Part 1

Chapter 14,360 wordsPublic domain

THE CASTLECOURT DIAMOND CASE

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_

HARRIE F. STONER

FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY NEW YORK AND LONDON 1906

[_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.

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.”