CHAPTER XV.

THE LITTLE PACKET FROM LONDON.

Next morning, immediately after breakfast, Captain Ducie shut himself up in his own room on the plea of having several important letters to write. The letters resolved themselves into one note, of no great length, addressed to a friend in London--to the same friend, in fact, to whom he had applied for a translation of the stolen cryptogram. Although the note did not contain more than a dozen lines, Captain Ducie was unusually particular as to its composition. He corrected and re-wrote it several times before he was satisfied. Then he sealed and directed it, and went down into the village and posted it himself. Then he set himself to wait patiently for a reply.

A reply came on the fifth day by post, in the shape of a tiny square packet. Captain Ducie received the packet from Jasmin with apparent indifference, but he did not open it till he was alone. The contents consisted of a brief note from his friend, inside which was a small square box made of very thin wood, which proved to be filled with some dark, fatty-looking substance, from which exhaled a faint, sickly odour that was far from pleasant. The following is a copy of the note:--

"My dear Ducie,--I send you a small quantity of the drug you ask for. I daresay there will be enough to serve your purpose. It is an exceedingly powerful narcotic, and very little of it must be used at one time. I greatly question the advisability of using it at all in the case of neuralgic pains such as you describe, but I presume you are acting under advice.

"Glad to hear that you are enjoying yourself so thoroughly. Town is anything but pleasant at this time of the year, and to be strolling on the banks of Windermere would suit much better the idiosyncrasy of

"Your perspiring but devoted friend,

"Geo. Bexell."

Captain Ducie, after taking one whiff at the contents of the box, put it carefully away under lock and key. Nothing further could be done till the next evening that his host might devote to drashkil-smoking. For that occasion he had not long to wait.

Ducie was now so far familiar with the process of drashkil-smoking and its results, that from the first evening of Cleon's absence he had taken upon himself the office of preparing M. Platzoff's pipe. This he did in that easy good-natured way which sat so gracefully on him, and made his simplest acts seem better than greater things done by another. On the first "big smoke night" after his receipt of the tiny packet from London, Ducie did not fail to proffer his services as usual, and Platzoff was glad to accept them. This evening as he charged the pipe out of the little silver box in which the preparation was always kept, he turned his back on the Russian, who was lazily reclining on the low cushioned seat that ran round the room, and seemed longer than usual in filling it to his mind. Platzoff was not heeding him at all, but was gazing with half-shut eyes on the lamp, of Oriental workmanship, by which the room was lighted.

"What strange patterns or weavings of life we often get," he said, speaking more to himself than to Ducie, "when we are asleep, or in a fever, or in any other state in which the vagaries of the brain are no longer controlled by the force of reason, or no longer restrained by what you would call the trammels of common sense. It is like looking at life through a kaleidoscope--a strange jumble of many-coloured differently shaped fragments, which yet shake themselves into curious and unlooked for patterns that have oftentimes a beauty and coherence of their own such as we seldom see in real life. Singular, too, that behind many of these brain-weavings which at first sight seem so purposeless and absurd there lurks an idea, sometimes a very subtle one, and wholly dissociated from any waking thought that we can remember. It is as if such an idea had found its way by chance into one's brain, and was determined to make its presence known by scratching a few quaint characters on the walls of its new domicile."

"You fly too high for me to follow you," said Ducie, with a laugh. "It is time you were ballasted with a pipe of your favourite drug. You have a lot of cobweb fancies in your brain that want clearing away. To-morrow you will be as practical and business-like as any Englishman of us all."

"I hope not. That is a level to which I do not aspire," answered Platzoff. "There is not sufficient _far niente_ in the character of you English. You lack repose, and the grace of inaction. You are the world's plough-horses. It is your place to do the hard work of the universe. Beyond that you are good for little. _Mais donnez-moi ma pipe, monsieur, s'il vous plait. Voilà ma consolation pour tons les defauts du monde_."

