Burton Egbert Stevenson

“ I agreed.
"Just as every absolutely honest man is a little insane," went on Godfrey quickly. "Just as every great reformer and enthusiast is a little insane. The sane men are the average ones, who are fairly honest and yet tell white lies on occasion, who succumb to temptation now and then; who temporise and compromise, and try to lead a comfortable and quiet life. I repeat, Lester, that this fellow is a great criminal, and that he finds life infinitely more engrossing than either you or I. I hope I shall meet him some time—not in a little skirmish like this, but in an out-and-out battle. ”

“ It was to ascertain if that conclusion is correct that I came to America."
"What is the conclusion?" queried Grady, who had listened to all this with a manifest impatience in strong contrast to my own absorbed interest.
For I had already guessed what the conclusion was, and my pulses were bounding with excitement. "Our theory," replied M. Pigot, without the slightest acceleration of speech, "is that the Michaelovitch diamonds are concealed in this cabinet. Everything points to it—and we shall soon see." ”

“ I thought I knew what was passing in Godfrey's mind: he was blaming himself for this latest tragedy; he was telling himself that he should have foreseen and prevented it; he always blamed himself in that way when things went wrong—and then, to have the murderer slip through his very fingers! I could guess what a mighty shock that had been to his self-confidence!
The latest victim was lying where he had fallen, just inside the doorway leading into the inner room. Simmonds stepped to the window, threw open the shutters, and let a flood of afternoon sunshine into the room. ”

“ Most of us, I think, are a little saddened when we realise our unimportance; most of us, no doubt, would be a little shocked could we return a day or two after our death and see how merrily the world wags on! I would be missed, I knew, scarcely more than Vantine. It was not a pleasant thought, for it seemed to argue some deficiency in myself.
Then, too, the mystery of Vantine's death had a depressing effect upon me. So long as there seemed some theory to build on, so long as there was a ray of light ahead, I had hoped that the tragedy would be explained and expiated ”

“ He could melt down the settings and sell the gold; but not one of these brilliants would be marketable in Europe for many years. Each of them is a marked gem. Here in America, your police regulations are not so complete; but I fancy that, even here, he would have had difficulty in marketing this one," and he unfolded the last packet, and held up to the light a rose-diamond which seemed to me as large as a walnut, and a-glow with lovely colour.
"Perhaps you have stopped to admire the Mazarin diamond in the galérie d'Apollon at the Louvre," said M. Pigot. ”

“ Shall a woman not be loved? Shall a woman endure what madame endured...."
"That will do, Julie," broke in the veiled lady, her voice cold as ice. "Tell your story."
"I knew of the secret drawer; I had seen madame open it; I knew what it contained. But I was faithful to madame; I loved her; I was glad that she had found some one.... Madame will remember her despair, her horror, when she entered her room to find the cabinet gone, taken away, sold by that.... ”

“ Godfrey went on rapidly. "The traitor discovers the secret of the cabinet; he follows Armand to New York, shadows him to the house on Seventh Avenue, waits for him there, and seizes and binds him. He is half mad with triumph—he chants a crazy sing-song about revenge, revenge, revenge! And, in order that the triumph may be complete, he does not kill his prisoner at once. He rolls him into a corner and proceeds to rip away the burlap. His triumph will be to open the secret drawer before Armand's eyes. ”

“ It takes brains to be a great criminal, Lester, and brains of a high order."
"But why should a man with brains be a criminal?" I queried. "If he can earn an honest living, why should he be dishonest?"
"In the first place, most criminals are criminals from choice, not from necessity; and with a cultured man the incentive is usually the excitement of it. Have you ever thought what an exciting game it is, Lester, to defy society, to break the law, to know that the odds against you are a thousand to one, and yet to come out triumphant? And then, I suppose, every great criminal is a little insane." ”

“ We were in front of the Day and Night Bank, and at a word from Grady, the men spread into a close cordon before the building.
Another police wagon stood at the curb, with the driver still on the seat, but as Grady started toward it, a figure appeared at the door of the bank and shouted to us—shouted in inarticulate words which I could not understand. But Grady seemed to understand them, and went up the steps two at a time, with an agility surprising in so large a man, and which I was hard put to it to match. ”

“ But as we reached the top and came upon the funeral wreath on the door, the veiled lady stopped with a little exclamation.
"I did not know," she said, quickly. "Perhaps, after all, we would better wait. I did not realise...."
"There are no relatives to be hurt, madame," I interrupted. "As for the dead man, what can it matter to him?" and I rang the bell.
Parks opened the door, and, nodding to him, I led the way along the hall and into the ante-room. Godfrey was awaiting us there, and I saw the flame of interest which leaped into his eyes, as Mr. Hornblower and the two veiled women entered. ”

“ I have a profound admiration for your police; the results which they accomplish are wonderful, when one considers the difficulties under which they labour."
He spoke with an accent so sincere that I was almost convinced he meant every word of it; but Godfrey only smiled.
"It is a proverb," he said, "that the French police are the best in the world. You, no doubt, have a theory in regard to the death of these men?"
"I fear it is impossible, sir," said M. Pigot, regretfully, "to answer that question at present, or to discuss this case with you. ”

