“There it is,” he said simply.
Jack Knowles regarded it thoughtfully. “Problem is,” he said, “to open it without ruining the seal. Not that the seal isn’t pretty well ruined already.” And, indeed, the old yellow seal was cracked and rubbed out of all distinctive shape.
“Not difficult,” observed Crook, taking the bottle back. “I’ll try. We can make it all right with a lighted match if you want to shut it up afterward. Do you?”
“I think,” remarked Jack Knowles, sagely, “that the obvious course dictated by justice and humanity is that we remove from our dear friend’s reach — from this bottle, in fact — the temptation to excessive drinking which has proved so fatal in the case of the unhappy Boaler. I will undertake to find two or three empty bottles in which the removal may be accomplished — he always keeps ‘em on the bottom shelf. This being effected, in order to prevent the shock our dear friend might experience on discovering his great bottle absolutely empty, we will proceed to fill it up with a judicious admixture of more wholesome but less expensive liquors selected from the other bottles in this cupboard. Vinegar, for instance, and rum, with a little sauterne to give it paleness, and a modicum of mustard to give it body. Then, when our friend has been disgusted with his luxurious indulgence by taking a sample, we will restore him to a proper frame of mind by inviting him to our rooms, to try our real old Imperial Tokay! I think that’s the proper — not to say the moral — course?”
His friend assented heartily, and Crook proceeded to remove the cork with great care to avoid breaking it up. He had already, with a sharp, broad blade of his pocket-knife, cut away the top of the seal in a single slice, and carefully laid it aside. With a little humouring the old cork came away whole, though with a bad crack across it; and now Crook stood with the opened bottle in his hand, and a rather ticklish task before him. Whether or not that bottle contained the Green Eye of Goona would be decided in a few minutes — seconds, rather; and it was his task to ascertain the fact without the knowledge of the two rattle-brained humorists before him, both with their eyes intently fixed on that big bottle, with never a suspicion in the world of what an enormous matter it might carry in its depths.
“Steady!” he said; “this wine has been in bottle eighty years, as I happen to know. It would be a pity to run the risk of spoiling it in the decanting. You are much too mercurial for the job. My hand is particularly steady — you rout out the empty bottles and bring them.”
In a moment a bottle was thrust into his hand. He turned evenly towards the light and slowly elevated the bottle between his eye and the gas-jet. Holding it by the neck, he very slowly and steadily tilted the magnum till its lip clinked on the lip of the smaller bottle, and the precious liquid began to trickle from one to the other. In this position if the great green stone came rolling toward the mouth of the magnum he would probably be able to see it through the dark glass of the neck, where both glass and wine were thinner.
Slowly and steadily the green wine rose in the small bottle till it reached the neck. Crook ceased pouring and held it out. “Another bottle!” he demanded, keeping the magnum still tilted in the air. “Cork that one carefully — don’t shake it!”
A second bottle was thrust into his left hand, and again he began to pour, slowly and warily. Nothing chinked in the magnum, nothing came sliding into the tapering neck to check the free flow of the wine. Probably it would not till the magnum was nearly emptied. So the second bottle was filled.
“Another!” cried Crook. “This will about empty it, I think. There should be a trifle under half-a-gallon.”
And still he kept his eye fixed on the dim light that came through the neck of the magnum.
The wine rose gradually in the third bottle, and when it was about half full Crook cast his eye back along the magnum. At this angle, he judged, the jewel must come rolling forward now, if it were there at all. Still, he would rather it kept back till the bottle could be emptied. Higher and higher it went, and higher the wine rose in the small bottle, till at last the dregs ran out, and the third bottle was full. The thing was settled; the Eye of Goona was not there. “Here you are,” remarked Crook, calmly; “that’s the lot. Mark that third bottle — you must let it stand longer than the others. I’m afraid I poured a trifle too far, and there’s sediment in it. Now select your varied poisons.”
The young men turned to the cupboard, and Crook took the occasion to make assurance doubly sure. He up-ended the empty magnum on his palm and shook it, then lifted it to the light again and shook it once more. There was no doubt of it; no diamond was there.
