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diff --git a/64934-0.txt b/64934-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fe8f0b8 --- /dev/null +++ b/64934-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3126 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Castlecourt Diamond Mystery, by Geraldine +Bonner + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will +have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using +this eBook. + +Title: The Castlecourt Diamond Mystery + Being a Compilation of the Statements Made by the Various Participants in This + Curious Case Now, For the First Time, Given to the Public + +Author: Geraldine Bonner + +Illustrator: Harrie F. Stoner + +Release Date: Mar 27, 2021 [eBook #64934] +Most recently updated: June 30, 2022 + +Language: English + +Produced by: D A Alexander, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed + Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was + produced from images generously made available by The + Internet Archive) + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CASTLECOURT DIAMOND MYSTERY *** + + + + + + THE CASTLECOURT + DIAMOND CASE + + +[Illustration: _SHE MADE A SORT OF GRASP AT THE CASE_ [Page 30] + + + + + The Castlecourt + Diamond Case + + BEING A COMPILATION OF THE STATEMENTS + MADE BY THE VARIOUS PARTICIPANTS IN + THIS CURIOUS CASE NOW, FOR THE FIRST + TIME, GIVEN TO THE PUBLIC :: :: :: + + _By_ + + GERALDINE BONNER + + _Author of “Hard Pan,” “The Pioneers,” etc._ + + _FRONTISPIECE ILLUSTRATION_ + + BY + + HARRIE F. STONER + + [Illustration] + + FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY + NEW YORK AND LONDON + 1906 + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1905 + BY + GERALDINE BONNER + + [_Printed in the United States of America_] + Published, December, 1905 + + + + +CONTENTS + + + Statement of Sophy Jeffers, lady’s maid + to the Marchioness of Castlecourt 9 + + Statement of Lilly Bingham, known in + England as Laura Brice, in the + United States as Frances Latimer, + to the police of both countries as + Laura the Lady, besides having recently + figured as a housemaid at + Burridge’s Hotel, London, under + the alias of Sara Dwight 47 + + Statement of Cassius P. Kennedy, formerly + of Necropolis City, Ohio, now + Manager of the London Branch of + the Colonial Box, Tub, and Cordage + Company (Ltd.) of Chicago and St. + Louis 95 + + Statement of John Burns Gilsey, private + detective, especially engaged on the + Castlecourt diamond case 127 + + The Statement of Daisy K. Fairweather + Kennedy, late of Necropolis City, + Ohio, at present a resident of 15 + Farley Street, Knightsbridge, London 157 + + Statement of Gladys, Marchioness of + Castlecourt 189 + + + + +Statement of Sophy Jeffers, lady’s maid to the Marchioness of +Castlecourt. + + + + +Statement of Sophy Jeffers, lady’s maid to the Marchioness of +Castlecourt. + + +I had been in Lady Castlecourt’s service two years when the Castlecourt +diamonds were stolen. I am not going to give an account of how I was +suspected and cleared. That’s not the part of the story I’m here to set +down. It’s about the disappearance of the diamonds that I’m to tell, +and I’m ready to do it to the best of my ability. + +We were in London, at Burridge’s Hotel, for the season. Lord +Castlecourt’s town house at Grosvenor Gate was let to some rich +Americans, and for two years now we had stayed at Burridge’s. It was +the third of April when we came to town--my lord, my lady, Chawlmers +(my lord’s man), and myself. The children had been sent to my lord’s +aunt, Lady Mary Cranbury--she who’s unmarried, and lives at Cranbury +Castle, near Worcester. + +Lord Castlecourt didn’t like going to the hotel at all. Chawlmers used +to tell me how he’d talk sometimes. Chawlmers has been with my lord ten +years, and was born on the estate of Castlecourt Marsh Manor. But my +lord generally did what my lady wanted, and she was not at all partial +to the country. She’d say to me--she was always full of her jokes: + +“Yes, it’s an excellent place, the country--an excellent place to get +away from, Jeffers. And the farther away you get the more excellent it +seems.” + +My lady had been born in Ireland, and lived there till she was a woman +grown. It’s not for me to comment on my betters, but I’ve heard it said +she didn’t have a decent frock to her back till old Lady Bundy took +her up and brought her to London. Her father was a clergyman, the Rev. +McCarren Duffy, of County Clare, and they do say he hadn’t a penny to +his fortune, and that my lady ran wild in cotton frocks and with holes +in her stockings till Lady Bundy saw her. I’ve heard tell that Lady +Bundy said of her she’d be the most beautiful woman in London since +the Gunnings (whoever they were), and just brought her up to town and +fitted her out from top to toe. In a month she was the talk of the +season, and before it was over she was betrothed to the Marquis of +Castlecourt, who was a great match for her. + +But she was the beggar on horseback you hear people talk about. Lord +Castlecourt wasn’t what would be called a millionaire, but he gave her +more in a month than she’d had before in five years, and she’d spend +it all and want more. It seemed as if she didn’t know the value of +money. If she’d see a pretty thing in a shop she’d buy it, and if she +had not got the ready money they’d give her the credit; for, being the +Marchioness of Castlecourt, all the shop people were on their knees to +her, they were that anxious to get her patronage. Then when the bills +would come in she would be quite surprised and wonder how she had come +to spend so much, and hide them from Lord Castlecourt. Afterward she’d +forget all about them, even where she’d put them. + +Lord Castlecourt was so fond of her he’d have forgiven her anything. +They’d been married five years when I entered my lady’s service, and he +was as much in love with her as if he’d been married but a month. And +I don’t blame him. She was the prettiest lady, and the most coaxing, +I ever laid eyes on. She might well be Irish: there was blarney on +her tongue for all the world, and money ready to drop off the ends of +her fingers into any palm that was held out. There was no story of +misfortune but would bring the tears to her eyes and her purse to her +hand: generous and soft hearted she was to every creature that walked. +No one could be angry with her long. I’ve seen Lord Castlecourt begin +to scold her, and end by laughing at her and kissing her. Not but what +she respected him and loved him. She did both, and she was afraid of +him too. No one knew better than my lady when it was time to stop +trifling with my lord and be serious. + +It was Lord Castlecourt’s custom to go to Paris two or three times +every year. He had a sister married there of whom he was very fond, and +he and her husband would go off shooting boars to a place with a name +I can’t remember. My lady was always happy to go to Paris. She’d say +she loved it, and the theaters, and the shops--tho what she could see +in it _I_ never understood. A dirty, messy city, and full of men ready +to ogle an honest, Christian woman, as if she was what half the women +look like that go prancing along the streets. My lady spent a good +deal of her time at the dressmakers, and she and I were forever going +up to top stories in little, silly lifts that go up of themselves. I’d +a great deal rather have walked than trusted myself to such unsafe, +French contrivances--underhand, dangerous things, that might burst at +any moment, _I_ say. + +The year before the time I am writing of we went to Paris, as usual, in +March. We stopped at the Bristol, and stayed one month. My lady went +out a great deal, and between-whiles was, as usual, at what they call +there “_couturières’_,” at the jewelers’, or the shops on the Rue de la +Paix. She also bought from Bolkonsky, the furrier, a very smart jacket +of Russian sable that I’ll be bound cost a pretty penny. When we went +back to London for the season her beauty and her costumes were the +talk of the town. Old Lady Bundy’s maid told me that Lady Bundy went +about saying: “And but for me, she’d be the mother of the red-headed +larrykins of an Irish squireen!” Which didn’t seem to me nice talk for +a lady. + +We spent that summer at Castlecourt Marsh Manor very quietly, as was my +lord’s wish. My lady did not seem in as good spirits as usual, which I +set down to the country life that she always said bored her. Once or +twice she told me that she felt ill, which I’d never known her to say +before, and one day in the late summer I discovered her in tears. She +did not seem to be herself again till we went to Paris in September. +Then she brightened up, and was soon in higher spirits than ever. She +was on the go continually--often would go out for lunch, and not be +back till it was time to dress for dinner. She enjoyed herself in Paris +very much, she told me. And I think she did, for I never saw her more +animated--almost excited with high spirits and success. + +The following spring we left Castlecourt Marsh Manor, and, as I said +before, came to Burridge’s on April the third. The season was soon +in full swing, and my lady was going out morning, noon, and night. +There was no end to it, and I was worn out. When she was away in the +afternoon I’d take forty winks on the sofa, and have Sara Dwight, the +housemaid of our rooms, bring me a cup of tea, when she’d sometimes +take one herself, and we’d gossip a bit over it. + +If I’d known what an important person Sara Dwight was going to turn out +I’d have taken more notice of her. But, unfortunately, thieves don’t +have a mark on their brow like Cain, and Sara was the last girl any one +would have suspected was dishonest. All that I ever thought about her +was that she was a neat, civil-spoken girl, who knew her betters and +her elders when she saw them. She was quick on her feet, modest and +well-mannered--not what you’d call good-looking: too pale and small for +my taste, and Chawlmers quite agreed with me. The one thing I noticed +about her were her hands, which were white and fine like a lady’s. Once +when I asked her how she kept them so well, she laughed, and said, not +having a pretty face, she tried to have pretty hands. + +“Because a girl ought to have something pretty about her, oughtn’t she, +Miss Jeffers?” she said to me, quiet and respectful as could be. + +I answered, as I thought it was my duty, that beauty was only skin +deep, and if your character was honest your face would take care of +itself. + +She looked down at her hands, and smiled a little and said: + +“Yes, I suppose that’s true, Miss Jeffers. I’ll try to remember it. +It’s what every girl ought to feel, I’m sure.” + +Sara Dwight had the greatest admiration for Lady Castlecourt. She’d +manage to be standing about in doorways and on the stairs when my lady +passed down to go to dinner and to the opera. Then she’d come back +and tell me how beautiful my lady was, and how she envied me being +her maid. While she was talking she’d help me tidy up the room, and +sometimes--because she admired my lady so--I’d let her look at the new +clothes from Paris as they hung in the wardrobe. Sara would gape with +admiration over them. She spoke a little about my lady’s jewels, but +not much. I’d have suspected that. + +It was in the fifth week after we came to town--to be exact, on the +afternoon of the fourth day of May--that the diamonds were stolen. As +I’d been so badgered and questioned and tormented about it, I’ve got it +all as clear in my head as a photograph--just how it was and just what +time everything happened. + +That evening my lady was going to dinner at the Duke of Duxbury’s. It +was to be a great dinner--a prince and a prime minister, and I don’t +know what all besides. My lady was to wear a new gown from Paris and +the diamonds. She told me when she went out what she would want and +when she would be back. That was at four, and I was not to expect her +in till after six. + +Some time before that I got her things ready, the gown laid out, and +the diamonds on the dressing-table. They were kept in a leather case +of their own, and then put in a despatch-box that shut with a patent +lock. When we traveled I always carried this box--that is, when my +lady used it. A good deal of the time it was at the bankers’. Lord +Castlecourt was very choice about the diamonds. Some of them had been +in his family for generations. The way they were set now--in a necklace +with pendants, the larger stones surrounded by smaller ones--had been +a new setting made for his mother. My lady wanted them changed, and I +remember that Lord Castlecourt was vexed with her, and she couldn’t +pet and coax him back into a good humor for some days. + +One of the last things that I did that afternoon while arranging the +dressing-table was to open the despatch-box and take the leather case +out. Tho it was May, and the evenings were very long, I turned on the +electric lights, and, unclasping the case, looked at the necklace. + +I was standing this way when Chawlmers comes to the side door of the +room (the whole suite was connected with doors), and asks me if I +could remember the number of the bootmakers where my lady bought her +riding-boots. Some friend of Chawlmers wanted to know the address. I +couldn’t at first remember it, and I was standing this way, trying +to recollect, when I heard the clock strike six. I told Chawlmers I’d +get it for him. I was certain it was in my lady’s desk, and I put the +case down on the bureau, and Chawlmers and I together went into the +sitting-room (the door open between us and my lady’s room) and looked +for it. We found it in a minute, and Chawlmers was writing it down in +his pocket-book when I thought I heard (so light and soft you could +hardly say you’d heard anything) a rustle like a woman’s skirt in the +next room. For a second I thought it was my lady, and I jumped, for I’d +no business at her desk, and I knew she’d be vexed and scold me. + +Chawlmers didn’t hear a thing, and looked at me astonished. Then I ran +to the door and peeped in. There was no one there, and I thought, of +course, I’d been mistaken. + +We didn’t leave the room directly, but stood by the desk talking for +a bit. When I told this to the detectives, one of the papers said it +showed “how deceptive even the best servants were.” As if a valet and +a lady’s maid couldn’t stop for a moment of talk! Poor things! we +work hard enough most of the time, I’m sure. And that we weren’t long +standing there idle can be seen from the fact that I heard half-past +six strike. I was for urging Chawlmers to go then--as Lady Castlecourt +might be in at any moment--but he hung about, following me into my +lady’s room, helping me draw the curtains and turn on all the lights, +for my lady can’t bear to dress by daylight. + +It was nearly seven o’clock when we heard the sound of her skirts in +the passage. Chawlmers slipped off into his master’s rooms, shutting +the door quietly behind him. My lady was looking very beautiful. She +had on a blue hat trimmed with blue and gray hydrangeas, and underneath +it her hair was like spun gold, and her eyes looked soft and dark. +It never seemed to tire her to be always on the go. But I’d thought +lately she’d been going too much, for sometimes she was pale, and once +or twice I thought she was out of spirits--the way she’d been in the +country last summer. + +She seemed so to-night, not talking as much as usual. There were +some letters for her on the corner of the dressing-table, and I could +see her face in the glass as she read them. One made her smile, and +then she sat thinking and biting her lip, which was as red as a +cherry. She seemed to me to be preoccupied. When I was making the side +“_ondulations_” of her hair--which everybody knows is a most critical +operation--she jerked her head, and said suddenly she wondered how the +children were. I never before knew my lady to think about the children +when her hair was being attended to. + +She was sitting in front of the dressing-table, her toilet complete, +when she stretched out her hand to the leather case of the diamonds. +I was looking at the reflection in the mirror, thinking that she was +as perfect as I could make her. She, too, had been looking at the back +of her head, and still held the small glass in one hand. The other +she reached out for the diamonds. The case had a catch that you had +to press, and I saw, to my surprise, that she raised the lid without +pressing this. Then she gave a loud exclamation. There were no diamonds +there! + +She turned round and looked at me, and said: + +“How odd! Where are they, Jeffers?” + +I felt suddenly as if I was going to fall dead, and afterward, when +my lady stood by me and said it was nonsense to suspect me, one of +the things she brought up as a proof of my innocence was the color I +turned and the way I looked at that moment. + +“Jeffers!” she said, suddenly rising up quick out of her chair. And +then, without my saying a word, she went white and stood staring at me. + +“My lady, my lady,” was all I could falter out, “I don’t know--I don’t +know!” + +“Where are they, Jeffers? What’s happened to them?” + +My voice was all husky like a person’s with a cold, as I stammered: + +“They were in the case an hour ago.” + +My lady caught me by the arm, and her fingers gripped tight into my +flesh. + +“Don’t say they’re stolen, Jeffers!” she cried out. “Don’t tell me +that! Lord Castlecourt would never forgive me. He’ll never forgive me! +They’re worth thousands and thousands of pounds! They _can’t_ have been +stolen!” + +She spoke so loud they heard her in the next room, and Lord Castlecourt +came in. He was a tall gentleman, a little bald, and I can see him +now in his black clothes, with the white of his shirt bosom gleaming, +standing in the doorway looking at her. He had a surprised expression +on his face, and was frowning a little; for he hated anything like