He took the amber mouthpiece between his lips, and Ducie applied an allumette to the bowl. Spirals of thick white smoke, emitted from the Russian's mouth, began to ascend slowly in languid viperous wreaths towards the roof. Soon a dull drowsy film began to thicken in his eyes and to quench their light. Soon the muscles of his face began to relax, and all expression save one of vacuous self-enjoyment, to fade out of his features as daylight dies slowly out of a landscape at set of sun. Ducie had filled for himself a pipe of cavendish, and now sat down a yard or two removed from his host.

"Ducie, _mon petit_," said Platzoff, speaking already in tones that were strangely unlike his own, "there is a peculiar flavour about my pipe to-night, such as I never remember to have experienced before. I cannot understand it."

"Is it a flavour that you like, or one that you dislike?"

"I don't altogether dislike it," answered Platzoff. "But why is it there at all?"

"Can't say, I am sure," replied Ducie in his quiet way. "I filled your pipe this evening out of a fresh lot of drashkil that Cleon mixed for you this morning. Perhaps your taste is out of order."

"Perhaps so. Anyway, the pipe is delicious, but terribly strong. I can talk no more. _Bon soir, ami_, and pleasant dreams."

"In another ten minutes he will be as firm as a rock," murmured Ducie to himself. He looked at his watch. It was just eleven o'clock.

Ducie sat smoking his cavendish and watching his host stealthily from under his thick eyebrows. He had put a very small portion of the contents of the little packet from London into Platzoff's pipe, and he was curious to see how it would act. His intention was simply to send Platzoff into a sounder sleep than usual, and so make sure that he would not be disturbed by the unexpected waking of the Russian later in the night. For he had made up his mind that this night of all others he would steal the Great Mogul Diamond. In his own thoughts he did not use such an ugly word as _steal_ in connexion with the affair. He merely remarked as it were casually to himself, that to-night he must appropriate the Diamond. He would retire at twelve o'clock as usual. Later on, when the last sitter-up could hardly fail to be asleep, he would come back as he had come so many times of late, letting himself down by means of the rope from his own window; and so, by way of No. 4 room and the corridor, reach M. Platzoff's private rooms. Once there, he could easily deprive the unconscious Russian of his pass-key, and now that he knew the secret of the hidden door, he would have no difficulty in making his way direct into the cavern; after which, to appropriate the Diamond would be the most natural thing in the world. Returning by the way he had come, he would carefully re-lock the cavern doors and shut the secret door. He would replace the pass-key in Platzoff's pocket, and retire unseen to his own room. Not improbably days would elapse before Platzoff again went to look at his Diamond, and when he should find that it was gone--what then? Why should he, Ducie, be suspected of stealing it any more than any one else who might happen to be in the house? And even granting the worst--that Platzoff suspected him of stealing the Diamond, even charged him with stealing it? For the suspicion he did not care one groat, and the charge was one that could not be proved. The only result would be a quarrel between himself and M. Platzoff, and a premature departure from Bon Repos. All this would not be difficult to bear. The fact of the Diamond being his at last would act as a salve for all the minor ills of life.

So ran Captain Ducie's thoughts as he sat smoking and watching M. Platzoff's faculties fade gradually out, like those of a very old man who has outlived his proper age. To-night the process was swifter than usual, thanks to the narcotic which he had put unseen into the Russian's pipe. He looked on with a complacent smile, caressing his moustache now and again.

Platzoff passed quickly from stage to stage of the process, till, in no long time, complete coma supervened, and he lived no longer save in the opium-smoker's fantastic world. The light in his pipe died out, the amber mouthpiece slipped from between his lips, his fingers relaxed their hold on the stem, his head drooped, his jaw fell slightly, a thin dark line marked the space between his imperfectly closed eyelids. He sighed gently twice, and was gone.

To all these signs Captain Ducie was now well accustomed, and he regarded them entirely as a matter of course. He refilled his pipe, and lay back, with his hands clasped under his head, gazing up at the gaudy ceiling, and building pleasant castles in the air. As the clock struck twelve, Cleon or Jasmin would enter, and he himself would go to roost for a couple of hours. Then would come the time for his great enterprise.

