“That’s very near eight and a half pounds a bottle, as I figure it. Forty-two dollars, any way; no bad price for a bottle of wine.”
“They’re magnums, of course.”
“Yes, and Tokay isn’t slopping around every day, even new, I guess. Come to think of it, I don’t ever remember to have as much as seen a bottle of Tokay.”
“Very few have; and fewer still have tasted it. More, nine-tenths of the few who have tasted it — or think they have — have only tried the adulterated stuff expanded by the wine merchants from the inferior brands of Tokay.”
“Is that so!” commented Mr. Merrick, absently. Then he added, “Say, is that case of wine in the hold?”
“No — I’ve got it in my cabin. I don’t carry much with me, as a rule — a good deal less than most people take for a week’s journey — and so there was no difficulty.”
Mr. Merrick returned to the subject later. He had told his daughter of this case of the renowned and mysterious Imperial Tokay, and Daisy was all agog with the romance of the thing. Imperial Tokay was a thing she had read about, vaguely and mysteriously, but never seen — like wampum and bird’s nest soup, and haunted houses. She had read of the wonderful first quality of this rare Hungarian wine, and of how it was the produce of the grape-juice exuded by the mere pressure of the piled weight of the ripe fruit itself; of how even the lower qualities were bought by great favour among a narrow circle of Hungarian notables, and of how throughout Europe the name and little else was known; and she longed to peep inside the case, and at the very least, gaze upon the venerable bottles.
When Mr. Merrick referred to the Tokay again, he wanted to know how such a wine would be sold. “They’d scarcely put it up in one lot, would they?” he asked.
“No — probably a bottle at a time, in the case of a great curiosity like this.”
“Very well, Mr. Harvey Crook, here is business. Your friend expects, with luck, to make an average eight pounds and a half a bottle out of this wine, selling them separately. Now I’m mighty cur’ous about this wine, and I offer ten pounds for a bottle — fifty dollars, right here! And we’ll try the liquor together; there!”
Harvey Crook shook his head. “Sorry,” he said, “but can’t do it, possibly. The wine isn’t mine, and I’m under engagement to take it to England safely, and then do with it what the owner tells me.”
“But he’s a dealer, and he only wants his money, I guess!”
“Very likely, but that’s his business,” replied Crook. “Mine is to see it safely to England as it is.”
“I’ll give fifteen pounds — seventy-five dollars. There!”
Harvey Crook shook his head again, with a smile. “Very sorry,” he said, “but I really can’t! It isn’t as though this stuff were mine, you see. It’s given me in trust. No doubt Hahn would be ready enough to take the money, but he isn’t here to do it. And of course I’d be glad to oblige you if I could — indeed I should much like to try the wine myself, as you so hospitably suggest — but I can’t, you see!”
The days went on, and by dint of having nothing to do but think about the Tokay, Lyman W. Merrick began to desire it more urgently than ever.
“Come now, Mr. Harvey Crook,” he exclaimed one long afternoon, “I’ll speculate! I’ll buy that case of wine for one thousand dollars! One thousand dollars is two hundred pounds of English money — just twice what the owner expected. I’ll buy the case and we’ll try a bottle; and if our curiosity’s satisfied with that, I’ll put up the other eleven to auction as soon as ever we get ashore, and just see what comes of the little gamble. Is it a deal?”
This certainly seemed a more likely offer than the other. True, Crook had no authority to sell the wine, but he knew it was to be sold, and he had Hahn’s word that he would be glad to take a hundred pounds for it. This was not an offer to break into the dozen, like the other, but one of double the dealer’s price for the lot; yet Crook hesitated, in view of his instructions.
That evening Daisy Merrick took the matter up, and Daisy was an extremely persuasive young lady. Her father was so awfully set on tasting real old Imperial Tokay for once in his life that it would be real mean for anybody on earth to thwart him. Surely Mr. Crook didn’t want to be thought real mean? And the dealer with his wife and family — why, he would be real mad if he found that Mr. Crook had refused an offer of actually double his price. Surely Mr. Crook didn’t want the poor dealer to be real mad?
