“Ah, yes! By driving out the pins.”
“That’s it, Well, she was in despair. The jewellers would present the cheque if she didn’t return the star; as she hadn’t got more than a hundred or two at the bank, it would be dishonoured; and then her husband would learn the whole affair in the most disagreeable manner possible. Yesterday, she drove over to my place, and told me all, so I offered to lend her the money, and I came to town this morning and got her cheque back together with the paste. But we want to recover the real stones, and as she dreads having anything to do with the police—as you may suppose—I have come to ask your advice.”
“Were there any traces of a burglary?”
“So far as I understand her, none. But it is possible that an expert might have found them.”
“It seems to me,” observed Pringle, “that the theft of an article so easily traceable, and so difficult to dispose of, could only be the work of a very stupid amateur, or of a very clever thief. Since the affair was managed so neatly, we are forced back on the latter alternative. Now an experienced jewel-thief would soon dispose of the stones, so it’s doubtful if you’ll ever see them again in the same form.”
“Would you like to see the facsimile?”
“Of all things! Have you got it here?”
For reply Windrush drew a black leather case from his pocket, and opening it, displayed on a bed of blue velvet, what appeared to be a diamond star of such dazzling lustre as to deceive any eye but that of an expert.
“Very nice indeed,” commented Pringle. “Evidently the work of a first-class artist. Would you have any objection to leaving it with me?”
“How long will you want to keep it?”
“It’s rather how long can your cousin spare it?”
“Well, her husband is going for two or three weeks’ yachting, so she can safely spare it for that time.”
“That will do nicely,” said Pringle, adding as the other rose to go, “Are you returning to Norfolk today?”
“No. I was afraid I mightn’t catch you in, so I took a bed at the Great Eastern. Besides, it’s gone six now, so I should have had to stop over-night in any case.”
“If you are willing I should like to accompany you so far. By the bye, I was going to speak to you on rather a painful subject. Your brother Percy—have you heard anything of him lately?”
“As you say, it is a painful subject! In return for nothing but kindness from me, to not only make me appear insane, but to nearly drive me so in reality! You know, Mr. Pringle, no one better, what I suffered. I don’t think I’m a vindictive man, but I feel that I cannot, at all events at present, hold any communication with him. My cousin saw him recently. Indeed, I understand he was staying with them last week, for although people know we are not on speaking terms, I think I have managed to keep the real reason a secret.”
“No, there is nothing to be gained by washing your dirty linen in public.”
“Do you think,” Windrush said, as they stood an hour later in the vestibule of the hotel, “do you think it would help you to run down and take a look at the place? I am sure my cousin would be pleased to see you, and I need hardly say how delighted I shall be to put you up.”
“Not just at present, thank you,” declined Pringle; “I should like to do so eventually, and whilst I think of it I’ll just go and get a time-table. Good-bye for the present. You mustn’t be disappointed if you don’t hear anything of me for a week or so.”
Descending the sloping approach, Pringle entered the station. It was nearing half-past seven, and there was much bustle antecedent to the starting of the eight o’clock boat express, Having purchased his time-table, Pringle was about to return, when a hubbub arose by the booking-office, and he lingered a moment to listen.
“I tell yer, the cab stopped at my pitch! The eight-continental, ain’t it, sir?”
“The gent ’anded the bag to me, didn’t yer, sir? An’ yer sez second class fur ’Arridge.”
Two porters, very much in the attitude of the mothers in the judgment of Solomon as usually depicted, had seized the opposite ends of a Gladstone bag, whilst the owner, a burly, somewhat bloated individual, stood grasping a hold-all, in detached amusement at the scene. The contest merged into an East-End picturesqueness of abuse, when one of the men, espying an elderly lady possessed of a large quantity of luggage as yet unappropriated, abruptly raised the siege, and dropping the bag, went in pursuit of this more desirable client.
The appearance of the traveller was commonplace enough, but, as he moved off under the wing of the victorious porter, Pringle felt certain he had seen him before, and not so very long ago either. Staring absently after the man, he turned over in his mind all the likely and most of the unlikely places where they could have met, till a spasm of reminiscence showed him a luxuriously-furnished set of chambers. It was 256 Piccadilly of course, and equally of course the traveller was Percy Windrush! Harwich by the eight o’clock boat express! Pringle found himself wondering where on earth Percy could be going to. His objective could only be Rotterdam, but that was not a pleasure resort, while the slenderness of his luggage was incompatible with a more extended continental tour. He felt a sense of irritation against Percy for worrying him with such a problem. He turned impatiently to go, but suddenly stopped as a chance remark of John Windrush blazed vividly in his recollection—“My cousin saw him recently…he was staying with them last week.”
