The Third Mystery

by James Holding

  Ralph insisted. “I had him in view practically every minute. He favored the inside of the sand bar that lies across the river’s mouth, and since the river was low, he’d stand on the pebble beaches of the small islands that stud the river’s mouth and cast from there. By the hour. The water was quite shallow.”

  Suddenly Leroy, in the front seat, reached back a hand demandingly. “Lend me your map, King.” He took the map, opened it, frowned down at it for a moment, then folded it with a flourish. “I begin to see daylight, children,” he said softly. “But Ralph gave me the lead.”

  “Me?” asked Ralph, surprised.

  “Your mention of pebble beaches has awakened the sleeping giant that is my brain. Harken.” He paused, as though to let them hear his brain whirring. “Girls, what is Africa famous for besides gold?”

  “Elephants,” Carol replied promptly.

  “Not elephants. Something more precious.”

  “Lions,” Helen said. “I think they’re precious.”

  “By Jove!” Danforth exclaimed. He leaned forward to pat Leroy approvingly on the back. “I believe you’re right! Diamonds, of course.”

  “It has to be diamonds,” Leroy said.

  “A girl’s best friend,” said Helen with enthusiasm. “Let us start immediately for the mouth of the Orange River. If there are diamonds there, I want to go fishing with Duke Carrington!”

  “King Solomon’s Mines!” Carol offered. “Is that where they were?”

  Leroy shook his head. “The other direction, Carol. Sheba’s Breasts, the mountain peaks that Rider Haggard described as marking the spot, are supposed to be in Swaziland, I believe.”

  “Talk about parading erudition,” Helen said, “you do collect some of the oddest information, darling!”

  “Anyway, Rider Haggard only dreamed up King Solomon’s Mines to prove he could write a more exciting story than Stevenson’s Treasure Island,” Danforth commented. “Please, ladies, look at the scenery for a bit while your husbands handle this matter of the diamonds in an orderly fashion. Martin?”

  “Where,” Leroy asked didactically, “are the most famous diamond fields of Africa?”

  “Kimberley.”

  “Right.” Leroy sighed happily and handed the map to Danforth. “Look where the Vaal River flows.”

  Danforth looked. “Why, of course! Close to Kimberley.”

  “Within a few miles. And it’s not too much to believe, is it, that the Vaal might wash some diamonds out of the earth it flows through, and carry them with it as it joins the Orange River?”

  “And the Orange carries them right along to the ocean!”

  “Head of the class. There must be deposits of diamonds at the mouth of the Orange River. Not gold. Diamonds.”

  Ralph Muir spoke up. “Alluvial deposits? Nothing new about them. For three hundred miles along the coast of South West Africa, they’ve been working open-pit alluvial diamond mines for years.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Leroy said. “But actually it helps our theory. There are diamonds washed to the coast by rivers. And Carrington, being a knowing fellow—perhaps a mining engineer?—figured he might pick up some loose diamonds on the island beaches where the Orange meets the sea.”

  “Mixed with the pebbles, eh?” Ralph chuckled. “I suppose it’s remotely possible.” He looked at the writers curiously. “That never occurred to me,” he said, “and I live here.”

  Leroy was modest. “You have to have a feeling for these things.”

  Danforth said, “It takes a special kind of mind,” and grinned at his partner. “Let’s see how the diamond theory stands up under searching scrutiny. Ralph, did you notice that Carrington stooped frequently while fishing the mouth of the Orange?”

  “When he wanted to change lures or take a fish off the hook, he’d squat on the beach. Naturally.”

  “And picked up diamonds,” Helen said. “Some fish!” She wrinkled her nose. “But wait. Can you tell a rough diamond when you see one?”

  Ralph answered that. “Yes, you can. They’re usually rather rounded and greasy in appearance, greasier than a pebble. With maybe one flat side.” He began to smile broadly and Leroy noticed it.

  “What’s funny?”

  “Nothing, really. I was just remembering that the Star of South Africa, a fabulous diamond, was found on the bank of the Orange River.”

  “Why didn’t you mention that sooner?” Leroy grinned.

