Chapter Two.

Strangers, who find themselves for the first time in Hatton Garden, are probably somewhat surprised when they learn that they are in the principal diamond market of the world. If they turn into the street from Holborn they find it a common place enough at first, and towards the other end it becomes mean and shabby, and wears an expression suggestive of anything but riches. The houses seem to suffer from a premature age and mouldiness, and give one the idea of their being occupied by persons who are in anything but a large way of business. From the names on the doors, however, one learns that the majority of their occupiers profess to be dealers in diamonds and precious stones, and those who know about diamonds will inform you that they do deal therein to a very considerable extent, and will have strange tales to tell of the huge quantities of precious stones which the merchant of that dingy thoroughfare have in their safes, and will hold until some long-looked-for turn in the market comes.

Its population is much given to gather in knots on doorsteps and at the corners of streets. They are as a rule swarthy-visaged, hungry-eyed men, rejoicing in much jewellery, gorgeous raiment, and glossy hats. With very few exceptions--who do not often make fortunes--they belong to the chosen race.

The scraps of the conversation which one hears as one passes along the street generally relates to matters affecting the trade. That is a somewhat wide margin, for all public events, from a threatened European war to the death of some dusky potentate, more or less influence diamonds. But most of the talk is of the precious stones themselves and the mines in which they are found--of falls of reef in Kimberley, and of the price of glassy stones, cape whites, off-coloured stuff, and boart. Many of the men who gather together there are birds of passage who are constantly backwards and forwards between London and the Diamond Fields, and often enough there are one or two men who have just come back from the Cape with a budget of Diamond Field news which the others are not a little interested in.

One morning, about two months after the adventure which ended so badly for Sixpence, Jack Enderby turned into that thoroughfare from Holborn. As he did so he pushed a soft felt hat of a decidedly colonial shape well over his face, for he saw two men on the opposite side of the street whom he had known on the Fields, and did not wish the recognition to be mutual. Taking a quick look at the numbers on the doors, he made the best of his way along the street and disappeared through a doorway on which he saw a name he was looking for, namely, that of Mr Le Mert, diamond merchant.

Mr Le Mert was in his office. He was a man of about fifty, who still looked mentally and physically not far past his prime. Some people would have called him a good-looking man, and there was plenty of strength in his face. But as he scanned some figures he had scribbled on the back of an envelope, there was rather an ugly gleam in his eye, which became a little more pronounced when his clerk came into the room and said, that a gentleman wished to see him. It changed, however, into one of relief when he read the name which his visitor had written on a piece of paper.

"Well, Jack, my boy, how goes it? You have just turned up from the Fields, I should say, from your get up!" he said heartily enough, as he shook hands with his visitor. "Wonder what that fool wants of me?" was his inward comment. But though, as a matter of fact, he was not particularly pleased to see Jack, he had expected an unpleasant visit from a man who had obtained some very awkward information about a company he had promoted, and was threatening to make things very unpleasant. So it was a relief to him to find it was one with whom he had been pretty friendly in former days on the Diamond Fields.

"Well, Le Mert, so you have become a great swell--one of the great guns of the diamond trade. Things are altered a bit, are they not, since the old days?" Jack said, after they had talked together for some time.

"When I kept a roulette-table at Dutoitspan, and you used to punt away the price of yours and your partner's diamonds at it," the other answered, wondering to himself what Jack wanted. He had at first been half inclined to suspect that his visitor was in quest of a loan, but his manner struck him as being too independent for that.

"I suppose you go in for being quite the straight and upright merchant now?" Jack asked, evidently remembering some old Diamond Field transactions.

"Well, I don't suppose you have come all this way to inquire into my moral character, or bother me about old stories which nobody would believe, though I should not much care if they did," Le Mert answered, looking at Jack and wondering what his business could be.

"No, I came on business. I have a diamond I found, which I thought perhaps you might make me an offer for."

"Oh, one you found, eh? Yes, you were a policeman or something like that out there at the last, weren't you? still you managed to find a diamond which you wish to sell to me. Well, let's have a look at it."

"I didn't say I had it with me--it's a pretty big stone, just about the largest you have ever seen, and I mean to get a price for it."

"Well, bring it out; it's no good talking about the price of a diamond before one has seen it. You have it on you, I can see," Le Mert said, for he had noticed Jack's hand fidgeting at his waist, and guessed he had the diamond on him.