He had been thus quietly engaged with his second pipe, for a space of five or six minutes, when, finding that it did not draw to his mind, he sat up with the view of ascertaining what was the matter with it. In the act of opening his knife, he turned his eyes unthinkingly on M. Platzoff. In the face of the silent man sitting opposite to him there was something that caused his own face to blanch in a moment, as though he had seen some unmentionable horror. He rose to his feet as though moved by some invisible agency. Great beads of sweat burst out on his brow; his lips turned blue; in his eyes was a terror unspeakable. He staggered forward with a groan, and lifted the cold hand that would never grasp his again.

"My God! I have killed him!"

He sank on his knees, and buried his face in his hands. He knew as well as if twenty doctors had told him so, that M. Paul Platzoff, of Bon Repos, was dead. On his forehead was stamped the Great Angel's ineffaceable seal. Death had whispered in his ears, and he was deaf for ever.

That one minute which Ducie spent on his knees was, perhaps, the bitterest of his life. What his feelings were he himself could not have told. "As heaven is my witness, I did not intend to do this thing!" he exclaimed aloud, as he rose to his feet.

Then, in spite of the certainty which possessed him that Platzoff was beyond all earthly aid, he bared one of the Russian's arms, and pricked a vein with his penknife. But no blood followed, and with another groan Ducie let go the fingers that were already growing cold and stiff.

His next impulse was to ring for assistance. But in the very act of pulling the bell-rope he paused. For a minute or two the very existence of such a bauble as the Great Mogul Diamond had passed entirely out of his thoughts. But as his fingers touched the rope, there came a whisper in his ear, "Now or never the Diamond must become yours!" He paused, and sat down for a moment to think.

Platzoff was gone past recovery. Of all men living he, Ducie, was probably the only one to whom the existence of the Diamond was known; or, at least, the place where it was hidden. Dead men tell no tales. If he were to make the Diamond his,--and had he not a right to do so, having paid such a tremendous price for it--who in all the wide world would be one bit the wiser? If, on the contrary, he were to leave it untouched, it might remain undiscovered in its dark home for centuries, perhaps even till the end of time. Or if Platzoff's friend, Signor Lampini, were sufficiently instructed where to find it, of what use would it be to him except as a means for the propagation of red-hot revolutionary ideas, among which, for aught he knew to the contrary, assassination might be looked upon as a cardinal virtue? He would be worse than a fool not to seize the last chance that would ever be offered him of making the precious gem his own for ever.

Once more he looked at his watch. It wanted exactly a quarter to twelve. He had fifteen clear minutes that he could call his own, and not one minute more. No suspicion would attach to him with regard to the death of Platzoff; he felt no uneasiness on that score. But after that event should be discovered, the pass-key would be claimed by Cleon, and all access to the rooms denied him. Now or never was his time.

He hesitated no longer. With a shudder he put his hand into the dead man's pocket, and drew forth the silver key. It was the work of a moment to light the little hand-lamp, and pass forward into the library. Then he went down on his knees to look for the marks he had made on the carpet which were to point out to him the exact position of the secret door. Having found them, together with an almost invisible scratch which he had made on a particular part of the polished panelling of the bookcase, he was guided at once to the spring by which the secret door was acted upon, and in another moment the narrow stone staircase opened darkly at his feet. Down the stairs he went without pause or hesitation, carrying the lighted lamp in one hand and the pass-key in the other. The door at the bottom of the staircase opened without difficulty, and he found himself in the low vaulted chamber at the further end of which was the door that opened into the rock. The second door was passed as readily as the first, and before him appeared the narrow passage that led to the cavern. To-night the cold moist atmosphere of the place struck upon him with a chill that made him shudder. He had trodden that passage but once before, and then it was in company with the man who now lay cold and dead in the room above. He gave a backward glance over his shoulder half expecting to see the shade of Platzoff following silently in his footsteps. But there was nothing save his own distorted shadow dogging him like some monster at once ugly and grotesque. With a sneer at his own timidity he entered the passage in the rock. In three minutes more the great prize would be his.