“Come,” cried Jack Knowles, impatiently, “we’ve wasted too much time already — we mustn’t bother too much about what goes into the empty bottle; that would be pampering Charley, and running risks ourselves. This is vinegar, anyhow, by the label, and here is a spoonful of mustard and some rum. There are plenty of other liquids here, and we’ll leave the rest to luck — Charley’s luck is always wonderful. In it all goes. Thoughtful of him to provide a funnel, wasn’t it?”
In it all went, indeed, and the old cork was forced down over the horrible mixture. After which the seal was carefully replaced and melted down at the cut edges with a match.
“And now,” said Jack Knowles, when the magnum had been replaced where it had been found, “we will away. We did think of standing his lay-figure against the police station and getting it locked up as drunk and incapable, but we mustn’t disturb anything now — that would arouse unworthy suspicions. We will away, and do our awaying without a moment’s delay. Up through the skylight, Sewell! Quick, before I turn out the light.”
They left the studio as they had entered it, one at a time through the window, and Jack Knowles, coming last, handed out the three bottles with loving care. Then the skylight was shut down, and they all stood in the open lane.
“Beautiful arrangement, those skylights,” commented Jack Knowles. “Perfect dispensation of Providence for a burglar. Easy to get at, and nothing to hold ‘em down but the brass arm, which Charley never fastens. Some day he will positively be robbed!”
Crook, having ascertained the direction in which the others were going, instantly discovered that he must go the opposite way. And so he waited in the dark a little way beyond the elms, while the two young fellows went off laughing toward the town.
“Lucky they never thought of asking my name,” he thought to himself. “Well, here’s an end to the prospects of that magnum, at any rate, so far as I’m concerned. But there’s no reason why it shouldn’t occupy Hahn’s attention for a bit longer — it would give me a start for the next. I think I’ll see that auctioneer’s clerk again before I go to bed.”
So that as soon as the two friends were quite out of sight and hearing he set off for Waterview Terrace. He found it to be a row of neat little houses with gardens in front, and he was saved any trouble in making a quest for No. 14 by observing Symons, in his shirtsleeves, with a lantern, industriously hunting for snails in his garden.
“Oh, you, is it, sir?” said Symons when he had ascertained his visitor’s identity. “I’m on a snail-hunt; the only way to keep ‘em down is to go for them after dark. What is it now?”
“I’m going to take up a little more of your out-of-office time, if you don’t mind, on the usual terms. It’s private.”
“All right — I’ll come and take a turn along the terrace, if you don’t mind the shirtsleeves.” And Mr. Symons put down his lantern and came out of his little green gate.
“About those magnums of Tokay, now,” said Crook, as they walked along before the little gardens. “I want to buy them all; and I want to enlist your help. Never mind about Mr. Norie’s — I’ve been there. But if you can get hold of any of the others I’ll pay you five pounds a bottle for them, cash on the nail.”
“Whew! You must be very fond of that wine?”
“Well — yes; as a collector, you see. I want to collect that lot. But there’s another collector in the field, and it’s that I came
to speak about. I expect he’ll be round to the office first thing in the morning.”
“Um!” said Symons. “Of course I can’t break office rules.”
“No — I don’t want you to do it. You can tell him what the office records show — which is precious little. More, you can tell him about Mr. Norie, and give him his address — I want you to do it, in fact; he can’t get the bottle, and it will delay him. Understand?”
“I think I do. I’ll tell him all about Mr. Norie; but I’ll give him as little about the other things as I can manage; always with due regard to office rules, of course.”
“Of course, I see you understand. And to make things plainer, I’ll tell you this. Not only will I give you five pounds for any bottle of that lot you may bring me, but I’ll pay you five for every one I can get myself, with your aid. That’s satisfactory, I hope?”
Mr. Symons’ quick little eyes positively sparkled amid the darkness. “Satisfactory?” he said. “Rather! Handsome — handsome, I’m sure.”
“Very well, then, I hope I shall see you again soon. Meantime, to carry out the principle of cash in advance, here’s a fiver for the first magnum, and I chance whether we get it or not!”