“ One of these days, he will try to get that cabinet out of the steel cell at the Twenty-third Street station, in which we have it locked!"
I shook my head.
"He's no such fool," I said. "No man is such a fool as that. He'll give it up and go quietly back to Paris."
"Not if he's the man I think he is," said Godfrey, his hand on the door. "He will never give up! Just wait, Lester; we shall know in a day or two which of us is a true prophet. The only thing I am afraid of," he added, his face clouding, "is that he'll get away with the cabinet, in spite of us!" ”

“ It dominated the room, much as Madame de Montespan, no doubt, dominated the court at Versailles.
I looked at it for some moments, for it was certainly a beautiful piece of work, with a wealth of inlay and incrustation little short of marvellous. But I may as well say here that I never really appreciated it. The florid style of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Louis is not at all to my taste; and I am too little of a connoisseur to admire a beauty which has no personal appeal for me. So I am afraid that Vantine found me a little cold. ”

“ Any cabinet made for her would be certain to have a secret drawer—she would require it, just as she would require lace on her underwear or jewelled buttons on her gloves. That drawer, since it was, perhaps, to contain such priceless documents as the love letters of a king—even more so, if the love letters were from another man! —must be adequately guarded, and therefore a mechanism was devised to stab the person attempting to open it and to inject into the wound a poison so powerful as to cause instant death. ”

“ For I realised that I knew nothing of Vantine, except what he had chosen to tell me. Parks would know. And then I shrank from the thought. Must we probe that secret? Must we compel a man to betray his master?
My face was burning. No, we could not do that—that would be abominable....
The door opened and Godfrey came in. This time, he was not alone. Simmonds and Goldberger followed him, and their faces showed that they were as shaken and nonplussed as I. There was a third man with them whom I did not know; but I soon found out that it was Freylinghuisen, the coroner's physician. ”

“ Why, there's no poison on earth would kill a man as quick as that—for he must have dropped dead before he could get out of the room to summon help. If it was prussic acid, he swallowed it. Remember, he wasn't in this room more than fifteen or twenty minutes, and he was quite dead when Mr. Vantine found him. Men don't die as easily as all that—not from a scratch on the hand. They don't die easily at all. It's astonishing how much it takes to kill a man —how the spirit, or whatever you choose to call it, clings to life."
"How do you explain the address on the card, Mr. Goldberger?" ”

“ His own life has been in peril scores of times, but he has never killed a man to save himself. Put that down to his credit."
"But Drouet and Vantine," I objected.
"An accident for which he was in no way responsible," said Godfrey promptly.
"You mean he didn't kill them?"
"Most certainly not. This last man he did kill was a traitor like the first. Crochard, I think, reasons like this; to kill an adversary is too easy; it is too brutal; it lacks finesse. Besides, it removes the adversary. And without adversaries, Crochard's life would be of no interest to him. ”

“ And that is how it happened that, an hour later, I was walking over toward Washington Square, just above which, on the Avenue, the old Vantine mansion stood. It was almost the last survival of the old régime; for the tide of business had long since overflowed from the neighbouring streets into the Avenue and swept its fashionable folk far uptown. Tall office and loft buildings had replaced the brownstone houses; only here and there did some old family hold on, like a sullen and desperate rear-guard defying the advancing enemy. ”

“ I thought we'd better not trust a taxi—might turn over or run into something, and we can't afford to take any chances—not this trip. Simmonds, you go along with Moosseer Piggott, and put an extra man on the seat with the driver. Maybe that Croshar might try to hold you up."
The same thought was in my own mind, for Crochard must have learned of M. Pigot's arrival; and I could scarcely imagine that he would sit quietly by and permit the jewels to be taken away from him—to say nothing of his chagrin over his unfulfilled boast to Godfrey. ”

“ Godfrey continued, "that Armand preserves his absolute supremacy. But occasionally the temptation is too great, and one of his men deserts. Armand sends this cabinet to America. He knows that in this case the temptation is very great indeed; he fears treachery, and he arranges in the cabinet a mechanism which will inflict death upon the traitor in precisely the same way in which he himself inflicts it—by means of a poisoned stab in the right hand. Imagine the effect upon his gang. He is nowhere near when the act of treachery is performed, and yet the traitor dies instantly and surely! ”

“ It was a weak and dissipated face, the face of a hanger-on of cafés, as Parks had said—of a loiterer along the boulevards, of a man without ambition, and capable of any depth of meanness and deceit. At least, that is how I read it.
"He's evidently low-class," said Godfrey, watching me. "One of those parasites, without work and without income, so common in Paris. Shop-girls and ladies' maids have a weakness for them."
"I think you are right," I agreed; "but, at the same time, if he was of that type, I don't see what business he could have had with Philip Vantine." ”