Slowly and cautiously he threaded the tortuous pathway that led to the heart of the hill. He reached the end of it in safety, and the cavern loomed dim and vast before him. He paused for a moment, and held the lamp high above his head. There, fixed in the middle of the sandy floor he could just make out the vague outlines of the Indian idol. The great gem that flashed in its forehead caught a ray from the feeble lamp held by Ducie, and flung it back intensified a thousandfold. Dude saw the flash; and his breath came thick and fast.

He advanced one step--a second. Then, before he knew what had happened, he found himself stretched on the floor of the cave and in utter darkness. He had stumbled over some inequality in the floor, and had dropped his lamp in falling. Bruised and bleeding, and with a curse on his lips, he rose to his feet.

The predicament in which he now found himself was anything but a pleasant one. That he could find the idol even in the dark, and make himself master of the Diamond, he did not doubt. But the question was, whether if he wandered so far away from the narrow passage by which access was had to the cavern, he could find it again, and so get back to the library before the clock struck twelve. If that could be done all might yet be well. If it could not be done--but he would not stop to argue the point. He would make a bold dash for the Diamond. He would risk everything in one final throw, and trust that the good fortune which had so far befriended his enterprise would not desert him in this great crisis of his fate.

A few seconds sufficed for him to weave these thoughts in his brain, and almost before he had decided on what he would do he was advancing deeper into the cavern; advancing slowly, step by step, with outstretched arms, in the direction of the idol. By the light of his lamp he had noted its position, and now that he was in the dark he went to it nearly in a straight line. Suddenly it seemed as though the idol had risen noiselessly from the ground. The palm of his left hand smote its flat cold forehead. He lost not an instant in feeling for the Diamond. The moment his fingers touched it he thrilled from head to foot.

The Diamond was held in its place in the forehead of the idol by a small gold clasp which worked in the hollow of the skull. It occupied Ducie some three or four minutes, first to find the clasp, and afterwards to unfasten it. At length he succeeded in opening it, and the Diamond dropped into his palm. His own at last!

With a great sigh of relief and thankfulness he drew back his arm, and having first kissed the gem, he put it carefully away into a safe pocket, and then turned to retrace his steps. Taking the nose of the idol as his starting-point, he calculated that a straight line from it to the wall of the cavern would not land him very wide of the entrance. But the difficulty was to keep a straight line in the dark, and the darkness of the cavern was something that might almost be felt. But there was no time for hesitation. If midnight had not struck already it must be close on the point of doing so. The delay of a single minute might be the cause of his discovery either by Cleon or Jasmin. What the result would be in such a case he did not pause to ask himself. Instead, he set himself with his back to the face of the idol and stepped out slow and steady for the side of the cave.

He had got about half way across the intervening space when a sound fell on his ear that brought him on the instant to a dead stand. It was the noise made by some one descending the stone stairs that led into the vaulted room. All had been discovered, then! The death of Platzoff, the secret door standing wide open, and his, Ducie's, disappearance. The intruder must be either Cleon or Jasmin. Was either of them aware of the existence of the Diamond, and that it had been hidden in the cave? If not, then his presence there could be easily excused on the score of simple curiosity to see so strange a place. If they knew of the existence of the Diamond, they would suspect at once that he had taken it, and would doubtless try to dispossess him of it by force. Well: they should not take it from him without taking his life also: on that point he was fully determined. Presently a thin ray of light which cut the darkness like a sword, shone through the narrow entrance to the cave. It broadened and brightened quickly. As it drew nearer, Captain Ducie advanced to meet it. His face was pale, but very set and determined. His eyes shone from under his heavy brows with a light that boded no good to the intruder whoever he might be. He was not left long in doubt. Another half-minute brought into view the gaunt figure of Cleon, newly-risen from his sick bed. With haggard face and bloodshot eyes, and with a snarl of the lips that showed his long narrow teeth, the mulatto advanced slowly and warily. In one hand he carried a lamp, held high above his head; in the other a gleaming dagger. Ducie advanced towards him haughtily, with folded arms. As Cleon emerged from the into the cave his eyes fell on the captain's tall figure. He smiled a ghastly smile, and slowly nodded his head twice.

