Part 7

"The doctors give me a week longer. Upon my death this letter will be mailed to you. You will then hear from the Amsterdam Trust Company that a sum of money awaits your order. You will never know my name. But if you should let even the bare facts become known, some busybody would eventually connect them with my name, and unhappy gossip result. Therefore I ask you as a man of honour to keep the whole transaction locked in your breast."

"That is all," said Roland. "It was signed: 'Your grateful friend.'"

"Did you look in the recent obituaries for a clue?" I asked.

"Yes," he confessed. "There was none."

"Go ahead with your story. We'll return to the letter later."

"At first I thought it was a hoax," he resumed, "but sure enough, in two or three days I received a letter from the Trust Company asking me to call. I saw the President. He said that the sum of forty thousand dollars had been deposited with them to be turned over to me in cash. He said it had been bequeathed to me by one who desired to remain unknown. He said he did not know himself who my benefactor was. He had dealt with a lawyer. He said that there was but one condition attached to the legacy, namely that I give my word never to speak of the matter. I had met this Mr. Ambler the president, and he had seen me act, so there was no difficulty about identifying me. I left his office carrying the money, and carried it to my own bank to deposit. That is all there is to that."

"Good!" I said. "The Amsterdam Trust Company is a solid institution, and the president a well-known man. They will still be there if we need them."

"It mustn't get in the newspapers," he said nervously.

"Trust me for that. I'm not going to make you break your word. Now about the bet you made with Miss Hamerton."

He winced at the sound of her name. "There's no more in that than appears on the surface," he said irritably. "I couldn't have told the paste from the genuine. I wanted to give her a box of gloves. But she never claimed them, and I forgot about it."

"The cryptogram you have already explained," said I.

"I did not know there was such a paper in my pocket."

"Hold on," he cried suddenly, "about that bet. I have just remembered that I once had a talk about precious stones, pearls, with a man in the company."

"Milbourne?"

"Sure! How did you know?"

"I believe he took them. But it's going to be a job to prove it."

"It was just a trifling conversation," Roland resumed, thinking hard. "I can't remember exactly. He marked the beauty and oddity of Ir--of Miss Hamerton's necklace. I think he said he hoped that she did not risk wearing real pearls on the stage. That may have been to find out if I knew they were artificial. I told him she did not wear the real ones. There was more talk. He seemed to know about pearls, and I believe I asked him how to tell the real from the artificial. I never thought of it then, but looking back I see that it may have been that talk which gave me the idea of making a bet with Ir--with her. Oh, I have been a fool!"

"This is all interesting," I said, "but it doesn't give us anything solid to go on. Now for the main thing. How did the real pearls get in your safe?"

Roland struck his forehead. "I have been everybody's dupe!" he groaned.

"It's a part we all have to play occasionally," I said soothingly. "Go ahead."

"About this time I began to get circular letters from a firm of jewellers called Jones and Sanford with an address on Maiden Lane, where all the jewellers used to be. They were fac-simile letters, very well written."

"The kind that are made to look like personal letters, but like false teeth, deceive nobody?"

"Precisely. I got one every few days. They were all to the effect that the writers as brokers, were prepared to sell precious stones at prices much under those asked by the big jewellers. There was a lot of rigmarole about saving on overhead charges, interest on valuable stocks and so on, about what you would expect in such letters. There were a lot of imposing-looking references, too."

"At first I paid no attention to the letters; precious stones didn't interest me. But when I got all that money I began to read them. You see I--I wanted to make Irma a present, and I knew she loved pearls better than anything else in the world."

I let a whistle of astonishment out of me. "Do you mean to say you bought Miss Hamerton's pearls with the idea of presenting her with them, to add to her collection?"

He nodded shamefacedly. "I didn't know she had been robbed."

"How long had you had them?"

"Just a few days."

He told me that he had asked Miss Hamerton to marry him, and intended the necklace for a wedding-gift if she consented.

"You were a downy bird!" I exclaimed.