Mr. Charles Norie, painter of marine subjects, was a tall young man of wide shoulders and rather handsome, but more good-humoured, face. He was not dependent on his work for his livelihood, for his father, who had been a shipbuilder at Southampton, had left him quite a decent competence. His friends, Jack Knowles the sculptor and Harry Sewell the painter, had also connections in or about Southampton, and had come down for a week or two’s holiday. Norie was in the habit of walking down into the town to take his dinner at an hotel, and his friends had taken advantage of this habit to raid his studio in his absence. But on the night following they all three dined together at the Dolphin, with another friend, one Kirk, a young surgeon of the neighbourhood.
“No,” interposed Norie, when dinner was finished, “don’t have liqueurs — I’ve got a treat for you at the studio. I picked up a magnum of real old Imperial Tokay the other day, at a sale down here. Never saw a bottle before in my life. We’ll light up cigars and stroll along to the studio and open it. They tell me it’s eighty years old, and you mustn’t go spoiling your mouths with liqueurs first.”
Jack Knowles and Harry Sewell chuckled inwardly, and avoided each other’s eyes for fear of open laughter.
“That’s a rarity,” observed Kirk. “How did it come here?”
“Some fellow brought it ashore from a P. & O. boat, I believe, and put it in a sale at Lawson’s. I shouldn’t have known of it but I went in after a pair of Sheffield candlesticks — I’ll show ‘em to you presently, they’re capital. There were eleven magnums of Tokay, and I wish I’d bought more now, for it seems they were dirt cheap. I’ve had a fellow after mine to-day, offering a tenner for it, and almost begging me to take his money; and it only cost me half-a-sovereign!”
“I’d have taken it,” remarked the practical Jack Knowles; not without an inward chuckle at the remembrance of what the speculator would have got for his money. “Was he a dealer?”
“Some sort of chap of that sort, I think. Name of Hahn. Half German, or all German, I should judge, though he spoke English wonderfully. He’s been absolutely pestering me all the morning, and I very nearly had to kick him out. And then he came prowling about again when I had gone out, the charwoman tells me, and she almost had to kick him out. But anyhow, come along and try it. We’ll call for Fields on the way — and Castle, if we can find him in.”
The party set out forthwith, Norie and Kirk walking in front, and Knowles and Sewell, bursting with hilarious anticipation, behind them. Castle was out, and so was abandoned to his fate, but Field was found, and made up the party of five. And so the five, puffing their cigars in comfortable expectation — though of different things — left the lighted streets and took the dark road out towards the studio.
They reached and passed the first group of villas and turned into the lane; and, as they did so, Norie was startled to observe his skylight suddenly lit up from within.
“Hullo! Look at that! And the end skylight’s open! Hooray! Burglars at last!”
And he sprang off at a run, feeling for his key as he went, with the rest at his heels.
Jack Knowles sprang on the boundary wall to cut off retreat by the skylight, and Norie turned the key and flung open the door in a single movement. There was a bang and a scramble within, and there hung the terrified Hahn, by the frame of the open skylight, struggling to climb out, with one foot on a chair below, while above him appeared the grinning face of Jack Knowles!
“Hullo, Misder Hahn! Don’t you got no petter vays to gollect your vines as dis?” cried Norie, with a vile attempt at a German accent. “Gom down dere, Misder Hahn!”
“Oh, forgive me, Mr. Norie, sir!” the captive pleaded, almost at a whisper, his mouth dry with terror. “I have done nothing, nothing at all, really! — and I will pay anything — anything you like! I will!”
“Oh, yes, you said that this morning, you know,” replied Norie. “But in mine guntry you bays six months hard for into oder beeble’s houses glimbing, Mister Hahn, don’t id? Sit down on der floors mit yoursels, Mister Hahn, while I my friends entertain.”
“Come now,” Norie went on to the rest of the company, “here’s more amusement than I expected to be able to give you. We’ll resolve ourselves into a committee to sit on Mr. Hahn, before Mr. Hahn goes to sit in Black Maria. But first the drinks.”
Norie went to the cupboard and brought out the magnum, and then the glasses. Knowles and Sewell, with a joyful hope of what this new complication might bring forth, laughed loud and along, now that the burglar’s plight gave some excuse for their hilarity.
