The Datchet Diamonds Part 12

It happened that, in his more prosperous days, he had rented one of the Chancery Lane Deposit Company's safes. Nor was the term of his tenancy at an end. He determined to do a bold, and, one might add, an impudent thing. He would carry the d.u.c.h.ess' diamonds back with him to town, lock them in the safe he rented, and then, whatever might happen, n.o.body but himself would ever be able to have access to them again. He had the Gladstone bag brought up to his bedroom, removed from it the precious parcel, returned the bag itself to the manager's keeping, and, declining to have his morning meal at the hotel, went up by the Pullman train to town, and breakfasted on board. He flattered himself that whoever succeeded in taking from him the diamonds before his arrival with them in Chancery Lane, would have to be a very clever person.

Still, he did not manage to reach his journey's end without having had one or two little adventures by the way.

He drove up from the hotel to the station in a hansom cab. As he stepped into the cab he noticed, standing on the kerbstone a little to the left of the hotel entrance, a man who wore his billyc.o.c.k a good deal on the side of his head, and who had a cigar sticking out of the corner of his mouth.

He should not have particularly observed the fellow had not the man, as soon as he found Mr. Paxton's eyes turned in his direction, performed a right-about-face on his heels, and presented an almost ostentatious view of the middle of the back. When Mr. Paxton's cab rattled into the Central yard, and Mr. Paxton proceeded to step out from it on to the pavement, another hansom came das.h.i.+ng up behind his own, and from it there alighted the man who had turned his back on him in front of the hotel. As Mr. Paxton took his ticket this man was at his side. And, having purchased his morning paper, as he strolled up the platform towards the train, he noticed that the fellow was only a few steps in his rear.

There seemed to be no reasonable room for doubt that the man was acting as his shadow. No one likes to feel that he is under espionage.

And Mr. Paxton in particular felt that just recently he had endured enough of that kind of thing to last--if his own tastes were to be consulted--for the remainder of his life. He decided to put a stop there and then to, at any rate, this man's persecution. Suddenly standing still, wheeling sharply round, Mr. Paxton found himself face to face with the individual with his hat on the side of his head.

"Are you following me?"

Mr. Paxton's manner as he asked the question, though polite, meant mischief. The other seemed to be a little taken aback. Then, with an impudent air, taking what was left of his cigar out of his mouth, he blew a volume of smoke full into Mr. Paxton's eyes.

"Were you speaking to me?"

Mr. Paxton's fingers itched to knock the smoker down. But situated as he was, a row in public just then would have been sheer madness. He adopted what was probably an even more effective plan. He signalled to a pa.s.sing official.

"Guard!" The man approached. "This person has been following me from my hotel. Be so good as to call a constable. His proceedings require explanation."

The man began to bl.u.s.ter.

"What do you mean by saying I've been following you? Who are you, I should like to know? Can't any one move about except yourself?

Following you, indeed! It's more likely that you've been following me!"

A constable came up. Mr. Paxton addressed him in his cool, incisive tones.

"Officer, this person has followed me from my hotel to the station; from the station to the booking-office; from the booking-office to the bookstall; and now he is following me from the bookstall to the train.

I have some valuable property on me, with which fact he is possibly acquainted. Since he is a complete stranger to me, I should be obliged if you would ask him what is the cause of the unusual interest which he appears to take in my movements."

The man with the cigar became apologetic.

"The gentleman's quite mistaken; I'm not following him; I wouldn't do such a thing! I'm going to town by this train, and it seems that this gentleman's going too, and perhaps that's what's made him think that I was following. If there's any offence, I'm sure that I beg pardon."

The man held out his hand--it was unclean and it was big--as if expecting Mr. Paxton to grasp it. Mr. Paxton, however, moved away addressing a final observation to the constable as he went.

"Officer, be so good as to keep an eye upon that man."

Mr. Paxton entered the breakfast carriage. What became of the too attentive stranger he neither stopped to see nor cared to inquire. He saw no more of him; that was all he wanted. As the train rushed towards town he ate his breakfast and he read his paper.

The chief topic of interest in the journals of the day was the robbery on the previous afternoon of the d.u.c.h.ess of Datchet's diamonds. It filled them to the almost complete exclusion of other news of topical importance. There were ill.u.s.trations of some of the princ.i.p.al jewels which had been stolen, together with anecdotes touching on their history--very curious some of them were! The Dukes of Datchet seemed to have gathered those beautiful gems, if not in ways which were dark, then occasionally, at any rate, in ways which were, to say the least of it, peculiar. Those glittering pebbles seemed to have been mixed up with a good deal of trickery and fraud and crime.

The papers gave the most minute description of the more important stones. Even the merest novice in the knowledge of brilliants, if he had mastered those details, could scarcely fail to recognise them if ever they came his way. It appeared that few even royal collections possessed so large a number of really fine examples. Their valuation at a quarter of a million was the purest guesswork. The present duke would not have accepted for them twice that sum.

Half a million! Five hundred thousand pounds! At even 3 per cent.--and who does not want more for his money than a miserable 3 per cent.?-- that was fifteen thousand pounds a year. Three hundred pounds a week.

More than forty pounds a day. Over three pounds for every working hour. And Mr. Paxton had it in his pockets!

It was not strange that Mr. Lawrence and his a.s.sociates should betray such lively anxiety to regain possession of such a sum as that; it would have been strange if they had not! It was a sum worth having; worth fighting for; worth risking something for as well.