"Wait till I tell you," he said. "They were a slick pair. You might have been taken in yourself."

"Did they know you?" I asked, still full of amazement.

"Certainly. I paid for them by check, certified check."

"Which they cashed within half an hour!"

"Maybe. I never enquired."

"Sold Miss Hamerton's pearls back to Miss Hamerton's leading man!" I cried. "My boy, we have something out of the common in crooks to deal with!"

"They had a well-furnished suite on an upper floor of a first-class office building," he resumed. "I was there three or four times. I saw other customers coming and going. Everything was business-like and all right looking. Even the stenographer had a prim New England air. They showed me all kinds of precious stones. I bit at the pearls because I recognised that they were the same kind Irma had. They asked eight thousand dollars for them."

"You knew, didn't you, that Miss Hamerton's necklace was worth much more than that?"

"Yes. But I had been told hers were very fine and perfect. I supposed these to be not so good."

"And so you paid your money on a chance, and took them home."

"Not quite as fast as that. The jewellers seemed to take it as a matter of course that I would have the pearls examined by an expert before purchasing. They suggested that I take them up to Dunsany's."

"_Dunsany's_?" I said amazed.

"Yes. Wasn't that enough to lull suspicion? Dunsany's is more than a jewelry store; it's a national institution."

"But you never took them there?"

"Indeed I did," was the surprising answer. "Sanford and Jones' clerk went with me. We saw Mr. Freer, the firm's expert on pearls."

I whistled again. Freer, the man at Dunsany's to whom I had told my little fiction of the fiction-writer, and who had looked so queer when I mentioned blue pearls!

"Large gentleman, elegantly-dressed, with a face like a boiled dumpling?"

"Sure!" cried Roland. "Do you know him, too?"

"Go on with your story!" I said.

"Mr. Freer examined the pearls and told me they were genuine, and of good quality. He valued them at about twelve thousand dollars."

"The devil he did!" I cried. "This case is spreading wider and wider. Freer is in the gang, too. To think of their having a picket in Dunsany's!"

"How do you know?"

"Because he like everybody else in the trade had been informed that the only necklace of blue-black pearls in the world had been stolen. He knew, moreover, that it was worth----" But here prudence stopped my tongue.

"Worth what?" asked Roland.

"Well, much more than twelve thousand."

"The only blue pearls in the world?" he said, puzzled.

"There's a lot about this necklace you don't know," I said smiling. "All in good time. Go on with your story."

"Well, that's all, isn't it?" said he. "At least you know the rest. Why these fellows were so careful of details, you will even find their imprint in gold inside the case. Jones and Sanford, such and such a number, Maiden Lane."

"Hm! I have a case on my hands now!" I said meditatively. "It may take me six months or more to clean this up."

"I'll work with you," he said.

"My dear fellow, I like you better every minute," I said, smiling at him. "But you'd make the worst detective in the world."

"Oh, well, maybe I would," he said.

"There's no need for you to await the outcome of the case," I said. "We have the evidence right in hand to clear you. I'll lay it before Miss Hamerton to-morrow morning."

My young friend surprised me again. He leaped up with his dark eyes positively blazing. "You'll do nothing of the kind!" he cried passionately. "That affair is done, done for ever. If you interfere, I won't be responsible for the consequences. She has her pearls back. Let her be. My time will come when she reads of the capture and the trial of the real thieves in the public newspapers!"

13

Back in New York next day, I made haste to get to work on the half dozen clues with which Roland had furnished me.

I may say in passing, though the visit had no important results, that I called on Mr. Ambler of the Amsterdam Trust Company. At first he declined to give me any information whatever, but when I hinted that a certain suspicion rested on Mr. Quarles, he corroborated Roland's story as far as he knew it. He declined to give me the name of the attorney who had brought the money to the bank. "My endorsement of Mr. Quarles' story should be amply sufficient to clear him," he said, with the air of a bank president.

"Undoubtedly," I said, bowing, and left.

Since there appeared to be no immediate connection between Roland's legacy and the theft of the pearls, I let that go for the present.