Pringle sat down to reflect. This was the situation, it seemed. Percy’s failure to keep his brother in an asylum, and their consequent rupture had deprived him of an easy means of livelihood. He was, no doubt, hard put to it for money, and unlikely to stop at anything to obtain it. He would know the way about his cousin’s house, he could choose his opportunity, while his relationship would shield him from any suspicion. What more likely than that he had taken the diamonds, and if so, was now on his way to dispose of them? Pringle looked up the time-table. The boat was due at Rotterdam the next morning. At the very outside, to follow Percy to the Continent and back would not take more than three days, and he decided that the clue was worth following up. A bell clanged furiously. There was no time to lose, and the question of luggage had to be considered! Just by the booking-office stood one of those convenient toilet-establishments where hair-cutting and shaving are combined with the provision of travellers’ requisites. Entering, he made a hurried investment, and emerged the richer by a bag packed with toilet and sleeping necessaries. Then, booking a through-passage to Rotterdam, he took his seat in the train a few seconds before it started. On arriving at Parkestone Quay he just obtained a glimpse of Percy Windrush hurrying, the first of all, on board the packet, where he promptly disappeared below, and as the night had set in dark and stormy, Pringle followed his example and was soon fast asleep.
The North Sea was in anything but a propitious mood when he awoke. The ‘Hook of Holland’ route was not then in existence, and the crossing which, as a general rule, averaged twelve hours, now bid fair to lengthen into sixteen. It was a prolonged agony to the majority of the passengers, to whom the arrival and passing of the breakfast-hour had proved an event of no interest. Few but Pringle had dared to brave the wet and draughty horrors of the upper-deck, and it was only as the steamer entered the Maas, and Rotterdam with its wilderness of trees and masts appeared in sight, that a limp and draggled procession emerged from the saloon. As the deck filled, Pringle ceased his promenade and drew towards the rearmost rank. Nosing her way through the maze of shipping, the steamer slowly passed to her berth beside the Hull and Dunkirk packets, and was neatly moored alongside the tree-planted Boompjes where the shadows were already beginning to lengthen. The formalities of the Customs had been completed in the stream, and the crowd rapidly thinned and dispersed as the passengers streamed up the gangways on to grateful terra firma.
Percy was almost the last to appear, having remained below throughout; Pringle remembered that he
was said to be a seasoned sailor, so he could hardly have stopped there on account of the prevalent malady. Recalling the historical precedent of Nelson only to dismiss it as inapplicable, he felt sure that Percy’s reason for enduring such undoubted personal inconvenience could only have arisen from a desire to escape observation, and was more than ever determined not to lose sight of him. Pringle had little fear of being recognized himself. Although he had had no opportunity of removing his official port-wine mark as the putative literary agent, Percy would scarcely recognize, even if he remembered, the whiskered asylum-attendant in the slim, clean-shaven figure in the lounge-suit who followed him.
Resisting the siren importunities of the hotel touts, Pringle briskly strode across the elm-planted quay. He found Percy had already crossed the Scheepmaker’s Haven by one of the innumerable swing-bridges of the city, and was upon another which spanned the Wijn Haven. Pringle followed, and Percy took the direction of the central railway-station. Beyond the Bourse he turned to the left towards the fish-market, and crossing the Zoete Bridge, passed by the Boijmann Gallery, and struck up Zand Straat. Block succeeded block along the street, and Pringle began to wonder when the promenade would end, when suddenly Percy dived down a turning on the right labelled Spoorweg Straat, which led towards the Delfsche Canal, and ascended the steps of a modest-looking house displaying the legend “Hotel Rotterdamsche.”
As Pringle withdrew for a space into Zand Straat, he noted that his pursuit had landed him in anything but a select quarter of the town. The region of the best hotels and public buildings had been long left behind, and although there were plenty of large houses visible, their aspect was distinctly second-rate. Having waited sufficiently long to avoid any appearance of espionage, Pringle turned back into Spoorweg Straat, and entering the hotel, inquired for accommodation in his native tongue the real lingua franca of the civilized world. For reply the clerk, whose knowledge of English appeared limited, handed him a dirty-looking visitors’-book. Pringle took up a pen, and glancing at the name last written, read in characters whose faintness indicated recent blotting, “Philip Winter.” Percy had retained his own initials, although for some occult reason he had changed his name. Pringle was studying the signature, when the clerk laid a grimy, impatient finger on the first vacant line, and thus recalled to his surroundings, Pringle boldly signed “John M’Hugh,” as a name well in keeping with the commercial atmosphere in which he found himself.
“Will you de straat or de vest overlook?” inquired the clerk; adding as a possible inducement, “Best for gentlemen de vest.”
Realizing that he was asked to choose between an outlook to the street or the canal, Pringle selected the gentlemanly alternative, and hastened to reply, “The water—vest, vest!”