loud +talking or a scene. + +“What’s the matter, Gladys?” he said. “You’re making such a noise I +heard you in my room. Is there a fire?” + +She made a sort of grasp at the case, and tried to hide it. Chawlmers +was in the doorway behind my lord, and I saw him staring at her and +trying not to. He told me afterward she was as white as paper. + +“The diamonds,” she faltered out--“your diamonds--your family’s--your +mother’s.” + +Lord Castlecourt gave a start, and seemed to stiffen. He did not move +from where he was, but stood rigid, looking at her. + +“What’s the matter with them?” he said, quick and quiet, but not as if +he was calm. + +She threw the case she had been trying to hide on the dressing-table. +It knocked over some bottles, and lay there open and empty. My lord +sprang at it, took it up, and shook it. + +“Gone?” he said, turning to my lady. “Stolen, do you mean?” + +“Yes--yes--yes,” she said, like that--three times; and then she fell +back in the chair and put her hands over her face. + +Lord Castlecourt turned to me. + +“What’s this mean, Jeffers? You’ve had charge of the diamonds.” + +I told him all I knew and as well as I could, what with my legs +trembling that they’d scarce support me, and my tongue dry as a piece +of leather. When I got toward the end, my lady interrupted me, crying +out: + +“Herbert, it isn’t my fault, it isn’t! Jeffers will tell you I’ve taken +good care of them. I’ve not been careless or forgetful about them, as +I have about other things. I _have_ been careful of them! It isn’t my +fault, and you mustn’t blame me!” + +Lord Castlecourt made a sort of gesture toward her to be still. I +could see it meant that. He kept the case, and, going to the door, +locked it. + +“How long have you been in these rooms?” he said, turning round on me +with the key in his hand. + +I told him, trembling, and almost crying. I had never seen my lord look +so terribly stern. I don’t know whether he was angry or not, but I was +afraid of him, and it was for the first time; for he’d always been a +kind and generous master to me and the other servants. + +“Oh, my lord,” I said, feeling suddenly weighed down with dread and +misery, “you surely don’t think I took them?” + +“I’m not thinking anything,” he said. “You and Chawlmers are to stay +in this room, and not move from it till you get my orders. I’ll send at +once for the police.” + +My lady turned round in her chair and looked at him. + +“The police?” she said. “Oh, Herbert, wait till to-morrow! You’re not +even sure yet that they are stolen.” + +“Where are they, then?” he says, quick and sharp. “Jeffers says she saw +them in that case an hour ago. They are not in the case now. Do either +you or she know where they are?” + +I was down on my knees, picking up the bottles that had been knocked +over by the empty jewel-case. + +“Not I, God knows,” I said, and I began to cry. + +“The matter must be put in the hands of the police at once,” my +lord said. “I’ll have the hotel policeman here in a few minutes, and +the rooms searched. Jeffers and Chawlmers and their luggage will be +searched to-morrow.” + +My lady gave a sort of gasp. I was close to her feet, and I heard her. +But, for myself, I just broke down, and, kneeling on the floor with the +overturned bottles spilling cologne all around me, cried worse than +I’ve done since I was in short frocks. + +“Oh, my lady, I didn’t take them! I didn’t! You know I didn’t!” I +sobbed out. + +My lady looked very miserable. + +“My poor Jeffers,” she said, and put her hand on my shoulder, “I’m sure +you didn’t. If I’d only a sixpence in the world I’d stake that on +your honesty.” + +Lord Castlecourt didn’t say anything. He went to the bell and pressed +it. When the boy answered it he gave him a message in a low tone, and +it didn’t seem five minutes before two men were in the room. I did +not know till afterward that one was the manager, and the other the +hotel policeman. I stopped my crying the best I could, and heard my +lord telling them that the diamonds were gone, and that Chawlmers and +I had been the only people in the room all the afternoon. Then he said +he wanted them to communicate at once with Scotland Yard, and have a +capable detective sent to the hotel. + +“Lady Castlecourt and I are going to dinner,” he said, looking at his +watch. “We will have to leave, at the latest, within the next twenty +minutes.” + +Lady Castlecourt cried out at that: + +“Herbert, I don’t see how I can go to that dinner. I am altogether too +upset, and, besides, it will be too late. It’s eight o’clock now.” + +“We can make the time up in the carriage,” my lord said; and he went +into the next room with the policeman, where they talked together in +low voices. I helped my lady on with her cloak, and she stood waiting, +her eyebrows drawn together, looking very pale and worried. When my +lord came back he said nothing, only nodded to my lady that he was +ready, and, without a word, they left the room. + +I tried to tidy the bureau and pick up the bottles as well as I could, +and every time I looked at the door into the sitting-room I saw that +policeman’s head peering round the door-post at me. + +That was an awful night. I did not know it till afterward, but both +Chawlmers and I were under what they call “surveillance.” I did not +know either that Lord Castlecourt had told the policeman he believed us +to be innocent; that we were of excellent character, and nothing but +positive proof would make him think either of us guilty. All I felt, as +I tossed about in bed, was that I was suspected, and would be arrested +and probably put in jail. Fifteen years of honest service in noble +families wouldn’t help me much if the detectives took it into their +heads I was guilty. + +The next morning we heard about the disappearance of Sara Dwight, and +things began to look brighter. Sara had left the hotel at a little +after seven the evening before, speaking to no one, and carrying a +small portmanteau. When they came to examine her room and her box +they found a jacket and skirt hanging on the wall, some burnt papers +in the grate, and the box almost empty, except for some cheap cotton +underclothes and a dirty wadded quilt put in to fill up. Sara had given +no notice, and had not at any time told any of her fellow servants +that she was dissatisfied with her place or wanted to leave. + +That morning Mr. Brison, the Scotland Yard detective, had us up in the +sitting-room asking us questions till I was fair muddled, and didn’t +know truth from lies. Lord Castlecourt and my lady were both present, +and Mr. Brison was forever politely asking my lady questions till she +got quite angry with him, and said she wasn’t at all sure the diamonds +were stolen; they might have been mislaid, and would turn up somewhere. +Mr. Brison was surprised, and asked my lady if she had any idea where +they were liable to turn up; and my lady looked annoyed, and said it +was a silly question, and that she “wasn’t a clairvoyant.” + +Three days after this Mr. John Gilsey, who is a detective, and, I have +heard since, a very famous gentleman, was engaged by Lord Castlecourt +to “work upon the case.” Mr. Gilsey was very soft-spoken and pleasant. +He did not muddle you, as Mr. Brison did, and it was very easy to tell +him all you knew or could remember, which he always seemed anxious to +hear. He had me up in the sitting-room twice, once alone and once with +Mr. Brison, and they asked me a host of questions about Sara Dwight. I +told them all I could think of; and when I came to her hands, and how +they were white and fine, like a lady’s, I saw Mr. Brison look at Mr. +Gilsey and raise his eyebrows. + +“Does it seem to you,” he says, scribbling words in his note-book, +“that this sounds like Laura the Lady?” + +And Mr. Gilsey answered: + +“The manner of operating sounds like her, I must admit.” + +“She was in Chicago when last heard of,” says Mr. Brison, stopping in +his scribbling, “but we’ve information within the last week that she’s +left there.” + +“Laura the Lady is in London,” Mr. Gilsey remarked, looking at his +finger nails. “I saw her three weeks ago at Earlscourt.” + +Mr. Brison got red in the face and puffed out his lips, as if he was +going to say something, but decided not to. He scribbled some more, +and then, looking at what he had written as if he was reading it over, +says: + +“If that’s the case, there’s very little doubt as to who planned and +executed this robbery.” + +“That’s a very comfortable state of affairs to arrive at,” says Mr. +Gilsey, “and I hope it’s the correct one.” And that was all he said +that time about what he thought. + +After this we stayed on at Burridge’s for the rest of the season, but +it was not half as cheerful or gay as it had been before. My lord was +often moody and cross, for he felt the loss of the diamonds bitterly; +and my lady was out of spirits and moped, for she was very fond of him, +and to have him take it this way seemed to upset her. Mr. Brison or Mr. +Gilsey were constantly popping in and murmuring in the sitting-room, +but they got no further on--at least, there was no talk of finding the +diamonds, which was all that counted. + +This is all I know of the theft of the necklace. What happened at that +time, and what Mr. Gilsey calls “the surrounding circumstances of the +case,” I have tried to put down as clearly and as simply as possible. I +have gone over them so often, and been forced to be so careful, that I +think they will be found to be quite correct in every particular. + + + + +Statement of Lilly Bingham, known in England as Laura Brice, in the +United States as Frances Latimer, to the police of both countries as +Laura the Lady, besides having recently figured as a housemaid at +Burridge’s Hotel, London, under the alias of Sara Dwight. + + + + +Statement of Lilly Bingham, known in England as Laura Brice, in the +United States as Frances Latimer, to the police of both countries as +Laura the Lady, besides having recently figured as a housemaid at +Burridge’s Hotel, London, under the alias of Sara Dwight. + + +I never was so glad of anything in my life as to get out of that +beastly hole, Chicago. I’ll certainly never go back there unless there +is an inducement big enough to compensate for the elevated railroad, +the lake, the noise, the winds, the restaurants, the climate, and the +people. Ugh, what a nightmare! + +England’s the country for me, and London is the focus of it. You can +live like a Christian here, and enjoy all the refinements and decencies +of life for a reasonable consideration. How my heart leaped when I +saw the old, gray, sooty walls looming up through the river haze--I +thought it best to sneak by the back way, because if I go up the front +stairs and ring the bell there may be loiterers round who had seen +Laura the Lady before, and might become impertinently curious about +her future movements. And then when I saw Tom waiting for me--my own +Tom, that I lawfully married, in a burst of affection, three years ago, +at Leamington--I shouted out greetings, and danced on the deck, and +waved my handkerchief. It was worth while having lived in Chicago for +a year to come back to London and Tom and a little furnished flat in +Knightsbridge. + +We were very respectable and quiet for a month--just a few callers +climbing up the front stairs, and demure female tea-parties at +intervals. I bought plants to put in the windows, and did knitting in a +conspicuous solitude which the neighbors could overlook. When I saw the +maiden lady opposite scrutinizing me through an opera-glass I felt like +sending her my marriage certificate to run her eye over and return. +We even hired a maid of all work from an agency as a touch of local +color on this worthy domestic picture. But when the Castlecourt diamond +scheme began to ripen I nagged at her till she was impudent and bundled +her off. Maud Durlan came in then, put on a cap and apron, and played +her part a good deal better than she used to when she acted soubrettes +in the vaudeville. + +We were two weeks lying low, maturing our plans, tho when I left +Chicago I knew what I was coming back for. Outwardly all was the same +as usual--the decent callers still climbed the front stairs, and +elderly ladies who, without any stretch of imagination, might have +been my mother and aunts, dropped in for tea. I used to wonder how +the people on the floor below--they were the family of a man who made +rubber tires for bicycles--would have felt if they could have seen +Maud, our neat and respectable slavy, sitting with the French heels +of her slippers caught on the third shelf of the bookcase, dropping +cigarette ashes into the waste-paper basket. + +When all was ready, Tom and I left for a “business” trip on the +Continent. We went away in a four-wheeler, driven by Handsome Harry, +the top piled with luggage, my face at the window smiling a last, +cautioning good-by at Maud. Five days later, under the name of Sara +Dwight, I was installed as housemaid on the third floor of Burridge’s +Hotel. + +I had done work of that kind before--once in New York, and at another +time in Paris; having been born and spent my childhood in that cheerful +city, my French is irreproachable. The famous robbery of the Comtesse +de Chateaugay’s rubies was my work--but I mustn’t brag about past +exploits. I had never been engaged in a hotel theft of the importance +of the Castlecourt one. The necklace was valued at between eight +thousand and nine thousand pounds. The stones were not so remarkable +for size as for quality. They were of an unusually even excellence and +pure water. + +After I had been in the hotel for a few days and watched the +Castlecourt party, all apprehension left me, and I felt confident and +cool. They were an extremely simple layout. Lady Castlecourt was a +beauty--a seductive, smiling, white and gold person, without any sense +at all. Her husband adored her. Being a man of some brains, that was +what might have been expected. What might not have been expected was +that she appeared to reciprocate his affection. Having made a careful +study of the manners and customs of the upper classes, I was not +prepared for this. I note it as one of those exceptions to rule which +occur now and then in the animal kingdom. + +Besides the marquis and his lady, there were a maid and a valet to be +considered. The former was a dense, honest woman named Sophy Jeffers, +close on to forty, and of the unredeemed ugliness of the normal lady’s +maid. Such being the case, it was but natural to find that she was in +love with Chawlmers, the valet, who was twenty-seven and good-looking. +Jeffers was too truthful to tamper with her own age, but she did not +feel it necessary to keep up the same rigid standard when it came to +Chawlmers. It was less of a lie to make him ten years older than +herself ten years younger. From these facts I drew my deductions as to +the sort of adversary Jeffers might be, and I found that, by a modest +avoidance of Chawlmers’ society, I could make her my lifelong friend. + +The evening of the Duke of Duxbury’s dinner was the time I decided upon +as the most convenient for taking the stones. I had heard from Jeffers +that the marquis and marchioness were going. When her ladyship left +her rooms that afternoon I heard her tell Jeffers that she would not +be back till after six, and to have everything ready at that hour. Off +and on for the next two hours I was doing work about the corridor with +a duster. It was near six when I heard the two servants talking in the +sitting-room. A bird’s-eye view through the keyhole showed me where +they were, and that they were engaged in searching for something in +the desk. It was my chance. With my housemaid’s pass-key I opened the +door a crack, and peeped in. The leather case of the diamonds stood on +the dressing-table not twenty feet from the door. It did not take five +minutes to enter, open the case, take the necklace, and leave. Jeffers +heard me. She was in the room almost as I closed the door. Before she +could have got into the hall I was in the broom-closet hunting for a +dust-pan. But she evidently suspected nothing, for the door did not +open and there was no indication of disturbance. + +Two days later Tom and I returned from our “business trip” to the +Continent. I quite prided myself on the way our luggage was labeled. +It had just the right knock-about, piebald look. We drove up in a +four-wheeler, Handsome Harry on the box, and Maud opened the door for +us. For the next few days we were quiet and kept indoors. We spent the +time peacefully in the kitchen, breaking the settings of the diamonds +and reading about the robbery in the papers. As soon as things simmered +down, Tom was to take the stones across to Holland, where they would +be distributed. We threw away the settings, and put the diamonds in a +small box of chamois-skin that I pinned to my corset with a safety-pin. + +That was the way things were--untroubled as a summer sea--till ten +days after our return, when I began to get restive. I had had what +they call in America “a strenuous time” at Burridge’s, working like a +slave all day, with not a soul to speak to but a parcel of ignorant +servant women, and I wanted livening up. I longed for the light and +noise of Piccadilly, the crowd and the restaurants; but what I wanted +particularly was to go to the theater and see a play called “The +Forgiven Prodigal.” + +Maud and Tom raised a clamor of disapproval: What was the use of +running risks? did I think, because I’d been in Chicago for nearly a +year, that I was forgotten? did I think the men in Scotland Yard who +knew me were all dead? did I think the excitement of the Castlecourt +robbery was over and done? I yawned at them, and then told them, with +a gentle smile, that they were a “pusillanimous pair.” There might +be many men in Scotland Yard who knew me, and that, as they say in +Chicago, “is all the good it would do them.” They couldn’t arrest +me for sitting peacefully at a