I went to the address of the jewellers on Maiden Lane, but found, as I expected, that the birds had flown. An irate renting agent aired his opinion of Messrs. Sanford and Jones, but could give me no information of their whereabouts. They had leased the offices for a year, and after five weeks' tenancy, quietly moved out.

"Don't you ask references from prospective tenants?" I asked.

"They gave A1 references," he mourned.

I took down the names of their references for future use. One of them was Mr. Freer of Dunsany and Company.

My next call was upon Mr. Alfred Mount in his office behind the store of exquisite fashion. His greeting, while polite, was slightly cooler than of yore. As a man of the world, I was expected to gather from it, that our relations were now at an end. It warned me to be wary. I was already on my guard, because I knew that he hated Roland, and hoped to profit by his disgrace.

"Anything new?" he asked casually.

"Yes--and no," I said. "I am not satisfied that we have got quite to the bottom of our case."

"Do we ever get quite to the bottom of anything?" he asked.

"I do not believe that Quarles was alone in this," I said as a feeler.

"What makes you think so?" he asked quickly.

"Nothing definite," I said. "Just a feeling."

He shrugged.

"I believe that expert jewel thieves made a fool of him," I suggested.

"It is possible," said Mount, looking bored.

"If so, it is much to the interest of your business to run them down. So I have come to ask for your co-operation."

"My dear sir," Mount replied with his indulgent, worldly smile, "the world is full of trouble. I do not try to escape my share; I face it like a man, or as near like a man as I can. But I never go searching for more. We have by your skill recovered the jewels. The reasons for not pursuing the matter any further are to me obvious. Better let well enough alone."

I appeared to give in to him. "Maybe you're right. I thought I saw a chance to earn a little glory."

"There will be plenty of opportunities for that," he said affably. "You can count on me."

We parted in friendly fashion.

So much for Mr. Alfred Mount. At least he would never be able to say later that I had not given him his chance.

I went to the magnificent marble building which houses Dunsany and Company, and asked boldly for Mr. Walter Dunsany, great-grandson of the founder of the house, and its present head. I was admitted to him without difficulty. I found him a jeweller and a man of affairs of a type very different from him I had just come from. Mr. Dunsany was a simple, unassuming man, direct and outspoken. In short, a man's man. I was strongly attracted to him, and I may say without vanity that he seemed to like me. From the first he trusted me more than I had any right to expect.

At this time he was a man of about forty-five years old, somewhat bald, and beginning to be corpulent, but with a humorous, eager, youthful glance. He glanced up from my card with a whimsical smile.

"Confidential investigator? More trouble, I suppose?"

"I'm afraid so," I said. "Have you an employee named Freer, an expert on pearls."

"I had until a few days ago."

An exclamation of disappointment escaped me.

"What's the matter with Freer?" he asked.

"I suppose you don't know where he is?"

"On his way back to Holland, I suppose. He came from there ten years ago. Why?"

"One more question first. I am assuming that you know that a certain famous necklace of blue pearls has been stolen?"

"Mount's pearls? Certainly. Everybody in the trade was advised."

"You are sure Freer knew?"

"Certainly. It was his business first."

"Yet a week or so ago, that necklace was brought into your store by a man who was considering the purchase of it. He submitted it to Freer. Freer pronounced the stones genuine, and said that the necklace was worth about twelve thousand."

Mr. Dunsany jumped up and paced the room agitatedly. "Freer!" he exclaimed. "Impossible! You are sure of your facts!"

I described the operations of Messrs. Sanford and Jones.

"Not impossible, I suppose," he said more quietly. "This sort of thing has happened to me before. I doubt if there was ever a time when I was not harboring some thief or another. They never steal from me, you understand. They are the pickets, the outposts, who watch where the jewels go, and report to Headquarters. But Freer! He had been with me ten years. He had an instinct for pearls!"

"Headquarters?" I said eagerly. "Then you agree with me that there is an organised gang at work?"

