drew up at a little public-house standing back from the road. Peace toddled out, and I followed at his heels.
“He is unloading his cart in Ashley Street, yonder,” said the driver, leaning from the box, as he pointed with his whip to a side road. “Do you want me to wait, sir?”
The inspector nodded and disappeared through the inn door, leaving me on the pavement. As he had given me no orders, I strolled back to the corner and peeped down the road, which ran at right angles to the one in which I was.
About forty yards away stood the little covered cart with the grey-haired dealer of the auction-room talking to a lad beside it. Presently the lad crawled under the canvas hood, and handed down the identical long-tailed horse that had brought about the public discomfiture of the gallant Colonel Gunton. The dealer pushed it across the stone pavement into a little furniture shop, and the boy, whipping up the black pony, drove quickly away.
I turned back to find the detective at my elbow.
“Peace,” I said, “what is your interest in that bicycle-horse?”
“It happens to play the comedy part in our little mystery.”
“"What do you mean?”
“Only that it has a hole in the saddle for a pommel should a little girl ride it, and the hole leads down to a hollow inside. Do you guess what it was that dropped into the hollow inside?”
“Not Mr. Taubery's diamond?”
“Exactly. Yet we have still to find out the man who put it there.”
“But, in the mean time, the old dealer may”
“Tut, tut, Mr. Phillips. The old dealer has nothing to do with it. He is only obeying an order to buy the toy whatever it cost, and to keep it until called for. We may have to waste some time, so I have ordered a steak and fried potatoes in an upper room that conveniently overlooks the door of his shop. Let me show you the way.”
We passed through a long bar at which a dingy assemblage lounged and smoked, and so upstairs into a private room, the windows of which commanded Ashley Street. We ate our meal in relays—one watching at the window, while the other disposed of his section of stringy streak and heavy beer. The daylight softly faded, the gas jets sprang out along the street, the tramp of home-coming fathers dropped into silence—but there was still no caller at the furniture-shop. The shutters had been put up for the night. It seemed plain to me that nothing would happen for that evening at least, though Peace did not seem to despond.
Niue o'clock—ten o'clock—ten thirty, and the customer arrived.
I had watched his cab come rattling down the street with a casual interest, for many had come and gone since we first mounted guard. It had passed the little shop, and was almost beneath us, when a head was thrust out of the window and a voice cried irritably to the cabman, A street-lamp showed him to me clearly—a white-faced youth with a straggly, brown moustache and an indecisive chin.
The cab turned about, and pulled up opposite the shop door. The inspector touched my arm, and we walked down the stairs, picked up our driver, who was smoking in the bar, and so bundled into our own vehicle. A few whispered instructions, and we drove slowly round the corner into Ashley Street.
The customer had been expected. As we passed the shop at a walking pace, I could see that the dealer and his assistant were hoisting the bicycle-horse to the roof of the waiting cab. Fifty yards more, and we drew up by the pavement.
Peace kept the windows closed, so that I could not look back along the road; but through the glass in front I could see that our driver was quietly taking note of affairs. It was not the first time that the inspector had employed him, as I learnt afterwards, and the man knew his business.
Suddenly our cab whisked round and set off at a rapid pace. The stranger had selected a fast horse, that was evident. We swung through a maze of narrow streets, tugged up a long hill, skirted a stretch of open common—a part of Hampstead Heath, I believe—and finally stopped in the shade of some tall trees. As I got out I saw the lights of the chaise stationary at some distance up the road.
“There may be trouble, Mr. Phillips,” whispered the little detective. “I'm not certain I ought to bring you along. If anything”
“Nonsense!” I interrupted, glancing down at him with some amusement.
“Well, take this, anyway. I had it from a German burglar.”
He thrust a strip of hardened rubber into my hand, about eighteen inches in length by two in thickness.
“It will stun a man without leaving a mark,” he said gently.
The four-wheeler that we had followed was waiting before a green door set in a high brick wall. Without any attempt at concealment, Peace walked to the door and tried the handle. It was not locked, and we passed into a fair-sized garden, set about with flower beds and clumps of laurel. In the middle I could see the outline of a square grey house. Two of the ground-floor rooms glowed behind their curtains, the rest was darkness.
We crossed a corner of the lawn, and stopped behind a patch of hushes directly in front of the entrance porch. The night was very still and silent. What desperate men were gathered in that quiet place? How could we hope to arrest them flushed with the triumph of so splendid a prize. To be truthful, I began to feel a certain anxiety for our position; though upon Peace's face, showing white in the gloom, was a look of perfect serenity—a look that I could not understand.