That decided Harvey Crook — that argument and Miss Daisy Merrick’s persuasions; though it is only fair to say that the argument gathered a deal of weight from what Crook remembered of Hahn and his habits of business. Hahn would do anything for a shade of extra profit, and the man who stood in the way of a deal which would give Hahn double price for anything would be Hahn’s enemy for life. On the other hand, he pictured Hahn’s delight on receiving that double price without turning a hand himself to get it. He was in charge of Hahn’s interests in the matter of that case of wine, and he would be neglecting them to refuse such an offer as this. So he took the responsibility and the two hundred pounds, and the case of magnums of Imperial Tokay, eighty years at least in bottle and an indefinite number in wood beforehand, became the property of Lyman W. Merrick, of Merricksville, Pennsylvania.
The case was taken into his cabin and the boards lifted from the top. Hahn had gone to a vast deal of trouble in packing, and there was a deal of sawdust and chips to be shifted before the muddy old seal of one of the big bottles showed itself. The bottle was carefully withdrawn, and the packing replaced, with another bottle, empty, to fill out the space.
After dinner next day the bottle of Tokay was produced in full state. With great care the seal was removed and the soddened old cork withdrawn. The wine was of a fine rich green colour, sweet and curious; but both to Merrick and Crook it seemed to have suffered from over-age; though from the unfamiliarity of the wine it was not easy to be certain.
Mr. Merrick was hospitable with his precious wine, and two or three other passengers tried it and made their comments; and then the rest of the big bottle was carefully decanted.
“Now if I was like some parties I’ve met,” said Merrick, “I’d h’ gone advertising myself with that wine, and playin’ the coruscatin’ millionaire, dealin’ out all there is to the passengers, whether they wanted my blamed wine or not, and getting it in the papers when I go ashore. But that’s not quite my style. Here’s enough for a glass after dinner when I want it, or any friend of mine — though I must say, after all, I’d as well take a Chartreuse, or rather — and the rest goes into the sale-rooms, and then we’ll just see how I come out for the bottle.”
So the voyage went, and as Southampton was neared, Mr. Merrick’s interest began to be transferred from the case of Tokay to the tour before him, since this was his first visit to England. He and Daisy, between them, “fixed up” a most amazing programme, in which the British Isles, show places, scenery and everything, were to be got over at the rate of about two thousand square miles a day; so that in the end the auction was squeezed into the first few hours ashore at Southampton.
And there, indeed, it took place, as soon as the wine could be got through the Customs, with a disastrous end to Lyman W. Merrick’s little gamble. For the bottles, duly divided into eleven lots, were “starred” into the catalogue of the handiest sale, and would there have gone for a shilling or two apiece, were it not that some of the Rajapur passengers, who had heard of the speculation, turned up and bid for a bottle here and there; and a wine-merchant’s traveller of some enterprise took four lots at ten shillings a lot.
So that Mr. Merrick got back nearly five pounds of his two hundred, which, he said, would pay the duty, anyway, and leave him with the eternal glory of having consumed a bottle of wine costing nine hundred and seventy-five dollars. And with that consolation, such as it was, he and Daisy bade Harvey Crook good-bye.
Harvey Crook had scarcely disposed his luggage in his rooms at Standish’s Hotel, when he was brought a car
d which filled him with amazement, for it was the card of Mr. Frank Hahn.
“Show him up,” said Crook, in blank wonder.
Hahn it was, sure enough.
“Ha! My dear Crook,” he exclaimed effusively, offering his hand, “how are you? You’re surprised to see me, of course. But the fact is I pulled round so quickly that I was able to catch the mail-boat, and I came overland with the mails from Brindisi; so I’ve been in London some days, you see. I’ve been here to-day once before, and I’ve been to the docks — didn’t know whether you’d get out at Southampton or come right on, you see. I’m eternally obliged to you, my dear chap, about the Tokay, you know, though as it turns out I needn’t have bothered you after all. I’ll clear it out of you way. Where is it?”
“I haven’t got it; it’s sold.”
“Sold?” Such a look of blank horror fell across Hahn’s face that Harvey Crook started where he stood. “Sold? What d’ye mean?”
