Richard Marsh

“ He knows that I possess, for an amateur—a mere amateur, Brasher—one of the finest collections in Europe. He is green with envy, racked by covetous desires. He fixes his mind upon one of the finest gems in my collection, a relic for which crowned heads—crowned heads, Brasher!—might sigh in vain, and which none the less, so marvellously strong is my natural born instinct as a connoisseur, I picked up at a little town in Italy for less than fifteen shillings. ”

“ I have seldom heard a woman make more noise; it had not deprived her of the use of her lungs. We heard her squealing as we came along the passage. When we entered the room her squeals redoubled.
“There is the ring!” said Pugh, pointing at her with his outstretched hand.
There was the ring, on cook’s engagement finger, the third finger of her left hand—the love token of a faithful heart, of a nine years’ old engagement, the cameo ring, cream ground, with a woman’s head in white relief, sixteenth century Italian workmanship, that relic of the Borgias, Lucrezia’s pretty plaything. ”

“ We went up to cook in a body. First Mary, then Brasher, then Pugh, then me, then Bob—who apparently did not care to be left be hind, though it was all that he could do to stagger. It was the ring, there was no doubt about it. That love offering of the faithful Bob had all but done for her, if one might judge from the way in which she was be having. ”

“ He feels that his collection has suffered a loss. Pugh had spoken of the peculiar properties of the ring. Was the act of self-abstraction one of them? Or——
A terrible suspicion flashed across my brain. Pugh, for all I knew, had shown himself into my room. He had found me asleep in bed—helpless! I knew the man. He was a man who, under certain circumstances, would stick at nothing. A man who would shrink from no trick because it chanced to be a dirty one. A man who was absolutely devoid of a sense of honesty. To add to that lot of trumpery which he calls his collection he would rob his friend. ”

“ It was not badly done—not at all. The more closely I looked into the thing, the more clearly I saw that the cameo, for a cameo, was quite a work of art. In my collection it would look uncommonly well. The woman’s head was beautiful; the face was perfectly exquisite. I slipped the ring on to my little finger to study the effect.
As I did so I was just turning into the Edgware Road. As I reached the corner I was seized with a sudden spasm of pain; it was like a sudden constriction of the heart, or, better, an acute attack of heartburn. ”

“ Thus is a man robbed of his good name! Bob went on—
“He wasn’t. He was sound asleep. I never see a man so sound asleep. I says to myself, ‘He must have raised his elbow. I know what he can swallow.’”
“You hear, Brasher, what is the servant’s opinion of the master?”
Only wait! I would have a settlement with Bob!
“There was his clothes littered all over the place. I sets to to put ’em straight. As I picks up the waistcoat, something falls out of one of the pockets. It was a ring.”
“A ring,” said Pugh. “Just so—a ring!” ”

“ I did not like to blast his career, to charge him with an act of perfidy—that is, unless the evidence against him was undeniable, and—and until my mind was settled. I myself still was feeling queer. So I sent him out of the room.
“Go away; and, if you must die, die decently, without making all that noise!” ”

“ It was an engraved cameo, Italian, of about the middle of the sixteenth century; it was set in gold. I don’t suppose it was of any value, either intrinsic or fanciful. It was merely a little curio—quite a commonplace affair—the sort of thing one might almost pick up in the street. But the odd part of the affair was that it was just the ring I wanted ”

“ The instant his back was towards me I replaced the ring in my waistcoat pocket.
The cabman drove me home. Directly I reached Randolph Crescent I stumbled upstairs to my bedroom; I went straight to bed. That scoundrel Bob was out, as usual, so I had to undress myself. A pretty job I found it! That heartburn—I had never been subject to heartburn, but if that was not heartburn I did not know what it was—had never for one instant ceased since it had first begun. Every vein in my body seemed to be throbbing at once. ”

“ Bob grinned. Pugh and Brasher didn’t know what to make of it at all. I knew the blackguard.
“‘Yes,’ I says, ‘I’ve been buying you one of the finest rings that ever yet you saw. Look at that now!’ I takes it out of my pocket, and I holds it out in front of her. She didn’t think nothing of it; I knew she wouldn’t. She ain’t such a fool as she looks. ‘What, that dirty, tawdry, second-hand looking thing,’ she says. ‘Why, it ain’t worth tuppence.’ ‘Ah, that’s where you’re wrong,’ I says. ‘That ring’s worth a whole heap of money. ”