"That's no secret," he said. "Every jeweller knows that there is a kind of corporation of jewel thieves. It is probably ten years old, and better organised and administered than our own association."

"Why don't you break it up?"

"Break it up!" he echoed. "It is my dearest ambition! There has never been a meeting of our association but what I have urged with all my eloquence that we get together and break up the thief trust. They will not support me. Everybody suspects that he has spies in his establishment, perhaps like Freer in a responsible position. The crooks seem to have us where they want us. They have never robbed us, you see. There is a sort of unwritten agreement, you leave us alone and we'll leave you. The other men in the association say: 'If our customers are careless with their jewels, we are not responsible.' But I say we are! These crooks have put us in a position where, if we do not go after them, we may be said to be in league with them."

"Mr. Mount is a member of the association, I suppose?"

"Mount? Oh yes, he's the president. To give Mount credit I must say that he has always supported me in this matter, though not so warmly as I would have liked. But I am considered a fanatic."

"Why don't you and he do it together?" I asked.

"He won't go into it without the backing of the Association."

"Why don't you go it alone?" I said. "You are powerful."

He glanced at me sharply. "I will when I see my way," he said. "Such police officers and detectives as have happened to come under my observation have not seemed to me the right men for the job. When I find my man----"

"Will you consider me as an applicant for the job?" I asked quietly.

He studied me hard. "I should be difficult to satisfy," he said.

"First of all as to references," I said. There were some good men who backed me. I gave him their names.

"How about Mount?" he asked.

"I have already applied to him for the job," I said frankly, "and was turned down. He is satisfied with the recovery of the pearls. As long as he has refused to go in, I think it would be better not to let him know about our plans. That, however, is up to you."

"I shall not let him know," Mr. Dunsany said briefly.

To make a long story short, I succeeded in satisfying Mr. Dunsany of my fitness to undertake the matter in hand. We concluded a defensive and offensive alliance. He let me understand that expense was to be no object. I saw him every day. We met at his club, which was as safe a place as we could find.

I gave him my full confidence, of course. With Roland's consent I told him everything that had occurred up to that time. Mr. Dunsany for his part had a whole file of evidence that he had quietly collected. He turned it over to me. It was interesting, and in the end valuable, but it had nothing to do with the case of the blue pearls.

We laid our plans with infinite care. There was no hurry now, and every move was planned in advance. Absolute secrecy was imperative. Mr. Dunsany and I agreed not to take a soul on earth into our confidence.

It was necessary to hire a small army of operatives. I did not figure in this. I had Peter Keenan, an old friend of mine, who was not known generally among my friends, act for me. Peter was a faithful, conscientious soul, not at all brilliant. He hired a suite of offices on Forty-second street and set up the "International Detective Agency." Peter was the nominal head, and Sadie the real directress of this establishment. Here the operatives were hired and sent on their errands. Each did his little task knowing nothing of the general plan.

Meanwhile Mr. B. Enderby was to be found all day in his office on Fortieth street with his feet on the desk, chinning with his young friends or composing a new play. You see the second cryptogram led me to suspect that they were aware of my identity, and in case I were watched, as I surely would be, I desired to give the impression that I had dropped all activities in connection with jewels or jewel thieves. I communicated with Sadie by letter. Uncle Sam is at once the most public and the safest messenger. For emergencies we arranged a system of telephone calls.

It would be a tedious task to set down all the routine work of the agency. There were mistakes, disappointments and blind trails without number. To begin with, Sadie was ordered to trace Freer, the pearl agent, also Sanford and Jones, the bogus jewellers, and any of their employees. All this entailed great labour, and it was absolutely barren of result. These people seemed to have vanished into thin air. In the case of Kenton Milbourne she was more successful. She wrote:

"In my character of Miss Covington the actress, I called on several of the women of Miss Hamerton's company who gave me their addresses when we disbanded. From their gossip I learned without having to ask questions, that Kenton Milbourne has not disappeared. They have all met him on Broadway. He is apparently living the ordinary life of an actor out of a job, going around to the different agencies to list his name, etc. His address is No. -- West 49th street.