Norie drew the cork in a broken mass, and began pouring the stuff into the glasses.
“Come along, you fellows,” cried Norie, hospitably. “Catch hold, and we’ll drink Mr. Hahn’s very good health, hoping the treadmill will do his liver good.”
Knowles and Sewell discreetly procrastinated, but Norie, Fields, and Kirk, suspecting nothing, took simultaneous gulps, and instantly went in a jostling rush for the fireplace, spitting and splurting the horrible mixture over the hearth. Knowles and Sewell shrieked aloud.
“Heavens! What abomination is this?” roared Norie; and as he said it his eye fell on the cowering Hahn. “Oh!” he cried, the wrong explanation dawning on him suddenly, “this is your game, is it? Eh? Where’s my bottle? What have you done with the bottle you changed this for, eh?”
Hahn protested and pleaded, vowing he had made no exchange, and that the bottle then before them was the one Norie had bought.
“Oh!” exclaimed Norie, with judicial decision. “Then in that case, since you were so anxious to buy it, you shall have some for nothing — in a mug. Jack — give me that quart jug out of the cupboard!”
The mug was brought, and filled to the brim, and since the miserable Hahn would not take it at Norie’s polite invitation, he was seized from behind by the elbows, and the riotous mixture of vinegar, rum, mustard, salad oil, and other fluids was poured into his mouth, over his face and down his neck.
But through it all, Hahn’s mind was never far from the cause of his presence in Norie’s studio. It struck him that Norie must have emptied the magnum, and perhaps found the jewel. So as soon as the mug was emptied, and he was momentarily released, he staggered to Norie’s side and whispered hoarsely, “Share it and I won’t say anything! You know what I could do, but if you’ll go halves I’ll say nothing about it!”
“Go halves?” cried the amazed Norie. “He says he wants to go halves! Why, you can have the lot, and welcome! Jack, give him some more Tokay!”
And he got some more. And straightway, on the motion of Jack Knowles, he was hauled into the street and started on the way to the police-station. The actual distance might have been a mile and a quarter, but the distance for Hahn was made one of galloping leagues, by reason of his captors, taking t
urns in pairs, rushing him up and down the road at top speed before them, as an instalment of prison exercise in advance.
So his torture endured, till at last, in the lighted streets, Knowles and Sewell had charge of him well ahead of the rest, and not far from the police-station. They, knowing the secret of the “Tokay,” were inclined to be merciful.
And so they let him go at the next corner, with a shove and a view halloa, which brought the rest of the party on their heels.
“Gone away!” cried Jack Knowles. “But if you’ll come to my place I’ll give you a glass of Tokay that I prefer even to yours, Norie. Come along!”
And Harvey Crook, on his way to call on Symons at Waterview Terrace, stepped aside a moment as a panting fugitive hurried past him, and then stood to let pass a laughing group of young men, among whose voices he clearly recognised two, which were joined in a promise to the rest that the real Tokay should repair all the disappointments of the evening.
MR. CLIFTON’S MAGNUM
ON the evening when Hahn suffered at the hands of Mr. Norie and his friends, Mr. Symons, the auctioneer’s clerk, looked out eagerly from his garden gate in Waterview Terrace, in expectation of a visit from Mr. Harvey Crook.
He was a business-like young man, this Symons, destined, no doubt, to a future partnership with his present employer. The business was growing, and more than once Symons had stopped at the opposite side of the road to judge the effect which large gilt letters would give to the style and title, “Lawson and Symons,” on the office window; and no doubt it would have been a great improvement to that same window. Meantime the assiduous Symons lost no opportunity of business, and his pleasures were few and cheap. The slaughter of snails in his little front garden and an occasional air on the flute could not be called expensive amusements, even by the very businesslike and frugal wife who abetted his ambitions. And among the opportunities of business which he was resolved not to lose, this opportunity brought him by Harvey Crook was chiefly occupying his attention just now. Something had occurred to his mind during the day, and that something had led to cogitation and inquiry; and the sum of it was that he sent a note to Crook’s hotel, to ask him to call at Waterview Terrace in the evening. And there he stood at the garden gate in the dark, looking out.
Delphi Complete Works of Arthur Morrison Page 211