Max Pemberton

“ For one instant she stood, but it served my purpose; and as a scream rose upon her lips, and I felt my heart thudding against my ribs, I threw open the folding doors, and deliberately shot down the glass of the lamp which had cast the aureola of light upon the stolen jewels.
As the glass flew, for my reputation as a pistol shot was not belied in this critical moment, Mrs. Kavanagh ran in a wild fit of hysterical screaming to her bedroom above—but the four men turned with loud cries to the door where they had seen me; and as I saw them coming, I prayed that Abel might be there. ”

“ Stories of men drugged, or robbed, or murdered by jewel thieves crowded upon my mind, but always with the recollection that I should carry nothing to Boscobel Place. A man who had no more upon him than a well-worn suit of clothes and a Swiss lever watch in a silver case, such as I carry invariably, would scarce be quarry for the most venturesome shop-hawk that the history of knavery has made known to us. ”

“ It is often possible to tell from the chord of voice a man strikes in conversation whether he be friend [201] or enemy. I knew from the sympathetic note in this earnest exclamation that I had to do with one who wished well to Mademoiselle Bernier; but the very sorrow of the words struck me chill with fear. It was plain that I must shape a bold course if I would learn the whole moment of the mystery, and observing that the stranger was a man of much shabbiness and undoubted poverty—if that might be judged by his dress—I played the only possible card at once. ”

“ Then, in one of those flashes of thought which often mean much to a man, I had it in my mind that both the diamonds and the topaz above them would sit well upon the arms of Pauline; I even saw her in my fancy coquetting to me for the present. I began to laugh aloud at the other [208] thoughts, to call them echoes of childish schooling, to handle the chalice and the ring of jewels, and to tell myself that there would be no bigger fool in Europe if I did not take them. ”

“ The mystery, which had completely unnerved him, had fascinated me so strangely that I determined not to leave Paris until the last line of its solution was written. The robbery of the grave I could quite understand, but that there should be two necklaces, one of them with real stones and the other with imitation, was a fact before which my imagination reeled. As for him, he continued to sit in his arm-chair, and to fret like a child; and there I left him while I went to consult the first detective I could run against.
The difficulties in getting at the police of Paris are proverbial. ”

“ Some thousands of pounds' worth of gems lay scattered upon the coverlet, upon the sheets, and even upon the carpet. Ladd himself lay like the figure upon a tomb, white and motionless; there was only the light of a common paraffin lamp; and three parts of the room lay in darkness. My first thought was for the man's life, and remembering that I had a flask in my pocket, I forced brandy between his clenched teeth, and laid him flat upon his back. ”

“ A fairer spectacle never was than that of this childish creature, quaintly dressed in a simple gown of white and black, with a necklace of pearls about her throat, and a bouquet of roses in her hand; but the very sight of her turned me sick with fear, for she wore upon her arm the cursed topaz, and you could see the light of it half over the house.
The Italian and I perceived the thing at the one time; indeed, we rose from our seats together.
"For the love of Heaven go to her!" said he; [212] "tell the whole story to both of them; she may not have ten minutes to live." ”

“ It was true, then, as Oldfield said, that she could manufacture a perfect jewel before his eyes. Here was one which, if well cut, I could sell for a hundred pounds. She had made that, as I could swear: why should she not make a hundred, a thousand? My heart leaped at the conclusion.
"Tell me," said I, "you had no help in this work?"
"You saw that I had none," she cried. "Look at the other crystals; there are five of them. You have seen them come straight from the crucible—and you know that I have succeeded. Will you buy my sapphire? Buy it in proof that I have conquered you. ”

“ A thief is a man who buys in the cheapest market. We all try to do that in our way. There is no earthly reason why a savant, who is near to possessing the philosopher's stone, should not be charged before a magistrate with stealing a red herring. Life is all contrast, and the contrast we speak of is a very pretty one. Go and see her at your earliest opportunity."
"That's my advice too," said Bracebridge; "and if you've a fancy to watch her at the crucible, I'll speak for you. What's more, I'll bet you an even hundred pounds that you admit my conclusions." ”

“ I remembered that the French police had set down my loss to the loud talk of Sidi amongst the others at the hotel. Why, then, I asked, should not this man also scatter the tidings that I would give so many hundreds of francs for the recovery of the scimitar? No sooner had I got the idea than I acted upon it.
"Sidi," said I, when he came to me on the next morning, "I have heard much of your cleverness, but you have not yet found my property; now I will give a thousand francs to the man who brings it here within a week." ”

“ For the matter of that, the flunkies, who study in the kitchen—as the great master has told us—the characters of their governing acquaintances in the boudoir above over a quart pot and the Police News, get no little insight into the development of the social disaster which treads often upon the heels of jewel-hunger, as they read those extravagantly ornate reports of robbery and of mystery in which a highly moral people revels. ”