theater looking at a play. As for +connecting me with Sara Dwight, I would give any one a hundred pounds +who, when I was dressed and had my war-paint on, would find in me a +single suggestion of the late housemaid at Burridge’s. So I talked +them down; and if I didn’t convince them of the reasonableness of my +arguments, I at least managed to soothe their fears. + +I dressed myself with especial care, and when the last rite of my +toilet was accomplished looked critically in the glass to see if +anything of Sara Dwight remained. The survey contented me. Sara’s +mother, if there be such a person, would have denied me. I was all in +black, a sweeping, spangly dress I had bought in New York, cut low, and +my neck is not my weak point, especially when _crême des violettes_ +has been rubbed over it. My hair was waved (Maud does it very well, +much better than she cooks, I regret to say), and dressed high, with a +small red wreath of geraniums round it. Nose powdered to a probable, +ladylike whiteness, a touch of rouge, a tiny _mouche_ near the corner +of one eye, and long, black gloves--and, presto change! I wore no +jewels--their owners might recognize them. One could hardly say I +“wore” the Castlecourt diamonds, which were fastened to my corset with +a safety-pin. They were rather uncomfortable, but they were the only +thing about me that were. + +As I stood in front of the glass putting on finishing touches, Maud +left the room, and went to the drawing-room to watch for Handsome +Harry, who was to drive our hansom. I did not like taking a hired +driver, and, thank goodness, I didn’t! I was putting a last _soupçon_ +of scarlet on my lips, when she came back, stepping softly, and with +her eyes round and uneasy looking. + +“I don’t know whether I’m nervous,” she says, “but there’s a man just +gone by in a hansom, and he leaned out and looked hard at our windows.” + +“I hope it amused him,” I said, looking critically at my lips, to see +if they were not a little too incredibly ruddy. “It’s a harmless and +innocent way of passing the time, so we mustn’t be hard on him if it +doesn’t happen to be very intellectual. Come, help me on with my cloak, +and don’t stand there like Patience on a monument staring at thieves.” + +I was irritated with Maud, trying to upset my peace of mind that way. +She’d had any amount of good times while I’d been at Burridge’s with +my nose to the grindstone. And here she was, the first time I’d got a +chance to have a spree, looking like a depressed owl and talking like +the warning voice of Conscience! As she silently held up my cloak and I +thrust my hand in the sleeve, I said, over my shoulder: + +“And you needn’t go upsetting Tom by telling him about strange men in +hansoms who stare up at our front windows. I want to have a good time +this evening, not feel that I’m sitting by a guilty being who jumps +every time he’s spoken to as if the curse of Cain was on him.” + +Maud said nothing, and I shook myself into my cloak and swept out to +the hall, where Tom was waiting. + +There had been a slight fog all afternoon, and now it was thick; not a +“pea-soup” one, but a good, damp, obscuring fog--a regular “burglar’s +delight.” As we came down the steps we saw the two hansom lamps making +blurs, like lights behind white cotton screens. Tom was grumbling about +it and about going out generally as he helped me in. And just at that +minute, still and quick, like a picture going across a magic-lantern +slide, I saw a man on the other side of the street step out of the +shadow of a porch, and glide swiftly and softly past the light of the +lamp and up the street, to where the form of a waiting hansom loomed. +It was all very simple and natural, but his walk was odd--so noiseless +and stealthy. + +I got in, and Tom followed me. He hadn’t seen anything. For the moment +I didn’t speak of it, because I wasn’t sure. But I’ve got to admit +that my heart beat against the Castlecourt diamonds harder than was +comfortable. We started, and I listened, and faintly, some way behind +us, I heard the _ker-lump!--ker-lump!--ker-lump!_ of another horse’s +hoofs on the asphalt. I leaned forward over the door, and tried to look +back. Through the mist I saw the two yellow eyes of the hansom behind +us. Tom asked me what was the matter, and I told him. He whistled--a +long, single note--then leaned back very steady and still. We didn’t +say anything for a bit, but just sat tight and listened. + +It kept behind us that way for about ten minutes. Then I pushed up the +trap, and said to Harry: + +“What’s this hansom behind us up to, Harry?” + +“That’s what I want to know,” he says, quiet and low. + +“Lose it, if you can, without being too much of a Jehu,” I answered, +and shut the trap. + +He tried to lose it, and we began a chase, slow at first, and then +faster and faster, down one street and up the other. The fog by this +time was as thick and white as wool, and we seemed to break through +it like a ship, as if we were going through something dense and +hard to penetrate. It seemed to me, too, a maddeningly quiet night. +There was no traffic, no noise of wheels to get mixed with ours. The +_ker-lump!--ker-lump!_ of our horse’s hoofs came back as clear as +sounds in a calm at sea from the long lines of house fronts. And that +devilish hansom never lost us. It kept just the same distance behind +us. We could hear its horse’s hoofs, like an echo of our own, beating +through the fog. It got no nearer; it went no faster. It did not seem +in a hurry, it never deviated from our track. There was something +hideously unagitated and cool about it--a sort of deadly, sinister +persistence. I saw it in imagination, like a live monster with bulging +yellow eyes, staring with gloating greediness at us as we ran feebly +along before it. + +Tom didn’t say much. He doesn’t in moments like this. He’s got the +nerve all right, but not the brain. There’s no inventive ability in +Tom, he’s not built for crises. Handsome Harry now and then dropped +some remark through the trap, which was like a trickle of icy water +down one’s spine. I began to realize that my lips were dry, and that +the insides of my gloves were damp. I knew that whatever was to be +done had to come from me. I’d got them into this, and, as they say in +Chicago, “it was up to me” to get them out. + +I leaned over the doors, and looked at the street we were going +through. I know that part of London like a book--the insides of some +of the houses as well as the outsides; it’s a part of our business in +which I’m supposed to be quite an expert. The street was a small one +near Walworth Crescent, the houses not the smartest in the locality, +but good, solid, reliable buildings inhabited by good, solid, reliable +people. The lower floors were all alight. It was the heart of the +season, and in many of them there were dinners afoot. I thought, with +a flash of longing--such as a drowning man might feel if he thought +of suddenly finding himself on terra firma--of serene, smiling people +sitting down to soup. I’d have given the Castlecourt diamonds at that +moment to have been sitting down with them to cold soup, sour soup, +greasy soup, any kind of soup--only to be sitting down to soup! + +We turned a corner sharp, going now at a tearing pace, and I saw +before us a length of street wrapped in fog, and blurred at regular +intervals by the lights of lamps. It looked ghostlike--so white, so +noiseless, lined on either side by dim house fronts blotted with an +indistinct sputter of lights. There was not a sound but our own horse’s +hoof-beats, and far off, like a noise muffled by cotton wool, the echo +of our pursuer’s. Through the opaque, motionless atmosphere I saw that +the vista into which I stared was deserted. There was not a human +figure or a vehicle in sight. It was a lull, a brief respite, a moment +of incalculable value to us! + +My mind was as clear as crystal, and I felt a sense of cool, high +exhilaration. I have only felt this way in desperate moments, and this +was a truly desperate moment--a pursuer on our heels and the diamonds +in my possession! + +I leaned over the doors, and looked up the line of houses. It was +Farley Street. Who lived in Farley Street? Suddenly I remembered that +I knew all about the people who lived in No. 15. They were Americans +named Kennedy--a man, his wife, and a little girl. He was manager of +the London branch of a Chicago concern called the “Colonial Box, Tub, +and Cordage Company,” that I had often heard of in America. We had +marked the house, and made extensive investigations before I left, +intending to add it to our list, as Mrs. Kennedy had some handsome +jewelry and silver. Since my return I had seen her name in the papers +at various entertainments, and Maud had told me a lot about her +social successes. She was pretty, and people were taking her up. All +this--that it takes me some minutes to tell--flashed through my mind +in a revolution of the wheels. + +I could see now that the windows of No. 15 were lit up. The Kennedys +were evidently at home, perhaps had a dinner on. They, along with the +rest of the world, would in a minute be sitting down to soup. They +might be sitting down now; it was close on to half-past eight. Why +could not we sit down with them? + +I lifted the top, and said to Harry: + +“Is the hansom round the corner yet?” + +“No,” he answered, “it’s our only chance. They’re still a bit behind +us. I can tell by the sound.” + +“Drive to No. 15, second from the corner,” I said, “and go as if the +devil was after you.” + +I dropped the trap, and as we tore down to No. 15 I spoke in a series +of broken sentences to Tom. + +“We’re going in here to dinner. You must look as if it was all right. +If we carry it off well, they won’t dare to question. We’re Major +and Mrs. Thatcher, of the Lancers, that arrived Saturday from India. +They’re Americans, and won’t know anything, so you can say about what +you like. Give them India hot from the pan. I’ve been living in London +while you’ve been away. That’s how I come to know them and you don’t. +My Christian name’s Ethel. Do the dull, heavy, haw-haw style. Americans +expect it.” + +We brought up at the curb with a jerk, threw back the doors, and dashed +up the steps. I caught a vanishing glimpse of Handsome Harry leaning +far forward to lash the horse as the hansom went bounding off into the +fog. As we stood pressed against the door, Tom whispered: + +“What the devil is their name?” + +“Kennedy,” I hissed at him--“Cassius P. Kennedy. Came originally from +Necropolis City, Ohio; lived in Chicago as a clerk in the Colonial +Box, Tub, and Cordage Company, and then was made manager of the London +branch. Their weak point is society. If any people are there, keep your +mouth shut. Be dense and unresponsive.” + +We heard the rattle of the pursuing hansom at the end of the street, +then through the ground glass of the door saw a man servant’s +approaching figure. + +“Only stay a few minutes over the coffee. We’re going on to the opera,” +I whispered, as the door opened. + +I swept in, Tom on my heels. We came as fast as we could without +actually falling in and dashing the servant aside, for the noise of +our pursuer was loud in our ears, and we knew we were lost if we were +seen entering. As Tom somewhat hastily shut the door, I was conscious +of the expression of surprise on the face of the solemn butler. He did +not say anything, but looked it. I slid out of my cloak, and handed it, +languidly, to him. + +“No, I won’t go up-stairs,” I said, in answer to his glare of growing +amaze. + +Then I turned to the glass in the hat-rack, and began to arrange my +hair. I could see, reflected in it, a pair of portières, half open, and +affording a glimpse of a room beyond, bathed in the subdued rosy light +of lamps. I was conscious of movement there behind the portières--a +stir of skirts, a sort of hush of curiosity. + +There had been the sound of voices when we came in. Now I noticed the +stealthy, occasional sibilant of a whisper. There was no dinner-party. +We were going to dine _en famille_. So much the better. My hair neat, +I turned to the butler, and, touching the jet of my corsage with an +arranging hand, murmured: + +“Major and Mrs. Thatcher.” + +The man drew back the curtain, and, with our name going before us in +loud announcement, I rustled into the room, Tom behind me. + +Standing beside an empty fireplace, and facing the entrance in +attitudes of expectancy, were a young man and woman. In the soft pink +lamplight I had an impression of their two astonished faces, or, +rather, astonished eyes, for they were making a spirited struggle to +obliterate all surprise from their faces. The woman was succeeding +the best. She did it quite well. When she saw me she smiled almost +naturally, and came forward with a fair imitation of a hostess’ +welcoming manner. She was young and very pretty--a fine-featured, +delicate woman, in a floating lace tea-gown. Her hand was thin and +small, a real American hand, and gleamed with rings. I could see her +husband, out of the tail of my eye, battling with his amazement and +staring at Tom. Tom was behind me, looming up bulkily, not saying +anything, but looking blankly through the glass wedged in his eye and +pulling his mustache. + +“My dear Mrs. Kennedy,” I said, in my sweetest and most languid drawl, +“are we late? I hope not. There is such a fog, really I thought we’d +never get here.” + +My fingers touched her hand, and my eyes looked into hers. She was +immensely curious and upset, but she smiled boldly and almost easily. I +could see her inward wrestlings to place me, and to wonder if she could +possibly have asked us, and had forgotten that too. + +“And at last,” I continued, glibly, “I am able to present my husband. +I was afraid you were beginning to think he was a sort of Mrs. Harris. +Harry, dear, Mrs. and Mr. Kennedy.” + +They all bowed. Tom held out his big paw, and took her little hand for +a moment, and then dropped it. He had just the stolid, awkward, owlish +look of a certain kind of army man. + +“Awfully glad to get here, I’m sure,” he boomed out. And then he said +“What?” and looked at Mr. Kennedy. + +Mr. Kennedy was not as much master of the situation as his wife. He +wasn’t exactly frightened, but he was inwardly distracted with not +knowing what to do. + +“Pleased to meet you,” he said, loudly, to Tom, quite forgetting his +English accent. “Glad you could get around here. Foggy night, all +right!” + +I looked at the clock. Tom stood solemnly on the hearth-rug, staring at +the fire. The Kennedys, for a moment, could think of nothing to say, +and I had to look at the clock again, screw up my eyes, and remark: + +“Just half-past. We’re not really late at all. You know, Harry is +_such_ a punctual person, and he’s afraid I’ve got into unpunctual +habits while he’s been away.” + +“He _has_ been away for some time, hasn’t he?” said Mrs. Kennedy, +looking from one to the other with piquant eyes that yearned for +information. + +“Four years with the Lancers in India,” Tom boomed out again. + +The Kennedys were relieved. They’d got hold of something. They both sat +down, and it was obvious that they gathered themselves together for new +efforts. + +I did likewise. I realized that I must be biographical to a reasonable +extent--just enough to satisfy curiosity, without giving the impression +that I was sitting down to tell my life-story the way the heroine does +in the first act of a play. + +“He arrived only last Saturday,” I said, “and you may imagine how +pleased I was to be able to bring him to-night, in answer to your kind +invitation.” + +“Only too glad he could come,” murmured Mrs. Kennedy, oblivious of the +terrified side-glance that her husband cast in her direction. “Very +fortunate that you had this one evening disengaged.” + +“I’m taking him about everywhere,” I continued, with girlish loquacity. +“People had begun to think that Major Thatcher was a myth, and I’m +showing them that there’s a good deal of him and he’s very much alive. +For four years, you know, I’ve been living here, first in those +miserable lodgings in Half Moon Street, and after that in my flat--you +know it--on Gower Street. A nice little place enough, but much nicer +now, with Harry in it.” + +“Of course,” said Mrs. Kennedy, as sympathetically as was compatible +with her eagerness to pounce upon such crumbs of information as I let +drop. “How dull these four years have been for you!” + +“Dull!” I echoed, “dull is not the word!” And I gave my eyes an +expressive, acrobatic roll toward the ceiling. + +“She couldn’t have stood it out there,” said Tom, in an unexpected bass +growl. “Too hot! Ethel can’t stand the heat--never could.” + +Then he lapsed into silence, staring at the fire under Mr. Kennedy’s +fascinated gaze. Dinner was just then announced, and I heard him saying +as he walked in behind us: + +“Is India very hot, Mrs. Kennedy? Once in Delhi I sat for four days in +a cold bath, and read the Waverley novels.” + +To which Mrs. Kennedy answered, brightly: + +“I should think that would have put you to sleep, and you might have +been drowned.” + +That was one of the most remarkable dinners I ever sat through. Of the +two couples, the Kennedys were the least at ease. They were more afraid +of being found out than we were. The cold sweat would break out on +Mr. Kennedy’s brow when the conversation edged up toward the subject +of previous meetings, and Mrs. Kennedy would begin to talk feverishly +about other things. She was the kind of woman who hates to be unequal +to any social emergency; and I am bound to confess, considering how +unprepared she was, she held her own this time with tact and spirit. +She had the copious flow of small talk so many Americans seem to have +at command, and it rippled fluently and untiringly on from the soup to +the savory. I added to the impression I had already made by alluding +to various titled friends of mine, letting their names drop carelessly +from my lips