Following a porter with his bag, he was ushered up to a room on the first floor, at the end of a long and rather dark passage. The window opened on a broad balcony which ran the width of the house, and afforded a picturesque glimpse of the canal. Rather was it a basin, terminating one of the capillary offshoots of the main stream. It was bordered as usual with fine trees, whose branches seemed to form part and parcel of the spars of the craft which thronged the water, except towards the middle, where a fair-way, covered with the ubiquitous green scum, resembled a flat meadow. Pringle stepped to the window, which stood ajar, and leaned over the rail of the balcony. Gazing abstractedly at the shipping, the polished wood-work glistening in the sun which flashed again from innumerable points of bright metal, the calm unbroken by any sight or sound of task, he allowed the restful influence of the scene to steal lazily over him. But the sudden closing of a door near by, and a few words spoken in English broke the spell, and once again focused his thoughts on Percy Windrush.
“So here you are at last! I thought you’d have been here before me.” The voice sounded through the next window, which must have been open, although its wooden sun-blind stood half across the balcony and effectually concealed it.
“Ma tear Mishdare Winder! It is a long, long way to come. I am poor man, and de hotel egspenche is great.”
“Yes, I know all about that. I know you’re the richest poor man in Amsterdam. Have you taken a room here?”
“Noomber eighteen—joost obbosite.”
“Well, never mind the number so long as you are here. Have you brought any money with you?”
“A liddle.”
“That’s all right then. Is it cash as I told you?”
“Yes, goot bank English notes.”
“You old villain! Every one of them ‘known and stopped’, I suppose, that you’ve bought at eighty percent discount, and expect me to take at face-value.” And the speaker gave an audible snort of disgust.
“We are all Hebrew and gendlemen in de stone trade,” was the dignified response.
“So I’ve heard,” Windrush observed acidly. “Well, suppose we come to business. I didn’t invite you here to exchange compliments.”
There was a pause in the conversation, and Pringle stepped gingerly towards the sun-blind. He did not advance too closely, but contented himself with an occasional glance between the hinges, which afforded him a very fair view of the room. Windrush was partially undressing, so as to remove a wash-leather packet which hung next his skin by a cord round the neck. Ripping it open with a pocketknife, he removed several layers of tissue-paper, and finally a mass of cotton wool surrounding a diamond-star. As he held it up towards his companion, Pringle involuntarily grasped his own pocket to satisfy himself of the safety of the facsimile, so accurately did the two match in every particular. As for the Jew, from his gloating gaze, and the fondling gesture with which he handled it, the sight was one to rouse his utmost cupidity.
At length, as the other made no movement, but continued to stare, Percy broke the silence.
“Now then, Israels, what do you say?”
“Dey are very fair stones.”
“Fair! ‘Fair’, do you call them? You don’t see such stones as they are every day, nor yet every year!”
“Dey are goot. I do not call dem de best.”
“Look here, my Amsterdammer! It’s not what you call them, but what I know they are. D’ye see?”
“What do you know they are?”
“I know they’re worth every penny of three thousand pounds!”
Israels dropped the star on the table as if it had burnt him.
“Dree dousand!” he echoed, with an expression of amazement as his huckstering instincts asserted themselves.
“That’s what I said.”
“Dree ’underd you mean for surely!”
“I said three thousand and I meant it, and well you know it!”
“You are joking, Misdare Winder, to ask dat.”
“You old fool! I didn’t say I asked three thousand for them, did I?” growled Percy.
“Den what do you ask?” inquired Israels feebly.
“Fifteen hundred,” said Percy with decision.
“To rob me you ’ave called me ’ere!” shrilly cried the Jew.
“Not much!” retorted Percy contemptuously, “Do you think if I wanted to do that I should have chosen this place?”
The Jew made no reply, but glanced uneasily through the window at the canal beyond.
“Look here, now,” continued Percy. “I don’t want any more humbug. You take ’em, or, by crumbs! I’ll get some one who will.”
“It cannot be done,” said the Jew simply.
“Fifteen hundred’s the figure,” repeated Percy, as he leaned forward and clutched the star.
“I ’ave not so much,” protested the Jew.
“All right, I’ll find some one else who has,” said Percy deliberately, and he commenced to wrap the jewel up again.
“Say one dousand,” pleaded Israels.
Percy rose and pointed to the door.
“See,” continued the Jew coaxingly, “I give yo
u twelve ’underd.”
“Fifteen,” replied Percy firmly.
“Say twelve!” and Israels produced a wallet and flourished a handful of crisp paper in Percy’s face.
“No! I tell you for the last time Fifteen! And little enough too!” Percy clenched his ultimatum with a resounding slap on the table.
Loudly protesting that he was a ruined man, Israels reluctantly counted out the notes in front of the inexorable Percy, who affected to be engaged in examining the diamonds, which he held in full view of the other. When the notes lay, a rustling heap, upon the table, Percy pushed the star across to the Jew, who pounced upon it, and after another admiring glance, bundled it into a handbag which he jealously locked.
Percy, with a condescending air, counted the notes over again, whistling carelessly the while, then turning to Israels—
“Well, old stick-in-the-mud!” he said graciously, “I’ll stand you a dinner. Yes, by Jingo! At the Weimar! There’s nothing eatable to be got here. And then we’ll go to the Diergaarden—it’s slow, but it’s the only thing to do in this cursed place.”
The Victorian Villains Megapack Page 24