“Mercy, oh, mercy!”
It was a trembling wail of terror, a wail that was suddenly blotted out by a roar like the challenge of a bull. From within the house came the crash of overturned chairs and the jingle of breaking glass. And all the time the shrieks and hoarse ravings drew nearer and louder, until, with a loud bang, the hall door was flung open and a man tumbled down the steps as if thrown from a catapult. His assailant, in black silhouette against the hall lights, hesitated for a moment, stick in hand. Then, with a shout of rage, he sprang forward and struck at the moaning wretch who squirmed on the gravel at his feet.
“Now, Jack Steadman, that is quite enough,” said the inspector, pushing his way through the laurels.
“And who may you be?” cried the other, with a furious oath.
“My name is Addington Peace, of the Criminal Investigation Department of Scotland Yard, and I arrest you both for being concerned in the robbery of a valuable diamond, the property of Mr. Julius Taubery.”
“Stolen a diamond!” he bellowed. “Do you call that a diamond?”
He flung down a stone that sparkled in the lights behind him, and stamped it into the gravel with his heel.
“I am aware that it is the imitation,” said the inspector. “But it was not your fault that you missed the real thing. I have a cab waiting. You had better come with me quietly. And I warn you, Steadman, that anything you say will be used in evidence against you.”
••••••
It was after two in the morning before the inspector tapped at the door of my rooms. I had made the fourth of that odd cab load to the nearest police-station; for, though Mr. Jack Steadman had blustered, and the Hon. George Carstairs had grovelled and whined thither, they had consented to go at last. And there I had left the detective and his prisoners, driving to my rooms to await his return.
“The case was not quite so difficult as you suppose, Mr. Phillips,” he said, in answer to my question. “You remember that I believed the diamond to be still in the house?”
“Certainly.”
“It would be hard to imagine a more useful bait. It was certain that the thieves would have another bite at it; it was also certain that I ought to be able to hook them when they did. Yet I very nearly lost the diamond, after all. Taubery, Gunton, and the servants had all declared that, since the robbery, nothing had been moved from the dining-room, passage, or library. There they made a mistake.
“Taubery's little grandson, George, happened to leave his toy horse in the passage from the dining-room, and into the hole made for the pommel that poor creature, Carstairs, had dropped the diamond with a last despairing effort to get rid of it before Colonel Gunton searched him. Ten minutes afterwards the little boy went out for a walk with his nurse, taking the horse with him. When he returned it was left, as usual, in the servants' quarters at the back. I never set eyes on it until a day later. Even then I should not have suspected what it contained had not the nurse complained to me of a man who followed her when she took George for his daily airing in the Park. That was the sign for which I had been looking. I accompanied the pair on the following morning. I saw the man, but did not recognize him.
“Neither the nurse nor the boy could well be carrying the diamond about with them. There remained the horse. That night I extracted the real diamond, and not wishing to spoil my bait for the shy fish, I dropped the imitation stone into its place.
“The toy was watched by night and day. It was through a hint from me that it was included in the sale. Poor Colonel Gunton! I admit that his eccentric bidding startled me for a moment.
“You can understand Steadman's fury when, after all his plots and risks and expenditure, his silly dupe brought him back the identical imitation stone that had been made to deceive old Taubery. I don't believe that the Trojans could have been more astonished when the Greeks emerged from the wooden horse, than was Steadman when he took out the diamond from the toy and found it to be the imitation!”
“And who is Steadman?”
“A very dangerous fellow, Mr. Phillips. I recognized him the moment he appeared at the door. For years he was a bookmaker in Paris, but left when the place got too hot for him. As a card-player he is well known and avoided. He has been in low water lately. So has his dupe, Carstairs, as I now discover. Lord Wintone, the young man's brother, set him up as a coffee-planter in Ceylon, but he spent all the money given him and returned six months ago. Carstairs was a distant connection of Mrs. Taubery's, and both she and her husband had been very kind to him. He was always loafing about the house, getting free meals and now and then borrowing a fiver. Ho must have heard of the new diamond and mentioned it to Steadman; for Steadman hatched the plot—there is no doubt about that. Carstairs was merely a dupe and a foolish, vicious dupe at that—he never had the ability to rise higher in crime. How the two became acquainted I do not know; but they have been seen together several times lately. You may take my word for it, that the public will be well rid of them for a year or two.”