as the pearls and diamonds fell from the mouth of the +virtuous princess. + +Tom did well, too--excellently well. When the conversation showed signs +of languishing, he began about India. He gave us some strange pieces +of information about that distant land that I think he invented on the +spur of the moment, and he told several anecdotes which were quite +deadly and without point. When they were concluded, he gave a short, +deep laugh, let his eye-glass fall out, looked at us one after the +other, and said, “What?” + +I would have enjoyed myself immensely if a sense of heavy uneasiness +had not continued to weigh on me. What troubled me was the uncertainty +of not knowing whether we really had escaped our pursuers. There was +the horrible possibility that they had seen us enter the house, and +were waiting to grab us as we came out. If they were there, and I was +caught with the diamonds in my possession, it would be a pretty dark +outlook for Laura the Lady--so dark I could not bear to picture it, +even in thought. As I talked and laughed with my hosts, my mind was +turning over every possible means by which I could get rid of the +stones before I left the house, trying to think up some way in which I +could dispose of them, and yet which would not place them quite beyond +reclaiming. I think my nerves had been shaken by that spectral pursuit +in the fog. Anyway, I wasn’t willing to risk a second edition of it. + +We sat over dinner a little more than an hour. It was not yet ten when +Mrs. Kennedy and I rose, and with a reminder to Tom that we were to “go +to the opera,” I trailed off in advance of my hostess across the hall +into the drawing-room. Here we sat down by a little gilt table, and +disposed ourselves to endure that dreary period when women have to put +up with one another’s society for ten minutes. It was my opportunity of +getting rid of the diamonds, and I knew it. + +We had sipped our coffee for a few minutes, and dodged about with the +usual commonplaces, when I suddenly grew grave, and, leaning toward +Mrs. Kennedy, said: + +“Now that we are alone, my dear Mrs. Kennedy, I must ask you about a +matter of which I am particularly anxious to hear more.” + +She looked at me with furtive alarm. I could see she was nerving +herself for a grapple with the unknown. + +“What matter?” she said. + +I lowered my voice to the key of confidences that are dire if not +actually tragic: + +“How about poor Amelia?” I murmured. + +She dropped her eyes to her cup, frowning a little. I was thrilling +with excitement, waiting to hear what she was going to say. After a +moment she lifted her face, perfectly calm and grave, to mine, and said: + +“Really, the subject is a very painful one to me. I’d rather not talk +about it.” + +It was a master-stroke. I could not have done better myself. I eyed +her with open admiration. You never would have thought it of her; she +seemed so young. After she had spoken she gave a sigh, and again looked +down at her cup, with an expression on her face of pensive musing. At +that moment the voices of the men leaving the dining-room struck on my +ear. + +I put my hand into the front of my dress, and undid the safety-pin. My +manner became furtive and hurried. + +“Mrs. Kennedy,” I said, leaning across the table, and speaking almost +in a whisper, “I entirely sympathize with your feelings, but I am _very +much_ worried about Amelia. You know the--the--circumstances.” She +raised her eyes, looked into mine, and nodded darkly. “Well, I have +something here for her. It’s nothing much,” I said, in answer to a look +of protest I saw rising in her face--“just the merest trifle I would +like you to give her. _She_ will understand.” + +I drew out the bag, and I saw her looking at it with curious, uneasy +eyes. The men were approaching through the back drawing-room. I rose +to my feet, and still with the secret, hurried air, I said: + +“Don’t give yourself any trouble about it. It’s just from me to her. +Our husbands, of course, mustn’t know. I’ll put it here. Poor Amelia!” + +There was a crystal and silver bowl on the table, and I put the bag +into it and placed a book over it. + +“Mrs. Thatcher,” she said, quickly, “really, I--” + +“Hush!” I said, dramatically, “it’s for Amelia! _We_ understand!” + +And then the men entered the room. + +We left a few minutes later. The butler called a cab for us, and even +if a person had never been a thief he ought to have had some idea +of how we felt as we issued out of that house and walked down the +steps. We neither of us spoke till we got inside the hansom and drove +off--safe for that time, anyway. + +We went to Handsome Harry’s place for that night, and sent him back for +Maud, with the message she must get out immediately with what things +she could bring. By eleven she was with us with her trunk and mine on +top of a four-wheeler. The next morning we had scattered--I for Calais +_en route_ for Paris, Tom for Edinburgh. Maud went to join a vaudeville +company that she acts with “between-whiles.” We had to leave a good +many things in the flat; but I felt we’d got out cheaply, and had no +regrets. + +That is the history of my connection with the Castlecourt diamond +robbery. Of course, it was not the end of the connection of our gang +with the case, but my actual participation ended here. I was simply an +interested spectator from this on. My statement is merely the record of +my own personal share in the theft, and as such is written with as much +clearness and fulness as I, who am unused to the pen, have got at my +command. + + + + +Statement of Cassius P. Kennedy, formerly of Necropolis City, Ohio, +now Manager of the London Branch of the Colonial Box, Tub, and Cordage +Company (Ltd.) of Chicago and St. Louis. + + + + +Statement of Cassius P. Kennedy, formerly of Necropolis City, Ohio, +now Manager of the London Branch of the Colonial Box, Tub, and Cordage +Company (Ltd.) of Chicago and St. Louis. + + +We had been in London two years when a series of extraordinary events +took place which involved us, through no fault of our own, in the most +unpleasant predicament that ever overtook two honest, respectable +Americans in a foreign country. + +I had been sent over to start the English branch of the Colonial Box, +Tub, and Cordage Company, one of the biggest concerns of the Middle +West, and it wasn’t two months before I realized that the venture was +going to catch on, and I was going to be at the head of a booming +business. I’d brought my wife and little girl along with me. We’d +been married five years--met in Necropolis City, and lived there and +afterward in Chicago, where I got my first big promotion. She was Daisy +K. Fairweather, of Buncumville, Indiana, and had been the belle of the +place. She’d also attracted considerable attention in St. Louis and +Kansas City, where she’d visited round a good deal. There was nothing +green about Daisy K. Fairweather--never had been. + +Daisy and I didn’t know many people when we first came over, but +that little woman wasn’t here six months before she’d sized up the +situation, and made up her mind just how and where she was going to +butt in. The first thing she did was to conform to those particular +ones among the local customs that seemed to her the most high-toned. In +Chicago we’d always dined at half-past six, and given the hired girls +every Thursday off. In London we dined the first year at half-past +seven, and the second at half-past eight. We had four servants and a +butler called Perkins, who ran everything in sight--myself included. I +always dressed for dinner after Perkins came, and tried to look as if +it was my lifelong custom. I’d have sunk out of sight in a sea of shame +rather than have had Perkins think I had not been brought up to it. + +Daisy caught on to everything, and then passed the word on to me. She +was always springing innovations on me, and I did the best I could to +keep my end up. She stopped talking the way she used to in Necropolis +City, and made Elaine--that’s our little girl--quit calling me “Popper” +and call me “Daddy.” She called her front hair her “fringe” and her +shirt-waist her “bloos,” and she made me careful of what I said before +the servants. “Servants talk so!” she’d say, just as if she’d heard +them. In Necropolis City, or even Chicago, we never bothered about the +“help” talking. They said what they wanted and we said what we wanted, +and that was all there was to it. But I supposed it was all right. +Whatever Daisy K. Fairweather Kennedy says goes with me. + +By the second season Daisy’d broken quite a way into society, and knew +a bishop and two lords. We were asked out a good deal, and we’d some +worthy little dinners at our own shack--15 Farley Street, near Walworth +Crescent, a thirty-five foot, four-story, high-stooped edifice that +we paid the same rent for you’d pay for a seven-room flat in Chicago. +Daisy by this time was in with all kinds of push. She was what she +called a “success.” Nights when we didn’t go out she’d sit with me and +say: + +“Well, I don’t really see how I’ll ever be able to live in Chicago +again, and Necropolis City would certainly kill me.” + +This same season Lady Sara Gyves dined with us twice (it was a great +step, Daisy said, and I took it for granted she knew), and once at a +reception Daisy stood right up close to the Marchioness of Castlecourt, +the greatest beauty in London, and watched her drink a cup of tea. +Daisy didn’t meet her that time, but she said to me: + +“Next season I’ll know her, and the season after that, if we’re +careful, I’ll dine with her. Then, Cassius P. Kennedy, we will have +arrived!” + +I said “Sure!” That’s what I mostly say to her, because she’s mostly +right. You don’t often find that little woman making breaks. + +It was in our third season in London, the time the middle of May, when +the things occurred of which I have made mention at the beginning of +my statement. It was this way: + +We’d been going out a good deal, pretty nearly every night, and we +were glad to have, for once, a quiet evening at home. Of course, that +doesn’t mean the same as it does in Necropolis City or even Chicago. +We dine, just the same, at half-past eight, and both of us dress for +dinner. We have to, Daisy says, no matter how we feel, because of the +servants. The servants in London are good servants all right, but the +way you have to avoid shocking their sensitive feelings sometimes +makes a free-born American rebellious. I like to think I’m an object +of interest to my fellow creatures, but it’s a good deal of a bother +to have it on your mind that you mustn’t destroy the illusions of the +butler or upset the ideals of the cook. + +As we were waiting for dinner to be announced we heard a cab rattle +up and stop, as it seemed, at our door. We looked at each other with +inquiring eyes, and then heard the cab go off--on the full jump, I +should say, by the noise it made--and a minute later the bell rang +sharp and quick. Perkins opened the door, and Daisy and I heard a +lady’s voice, very sweet and sort of drawling, say something in the +vestibule. I peeped through the curtains, and there were a man and +a woman--a distinguished-looking pair--taking off their coats and +primping themselves up at the hall mirror. I’d never seen either of +them before, as far as I could remember, but I could tell by their +general make-up that they were the real thing--the kind Daisy was +always cultivating and asking to dinner. + +I stepped back, and said to her, in a whisper: + +“Somebody’s come to dinner, and you’ve forgotten all about it.” + +She shook her head, and whispered back: + +“I haven’t asked any one to dinner; I’m sure I haven’t.” + +“Well, they’re here, whether we’ve asked them or not,” I hissed, “and +you can’t turn ’em out. They expect to be fed.” + +“Who are they?” + +“Search me! Friends of yours I’ve never seen.” + +“For pity’s sake, don’t look surprised! Try and pretend it’s all +right.” + +We lined up by the fireplace, and got our smiles all ready. The +portière was drawn, and Perkins announced: + +“Major and Mrs. Thatcher.” + +They sailed smilingly into the room, the woman ahead, rustling in a +long, sparkly, black dress. To my certain knowledge, I’d never seen +either of them before. The woman was very pretty; not pretty in the +sense that Daisy is, with beautiful features and a perfect complexion, +but slim, and pale, and aristocratic-looking. She had black hair with +a little wreath of red flowers in it, and the whitest neck I ever saw. +She evidently thought she was all right as far as herself and the +house and the dinner were concerned, for she was perfectly serene, +and easy as an old shoe. The man behind her was a big, handsome, dense +chap--just home from India, they said, and he looked it. He’d that dull +way those dead swell army fellows sometimes have; it goes with a long +mustache and an eye-glass. + +I looked out of the tail of my eye at Daisy, and I knew by her face she +couldn’t remember either of them. But they were the genuine article, +and she wasn’t going to be feazed by any situation that could boil up +out of the society pool. She was just as easy as they were. She’d a +smile on her face like a child, and she said the little, mild, milky +things women say just as milkily and mildly as tho she was greeting +her lifelong friends. + +Well, it went along as smoothly as a summer sea. They located +themselves as Major and Mrs. Thatcher, and told a lot about their life +and their movements--all of which I could see Daisy greedily gathering +in. I didn’t know whether she remembered them or not, but I didn’t +think she did, she was so careful about alluding to places where +she had met them. They seemed to know her all right--Mrs. Thatcher, +especially. She’d allude to smart houses where Daisy had been asked, +and tony people that were getting to be friends of Daisy’s. She seemed +to be right in the best circles herself. I wouldn’t like to say how +many times she mentioned the names of earls and lords; one of them, +Baron--some name like Fiddlesticks--she said was her cousin. + +She didn’t stay long after dinner. I don’t think I sat ten minutes +with the major--and it was a dull ten minutes, and no mistake. There +was nothing light and airy about him. He asked me about Chicago (which +he pronounced “Chick-ago”), and said he had heard there was good +sport in the Rocky Mountains, and thought of going there to hunt the +Great Auk. I didn’t know what the Great Auk was, and I asked him. He +looked blankly at me, and said he believed a “large form of bird,” +which surprised me, as I had an idea it was a preadamite beast, like a +behemoth. + +I was glad to have the major go, not only because he was so dull, but +because I was so dying to find out from Daisy if she’d placed them and +who they were. They were hardly on the steps and the front door shut on +them before I was back in the parlor. + +“Who are they, for heavens’ sake?” I burst out. + +She shook her head, laughing a little, and looking utterly bewildered. + +“My dear boy,” she said, “I haven’t the least idea. It’s the most +extraordinary thing I ever knew.” + +“Isn’t there anything about them you remember? Didn’t they say +something that gave you a clew?” + +“Not a word, and yet they seem to know me so well. The queerest thing +of all was that, when you were in the dining-room with the man, the +woman, in the most confidential tone, began to ask me about some one +called Amelia. It was _too_ dreadful! I hadn’t the faintest notion what +she meant.” + +“What did you say? I’ll lay ten to one you were equal to it.” + +“I realized it was desperate, and, after going through the dinner so +creditably, I wasn’t going to break down over the coffee. She said: +‘How about poor Amelia?’ I knew by that ‘poor’ and by the expression of +her face it was something unusual and queer. I thought a minute, and +then looked as solemn as I could, and answered: ‘Really, the subject is +a very painful one to me. I’d rather not talk about it.’” + +We both roared. It was so like Daisy to be ready that way! + +“And then--this is the strangest part of all--she put her hand in the +front of her dress and drew out some little thing of chamois leather, +and told me to give it to Amelia from her. I tried to stop her, but it +was too late. She put it here in the crystal bowl.” + +Daisy went to the bowl, and took out a little limp sack of chamois +leather. + +“It feels like pebbles,” she said, pinching it. + +And then she opened it and shook the “pebbles” into her hand. I bent +down to look at them, my head close to hers. The palm of her hand was +covered with small, sparkling crystals of different sizes and very +bright. We looked at them, and then at one another. They were diamonds! + +For a moment we didn’t either of us say anything. Daisy had been +laughing, and her laugh died away into a sort of scared giggle. Her +hand began to shake a little, and it made the diamonds send out gleams +in all directions. + +“What--what--does it mean?” she said, in a low sort of gasp. + +I just looked at them and shook my head. But I felt a cold sinking in +that part of my organism where my courage is usually screwed to the +sticking-place. + +“Are they real, do you think?” she said again, and she took the evening +paper and poured them out on it. + +Spread out that way, they looked most awfully numerous and rich. There +must have been more than a hundred of them of different sizes, and +shaking around on the surface of the paper made them shine and sparkle +like stars. + +“It’s a fortune, Cassius,” she said, almost in a whisper; “it’s a +fortune in diamonds. Why did she leave them?” + +“Didn’t she say they were for Amelia?” I said, in a hollow tone. + +“Yes; but who is Amelia? How will we ever find her? What shall we do? +It’s too awful!” + +We stood opposite one another with the paper between us, and tried to +think. In the lamplight the diamonds winked at us with what seemed +human malice. I turned round and picked up the bag they had come from, +looked vaguely into it, and shook it. A last stone fell out on the +paper, quite a large one, and added itself to the pile. + +“Why did she leave them here?” Daisy moaned. “What did she bother us +for? Why didn’t she take them to Amelia herself?” + +“Because she was afraid,” I said, in the undertone of melodrama. +“They’re stolen, Daisy.” + +I had voiced the fear in both our hearts. We sat down opposite one +another on either side of the table, with the newspaper full of +diamonds between us. I don’t know whether I was as pale as Daisy, but +I felt quite as bad as she looked. And sitting thus, each staring into +the other’s scared face, we ran over the events of the evening. + +We couldn’t make much of it; it was too uncanny. But from the first we +both decided we’d felt something to be wrong. Why or how they’d come? +who they were? what they wanted?