  “Never thought of it. Back in the seventies, just after it was found, there were ten thousand prospectors along the banks of the Orange and the Vaal, I’ve heard. But that’s all over now.”

  “Not for Carrington,” Danforth said. “He picked up a fortune in diamonds. And he disguised his trek to the river mouth as a fishing trip to keep you from knowing what he was really up to. When he got back to Johannesburg, he probably disposed of a diamond or two on the black market to celebrate his good luck, then circulated the inheritance story to account for his sudden wealth.”

  “But why all the secrecy?” Helen protested. “Why not tell the world about his diamond windfall?”

  “Probably wanted to come back for more diamonds if he ever went broke,” Danforth speculated. “Didn’t want anybody to know where he found them.”

  “Another possible reason,” Ralph suggested, “is that Carrington could have been taking his diamonds direct to London, where he’d get better prices from the cutters for his parcel of stones.” He grinned. “Just a thought.”

  “And thank you for it, Ralph,” Leroy said. He leaned back in his seat and relaxed, filled with a pleasant sense of accomplishment. “Q.E.D.”

  “Not quite,” Danforth disagreed. “One thing still needs explaining. After Carrington accumulated his store of diamonds at the river’s mouth, where did he conceal them for the trip back to Johannesburg with you, Ralph? Must have been quite a bundle to hide.”

  “Not in the car,” Ralph said positively. “We unloaded the boot every evening—even took out the car seats to sit on. I handled all the equipment every day—rod cases, tackle box, food supplies, everything. Nothing concealed.”

  “How about a money belt?”

  Ralph shook his head. “No money belt. And not in his pockets. He only wore shorts and a shirt.”

  “Well, confound it, think!” Danforth said with pretended impatience. “They must have been somewhere.”

  Ralph steered expertly around a sharp bend. “If you’ll forgive me, Mr. Danforth,” he said with an apologetic expression, “I don’t think there were any diamonds. Mr. Carrington took a fishing trip, and he found he’d inherited a fortune when we returned to Joburg. That’s all.”

  Danforth laughed. “Didn’t you notice anything out of the ordinary on your return trip to Johannesburg?”

  “Not a single thing. Unless you’d call a fresh hole in Mr. Carrington’s mosquito net out of the ordinary?”

  Danforth sat erect. “Very suspicious. How’d that happen?”

  “He burned it with a cigarette.”

  “Did you see him do it?”

  “No. He told me afterward.”

  “How big a hole?”

  “Six inches across, I suppose.”

  “Was it charred at the edges as though from burning?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “So,” said Leroy who had been thinking as he listened. “The whole thing explains itself. Did you run out of gas anywhere on the way home, Ralph?”

  “Yes. Once.”

  “And did Carrington pour your spare gasoline into the tank from your emergency can?”

  “Yes, he did. I was getting some water out of a stream nearby to fill the radiator.”

  “That does it,” Leroy said. “It’s quite simple, really. Carrington hid his diamonds in your spare can of gasoline, Ralph. And when, unexpectedly, you had to use the spare gasoline, he cut a piece out of his mosquito netting to serve as a strainer over the spout of the can—so the diamonds he’d hidden in it wouldn’t tumble into your gas tank alo
ng with the spare gas. How’s that for an idea?”

  Ralph looked at him with admiration. “My word, Mr. Leroy,” he said, “you do have an imagination, don’t you?”

  * * * *

  They stopped at the Hottentot Kop Hotel for dinner and the night. Perched on a high bluff, the hotel overlooked a magnificent panorama of green hills, fertile valleys, and distant mountains capped with the violet mist of approaching evening.

  They ordered a lavish dinner, deliberately chosen by Carol and Helen in defiance of its caloric content; they drank a bottle of velvety South African wine with the meal and were very gay, the men proposing several toasts to their brilliant solution of what they decided to call The African Fish Mystery. And they were smoking a postprandial cigarette on the verandah, watching the darkening view, when Ralph Muir came running up the verandah steps and joined them.

  His usually calm demeanor was illumined by an almost incandescent excitement. At their invitation he sat down between Helen and Carol and said in a voice he strove to make calm, “I’ve been working on the car. Wanted to correct that engine sputter before starting out tomorrow.”