"Thief and villain! I have found you at last," he said. "Your heart's blood shall dye the floor of this cave."

He set down his lamp on a projection of the rock, and deliberately turned back the cuffs of his coat. Captain Ducie said never a word in reply, but kept his eyes fixed unswervingly on Cleon, as he would have done on a tiger or other beast of prey. He was without a defensive weapon of any kind, and was obliged to trust to the quickness of his eye and the strength of his muscles for safety in the coming attack.

Cleon's onslaught was exactly like that of a wild beast. It was a yell and a spring, and it would in all probability have been fatal to Ducie had not the latter been fully prepared for something of the kind. But the very instant Cleon sprang at his throat, out went Ducie's right arm, straight and true, like a sledge hammer, full in the mulatto's face. Cleon dropped before it as though he had been shot through the brain. But next instant he was on his feet again, his face streaked with blood, and now looking more ghastly than before. He said something Ducie could not understand, but if murder ever lurked in a man's eyes, it peeped out of the mulatto's at that moment. He was not at all daunted by his mishap: only rendered more wary. He made several feints and false moves before he ventured on a second dash at the captain. At last he thought he saw his chance, and in the twinkling of an eye he had struck his dagger into the captain's shoulder. He had aimed at the heart, but his enemy had proved too quick for him. His dagger pricked into Ducie's shoulder, and Ducie's arms went round him like a vice. The mulatto was active and sinewy, but in a close struggle he was no match for the great strength of his opponent. His arms were pinned to his sides, but his head was at liberty, and with his long sharp teeth he fastened on Ducie's cheek and bit it through. This roused Ducie's blood as half a dozen pricks with the dagger could not have done. Lifting Cleon bodily up, he swung him once round, and then dashed him with all his might against the side of the cave. The mulatto rebounded from the rock, and came to the floor with a dull heavy thud. He groaned twice, and then all was still except the heavy beating of Ducie's heart.

Ducie bent over the body for a moment. "His fate be on his own head!" he muttered. Then, having made sure that the Diamond was still safe in his possession, he took up the lamp and passed out of the cave. He shut and locked the two doors behind him, and when he got back to the library he also closed the secret door through the bookcase. As he passed through the smoke-room he gave one hasty shuddering glance at the dead body of Platzoff. The half-open eyes seemed to fix him with a look of terrible reproach. He fancied that he saw the pallid lips move. "Ingrate!" they seemed to say, "was it for this I took thee to my bosom and called thee friend?"

Ducie put his hand to his eyes and strode on. He found the door that led into the corridor half open as it had probably been left by Cleon in the horror of the sudden discovery he had made on entering the smoke-room. Ducie closed it carefully behind him. That door locked up a double secret, and it behoved him to get clear away from Bon Repos before it could be brought to light. He carried his treasure with him, and that would compensate for everything.

The moment he turned into the corridor to go towards his own rooms he began to feel faint from loss of blood. The first great excitement was over, and now his wounds began to make themselves felt. Great heavens! if he were to lose his senses at such a critical moment and be found by the servants! They would perceive that he was wounded, and would probably strip him, and then how would it fare with the Diamond? Just as this thought was in his mind Jasmin came suddenly round a corner and started back in alarm at sight of his pale face all streaked with blood.

"Sir--Captain Ducie--what is the matter? Are you wounded?" he cried.

"A slight accident--a mere scratch," gasped the captain. "Lend me your arm as far as my room, and--and don't leave me yet awhile."

The first message sent by the telegraph clerk at Oxenholme station when he went on duty next morning, was as under: "From J. M., Windermere, to Solomon Madgin, Tydsbury, Midlandshire.

"Address no more letters to B.R. till you hear from me again. A grand fracas. The Captain and I are on our way to town. Unless I am greatly mistaken, we carry the G.M.D. with us."