--we couldn’t answer a single question. +We were in a maze. The only thing that seemed certain was that they had +one hundred and fifty diamonds of varying sizes that they had wanted, +for some reason, to get rid of, and they’d got rid of them to us. And +so we talked and talked till, by slow degrees, we got to the point +where suddenly, with a simultaneous start, we looked at one another, +and breathed out: + +“The Castlecourt diamonds!” + +We had read it all in the papers, and we had talked it over, and here +we were with a pile of gems in a newspaper that might be the very +stones. + +“And next year I’d hoped to know Lady Castlecourt. I’d been sure I +would!” Daisy wailed. “And now--” + +“But you haven’t stolen the diamonds, dearest,” I said, soothingly. +“You needn’t get in a fever about that.” + +“But, good heavens, I might just as well! Do you suppose there’s any +one in the world fool enough to believe the story of what happened here +to-night? People say it’s hard to believe everything in the Bible! Why, +Jonah and the whale is a simple every-day affair compared to it!” + +It did look bad; the more we talked of it the worse it looked. We +didn’t sleep all night, and when the dawn was coming through the +blinds we were still talking, trying to decide what to do. At +breakfast we sat like two graven images, not eating a thing, and all +that day in the office I found it impossible to concentrate my mind, +but sat thinking of what on earth we’d do with those darned diamonds. + +I’d suggested, the first thing, to go and give them up at the nearest +police station. But Daisy wouldn’t hear of that. She said that no +one would believe a word of our story--it was too impossible. And +when I came to think of it I must say I agreed with her. I saw myself +telling that story in a court of justice, and I realized that a look +of conscious guilt would be painted on my face the whole time. I’d +have felt, whether it was true or not, that nobody really ought to +believe it, and as an honest, self-respecting citizen I ought not to +expect them to. Here we were, strangers that nobody knew a thing about, +anyway! Daisy said they’d take us for accomplices; and when I said +to her we’d be a pretty rank pair of accomplices to give up the swag +without a struggle, she said they’d think we got scared, and decided to +do what she calls “turn State’s evidence.” + +She thought the best thing to do was to keep the stones till we could +think up a more plausible story. We tried to do that, and the night +after our meeting with Major and Mrs. Thatcher we stayed awake till +three, thinking up “plausible stories.” We got a great collection of +them, but it seemed impossible to get a good one without implicating +somebody. I invented a corker, but it cast a dark suspicion on Daisy; +and she had an even better one, but it would have undoubtedly resulted +in the arrest of Perkins and the housemaid, and possibly myself. + +It was a horrible situation. Even if we could possibly have escaped +suspicion ourselves, it would have ruined us socially and financially. +Would the Colonial Box, Tub, and Cordage Company have retained as the +head of its London branch a man who had got himself mixed up with a +sensational diamond robbery? Not on your life! That concern demands a +high standard and unspotted record in all its employees. I’d have got +the sack at the end of the month. + +And Daisy! How would the bishop and two lords have felt about it? Had +no more use for that little woman, you can bet your bottom dollar! Even +Lady Sara Gyves, who, they say, will go anywhere to get a dinner, would +have given her the Ice-house Laugh. _I_ know them. And I saw my Daisy +sitting at home all alone on her reception day, and taking dinner with +me every night. No, sir! That wouldn’t happen if Cassius P. Kennedy had +to take those diamonds to the Thames and throw them off London Bridge +in a weighted bag. + +So there we were! It was a dreadful predicament. Every morning we +read the papers with our hearts thumping like hammers. Every ring at +the bell made us jump, and we had a deadly fear that each time the +portière was lifted and a caller appeared we’d see the buttons and +helmet of a policeman with a warrant of arrest concealed upon his +person. I began to have awful dreams and Daisy didn’t sleep at all, +and got pale and peaked. We thought up more “plausible stories,” but +they seemed to get less probable every time, and all our spare moments +together, which used to be so happy and care free, were now dark and +harassed as the meetings of conspirators. + +Even concealing the miserable things was a wearing anxiety. First we +decided to divide them, Daisy to wear her half in the chamois bag hung +around her neck, while I concealed mine in a money-belt worn under +my clothes. We had about decided on that and I’d bought the belt, +when we got the idea that if we were killed in an accident they’d be +found on us, and then our memoirs would go down to posterity blackened +with shame. So we just put them back in the bag and locked them up in +Daisy’s jewel-case, round which we hovered as they say a murderer does +round the hiding-place of his victim. + +I never knew before how burglars felt; but if it was anything like +the way Daisy and I did, I wonder anybody ever takes to that perilous +trade. We were the most unhappy creatures in London, feeling ourselves +a pair of thieves, and our unpolluted, innocent home no better than a +“fence.” There was less in the papers about the Castlecourt diamonds +robbery, but that did not give us any peace; for, in the first place, +we didn’t know for certain that we had the Castlecourt diamonds, and, +in the second, when we now and then did see dark allusions to the +sleuths being “on a new and more promising scent,” we modestly supposed +that we might be the quarry to which it led. Daisy began to talk of +“going to prison” as a termination of her career that might not be so +far distant, and to the thought of which she was growing reconciled. + +This about covers the ground of my immediate connection with the stolen +diamonds. Their subsequent disposition is a matter in which my wife +is more concerned than I am. She also will be able to tell her part +of the story with more literary frills than I can muster up. I’m no +writing man, and all I’ve tried to do is to state my part of the affair +honestly and clearly. + + + + +Statement of John Burns Gilsey, private detective, especially engaged +on the Castlecourt diamond case. + + + + +Statement of John Burns Gilsey, private detective, especially engaged +on the Castlecourt diamond case. + + +At a quarter before eight on the evening of May fourth a telephone +message was sent to Scotland Yard that a diamond necklace, the property +of the Marquis of Castlecourt, had been stolen from Burridge’s Hotel. +Brison, one of the best of their men, was detailed upon the case, +and three days later my services were engaged by the marquis. After +investigations which have occupied several weeks, I have become +convinced that the case is an unusual and complicated one. The reasons +which have led me to this conclusion I will now set down as briefly and +clearly as possible. + +As has already been stated in the papers, the diamonds, on the +afternoon of the robbery, were standing in a leather jewel-case on +the bureau in Lady Castlecourt’s apartment. To this room access was +obtained by three doors--that which led into Lord Castlecourt’s room, +that which led into the sitting-room, and that which led into the hall. + +Lord Castlecourt’s valet, James Chawlmers, and Lady Castlecourt’s maid, +Sophy Jeffers, had been occupied in this suite of apartments throughout +the afternoon. At six Jeffers had laid out her ladyship’s clothes, +taken the diamonds from the metal despatch-box in which they were +usually carried, and set them on the bureau. She had then withdrawn +into the sitting-room with Chawlmers, where they had remained for half +an hour talking. During this period of time Jeffers deposes that she +heard the rustle of a skirt in the sitting-room, and went to the door +to see if any one had entered. No one was to be seen. She returned +to the sitting-room, and resumed her conversation with Chawlmers. It +is the general supposition--and it would appear to be the reasonable +one--that the diamonds were then taken. According to Jeffers, they +were in the case at six o’clock, and on the testimony of Lord and Lady +Castlecourt they were gone at half-past seven. The person toward whom +suspicion points is a housemaid, going by the name of Sara Dwight, who +had a pass-key to the apartment. + +The suspicions of Sara Dwight were strengthened by her actions. At +quarter past seven that evening she left the hotel without giving +warning, and carrying no further baggage than a small portmanteau. +Upon examination of her room, it was discovered that she had left a +gown hanging on the pegs, and her box, which contained a few articles +of coarse underclothing and a wadded cotton quilt. She had been +uncommunicative with the other servants, but had had much conversation +with Sophy Jeffers, who described her as a brisk, civil-spoken girl, +whose manner of speech was above her station. + +The natural suspicions evoked by her behavior were intensified in the +mind of Brison by the information that the celebrated crook Laura the +Lady had returned to London. I myself had seen the woman at Earlscourt, +and told Brison of the occurrence. It had appeared to Brison that +Jeffers’ description of the housemaid had many points of resemblance +with Laura the Lady. The theft reminded us both of the affair of the +Comtesse de Chateaugay’s rubies, when this particular thief, who speaks +French as well as she does English, was supposed to have been the +moving spirit in one of the most daring jewel robberies of our time. + +Brison, confident that Sara Dwight and Laura the Lady were one and +the same, concentrated his powers in an effort to find her. He was +successful to the extent of locating a woman closely resembling Laura +the Lady living quietly in a furnished flat in Knightsbridge with a +man who passed as her husband. He discovered that this couple had left +for a “business trip” on the Continent shortly before Sara Dwight’s +appearance at Burridge’s, and had returned shortly after her departure +therefrom. + +He regarded the pair and their movements as of sufficient importance +to be watched, and for a week after their return from the Continent +had the flat shadowed. One foggy night, while he himself was watching +the place, the man and woman came out in evening dress, and took a +hansom that was waiting for them. Brison followed them, and the fog +being dense and their horse fresh, lost them in the maze of streets +about Walworth Crescent. He is positive that the occupants of the cab +realized they were followed and attempted to escape. He assures me that +he saw the driver turn several times and look at his hansom, and then +lash his horse to a desperate speed. + +One of the points in this nocturnal pursuit that he thinks most +noteworthy is the manner in which the occupants of the cab disappeared. +After keeping it well in sight for over half an hour, he lost it +completely and suddenly in the short street that runs from Walworth +Crescent, north, into Farley Street; ten minutes later he is under +the impression that he sighted it again near the Hyde Park Hotel. But +if it was the same cab it was empty, and the driver was looking for +fares. For some hours after this Brison patrolled the streets in the +neighborhood, but could find no trace of the suspected pair. It was +midnight when he returned to his surveillance of the flat. The next +morning he heard that its occupants had left. A search-warrant revealed +the fact that they had gone with such haste that they had left many +articles of dress, etc., behind them. There was every evidence of a +hurried flight. + +All this was so much clear proof, in Brison’s opinion, of the guilt +of Sara Dwight. Upon this hypothesis he is working, and I have not +disturbed his confidence in the integrity of his efforts. The result +of my investigations, which I have been quietly and systematically +pursuing for the last three weeks, has led me to a different and +much more sensational conclusion. That Sara Dwight may have taken the +diamonds I do not deny. But she was merely an accomplice in the hands +of another. The real thief, in my opinion, is Gladys, Marchioness of +Castlecourt! + +My reasons for holding this theory are based upon observations taken at +the time, upon my large and varied experience in such cases, and upon +information that I have been collecting since the occurrence. Let me +briefly state the result of my deductions and researches. + +Lady Castlecourt, who was the daughter of a penniless Irish clergyman, +was a young girl of great beauty brought up in the direst poverty. Her +marriage with the Marquis of Castlecourt, which took place seven years +ago this spring, lifted her into a position of social prominence and +financial ease. Society made much of her; she became one of its most +brilliant ornaments. Her husband’s infatuation was well known. During +the first years of their marriage he could refuse her nothing, and he +stinted himself--for, tho well off, Lord Castlecourt is by no means a +millionaire peer--in order to satisfy her whims. The lady very quickly +developed great extravagances. She became known as one of the most +expensively dressed women in London. It had been mentioned in certain +society journals that Lord Castlecourt’s revenues had been so reduced +by his wife’s extravagance that he had been forced to rent his town +house in Grosvenor Gate, and for two seasons take rooms in Burridge’s +Hotel. + +This is a simple statement of certain tendencies of the lady. Now let +me state, with more detail, how these tendencies developed and to what +they led. + +I will admit here, before I go further, that my suspicions of Lady +Castlecourt were aroused from the first. It was, perhaps, with a +predisposed mind that I began those explorations into her life during +the past five years which have convinced me that she was the moving +spirit in this theft of the diamonds. + +For the first two years of her married life Lady Castlecourt lived most +of the time on the estate of Castlecourt Marsh Manor. During this +period she became the mother of two sons, and it was after the birth +of the second that she went to London and spent her first season there +since her marriage. She was in blooming health, and even more beautiful +than she had been in her girlhood. She became the fashion: no gathering +was complete without her; her costumes were described in the papers; +royalty admired her. + +I have discovered that at this time her husband gave her six hundred +pounds per annum for a dressing allowance. During the first two years +of her married life she lived within this. But after that she exceeded +it to the extent of hundreds, and finally thousands, of pounds. The +fifth year after her marriage she was in debt three thousand pounds, +her creditors being dressmakers, furriers, jewelers, and milliners +in London and Paris. She made no attempt to pay these debts, and the +tradesmen, knowing her high social position and her husband’s rigid +sense of pecuniary obligations, did not press her, and she went on +spending with an unstinted hand. + +It was last year that she finally precipitated the catastrophe by +the purchase of a coat of Russian sable for the sum of one thousand +pounds, and a set of turquoise ornaments valued at half that amount. +Each of these purchases was made in Paris. The two creditors, having +been already warned of her disinclination to meet her bills, had, it +is said, laid wagers with other firms to which she was deeply in debt, +that they would extract the money from her within the year. + +It was in the summer of the past year that Lady Castlecourt was first +threatened by Bolkonsky, the furrier, with law proceedings. In the end +of September she went to Paris and visited the man in his own offices, +and--I have it from an eyewitness--exhibited the greatest trepidation +and alarm, finally begging, with tears, for an extension of a month’s +time. To this Bolkonsky consented, warning her that, at the end of that +time, if his account was not settled, he would acquaint his lordship +with the situation and institute legal proceedings. + +Before the month was up--that was in October of the past year--his +account was paid in full by Lady Castlecourt herself. At the same +time other accounts in Paris and London were entirely settled or +compromised. I find that, during the months of October and November, +Lady Castlecourt paid off debts amounting to nearly four thousand +pounds. In most instances she settled them personally, paying them in +bank-notes. A few claims were paid by check. I have it from those with +whom she transacted these monetary dealings that she seemed greatly +relieved to be able to discharge her obligations, and that in all +cases she requested silence on the subject as the price of her future +patronage. + +I