  Helen said, “Did you find the trouble?”

  “I found it, Mrs. Leroy.” His words were tense. “It wasn’t in the plugs, or carburetor or feed lines. It was in the petrol tank itself. Look!”

  He held out a clenched hand, liberally blackened with grease, and opened it before their eyes.

  “Pebbles,” said Carol. “How peculiar.” Suddenly her eyes widened.

  “Not pebbles,” Ralph announced. “Diamonds!” He gulped. “They were in my petrol tank! When one of them would shift on a rough bit of road over to the tank outlet, it blocked the flow of petrol for a moment and we’d get that engine sputter!”

  They stared, fascinated, at the five rough diamonds in his hand. None was more than an inch in diameter.

  King Danforth clicked his tongue deprecatingly. “We missed that,” he told his partner gently. “It seems that Duke Carrington actually poured a few diamonds into Ralph’s tank before he thought to use the mosquito net strainer!”

  Leroy reached out and patted Ralph on top of the head. “You’re rich, Ralph,” he said. “Congratulations.”

  Ralph began to stutter something. But Danforth and Leroy weren’t listening.

  They were smiling at each other over their wives’ heads with the pride and mutual respect of two small boys who have climbed unscathed to the topmost limb of the tallest tree in the orchard.

  THE EBONY STICK, by Earl Derr Biggers

  Originally published in Collier’s Weekly, Sept. 9, 1916.

  AT nine o’clock on a bright June morning Clay Garrett, colored, intermittent sweeper and duster of the leading bank in a large Texas city, opened the heavy doors that led from the street into that most marble of bank interiors. Two minutes later—this being also part of the regular schedule—Major Tellfair, white-haired but erect, crossed the threshold, nodded to Clay and to the boys behind the bars, and passed into the office where he ruled as president. There he opened his desk, lighted a cigar, and began the perusal of his morning paper.

  He had got no farther than the headlines of the first page when the door of his office opened and young Dick Merrill of the Silver Star Ranch came in. Merrill was covered with the dust he had collected on his ride in from the ranch that morning. Lighting his face was the Merrill smile, human and kindly, and it brought the major to his feet in hearty welcome.

  “Sit down, Dick,” he said. “Beautiful morning, ain’t it? How are things out at the Silver Star?”

  “The Silver Star’s all right,” Merrill answered. “But, say, I got a cablegram from Bob this morning.” He explored a pocket. “Here it is. I wish you’d read it. Bob’s in Italy—at a place called Rome—over there among them I-talians.”

  His tone was as disapproving as the pleasant Merrill tone could be. He deposited his husky length in a mahogany chair and waited for the major to adjust his glasses. The bank president noted the truth of Merrill’s scornful statement as to Rome, and then read the message slowly:

  Cable thousand dollars immediately. Care National Express. Keep matter under hat, Bob.

  “What do you make of it, major?” Merrill asked.

  The major smiled.

  “It looks to me like somebody had annexed your brother’s roll,” he replied.

  “That’s how I figure it,” Merrill said, also with a smile. “He’s been in Italy less than a week too—they work fast, them boys. Bob had two thousand dollars small change, along with all his tickets, which he bought from this man Cook in New York. I hope they didn’t clean him out of those too. Well, it serves him right for wandering off the range. He ain’t got no business over on the other side.”

  The major cleared his throat.

  “I don’t wish to seem inquisitive,” he said. “But I was utterly at a loss to understand your brother’s sudden dash for Europe, particularly at a time when the nations over there are engaged in the most bloody and terrible warfare—”

  “A woman,” interrupted Dick Merrill. “It was a woman that done it. Maybe you remember her—Celia Ware—she used to sing at church concerts hereabouts a few years back.”

  “Ah, yes, I have heard her sing,” said Major Tellfair reminiscently.

  “You’ll hear her again,” said Merrill, “l reckon you don’t pay much attention to such things, but old Bob sure was far gone on her. And she seemed to think a heap of him too.”

  “Naturally,” nodded the major.