“ With much fine recital and many appeals to the holy marabouts to bear witness, Sidi demonstrated that the thief was no other than Mohammed the porter, who had the stone hidden with extraordinary cunning, and from whom it was to be got only at my own personal risk.
"Under the shadow of the Kasbah it lies," said he; "under the shadow of the Kasbah must you seek it with those I shall send to you, and no others. Obey them in all things; be silent when they are [144] silent, speak when they speak, fly and lose not haste when they bid you fly." ”

“ In any case, the value of the stones in the monstrance was unquestionable; but I am an Italian, as you see, and I believed then, as now, in nothing but omens. For a long while no thought of touching these things, scarce even of handling them—so strong in human flesh is the grain of early superstition—came to me. I sat there gazing at them and watching the light of the topaz sparkling even above the radiance of the smaller diamonds—sat, in fact, until it was quite dark and the miasma rose from the valley. ”

“ The first thing I observed on looking through the open door was that the woman had left the four to themselves. Three of them stood about the table whereon the lamp was; the dumpy man with the black whiskers sat in his arm-chair. But the most pleasing sight of all was [239] that of a large piece of cotton-wool spread upon the table, and almost covered with brooches, lockets, and sprays of diamonds; and to my infinite satisfaction I saw Lady Faber's pendant of rubies lying conspicuous even amongst the wealth of jewels which the light showed. ”

“ Had I been called upon to paint him, I should have sat him in an arm-chair by the side of a roaring fire, with a glass of punch to toast a buxom goodwife, and a pipe as long as the stick of my umbrella to make rings of smoke for a new generation at his knee. Such a man should, said common sense, have been yoked to an English dame, to one used to the odor of the lemon, and motherly by instinct and by training. ”

“ Now I am truly cosmopolitan; I regard no city as my home; I would as soon set out on a voyage of three thousand miles as of five. I come to England, and I do it in ten days from Land's End to John o' Groat's; and when I think I'll rest awhile I ask, Where is your pretty county? and I settle for three weeks to explore it."
"I hope Mr. Sutton will do the same," said Margaret, following up his invitation. "I want to learn all about the dames who won't know you unless you had a grandfather; and I should like to see a curate who is passing rich on forty pounds a year. ”

“ When I met Bracebridge, who was waiting in my room for me, he had an ugly leer upon his face.
"Well," said he, "I fancy my hundred's all right?"
"What hundred?"
"With Oldfield," said he. "I bet him a hundred she'd sell you a piece of glass for a sapphire; and I don't suppose you'll deny that she did it?"
"I'm not going to deny anything of the sort," [267] said I; "she did sell me glass, and of the commonest kind. I am now seeking an undiscovered superlative. The biggest fool in London is no designation for me." ”

“ Come and see Monsieur Carmalovitch and he shall tell you all; I implore you, and you will never regret this kindness! My husband is a good friend; he will reward your friendship. You will not refuse me this?"
It is hard to deny a pretty woman; it is harder still when she pleads with tears in her voice. I told her that I would go and see her husband on the following evening at nine o'clock, and counseled her to persuade him in the between time to be frank with me, since frankness alone could avail him. ”

“ Maclaren asked—I had the dialogue from the seaman himself—being in a hurry as those who walk the ways of love usually are.
"My respects to your honor," replied the fellow, "but the ketch Bowery, moored off the pier-head, 'ud be glad to see your honor if convenient, and if not, maybe to-morrow?"
"What the devil does the man mean?" cried his lordship, but the seaman plucking up courage continued,—
"An old friend of your honor's for sure he is, my guv'ner, Abraham Burrow, what you had the acquaintance of in New York city." ”

“ When she was gone, I went back to the conservatory [227] and drank a cup of tea, always the best promoter of clear thought; and for some ten minutes I turned the thing over in my mind. Who was Mrs. Sibyl Kavanagh, and why had she sewn a brooch of brilliants to the inside of a panel of her gown—sewn it in a place where it was as safely hid from sight as though buried in the Thames? A child could have given the answer—but a child would have overlooked many things which were vital to the development of the unavoidable conclusion of the discovery. ”

“ When he is well, it is well; when hope has come to him, the lights [ 21] which shine there are as the light of his hope. When he is ill, the opal fades; when he dies, it will die too. That is what I believe and he believes; it is what his father told him when he gave him the treasure, nearly all that was left of a great fortune. ”

“ One day she found the topaz in my studio and begged it of me. She died as you have heard; and I, poor as always, and now pursued by the damning curse, came to Paris, selling the topaz on my way here to M. Georges Barré. I have never ceased to regret that which I did; I have lamented it the most since I saw the exquisite creature who is to be his wife. And when, three [210] days ago, I discovered the madman who had cursed me at San Bernardo in the very Rue Boissière where Mademoiselle Bernier lives, I determined to save her though the deed cost me a confession and my liberty. ”

“ If the truth is to be told, the visit was in some part one of pleasure, but in the more part a question of sequins. I had done well in the remoter East, and had sent some fine parcels of rubies, sapphires, and pearls to Bond Street; but a side-wind of curiosity casting me up upon the shores of Tunis, I had bought there, in the house of a very remarkable Jew, a bauble whose rival in strange workmanship and splendor of effect I have not yet met with. ”