now come to a feature of the case that I admit greatly puzzles me. +Lady Castlecourt was still wearing the diamonds when this large sum +was disbursed by her. As far as can be ascertained, she had made no +effort to sell them, and I can find no trace of a frustrated attempt to +steal them. She had suddenly become possessed of four thousand pounds +without the aid of the diamonds. They were not called into requisition +till nearly six months later. + +The natural supposition would be that “some one”--an unknown donor--had +put up the four thousand pounds; in fact, that Lady Castlecourt had a +lover, to whom, in a desperate extremity, she had appealed. But the +most thorough examination of her past life reveals no hint of such a +thing. Frivolous and extravagant as she undoubtedly was, she seems to +have been, as far as her personal conduct goes, a moral and virtuous +lady. Her name has been associated with no man’s, either in a foolish +flirtation or a scandalous and compromising intrigue; in fact, her +devotion to Lord Castlecourt appears to have been of an absolutely +genuine and sincere kind. While she did not scruple to deceive him +as to her pecuniary dealings, she unquestionably seems to have been +perfectly upright and honest in the matter of marital fidelity. + +Where, then, did Lady Castlecourt secure this large sum of money? My +reading of the situation is briefly this: + +Her creditors becoming rebellious and Lady Castlecourt becoming +terrified, she appealed to some woman friend for a loan. Who this is +I have no idea, but among her large circle of acquaintances there +are several ladies of sufficient means and sufficiently intimate with +Lady Castlecourt to have been able to advance the required sum. This +was done, as I have shown above, in the month of October, when Lady +Castlecourt was in Paris, where she at once began to pay off her debts. +After this she continued wearing the diamonds, and, in my opinion--such +is her shallowness and irresponsibility of character--forgot the +obligations of the loan, which had probably been made under a promise +of speedy repayment, either in full or in part. + +It was then--this, let it be understood, is all surmise--that Lady +Castlecourt’s new and unknown debtor began to press for a repayment. +There might be many reasons why this should so closely have followed +the loan. With a woman of Lady Castlecourt’s lax and unbusinesslike +methods, unusual conditions could be readily exacted. She is of the +class of persons that, under a pressing need for money, would agree +to any conditions and immediately forget them. That she did agree +to a speedy reimbursement I am positive; that once again she found +herself confronted by an angry and threatening creditor; and that, +in desperation and with the assistance of Sara Dwight, she stole the +diamonds, intending probably to pawn them, is the conclusion to which +my experience and investigations have led me. + +How she came to select Sara Dwight as an accomplice I am not qualified +to state. In my opinion, fear of detection made her seek the aid of a +confederate. Sara’s flight, with its obviously suspicious surroundings, +has an air of prearrangement suggestive of having been carefully +planned to divert suspicion from the real criminal. Sophy Jeffers +assured me that Lady Castlecourt had never, to her knowledge, conversed +at any length with the housemaid. But Jeffers is a very simple-minded +person, whom it would be an easy matter to deceive. That Sara Dwight +was her ladyship’s accomplice I am positive; that she took the jewels +and now has them is also my opinion. + +Being convinced of her need of ready money, and of the rashness and +lack of balance in her character, I have been expecting that Lady +Castlecourt would make some decisive move in the way of selling the +diamonds. With this idea agents of mine have been on the watch, but +without so far finding any evidence that she has attempted to place the +stones on the market. We have found no traces of them either in London +or Paris, or the usual depots in Holland or Belgium. It is true that +the Castlecourt diamonds, not being remarkable for size, would be easy +to dispose of in small, separate lots, but our system of surveillance +is so thorough that I do not see how they could escape us. I am of the +opinion that the stones are still in the hands of Sara Dwight, who, +whether she is an accomplished thief or not, is probably more wary and +more versed in such dealings than Lady Castlecourt. + +That her ladyship should have been the object of my suspicions from +the start may seem peculiar to those to whom she appears only as a +person of rank, wealth, and beauty. Before the case came under my +notice at all, I had heard her uncontrolled extravagance remarked upon, +and that alone, coupled with the fact that Lord Castlecourt is not a +peer of vast wealth, and that the lady’s moral character is said to be +unblemished, would naturally arouse the suspicion of one used to the +vagaries and intricacies of the evolution of crime. + +During my first interview with her ladyship I watched her closely, and +was struck by her pallor, her impatience under questioning, her hardly +concealed nervousness, and her indignant repudiation of the suspicions +cast upon her servants. All the domestics in her employment agree that +she is a kind and generous mistress, and it would be particularly +galling to one of her disposition to think that her employees were +suffering for her faults. Her answers to many of my questions were +vague and evasive, and to both Brison and myself, at two different +times, she suggested the possibility of the jewels not being stolen at +all, but having been “mislaid.” Even Brison, whose judgment had been +warped by her beauty and rank, was forced to admit the strangeness of +this remark. + +The description given me by Sophy Jeffers of her ladyship’s deportment +when the theft was discovered still further strengthened my suspicions. +Lady Castlecourt’s behavior at this juncture might have passed as +natural by those not used to the very genuine hysteria which often +attacks criminals. That she was wrought up to a high degree of nervous +excitement is acknowledged by all who saw her. It is alleged by +Jeffers--quite innocently of any intention to injure her mistress, +to whom she appears devoted--that her ladyship’s first emotion on +discovering the loss was a fear of her husband; that when he entered +the room she instinctively tried to conceal the empty jewel-case behind +her, and that almost her first words to him were assurances that she +had not been careless, but had guarded the jewels well. + +Fear of Lord Castlecourt was undoubtedly the most prominent feeling she +then possessed, and it showed itself with unrestrained frankness in +the various ways described above. Afterward she attempted to be more +reticent, and adopted an air of what almost appeared indifference, +surprising not only myself and Brison, but Jeffers, by her remarks, +made with irritated impatience, that they still might “turn up +somewhere,” and “that she did not see how we could be so sure they were +stolen.” This change of attitude was even more convincing to me than +her former exhibition of alarm. The very candor and childishness with +which she showed her varying states of mind would have disarmed most +people, but were to me almost conclusive proofs of her guilt. She is a +woman whose shallow irresponsibility of mind is even more unusual than +her remarkable beauty. No one but an old and seasoned criminal, or a +creature of extraordinary simplicity, could have behaved with so much +audacity in such a situation. + +Having arrived at these conclusions, I am not reduced to a passive +attitude. I will wait and watch until such time as the diamonds +are either pawned or sold. This may not occur for months, tho I am +inclined to think that her ladyship’s need of money will force her to +a recklessness which will be her undoing. Sara Dwight may be able to +control her to a certain point, but I am under the impression that her +ladyship, frightened and desperate, will be a very difficult person to +handle. + +This brings my statement up to date. At the present writing I am simply +awaiting developments, confident that the outcome will prove the verity +of my original proposition and the exactitude of my subsequent line of +argument. + + + + +The Statement of Daisy K. Fairweather Kennedy, late of Necropolis City, +Ohio, at present a resident of 15 Farley Street, Knightsbridge, London. + + + + +The Statement of Daisy K. Fairweather Kennedy, late of Necropolis City, +Ohio, at present a resident of 15 Farley Street, Knightsbridge, London. + + +I believe it is not necessary for me to state how a chamois-skin bag +containing one hundred and sixty-two diamonds came into my hands on the +evening of May 14th. That it did come into my possession was enough for +me. I never before thought that the possession of diamonds could make +a woman so perfectly miserable. When I was a young girl in Necropolis +City I used to think to own a diamond--even one small one--would be +just about the acme of human joy. But Necropolis City is a good way +behind me now, and I have found that the owning of a handful of them +can be about the most wearing form of misery. + +I suppose there are fearless, upright people in the world who would +have taken those diamonds straight back to the police station and +braved public opinion. It would have been better to have had your word +doubted, to be tried for a thief, put in jail, and probably complicated +the diplomatic relations between England and the United States, than +to conceal in your domicile one hundred and sixty-two precious stones +that didn’t belong to you. I hope every one understands--and I’m sure +every one does who knows me--that I did not want to keep the miserable +things. What good did they do me, anyway, locked up in my jewel-box, +in the upper right-hand bureau drawer? + +We knew no peace from that tragic evening when Major and Mrs. +Thatcher dined with us. First we tried to think of ways of getting +rid of them--of the diamonds, I mean. Cassius, who’s just a simple, +uncomplicated man, wanted to take them right to the nearest police +station and hand them in. I soon showed him the madness of _that_. Was +there a soul in London who would have believed our story? Wouldn’t the +American ambassador himself have had to bow his crested head and tame +his heart of fire, and admit it was about the fishiest tale he had ever +heard? + +It would have ruined us forever. Even if Cassius hadn’t been deposed +from his place as the head of the English branch of the Colonial +Box, Tub, and Cordage Company (Ltd), of Chicago and St. Louis, who +would have known me? The trail of the diamonds would have been over +us forever. Lady Sara Gyves would have gone round saying she always +thought I had the face of a thief, and the bishop and the two lords +I’ve collected with such care would have cut me dead in the Park. I +would have received my social quietus forever. And, I just tell you, +when I’ve worked for a thing as hard as I have for that bishop and the +two lords and Lady Sara Gyves, I’m not going to give them up without a +struggle. + +Cassius and I spent two feverish, agonized weeks trying to think what +we would do with the diamonds. I never knew before I had so much +inventive ability. It was wonderful the things we thought of. One of +our ideas was to put a personal in the papers advertising for “Amelia.” +We spent five consecutive evenings concocting different ones that would +have the effect of rousing “Amelia’s” curiosity and deadening that of +everybody else. It did not seem capable of construction. Twist and turn +it as you would, you couldn’t state that you had something valuable +in your possession for “Amelia” without making the paragraph bristle +with a sort of mysterious importance. It was like a trap set and +baited to catch the attention of a detective. We did insert one--“Will +Amelia kindly publish her present address, and oblige Major and Mrs. +Thatcher?”--which, after all, didn’t involve us. And for two weeks we +read the papers with beating, hopeful hearts, but there was no reply. I +thought “Amelia” never saw it. Cassius thought there was no such person. + +A month dragged itself away, and there we were with those horrible gems +locked in my jewel-box. I began to look pale and miserable, and Cassius +told me he thought the diamonds were becoming a “fixed idea” with me, +and he’d have to take me away for a change. Once I told him I felt as +if I’d never have any peace or be my old gay self again while they were +in my possession. He said, that being the case, he’d take them out some +night and throw them in the Serpentine, the pond where the despondent +people commit suicide. But I dissuaded him from it. + +“Perhaps they’ll never be claimed,” I said. “And some day when we’re +old we can have them set and Elaine can wear them.” + +“You might even wear them yourself,” Cassius said, trying to cheer me +up. + +“What would be the good?” I answered, gloomily. “I’d be at least sixty +before I’d dare to.” + +All through June I lived under this wearing strain, and I grew thinner +and more nervous day by day. The season which is always so lovely and +gay was no longer an exciting and joyous time for me. I drove down +Bond Street with a frowning face, and it did not cheer me up at all +to see how many people I seemed to know. Looking down the vistas of +quiet, asphalted streets, where the lines of sedate house fronts are +brightened by polished brasses on the doors and flower-boxes at the +windows, I was no longer filled with an exhilarating determination to +some day be an honored guest in every house that was worth entering. +When I drove by the green ovals of the little parks, which you can’t +enter without a private key, I experienced none of my old ambition to +have a key too, and go in and mingle with the aristocracy sitting on +wooden benches. + +Even meeting the Countess of Belsborough at a reception, and being +asked by her, in a sociable, friendly way, if I knew her cousin +John, who was mining somewhere in Mexico or Honduras--she wasn’t sure +which--did not cheer me up at all. The change in me was extraordinary. +When I first came to London, if even a curate or a clerk from the city +had asked me such a question, I’d have made an effort to remember John, +as if Mexico had been my front garden and I’d played all round Honduras +when I was a child. Now I said to Lady Belsborough that neither Mexico +nor Honduras were part of the United States quite snappishly, as if I +thought she was stupid. And all because of those accursed diamonds! + +It was toward the end of June, and the days were getting warm, when the +climax came. + +The pressure of the season was abating. The rhododendrons were dead in +the Park, and there was dust on the trees. In St. James’ the grass was +quite worn and patchy, and strangely clad people lay on it, sleeping in +the sun. One met a great many American tourists in white shirt-waists +and long veils. I thought of the time when I, too, innocently and +unthinkingly, had worn a white shirt-waist, and it didn’t seem to me +such a horrible time, after all--at least, I did not then have one +hundred and sixty-two stolen diamonds in my jewel-box. My heart was +lighter in those days, even if my shirt-waist had only cost a dollar +and forty-nine cents at a department store in Necropolis City. + +The month ended with a spell of what the English call “frightful +heat.” It was quite warm weather, and we sat a good deal on the little +balcony that juts out from my window over the front door. Farley +Street is quiet and rather out of the line of general traffic, so we +had chairs and a table there, and used to have tea served under the +one palm, which was all there was room for. We could not have visitors +there, for it opened out of my bedroom. So our tea-parties on the +balcony were strictly family affairs--just Cassius, and Elaine, and I. + +The last day of the month was really very warm. Every door in the +house was open, and the servants went about gasping, with their faces +crimson. I dined at home alone that evening, as one of the members of +the Box, Tub, and Cordage Company was in London, at the Carlton, and +Cassius was dining with him. I did not expect him home till late, as +there would be lots to talk over. + +I had not felt well all day. The heat had given me a headache, and +after dinner I lay on the sofa in the sitting-room, feeling quite +miserable. Only a few of the lamps were lit, and the house was dim +and extremely quiet. Being alone that way in the half dark got on my +nerves, and I decided I’d go up-stairs and go to bed early. I always +did hate sitting about by myself, and now more than ever, with the +diamonds on my conscience. + +Our stairs are thickly carpeted, and as I had on thin satin slippers +and a crêpe tea-gown I made no noise at all coming up. I always have +a light burning in my room, so when I saw a yellow gleam below the +door I did not think anything of it, but just softly pushed the door +open and went in. Then I stopped dead where I stood. A man with a soft +felt-hat on, and a handkerchief tied over the lower part of his face, +was standing in front of the bureau! + +He had not heard me, and for a moment I stood without making a sound, +watching him. The two gas-jets on either side of the bureau were lit, +and that part of the room was flooded with light. Very quickly and +softly he was turning over the contents of the drawers, taking out +laces, gloves, and veils, throwing them this way and that out of his +way, and opening every box he found. My heart gave a great leap when I +saw him seize upon the jewel-box, and my mouth, unfortunately, emitted +some kind of a sound--I think it was a sort of gasp of relief, but I’m +not sure. + +Whatever it was, he heard. He gave a start as if he had been +electrified, raised his head, and saw me. For