  “But when it came to a showdown she picked her art. Wedded to music she was. Went over to Italy to get better acquainted with it. Bob got a letter from her ’bout a month back: wants to divorce her art now. Maybe it’s grounds of non-support, maybe the war’s upset her, maybe she just naturally loves old Bob—I don’t know. Anyhow, she told him to come for her, and they’re to be married over there: in Florence. Ain’t that a devil of a sissy name for a town?”

  “It’s an Italian name, I believe,” responded the major. “Miss Ware struck me as a singularly attractive young woman. I’m sure I congratulate your brother most heartily.”

  “Oh, Celia’s all right,” said Merrill. “How she’ll pan out on a ranch I don’t know, but she’s a mighty fine girl, even if she did drag poor old Bob all them thousands of miles to Italy.”

  “We must send him his thousand,” mused the major. “No man wants to be broke on his wedding day.”

  “Sure: dig into his account and send it along,” agreed Merrill. “He’s boss, and it’s his money. Shoot it to him. Only I wish he hadn’t been so all-fired brief. I wonder what happened. Bob’s too childlike and simple to wander around among them I-talians. Somebody got to him. I wonder—oh, well—send him the money, major: I leave it to you.”

  The major promised to attend to the matter immediately, and Dick Merrill, still wondering, set out for the Silver Star Ranch.

  There was a rumor in that Texas city to the effect that Major Tellfair was growing too old and forgetful for the position he held, and, unkind as this assertion sounds, subsequent events seemed to justify it. The gentle old president turned back for a moment to his newspaper. Shortly after he was interrupted by the cashier, who had an important matter to discuss. The cabled appeal from Bob Merrill slipped out of sight on his cluttered desk, and for two days the Texas ranchman waited forlorn in the city of Rome.

  He might have waited indefinitely had not Clay Garrett, the aged negro custodian of the bank, been a devotee of that art which has made Caruso wealthy. On the third day following the visit of Dick Merrill to the bank, Major Tellfair entered at two minutes past nine in the morning to hear Clay giving a spirited rendering of a favorite song. Fortunately for Bob Merrill, two lines of that song reached the ears of the major:

  “Darling—Ah am growin’ ol’—

  Silver threads among the gol’—”

  Silver! The Silver Star Ranch! Bob Merrill’s cablegram! In an agony of remorse the old major rushed into his office, u
nearthed the message, and sent the thousand dollars speeding toward Italy. Then he returned to sit before his desk in humble and pathetic contrition, while the sneers of his enemies regarding his age and absent-mindedness filled his thoughts. He was a most unhappy man.

  Perhaps he would not have been so unhappy had he known that by those two days of delay he had done Bob Merrill a most unexpected service. For he had caused the ranchman to break his sacred contract with Thomas Cook & Son to leave Rome on an appointed day and thereby enabled him—

  But we are far, far ahead of the story. Offensive to the schools of short- story writing it must be when we confess that the incident already related bisects squarely the tale we have to tell. The most seemly thing to do then is to go back quietly to the beginning—back to that rainy Saturday morning when the little Italian liner slipped away from the fog-engulfed pier in the North River, New York, carrying Bob Merrill ultimately to his ladylove, but first to the adventure of the ebony stick.

  Though Celia Ware’s letter of surrender warmed his pocket, there was a homesick twinge in the heart of the big ranchman as he watched the towers of Manhattan fade back into the mist. Little enough he had in common, it is true, with the great city of cabs and cabarets, but as the scene of his farewell to his own beloved land it suddenly took on, for him, a new and tender interest. The five thousand miles of restless water he was about to cross appalled him in prospect, and Naples, his destination, struck on his ears like the name of some new, unexplored planet. Nevertheless, like the true knight he was, where love led he followed. If you could have seen him there at the rail, broad-shouldered, handsome, with the look of one who would always he a boy at heart, you would not have wondered that in the letter now resting in his pocket, Celia Ware renounced forever her cherished career. In a hundred galleries abroad she had seen the figures of men great artists had thought worthy of their marble, and her waiting lover suffered in comparison with none of these.

  A wall of fog had risen now between Merrill and the country he was leaving, but still he stood at the rail, lonely and staring. A noise at his elbow brought him round, and he saw standing behind him a neatly tailored young man with a face so friendly and smiling that his own smile at once returned.