“I had a big offer for it on the voyage — double your best price — so of course I closed for you. Two hundred pounds.”
“What! Two hundred pounds? Heavens, you — you — you — I — I’m ruined!”
Hahn sank into a chair, white and gasping.
“Ruined?” retorted Crook. “Skittles! You put the outside price at a hundred yourself!”
Hahn sat starting and distraught.
“I — I won’t have it!” he said. “You — you’re responsible! I — I demand my property — you’re responsible, I tell you!”
“Yes, I suppose I am,” Crook replied, getting angry. “Very well, here’s the money — the very notes I took for it; and now my responsibility is at an end. Two hundred. I took the stuff for you as a favour, when the most you hoped to get out of it was a hundred — for your wife and children, you remember; and I get you two hundred for it, and you howl about my responsibility!”
“It’s a robbery!” cried Hahn wildly. “A robbery! I want it back! You sha’n’t do me like that!”
“Get out before I do you with my boot!” Crook retorted angrily. “Get out!”
“No, Crook — no, of course I didn’t mean that. It ain’t for me to call it a robbery, perhaps you think, but it was sharp practice, wasn’t it now, Crook? It was sharp practice, and you’re a deal cuter than I took you for, Crook. But come now, we can arrange this. I’ll take you into it, and we’ll see about it together. Do the fair thing with a pal, Crook. Where is it?”
“Where is it? All over the place by now. I sold it to an American on the boat, and we drank a bottle. Then he put the rest up to auction at Southampton, and it ought to be a consolation to you to know that it fetched about a fiver, all the eleven bottles. Take your money and clear out — I’m a bit tired of you.”
“Who sold it?” Hahn asked eagerly, gathering his faculties again. “Who was the auctioneer?”
“A man named Lawson — up by the Memorial Hall.”
Hahn started up, seized the notes and took his hat. Then he paused and said, with a curiously intent expression, “You and the American tried a bottle. How did you find it? Anything unusual, eh?”
“Old Tokay’s always unusual, isn’t it?” Crook answered. “It’s a green wine, and very sweet.”
“And you emptied it, quite to the bottom?” Still Hahn regarded Crook with the same intent gaze.
“Yes — we decanted it.”
Hahn’s steady look persisted for a few seconds and then he turned and hurried out.
Harvey Crook sat mightily astonished for about ten minutes. Then he began to think the thing out. “Ruined — plenty for both — take me into it — anything unusual — what was he driving at?” he mused.
Certain things were quite plain. This wine, the value of which Hahn had put at a hundred pounds, was clearly, for some mysterious reason or other, worth a very great deal more — to Hahn. Also, it was pretty obvious that Hahn’s “touch of fever” at Delhi had been all a sham. Its object was not very difficult to divine. For some reason or another Hahn had wished to have that case of Tokay brought home by another person — wished it to be in some other person’s possession even during the later part of his stay in India — and yet to be in perfectly safe keeping. Why, seeing that he regarded it as so valuable a possession? There could only be one reason for that — fear of the consequences if it were found in his possession. But why, again? He had bought or traded for the wine openly, it was plain, or he would not have talked of it so readily and unreservedly. From these considerations and from Hahn’s unguarded expressions it became clear to Harvey Crook that there must have been something in that case more valuable than wine, however rare and costly.
And with that a thought struck him like a bullet. The Eye of Goona!
Hahn was notoriously quite a well-to-do man; that talk of the importance of a hundred pounds to his wife and family was pure gammon, as was very plain from his indifference to the two hundred the wine had fetched. The wife and family themselves were also gammon, probably. But the Eye of Goona — that would be a prize for the richest man alive.
The notion seemed a trifle extravagant at first, but as he thought it out every consideration confirmed his suspicions. What else should Hahn be afraid to have in his belongings in Delhi? It would be a portable sort of thing, easily carried about in a waistcoat pocket, anywhere. But the hue and cry was up, and anybody might have been searched. More, the ways of Indian princes and their retainers were apt to be subtle and unconventional. If a thief could be got to creep undetected into a Rajah’s guarded tent, another, who might also be an assassin, could be commissioned to get into a European dealer’s quarters with the like secrecy.