He was right. Jack Enderby undid a leather belt, which he seemed to wear next his skin, and he took the diamond out of it. The half-bantering, cynical expression which the diamond merchant's face generally wore left it as he looked at the stone. He was well able to judge how valuable it was, though he did not know the exact price it would fetch. It is not easy to say how much you can get any one to pay for a single stone, but Le Mert knew that the answer to that question represented the price of that diamond. He had never seen such a gem before, and did not believe such another existed above-ground. For some time he was silent, looking at the stone and thinking what he could do with it if it were his. It happened that just then his affairs were in a desperate condition. He had been a poor man, and had made a large fortune. Had over speculated--gone in for one or two rather doubtful transactions, and now he was being pushed very hard, and everything pointed to his having to begin the world again at fifty--a ruined man without money or character. He looked at the prize that fortune had thrown `that fool Jack Enderby,' whom he had always despised as a man never able to get or keep money. Then he thought for a second or two, for what he saw reminded him of something.

"That was a devilish lucky shot of yours that brought down the Union Company's nigger that night, Master Jack. You ought to put up a monument to that poor beggar's memory, for he did _you_ a good turn," he said at last.

Jack started and looked at the other as if he thought he was in league with the evil one.

"What on earth do you mean?" he said, snatching up the diamond.

"Don't be so startled, my friend; I read about the nigger in the Kimberley paper that came a mail or two back, and now I remember it I understand how you managed to find that diamond, it don't want a very sharp man to guess that much."

Enderby felt that it was useless to waste any time in trying to argue the other out of his opinion.

"Look here! the question is not how I got it, but what it's worth," he said rather sulkily.

"Yes, but the second turns on the first. You have got something worth a good bit of money, but it's something you can't go into the open market and sell. But don't cut up rough! Sit down again, and we will talk over the matter. I ain't afraid of buying the diamond from you; there is no cursed Diamond Trade Act in force in this country," Le Mert said, and there followed a good deal of talk about the price of the diamond, but it did not end in anything definite, for the good reason that Enderby did not mean to part with the stone until he was paid for it, and the other had not an available penny in the world beyond five hundred pounds in cash, which he had by him ready for an emergency. It was very aggravating to think of the lot of money he would have made if he had only possessed some thousands.

That diamond was to be bought on very good terms, but Enderby wanted ready money, and until he had got ready money he did not intend to let it go out of his possession. Of course something could be done. It was possible to find buyers for the diamond, who would be content if it were worth their while not to ask awkward questions, but they would want to make a very good bargain themselves, and the commission that would fall to his share would be a very paltry sum compared to what he considered he ought to make out of such a chance, knowing what he did about that stone.

"Well, it's rather a big thing for me to go in for just now, but we will see what can be done; maybe I will get some one to take a share in it," he said, after they had talked for some time. "By the by," he added, "what are you going to do with it? it's rather a valuable piece of property to carry on you."

"I can look after myself, I fancy," Jack answered. "I have the six-shooter on me that I had that night, and I mean going about with it and the diamond until I can sell."

"Why not let me keep it for you? and give you a memorandum--it would be better in that safe than in your belt."

"No fear, Mr Le Mert! maybe you're a very respectable diamond merchant, and are worth your thousands, but somehow, remembering old times, I think I would sooner have the diamond on me; you might be inclined to make things rather awkward for me if I wanted it back in a hurry."

Le Mert took this outwardly with great composure, but inwardly he cursed the other's pigheaded suspicion.

"By the by," Jack said, when the conversation about the diamond was concluded, "you must let me have something to go on with--a hundred or so won't inconvenience you, and will be the very making of me; for I came off the ship with about a pound in my pocket, and when I pay my hotel bill I sha'n't have a rap."

Le Mert thought that a hundred or so would inconvenience him a good deal more than the other imagined, but he intended to keep the state of his affairs a secret, so he produced ten ten-pound notes from his nest-egg, and handed them to the other. Jack crushed them up in his hand, and hurried away, eager to spend some of them, and begin to enjoy the good time he had been looking forward to ever since he had put his hand into the pocket of Sixpence's coat.

When his visitor had taken his departure, the diamond merchant looked at his diminished roll of notes. Four hundred pounds was all he had left, and not another penny did he see his way to raise, except what he hoped to make out of the diamond. Then he made a calculation or two on a piece of paper, and thought out the situation. Here was Jack Enderby with a diamond that he could not sell for one tenth of its value. He had no money to buy it, while the other would not let it go out of his possession, though so long as he kept it and appeared as the seller there would always be a clue to its real history.