just one second he +stood staring, and then he said something--of a profane character, I +think--and ran for the balcony. + +And I ran too. There was something in the way--a little table, I +believe--and he collided with it. That checked him for a moment, and I +got to the window first. I threw myself across it with my arms spread +out, in an attitude like that assumed by Sara Bernhardt when she is +barring her lover’s exit in “Fedora.” But I don’t think any actress +ever barred her lover’s exit with as much determination and zeal as I +barred the exit of that burglar. + +“You can’t go!” I cried, wildly. “You’ve forgotten something!” + +He paused just in front of me, and I cried again: + +“You haven’t got them; they’re in the jewelry-box.” + +He moved forward and laid his hand on my arm, to push me aside. I felt +quite desperate, and wailed: + +“Oh, don’t go without opening the jewelry-box. There are some things in +it I know you will like.” + +He tried to push me out of the way--gently, it is true, but with +force. But I clung to him, clasped him by the arm with what must have +appeared quite an affectionate grip, and continued, imploringly: + +“Don’t be in such a hurry. I’m sorry I interrupted you. If you’ll +promise not to go till you’ve looked through my things and taken what +you want, I’ll leave the room. It was quite by accident that I came in.” + +The burglar let go my arm, and looked at me over the handkerchief with +a pair of eyes that seemed quite kind and pleasant. + +“Really,” he said, in a deep, gentlemanly voice that seemed +familiar--“really, I don’t quite understand--” + +“I know you don’t,” I interrupted, impulsively. “How could you be +expected to? And I can’t explain. It’s a most complicated matter, and +would take too long. Only don’t be frightened and run away till you’ve +taken something. You’ve endangered your life and risked going to prison +to get in here; and wouldn’t it be too foolish, after that, to go +without anything? Now, in the jewelry-box”--I indicated it, and spoke +in what I hoped was a most insinuating tone--“there are some things +that I think you’d like. If you’d just look at them--” + +“You’re a most persuasive lady,” said the burglar, “but--” + +He moved again toward the window. A feeling of absolute anguish that +he was going without the diamonds pierced me. I threw myself in front +of him again, and in some way, I can’t tell you how, caught the +handkerchief that covered his face and pulled it down. There was the +handsome visage and long mustache of Major Thatcher! + +I backed away from him in the greatest confusion. He too blushed and +looked uncomfortable. + +“Oh, Major Thatcher,” I murmured, “I beg your pardon! I’m so sorry. I +don’t know how it happened. I think the end of the handkerchief caught +in my bracelet.” + +“Pray don’t mention it,” answered the major, “nothing at all.” + +Then we were both silent, standing opposite one another, not knowing +what to say. It is not easy to feaze me, but it must be admitted that +the situation was unusual. + +“How is Mrs. Thatcher?” I said, desperately, when the silence had +become unbearable. And the major replied, in his deepest voice, and +with his most abrupt military air: + +“Ethel’s very fit. Never was better in her life, thank you. Mr. Kennedy +is quite well, I hope?” + +“Cassius is enjoying the best of health,” I answered. “He’s out +to-night, I’m sorry to say.” + +“Just fancy,” said Major Thatcher. Then there was a pause, and he +added: “How tiresome!” + +I could think of nothing more to say, and again we were silent. It was +really the most uncomfortable position I ever was in. The major was a +burglar beyond a doubt, but he looked and talked just like a gentleman; +besides, he’d dined with us. That makes a great difference. When a man +has broken bread at your table as a respectable fellow creature, it’s +hard to get your mind round to regarding him severely as a criminal. I +felt that the only thing to do was to graciously ignore it all, as you +do when some one spills the claret on your best table-cloth. At the +same time, there were the diamonds! I could not let the chance escape. + +“Oh, Major Thatcher!” I said, with an air of suddenly remembering +something. “I don’t know whether you know that your wife left a little +package here that evening when you dined with us. It was for Amelia.” + +Major Thatcher looked at me with the most heavily solemn expression. + +“To be sure,” he murmured, “for Amelia.” + +“Well,” I went on, trying to impart to my words a light society tone, +“you know we can’t find her. Very stupid of us, I have no doubt. But +we’ve tried, and we can’t, anywhere.” + +Major Thatcher stared blankly at the dressing-table. + +“Strange, ’pon my word!” he said. + +“So, Major Thatcher, if you don’t mind, I’ll give it back to you. I +think, all things considered, it will be best for you to give it to +Amelia yourself.” + +I went toward the dressing-table. + +“You don’t mind, do you?” I said, over my shoulder, as I opened the +jewelry-box. + +“Not at all, not at all,” answered the major. “Anything to oblige a +lady.” + +I drew out the sack of chamois-skin. “Here it is,” I said, holding it +out to him. “You’ll find it in perfect condition and quite complete. +I’m so sorry that we couldn’t seem to locate Amelia. Not knowing the +rest of her name was rather inconvenient. There were dozens of Amelias +in the directory.” + +The major took the sack, and put it in his breast-pocket. + +“Dozens of Amelias,” he repeated, slapping his pocket. “Who’d have +thought it!” + +“We even advertised,” I continued. “Perhaps you saw the personal; it +was in the morning _Herald_, and was very short and noncommittal, but +no one answered it.” + +“We saw it,” said the major. “Yes, I recollect quite distinctly seeing +it. It--it--indicated to us--aw--aw--” + +The major reddened and paused, pulling his mustache. + +“That we hadn’t found Amelia and still had the present,” I answered, in +a sprightly tone. “That was just it. And so you came to get it? Very +kind of you, indeed, Major Thatcher.” + +The major bowed. He was really a very fine-looking, well-mannered man. +If he only had been the honest, respectable person we first thought him +I would have liked to add him to my collection. I’m sure if you knew +him better he would have been much more interesting than the bishop and +the lords. + +“The kindness is on your side,” he said. “And now, Mrs. Kennedy, I +think--I think, perhaps”--he looked at the window that gave on the +balcony--“I think I’d better--” + +“You must be going!” I cried, just as I say it to the bishop when he +puts down his cup and looks at the clock. “How unfortunate! But, of +course, your other engagements--” + +I checked myself, suddenly realizing that it wasn’t just the thing to +say to the major. When you’re talking to a burglar it doesn’t seem +delicate or thoughtful to allude to his “other engagements.” That I +made such a break is due to the fact that I’d never talked to a burglar +before, and was bound to be a little green. + +The major did not seem to mind. + +“Exactly so,” he said. “My time is just now much occupied. I--er--I--” + +He looked again at the window. + +“I--er--entered that way,” he said, “but perhaps--” + +“I don’t think I’d go out that way if I were you,” I answered, +hurriedly, “it would look so queer if any one saw you.” + +“Would the other and more usual exit be safe?” he asked. His eye, as it +met mine, was charged with a keener intelligence than I had seen in it +before. + +“It would have to be,” I answered, with spirit. “What do you suppose +the servants would think if they saw you coming out of here? This, +Major Thatcher, is my room.” + +“Dear me!” said the major, “I suppose it is. I never thought of that.” + +“Wait here till I see if it is all right,” I said, “and then I’ll come +back and tell you.” + +I went into the hall and looked over the banister. The gas was burning +faintly, and a bar of pink lamplight fell out from the half-drawn +portières of the drawing-room. There was not a sound. I knew the +servants were all in the back part of the house, quite safe till eleven +o’clock, when, if we were home, they turned out the lights and locked +up. I stole softly back into my room. The major was standing in front +of the mirror untying the handkerchief that hung round his neck. + +“It’s all right,” I assured him, in an unconsciously lowered voice. +“You can go quite easily; I’ll let you out. Only you mustn’t make the +least bit of noise.” + +He thrust the handkerchief in his pocket and put on his hat, pulling +the brim down over his eyes. I must confess he didn’t look half so +distinguished this way. When the handkerchief was gone, I saw he wore +a flannel shirt with a turned-down collar, and with his hat shading +his face he certainly did seem a strange sort of man for me to be +conducting down the stairs at half-past ten at night. If Perkins, +who’d come to us bristling with respectability from a distinguished, +evangelical, aristocratic family, should meet us, I would never hold up +my head again. + +“Now, if you hear Perkins,” I whispered, “for heavens’ sake, hide +somewhere. Run back to my room, if you can’t go anywhere else. Perkins +_must not_ see you!” + +The major growled out some reply, and we tiptoed breathlessly across +the hall to the stair-head. I was much more frightened than he was. I +know, as I stole from step to step, my heart kept beating faster and +faster. Such awful things might have happened: Perkins suddenly appear +to put out the lights; Cassius come home early from the dinner, and +open the front door just as I was about to let the major out! When we +reached the door I was quite faint, while the major seemed as cool as +if he’d been paying a call. + +“Very kind of you, I’m sure,” he said, trying to take off his hat. “I +shan’t forget it.” + +“Oh, never mind being polite,” I gasped. “You’ve got the diamonds. +That’s all that matters. Good-night. Give my regards to Mrs. Thatcher.” + +And he was gone! I shut the door and crept up-stairs. First I felt +faint, and then I felt hysterical. When Cassius came home at eleven I +was lying on the sofa in tears, and all I could say to him was to sob: + +“The diamonds are gone! The diamonds are gone!” + +He thought I’d gone mad at first, and then when I finally made him +understand he was nearly as excited as I. He went down-stairs and +brought up a bottle of champagne, and we celebrated at midnight up in +our room. We had to tell lies to Perkins afterward to explain how we +came to be one bottle short. But what did lies matter, or even Perkins’ +opinion of us? We were no longer crushed under the weight of one +hundred and sixty-two diamonds that didn’t belong to us! + +That is the history of my connection with the case. From that night +I’ve never seen or heard of the stones, nor have I seen Major or +Mrs. Thatcher. The diamonds entered our possession and departed from +them exactly as I have told, and tho my statement may call for great +credulity on the part of my readers, all I can say is that I am willing +to vouch for the truth of every word of it. + + + + +Statement of Gladys, Marchioness of Castlecourt. + + + + +Statement of Gladys, Marchioness of Castlecourt. + + +I am sure if any one was ever punished for their misdeeds it was I. I +suppose I ought to say sins, but it is such an unpleasant word! I can +not imagine myself committing sins, and yet that is just what I seem +to have done. I couldn’t have been more astonished if some one had +told me I was going to commit a murder. One thing I have learned--you +do not know what you may do till you have been tried and tempted. And +then you do wrong before you realize it, and all of a sudden it comes +upon you that you are a criminal quite unexpectedly, and no one is more +surprised than you. I certainly know I was the most surprised person +in London when I realized that I-- But there, I am wandering all about, +and I want to tell my story simply and shortly. + +Everybody knows that when I married Lord Castlecourt I was poor. +What everybody does not know is that I was a natural spend-thrift. +Extravagance was in my blood, as drinking or the love of cards is in +the blood of some men. I had never had any money at all. I used to wear +the same gloves for years, and always made my own frocks--not badly, +either. I’ve made gowns that Lady Bundy said-- But that has nothing to +do with it; I’m getting away from the point. + +As I said before, I was poor. I didn’t know how extravagant I was +till I married and Lord Castlecourt gave me six hundred pounds a year +to dress on. It was a fortune to me. I’d never thought one woman +could have so much. The first two years of our married life I did not +run over it, because we lived most of the time in the country, and +I was unused to it, and spent it slowly and carefully. I was still +unaccustomed to it when, after my second boy was born, Herbert brought +me to town for my first season since our marriage. + +Then I began to spend money, quantities of it, for it seemed to me that +six hundred pounds a year was absolutely inexhaustible. When I saw +anything pretty in a shop I bought it, and I generally forgot to ask +the price. The shop people were always kind and agreeable, and seemed +to have forgotten about it as completely as I. + +After I had bought one thing they would urge me to look at something +else, which was put away in a drawer or laid out in a cardboard box, +and if I liked it I bought that too. If I ever paused to think that I +was buying a great deal, I contented myself with the assurance that I +had six hundred pounds a year, which was so much I would never get to +the end of it. + +After that first season a great many bills came in, and I was quite +surprised to see I’d spent already, with the year hardly half gone, +more than my six hundred pounds. I could not understand how it had +happened, and I asked Herbert about it and showed him some of my +bills, and for the first time in our married life he was angry with +me. He scolded me quite sharply, and told me I must keep within +my allowance. I was hurt, and also rather muddled, with all these +different accounts--most of which I could not remember--and I made up +my mind not to consult Herbert any more, as it only vexed him and made +him cross to me, and that I can not bear. All the world must love me. +If there is a servant-maid in the house who does not like me--and I can +feel it in a minute if she doesn’t--I must make her, or she must go +away. But my husband, the best and finest man in the world, to have him +annoyed with me and scolding me over stupid bills! Never again would +that happen. I showed him no more of them; in fact, I generally tore +them up as they came in, for fear I should leave them lying about and +he would find them. If I could help it, nothing in the world was ever +going to come between Herbert and me. + +I also made good resolutions to be more careful in my expenditures. And +I really tried to keep them. I don’t know how it happened that they +did not seem to get kept. But both in London and in Paris I certainly +did spend a great deal--I’m sure I don’t know how much. I did little +accounts on the back of notes, and they were so confusing, and I seemed +to have spent so much more than I thought I had, that I gave up doing +them. After I’d covered the back of two or three notes with figures, I +became so low-spirited I couldn’t enjoy anything for the rest of the +day. I did not see that that did anybody any good, so I ceased keeping +the accounts. And what was the use of keeping them? If I had not the +money to pay them with, why should I make myself miserable by thinking +about them? I thought it much more sensible to try to forget them, and +most of the time I did! + +It went on that way for two years. When I got bills with things written +across the bottom in red ink I paid part of them--never all; I never +paid all of anything. Once or twice tradesmen wrote me letters, saying +they must have their money, and then I went to see them, and told +them how kind it was of them to trust me, and how I would pay them +everything soon, and they seemed quite pleased and satisfied. I always +intended doing it. I don’t know where I thought the money was coming +from, but you never can tell what may happen. Some friends of Herbert +had a place near the Scotch border, and found a coal-mine in the +forest. Herbert has no lands near Scotland, but he has in other places, +and he may find a coal-mine too. I merely cite this as an example of +the strange ways things turn out. I didn’t exactly expect that Herbert +would find a coal-mine, but I did expect that money would turn up in +some unexpected way and help me out of my difficulties. + +The beginning of the series of really terrible events of which I am +writing was the purchase of a Russian sable jacket from a furrier in +Paris called Bolkonsky. It was in the early spring of last year. I had +had no dealings with Bolkonsky before. A friend told me of the jacket, +and took me there. It was a real _occasion_. I knew the moment that I +saw it that it was one of those chances with which one rarely meets. +It fitted me like a charm, and I bought it for a thousand pounds. That +miserable Bolkonsky told me the payments might be made in any way I +liked, and at “madame’s own time.” I also bought some good turquoises, +that were going for nothing, from a jeweler up-stairs somewhere near +the Rue de La Paix, who was selling out the jewels of an actress. It +was these two people who wrecked me. + +Not that they were my only debtors. I knew by this time that I owed a +great deal. When I thought about it I was frightened, and so I tried +not to think. But sometimes when I was awake at night, and everything +looked dark and depressed, I wondered what I would do if something +did not happen. In these moments I thought of telling my husband, +and I buried my head in the pillow and turned cold with misery. What +would Herbert say when he found out his wife