Then the obvious practicability of the thing was to be considered. Assuming, to begin with, that the stolen green diamond had found its way into Hahn’s possession, what course of action could possibly be more natural than the one he had adopted? To carry it about with him among invisible emissaries of the Rajah, who might have unsuspected clues to its whereabouts, would have been to risk its loss — very probably to risk death. To hide it would be the obvious expedient — to hide it in some movable object which might go out of the country unsuspected. What more likely place of concealment than in a dark bottle of old wine? And here a significant fact presented itself. The Eye of Goona was of oval shape, and just a trifle more than an inch wide. That would never have passed the neck of an ordinary wine bottle — but these were magnums. The neck of a magnum would be large enough just to let such a jewel slip comfortably through. Then the cork might be replaced, the old seal carefully counterfeited, and all made snug in that innocent case of a dozen magnums.
Plainly something of the sort had been done, and plainly the concealed object must be a jewel of some sort. What else of so great value could be kept in such a bottle? For if any one thing was certain in this astonishing business, it was that it was in a bottle, and not loose in the case, that the valuable object was concealed. Hahn’s pointed inquiries as to the bottle that had been opened were sufficient assurance of that. And he had gone off in a hurry to find the auctioneer, and no doubt so trace the dispersed bottles.
So much being assumed, and so much proved, Hahn’s trick in putting on him the danger and responsibility of getting the plunder home was easy enough to understand. Hahn had shammed fever, but waited till he was safely off in the Rajapur, and then had hastened to get ahead of him by mail boat and overland route, to receive the prize safely in London.
Everything pointed to the Eye. What other great jewel had been lost? And at any rate, Eye of Goona or not, the gem must be one of extraordinary value, from all the evidence. The exact circumstances of the robbery must still remain in some doubt; there was, at present, no telling how the jewel had reached Hahn’s hands, nor what was the explanation of the dummy stone found in the hands of the slain thief. But putting these doubts aside for the moment, the bare fact seemed to emerge very clearly in Harvey Crook’s mind; there was a jewel of fabulous value in one of those eleven bottles of wine, now dispersed by sale. Hahn
had tricked him — had subjected him to the whole risk of transporting his plunder into safe quarters, and was not in agonised pursuit of that same plunder by way of the auctioneer. Harvey Crook resolved to join in the chase himself, and get ahead of Hahn if he could.
“My trade,” he thought to himself; “plainly it is in my trade. That rascal has stolen the stone, and if I can get hold of it, it should cost me very little here in England. But carried to India, it should bring a pretty handsome sum from the Rajah of Goona. I don’t want the jewel, for it isn’t mine. But neither is it Hahn’s; and since I brought it here to please him, I see no reason why I shouldn’t take it back to please myself — and the Rajah. Come — there should be a considerable amount of fun in it, as well as money!”
MR. NORIE’S MAGNUM
HARVEY CROOK pulled out his watch with one hand, and with the other he pressed the electric bell. In two minutes he was comparing his watch with the tables of a railway guide. There would be a train from Waterloo for Southampton at three precisely, and with any reasonable luck that train would enable him to reach the auctioneer’s office before it closed at six. Twenty-five minutes was all he had to catch this train. And he realised that he must hurry. He sent the waiter for a hansom and selected a kit-bag from his luggage. In this bag he commonly kept all he needed for his immediate wants, and now a glance showed him that it was sufficient. He took out a carefully-tied roll rather less than two feet long, and glanced about him as if doubtful where to leave it. Finally he put it back in the bag. It was almost the only rarity — the only piece of stock — he happened to have with him, and it had originally come from China. For the moment he could not think of a suitable place in which to stow it, so, since it was a light matter enough, he resolved to carry it with him. Indeed, since, in a search after the Tokay, he would probably have to deal with persons interested in rarities, this particular article might serve as a convenient introduction, and, in any extreme event, possibly as an object of trade or barter.
Delphi Complete Works of Arthur Morrison Page 209