B. Fletcher Robinson

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”