was thousands of pounds +in debt--the Marquis of Castlecourt, who had never owed a penny and +considered it a disgrace. + +Perhaps he would be so horrified and disgusted he would send me away +from him--back to Ireland, or to the Continent. And what would happen +to me then? + +That summer we went to Castlecourt Marsh Manor, and there my anxieties +became almost unbearable. Bolkonsky began to dun me most cruelly. Other +creditors wrote me letters, urging for payments. The jeweler from whom +I had bought the turquoises sent me a letter, telling me if I didn’t +settle his account by September he would sue me. And finally Bolkonsky +sent a man over, whom I saw in London, and who told me that unless the +sable jacket was paid for within two months he would “lay the matter +before Lord Castlecourt.” + +We went across to Paris in September, and there I saw those dreadful +people. My other French and English creditors I could manage, but I +could do nothing with either Bolkonsky or the jeweler. They spoke +harshly to me--as no one has ever spoken to me before; and Bolkonsky +told me that “it was known Lord Castlecourt was honest and paid his +debts, whatever his wife was.” I prayed him for time, and finally +wept--wept to that horrible Jew; and there was another man in the +office, too, who saw me. But I was lost to all sense of pride or +reserve. I had only one feeling left in me--terror, agony, that they +would tell my husband, and he would despise me and leave me. + +My misery seemed to have some effect on Bolkonsky, and he told me he +would give me a month to pay up. It was then the tenth of September. +I waited for a week in a sort of frenzy of hope that a miracle would +occur, and the money come into my hands in some unexpected way. But, +of course, nothing did occur. By the first of October the one thousand +pounds was no nearer. It was then that the desperate idea entered my +mind which has nearly ruined me, and caused me such suffering that the +memory of it will stay with me forever. + +The Castlecourt diamonds, set in a necklace and valued at nine thousand +pounds, were in my possession. I often wore them, and they were carried +about by my maid--a faithful and honest creature called Sophy Jeffers. +On one of my first trips to Paris a friend of mine had taken me to the +office of a well-known dealer in precious and artificial stones who, +without its being generally known, did a sort of pawnbroking business +among the upper classes. My friend had gone there to pawn a pearl +necklace, and had told me all about it--how much she obtained on the +necklace, and how she hoped to redeem it within the year, and how she +was to have it copied in imitation pearls. The idea that came to me +was to go to this place and pawn the Castlecourt diamonds, having them +duplicated in paste. + +I went there on the second day of October. How awful it was! I wore +a heavy veil, and gave a fictitious name. Several men looked at the +diamonds, and I noticed that they looked at me and whispered together. +Finally they told me they would give me four thousand pounds on them, +at some interest--I’ve forgotten what it was now--and that they +would replace them with paste, so that only an expert could tell the +difference. The next day I went back, and they gave me the money. I do +not think they had any idea who I was. At any rate, while the papers +were full of speculations about the Castlecourt diamonds, they made no +sign. + +I paid off all my debts, both in Paris and London; I even paid a year’s +interest on the diamonds. For a short time I breathed again, and was +gay and light-hearted. My husband would never know that I had not paid +my bills for five years and had been threatened with a lawsuit. It was +delightful to get rid of this fear, and I was quite my old self. I +suppose I ought to have felt more guilty; but when one is relieved of +a great weight, one’s conscience is not so sensitive as it gets when +there is really nothing to be sensitive about. + +It was after I had grown accustomed to feeling free and unworried +that I began to realize what I had done. I had stolen the diamonds. +I was a thief! It did not comfort me much to think that no one might +ever find it out; in fact, I do not think it comforted me at all, and +I know in the beginning I expected it would. It was what I had done +that rankled in me. I felt that I would never be peaceful again till +they were redeemed and put back in their old settings. That was what I +continually dreamed of. It seemed to me if I could see them once more +in their own case I would be happy and care free, as I had been in +those first perfect years of my married life. + +The fear that at this time most haunted me and was most terrifying +was that my husband might discover what I had done. His wife, that he +had so loved and trusted, had become a thief! No one who has not gone +through it knows how I felt. I did not know any one could suffer so. +I went out constantly, to try and forget; and, when things were very +cheerful and amusing, I sometimes did. And then I remembered--I was a +thief; I had stolen my husband’s diamonds, and, if he ever found it +out, what would happen to me? + +This was the position I was in when the false diamonds were taken. +It was the last thing in the world I had thought could happen. When, +that night of the Duke of Duxbury’s dinner, I saw the empty case and +Jeffers’ terrified face, the world reeled around me. I could not for +a moment take it in. Only, in my mind, the diamonds had become a sort +of nightmare; anything to do with them was a menace, and I followed an +instinct that had possession of me when I tried to hide the empty case +from my husband. + +Then, when my mind had cleared and I had time to think, I saw that if +they recovered the paste necklace they might find out that it was not +real, and all would be lost. It was a horrible predicament. I really +did not know what I wanted. If the diamonds were found, and seen to be +false, it would all come out, and Herbert would know I was a thief. +When I thought of this I tried to divert the detectives from hunting +for them, and I told that silly, sheepish Mr. Brison that I did not see +how he could be so sure they were stolen, that they might have been +mislaid. Mr. Brison seemed surprised, and that made me angry, because, +after all, a diamond necklace is not the sort of thing that gets +mislaid, and I felt I had been foolish and had not gained anything by +being so. + +The days passed, and nothing was heard of the necklace. I wished +desperately now that it would be found. For how, unless it was, could +I eventually redeem the real diamonds, and once more feel honest and +respectable? If I suddenly appeared with them, how could I explain it? +Everybody would say I had stolen them, unless I invented some story +about their being lost and then found, and I am not clever at inventing +stories. As to where I should get the money to redeem them, I often +thought of that; but never could think of any way that sounded possible +and reasonable. I have always waited for “things to turn up,” and they +generally did; but in this case nothing that I wanted or expected +turned up. Besides, four thousand pounds is a good deal of money to +come into one’s hands suddenly and unexpectedly. If it were a smaller +sum it might, but four thousand pounds was too much. There was nobody +to die and leave it to me, and I certainly could not steal it, or make +it myself. + +So, as one may see, I was beset with troubles on all sides. The season +wore itself away, and I was glad to be done with it. For the first +time, there had been no pleasure in it. Anxieties that no one guessed +were always with me, and always I found myself surreptitiously watching +my husband to see if he suspected, to see if he showed any symptoms of +growing cold to me and being indifferent. As I drove through the Park +in the carriage these dreary thoughts were always at my heart, and it +was heavy as lead. I forgot the passers-by who were so amusing, and, +with my head hanging, looked into my lap. Suppose Herbert guessed? +Suppose Herbert found out? These were the questions that went circling +through my brain and never stopped. Sometimes, when Herbert was beside +me, I suddenly wanted to cry out: + +“Herbert, _I_ took the diamonds! _I_ was the thief! I can’t hide it any +more, or live in this uncertainty. All I want to know is, do you hate +me and are you going to leave me?” + +But I never did it. I looked at Herbert, and was afraid. What would I +do if he left me? Go back to Ireland and die. + +We went to Castlecourt Marsh Manor in the end of June. By this time I +had begun to feel quite ill. Herbert insisted on my consulting a doctor +before I left town, and the doctor said my heart was all wrong and +something was the matter with my nerves. But it was only the sense +of guilt, that every day grew more oppressive. I thought I might feel +better in the country. I had always disliked it, and now it seemed like +a harbor of refuge, where I could be quiet with my children. I had +grown to hate London. It was London that had played upon my weaknesses +and drawn me into all my trouble. I had not run into debt in the +country, and, after all, I had never been as happy as I was the two +years after our marriage, when we had lived at Castlecourt Marsh Manor. +Those were my _beaux jours_! How bright and beautiful they seemed now, +when I looked back on them from these dark days of fear and disgrace! + +It was not much better in the country. A change of scene can not make +a difference when the trouble is a dark secret. And that dark secret +kept growing darker every day. I feared to speak of the diamonds to +Herbert, and yet every letter that came for him filled me with alarm, +lest it was either to say that they were found or that they were not +found. Herbert went up to London at intervals and saw Mr. Gilsey, and +at night when he came home I trembled so that I found it difficult to +stand till he had told me all that Mr. Gilsey had said. Once when he +was beginning to tell me that Mr. Gilsey had some idea they had traced +the diamonds to Paris I fainted, and it was some time before they could +bring me back. + +July was very hot, and I gave that as the cause of my changed +appearance and listless manner. I was really in wretched health, and +Herbert became exceedingly worried about me. He suggested that we +should go on the Continent for a trip, but I shrank from the thought of +it. I felt as if the sight of Paris, where the diamonds were waiting +to be redeemed, would kill me outright. I did not want to leave +Castlecourt Marsh Manor to go anywhere. I only wanted to be happy +again--to be the way I was before I had taken the diamonds. + +And I knew now that this could never be till I told my husband. I knew +that to win back my peace of mind I had to confess all, and hear him +say he forgave me. I tried to several times, but it was impossible. +As the moment that I had chosen for confession approached, my heart +beat so that I could scarcely breathe, and I trembled like a person in +a chill. With Herbert looking at me so kindly, so tenderly, the words +died away on my lips, or I said something quite different to what I +had intended saying. It was useless. As the days went by I knew that I +would never dare tell, that for the rest of my life I would be crushed +under the sense of guilt that seemed too heavy to be borne. + +It was late one afternoon in the middle of July that the crash came. +Never, never shall I forget that day! So dark and awful at first, and +then-- But I must follow the story just as it happened. + +Herbert and I had had tea in the library. It was warm weather, and the +windows that led to the terrace were wide open. Through them I could +see the beautiful landscape--rolling hills with great trees dotted over +them, all the colors brighter and deeper than at midday, for the sun +was getting low. I was sitting by one of the windows looking out on +this, and thinking how different had been my feelings when I had come +here as a bride and loved it all, and been so full of joy. My hands +hung limp over the arms of the chair. I had no desire to move or speak. +It is so agonizing, when you are miserable, looking back on days that +were happy! + +As I was sitting this way, Thomas, one of the footmen, came in with the +letters. I noticed that he had quite a packet of them. Some were mine, +and I laid them on the table at my elbow. Idly and without interest I +saw that in Herbert’s bunch there was a small box, such as jewelry is +sent about in. Thomas left the room, and I continued looking out of the +window until I suddenly heard Herbert give a suppressed exclamation. I +turned toward him, and saw that he had the open box in his hand. + +“What does this mean?” he said. “What an extraordinary thing! Look +here, Gladys.” + +And he came toward me, holding out the box. It was full of cotton wool, +and lying on this were a great quantity of unset diamonds of different +sizes. My heart gave a leap into my throat. I sat up, clutching the +arms of the chair. + +“What are they?” I said, hearing my voice suddenly high and loud. +“Where did they come from?” + +“I don’t know anything about them! It’s too odd! See what’s written on +this piece of paper that was inside the box.” + +He held out a small piece of paper, on which the creases of several +folds were plainly marked. Across it, in typing, ran two sentences. I +snatched the paper and read the words: + + We don’t want _your_ diamonds. You can keep them, and with them + accept our kind regards. + +The paper fluttered to my feet. I knew in a moment what it all meant. +The thieves had discovered that the diamonds were paste, and had +returned them. I was conscious of Herbert’s startled face suddenly +charged with an expression of sharp anxiety as he cried: + +“Why, Gladys, what is it? You’re as white as death!” + +He came toward me, but I motioned him away and rose to my feet. I knew +then that the hour had come, and tho I suspect I _was_ very white, I +did not feel so frightened as I had done in the past. + +“Those _are_ your diamonds, Herbert,” I said, quietly and distinctly, +“or, perhaps, I ought to say those are the substitutes for them. _Your_ +diamonds are in Paris, at Barriere’s, _au quatrème_, on the Rue Croix +des Petits Champs.” + +“Gladys!” he exclaimed, “what do you mean? What are you talking about? +You look so white and strange! Sit down, darling, and tell me what you +mean.” + +“Oh, Herbert,” I cried, with my voice suddenly full of agony, “let me +tell you! Don’t stop me. If you’re angry with me and hate me, wait till +I’ve finished before you say so. I’ve got to confess it all. I’ve got +to, dear. You must listen to me, and not frighten me till I have done; +for if I don’t tell you now, I shall certainly die.” + +And then I told--I told it all. I didn’t leave out a single thing. My +first bills, and Bolkonsky, and the jeweler, and the pawnbroking place, +and everything was in it. Once I was started, it was not so hard, and I +poured it out. I didn’t try to make it better, or ask to be forgiven. +But when it was all finished, I said, in a voice that I could hear was +suddenly husky and trembling: + +“And now I suppose you’ll not like me any more. It’s quite natural that +you shouldn’t. I only ask one thing, and I know, of course, I have +no right to ask it--that is, that you won’t send me away from you. I +have been very wicked. I suppose I ought to be put in prison. But, oh, +Herbert, no matter what I’ve been, I’ve loved you! That’s something.” + +I could not go any further, and there was no need; for my dear husband +did not seem angry at all. He took me, all weeping and trembling, into +his arms, and said the sweetest things to me--the sort of things one +doesn’t write down with a pen--just between him and me. + +And I?--I turned my face into his shoulder and cried feebly. No +one knows how happy I felt except a person who has been completely +miserable and suddenly finds her misery ended. It is really worth being +miserable to thoroughly appreciate the joy of being happy again. + +Well, that is really the end of the statement. Herbert went to Paris a +few days later and redeemed the diamonds, and they are now being set in +imitation of the old settings, which are lost. I would not go to Paris +with him. Nor will I go to London next season. Both places are too full +of horrible memories. Perhaps some day I shall feel about them as I +did before the diamonds were taken, but now I do not want to leave the +country at all. Besides, we can economize here, and the four thousand +pounds necessary to get back the stones was a good deal for Herbert to +have to pay out just now. And then it is so sweet and peaceful in the +country. Nothing troubles one. Oh, how delightful a thing it is to have +an easy conscience! One does not know how good it is till one has lost +it. + +This finishes my statement. I dare say it is a very bad one, for I am +not clever at all. But it has the one merit of being entirely truthful, +and I have told everything--just how wicked I was, and just why I was +so wicked. Nothing has been held back, and nothing has been set down +falsely. It is an unprejudiced and accurate account of my share in the +Castlecourt diamond case. + + + + +TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: + + + Italicized text is surrounded by underscores _italics_. + + Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. + + Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. + + Archaic or alternate spelling has been retained from the original. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CASTLECOURT DIAMOND MYSTERY *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so +the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. +Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this +license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and +trademark. 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