Barry Pain

“ That was the description I had given of myself at the hotel. The small bag that I carried contained all that I wanted in the way of a disguise. I left the cottage, half an hour later, as William Bradshal, gardener, highly respectable, but in indifferent health, with a good place to go to in two months' time, and urgently in need of a job to tide him over until then.
Again my bad luck followed me. The Scotch head gardener, a sulky-looking brute, would neither hear my story nor look at my testimonials. He repeated that he didn't want anybody and there was nothing for me. ”

“ About a week before the marriage took place I went down to Withycomb and put up at the hotel there, in my own name. They warned me that all their rooms were taken for the night before the wedding, and if I stayed on then I should have to go to the village beer house; a place where I felt sure I should be supremely uncomfortable. Things were not going well. However, I looked about the place and found an empty cottage standing by itself some way outside the village. It struck me that this would be an ideal spot in which to effect my disguise. ”

“ Friends have pleaded with me not to waste my efforts, and others have ridiculed me, but I have stuck to my man, and after repeated failures have brought him to a new life. There lies my spiritual triumph, but that too brings me no vanity—only steady submission where struggle is useless—submission to that which is fore-ordained. ”

“ I left the hotel at about ten, and drove my car easily along in the direction of Withycomb, which is perhaps twenty-four or twenty-five miles from Norwich. The country about here is not very populous and the inhabitants go to bed early. I felt quite secure in running my motor into a field and leaving it hidden behind a couple of stacks. From this point I went on foot to Ditton Field, taking with me the apparatus which I have already described.
I could see from the lane that the steel shutter of the window of the billiard-room was not quite closed ”

“ Then, to my great relief, the window was shut, and the steel shutter, operated from the inside, came slowly down. I went back to my hotel with the comfortable feeling of a man who, after encountering difficulty and disappointment, at last sees his way clear.
The ascent to my bedroom was not easy but I managed it without noise or mishap of any kind. Before I went to sleep, I reviewed the situation. The billiard-room was left in charge of a detective all night. Once at least in the course of the night, he opened the window and renewed the air in the room. ”

“ He would have tried a surprise entry through the window, calculating on frightening the detective into silence with a revolver, or overpowering him before he could call or get at the bell-push. And it would not have answered. I fear he would have made, as he said, a swinging job of it. Personally, I hate violence, I hate bloodshed. If diamonds could only be got by such means, I would leave them alone and take something else. I happen by chance to be tall and broad, and of considerable muscular strength. A man like Ikey has a great admiration for that, says so plainly, and turns me sick ”

“ The action of a drug depends to some extent on the idiosyncrasy of the person who takes it. With my friend the action was slow, but it came at last. His pipe fell to the floor with a crash, and he sprang to his feet. He had actually been to sleep. He was still drowsy. If he had been wise he would have rung the bell at once. I now crouched low under the ledge of the window for I knew what would happen. The steel shutter flew up, and the man thrust his head out. ”

“ On the table would be placed the detective's refreshments; I should hardly have heard the chink of the cup and smelled the coffee so distinctly if they had been further back in the room. Probably, the billiard-table would be covered over, and the display of presents would already be arranged on it, on the eve of the wedding, in readiness for the reception to follow. I should be able to see into the room, once the shutter was up, either by climbing a tree in the lane ten yards away, or on the grass under the window by standing on something that would increase my height (six feet) by one foot. ”

“ The other detective had entered to take his comrade's place the moment after I had left. I got out of the lane at once into a field. On these occasions it is always supposed that the burglar will be obliging enough to confine himself strictly to streets or roads or other places patrolled by the police. This is not always the case. I got back to my motor in safety, put my diamonds, roughly tied up in a couple of handkerchiefs, under one of the seats and started off. ”

“ The disguise and the alias are dangerous weapons, and, where they do not succeed perfectly, they damage the man who uses them. It was extremely improbable that I should be able to get a post as an indoor servant ”

“ The risk is quite out of proportion to the profit. If I get a few hundred pounds' worth of diamonds I am content. In this business, as on the Stock Exchange and elsewhere, people lose money through opening their mouths too wide. ”