And yet there was something; indeed, there was a good deal, which could be said for the other side of the question. Mr. Paxton owned to himself that there was. He could not honestly--if it were still possible to speak of honesty in connection with a gentleman who had launched himself on such a venture--lay his hand upon his heart, and say that he was happier since he had discovered what were the contents of somebody else's Gladstone bag. On the contrary, if he could have blotted out of his life the few hours which had intervened since the afternoon of the previous day, he would have done so, even yet, with a willing hand.

Nor was this feeling lessened by an incident which took place on his arrival at London Bridge. If he were of an adventurous turn of mind, evidently he could not have adopted a more certain means of gratifying his peculiar taste than by retaining possession of the d.u.c.h.ess's diamonds. Adventures were being heaped on him galore.

As he was walking down the platform, looking for a likely cab, some one came rus.h.i.+ng up against him from behind with such violence as to send him flying forward on his face. Two roughly dressed men a.s.sisted him to rise. But, while undergoing their kindly ministrations, it occurred to him, in spite of his half-dazed condition, that they were evincing a livelier interest in the contents of his pockets than in his regaining his perpendicular. He managed to shake them off, however, before their interest had been carried to too generous a length.

The inevitable crowd had gathered. A man, attired as a countryman, was volubly explaining--with a volubility which was hardly suggestive of a yokel--that he was late for market, and was hurrying along without looking where he was going, when he stumbled against the gentleman, and was so unfortunate as to knock him over. He was profuse, and indeed almost lachrymose, in his apologies for the accident which his clumsiness had occasioned. Mr. Paxton said nothing. He did not see what there was to say. He dusted himself down, adjusted his hat, got into a cab and drove away.

Drove straight away to Chancery Lane. And, when he had deposited the d.u.c.h.ess of Datchet's diamonds in his safe, and had left them behind him in that impregnable fortress, where, if the statements of the directors could be believed, fire could not penetrate, nor water, nor rust, nor thieves break through and steal, he felt as if a load had been lifted off his mind.

CHAPTER VIII

IN THE MOMENT OF HIS SUCCESS

Diamonds worth a quarter of a million! And yet already they were beginning to hang like a millstone round Mr. Paxton's neck. The relief which he felt at having got rid of them from his actual person proved to be but temporary. All day they haunted him. Having done the one thing which he had come to town to do, he found himself unoccupied. He avoided the neighbourhood of the Stock Exchange, and of his usual haunts, for reasons. Eries were still declining. The difference against him had a.s.sumed a portentous magnitude. Possibly, confiding brokers were seeking for him high and low, anxious for security which would protect them against the necessity of having to make good his losses. No, just then the City was not for him. Discretion, of a sort, suggested his confining himself to the West-end of town.

Unfortunately, in this case, the West-end meant loitering about bars and similar stimulating places. He drank not only to kill time but also to drown his thoughts, and the more he tried to drown them, the more they floated on the surface.

What a fool he had been--what an egregious fool! How he had exchanged his talents for nothing, and for less than nothing. How he had thrown away his prospects, his opportunities, his whole life, his all! And now, by way of a climax, he had been guilty of a greater folly than any which had gone before. He had sold more than his birthright for less--much less--than a mess of pottage. He had lost his soul for the privilege of being able to hang a millstone round his neck--cast honour to the winds for the sake of enc.u.mbering himself with a burden which would crush him lower and lower, until it laid him level with the dust.

Wherever he went, the story of the robbery met his eyes. The latest news of it was announced on the placards of the evening papers.

Newsboys bawled it in his ears. He had only to listen to what was being said by the other frequenters of the bars against which he lounged to learn that it was the topic of conversation on every tongue. All England, all Europe, indeed, one might say that the whole of the civilised world was on tiptoe to catch the man who had done this thing. As John Ireland had said, he might as soon think of being able to sell the diamonds as of being able to sell the Koh-i-Nor.

Every one who knew anything at all of precious stones was on the look-out for them, from pole to pole. During his lifetime he would not even venture to attempt their disposal, any attempt of the kind would inevitably involve his being instantaneously branded as a felon.

Last night, when he left London, he had had something over two hundred pounds in his pockets. Except debts, and certain worthless securities, for which no one would give him a s.h.i.+lling, it was all he had left in the world. It was not a large sum, but it was sufficient to take him to the other side of the globe, and to keep him there until he had had time to turn himself round, and to find some means of earning for himself his daily bread. He had proposed to go on to Southampton this morning, thence straight across the seas. Now what was it he proposed to do? Every day that he remained in England meant making further inroads into his slender capital. At the rate at which he was living, it would rapidly dwindle all away. Then how did he intend to replenish it? By selling the d.u.c.h.ess's diamonds? Nonsense! He told himself, with bitter frankness, that such an idea was absolute nonsense; that such a prospect was as shadowy as, and much more dangerous than, the proverbial mirage of the desert.

He returned by an afternoon train to Brighton, in about as black a mood as he could be. He sat in a corner of a crowded compartment--for some reason he rather s.h.i.+rked travelling alone--communing with the demons of despair who seemed to be the tenants of his brain; fighting with his own particular wild beasts. Arrived at Brighton without adventure, he drove straight to Makell's Hotel.

As he advanced into the hall, the manager came towards him out of the office.

"Good evening, Mr. Paxton. Did you authorise any one to come and fetch away your bag?"

"No. Why?"

"Some fellow came and said that you had sent him for your Gladstone bag."

"I did nothing of the kind. Did you give it him?"

The manager smiled.

"Hardly. You had confided it to my safe keeping, and I was scarcely likely to hand it to a stranger who was unable to present a more sufficient authority than he appeared to have. We make it a rule that articles entrusted to our charge are returned to the owners only, on personal application."

"What sort of a man was he to look at?"

"Oh, a shabby-looking chap, very much down at heel indeed, middle-aged; the sort of man whom you would expect would run messages."