"I have allotted three of our best men to keep Milbourne under surveillance. The first, D.B., who has been an actor, is working independently of the other two. He has engaged a room in the same house and will make friends with M. The other two operatives, A.N. and S.C., are to trail him turn and turn about."

Thus the ground was laid out. Making my report in turn to Mr. Dunsany, I said: "It's all very well as far as it goes, but we must do some original work. Tracking the theft of Miss Hamerton's pearls is following a cold trail. Our work is destroyed by the fact that the jewels have been recovered. We must branch out."

"What do you propose?" said he.

"Let us lay a tempting bait for a new robbery, and catch them red-handed."

"Go ahead!"

"Are you prepared to risk something choice in diamonds or pearls?"

"Anything I have in stock."

"Very well. First, however, we've got to get a man accepted into the inmost circle of the thief trust."

14

Mr. Walter Dunsany and part of his family sailed for Liverpool on the following Wednesday. The fact was liberally commented on in the newspapers. A squad of reporters saw him off at the pier, and got a statement from him on the country's business prospects.

I must offer my little tribute of admiration to Mr. Dunsany. I have yet to meet his equal for daring and gameness. Middle-aged men are not generally conspicuous for these qualities, and when they are rich into the bargain--why, to hang on to what they've got is usually their highest aim. But Mr. Dunsany insisted on playing the rôle of danger in our projected drama. He eagerly accepted a part that the most hot-headed young adventurer might have quailed from. I would never have allowed him to go in ahead of me, but unluckily an expert knowledge of gems was required. That he had and I had not. He insisted anyway that I must be free for the general command of all our forces.

Twelve days after Mr. Dunsany's departure, one John Mattingly, in appearance a sober, decent, elderly artizan, descended the second-class gangway of one of our speediest ocean ferry-boats, and went to Ellis Island with the other immigrants. Landed in due course at the foot of Manhattan Island, he gazed at the towering buildings with a wondering eye, and allowed himself to be guided to an humble hotel in the neighbourhood.

I was not there to meet him for a very good reason, but later in the day I received a note apprising me of his arrival. Two days later I had another telling me that having presented letters of recommendation, he had been engaged in the gem-setting shops of Dunsany and Co. I cannot do better than quote from his own reports. Far from being the usual cut and dried affairs, they were little human documents of humorous observation.

REPORT OF J. M. #2

_Wednesday, June 3rd._

The morning after I landed, according to our program, I went to Dunsany's to apply for a job. I wonder if any merchant before me ever had the experience of besieging the doors of his own shop in a like humble capacity. Probably not. I enjoyed the experience. As soon as I opened the door I began to learn things about my own place. I always thought that my democratic ideas encouraged my employees to treat me exactly like one of themselves, but I found that they did not--quite. Walking through the aisles I perceived a new atmosphere, a casualness, an indifference in the salesmen which shocked me at first, then made me want to laugh. The joke was on me!

My letter of recommendation, which I had written myself, naturally, gained me the entrée to the present head of the firm, i.e., my son Edward. I approached his office with some nervousness. Here would be the first grand test of my disguise. Would the son recognise his father? And if he did, would he have the wit not to give me away before others? And if he did not, would I be able to keep my own face in the ludicrous situation?

I should say that in the matter of disguise I have followed your instructions carefully. The wig or toupee or transformation with which you furnished me, completely changes my appearance. I have also applied the stubbly beard and short moustache as you showed me how to do. I am letting my own hair grow beneath and will soon be able to leave off the false, which will be a relief as it is both hot and sticky. In addition it occurred to me to leave aside certain dental work which cost me a lot of money. The result is startling, and very satisfactory to our purpose.

My clothes I bought ready-made in a London emporium. Need I say more? The hat is a wonder, a sort of decrepit music-master affair of black felt. It is undoubtedly third or fourth hand--or should I say fourth head? I took care to have it well fumigated.