CHAPTER XVI.

MADGIN JUNIOR'S THIRD REPORT.

"Button's Hotel. "St. Helier, Jersey.

"My dear Dad,--My telegram from Oxenholme, followed by my brief note from London, will have prepared you in part for the strange events that have happened since the date of my last report. I now purpose giving you, as succinctly as possible, a narrative of those events from the point where my last report broke off. You will then understand how it happens that my present communication is dated from this pleasant little isle.

"After the conclusion of Report No. 2 nothing of consequence happened for a few days--nothing that would allow me to imagine that the discovery of the secret door in the library would further our views in any way. M. Platzoff was confined to his bed for a couple of days after the fit in which I found him. After that time he got up as usual, and everything at Bon Repos went on as before. Captain Ducie was still with us. I understood from Cleon that he had been invited by M. Platzoff to extend his visit. The health of Cleon kept improving from day to day, and about a week after M. Platzoff's sudden attack he announced to me that from that date he would resume those personal duties about his master which during his illness had been delegated to me. Then farewell to my last chance of ever seeing the Great Diamond, I said to myself when he told me.

"And truly, at that moment I despaired utterly of ever advancing one step nearer the object that had brought me to Bon Repos. I was on the point of giving notice there and then of my intention to leave, and of writing you by the next post to inform you of what I had done. Besides, I was getting tired of my occupation--tired of Bon Repos and all in it. I began to hanker after my old way of life, in which a fictitious character is never assumed for more than four hours at a stretch. I had been acting the part of valet for more weeks than I cared to count, and I was heartily tired of the assumption. However, on second thoughts, I determined to delay giving notice for another week. I would wait seven more days, and if nothing turned up during that time to further our views, I decided that I would throw up the situation without further delay and go back to town. Never had the hunt after the Great Mogul Diamond seemed to me a more wildgoose affair than it did at that moment.

"It was in the afternoon that Cleon spoke to me. The evening was to be devoted by M. Platzoff to drashkil-smoking--Cleon had been preparing a fresh supply of the drug that very morning--and Cleon's resumption of his duties was to commence at midnight, at which hour M. Platzoff would doubtless require carrying to bed, and the mulatto decided that that duty should be performed by himself.

"Cleon had not yet felt himself well enough to resume his custom, interrupted by illness, of going out every evening to smoke a pipe with the landlord of the village inn. (Both the house and the landlord will be well remembered by you.) This evening he had invited me into his little sitting-room to smoke a cigar and join him over a glass of grog--a most unusual condescension on his part. We were still sitting over our tumblers when the timepiece chimed twelve. Cleon rose at once. 'Had you not better let me go to-night?' I said. 'You are far from strong yet, and M. Platzoff will most probably want carrying to bed.'

"'No no,' he said, 'I will go myself. I feel quite equal to the task. Await my return here, and we will have one more weed before parting for the night.'

"He went, and I lighted a fresh cigar. I think he must have been gone about ten minutes when he came back all in a hurry. His face was livid, but whether from fear or some other emotion I could not tell. I started to my feet and was about to question him, but he motioned me back. 'Ask no questions,' he said, 'and do not stir from this place till I come back--unless,' he added as a second thought, 'unless you hear M. Platzoff's bell. In that case come without a moment's delay.'

"I saw he was in no mood to be questioned, so I sat down quietly and resumed my cigar. From a number of weapons that hung on the wall over his mantelpiece he selected a long and ugly-looking Malay creese. He felt its point with a grim smile, whispering something to himself as he did so, and then he hurriedly left the room.

"Now, it was all very well for Master Cleon to tell me to sit still and await his return. I had no intention of doing anything of the kind. I had a deeper interest in all that happened under that roof than he suspected.

"When he had been gone about a minute and a half, I laid down my cigar and quietly followed him down the long corridor leading to M. Platzoff's rooms. I had on the thin slippers which I usually wore in the house. M. Platzoff liked all the arrangements at Bon Repos to be as noiseless as possible.

"The corridor ends in a landing: on this landing are several doors that open into different rooms, one of them being the door that gives access to M. Platzoff's private suite. The corridor and the landing were both in darkness.

"Much to my astonishment, on approaching M. Platzoff's door I saw by the stream of light that poured from it that it was only partially closed. I drew near on tiptoe and listened, ready at the slightest sound of an approaching footstep to vanish into one of the empty rooms on the opposite side of the landing. But no sound of any kind broke the death-like silence. I listened till I was tired of listening, and then I ventured to push open the door a few inches further, and look in. The room was lighted as usual, and was filled with the faint, sickly odour of drashkil, to which by this time I had become accustomed. But Cleon was not there. There, however, was M. Platzoff, not half sitting, half reclining, on the divan as was his custom when in one of his opium sleeps, but stretched out at full length on the cushions.

"He lay with his eyes half open, and at the first glance it seemed to me that he was watching me in that quiet, cynical way that I knew so well, and I started like one suddenly detected in the commission of some great offence. A second glance showed me that in those half-open eyes there was no light nor knowledge of earthly things. I thought that he had been taken with another fit, and without further hesitation I pushed open the door and went in.

"I took the inanimate body up in my arms, and was about to carry it to bed, when something in the fall of the limbs and the expression of the face struck a sudden chill to my heart, and I laid it gently down again. I sought for the pulse, but could not find it; I laid my hand on the heart, but it was still.

"M. Platzoff was stone-dead!

"How or by what means his fate had come thus suddenly upon him I had no means of judging. Poor Platzoff! At that moment I could not help feeling sorry for him. But presently came the thought--where is Cleon? and for what purpose did he fetch that dagger from his room? There were no tokens of murder about the dead man: he seemed to have died as calmly as an infant might have done.

"I pressed forward into the bedroom, which, as usual, was lighted up by a pair of wax candles. I took one of these and went onward into the library. I could scarcely believe my eyes when I saw the secret door in the book-case standing wide open. It opened on to a steep and narrow staircase, at the bottom of which was another door, also open. Further than that the faint light of my candle would not penetrate.

"'Does this staircase lead to the hiding-place of the Diamond?' was the question that flashed across my mind. Now or never was the time to answer it. But to venture down that dismal staircase into the unknown depths beyond was a task I did not care for. Suppose that, while I were down there, someone were to come and lock me up. I might scream and call for help till I died, yet never be heard by living man. Besides, after all, the Diamond might not be hidden there. The game was not worth the candle.

"I turned to go back, but at that moment the silence was shivered by a yell so utterly fiendish and unlike anything I had ever heard before, that my blood chilled at the sound, and all the stories that I had ever heard or read of Indian cunning and ferocity came rushing into my mind.

"I stood motionless, with the candle still in my hand, listening for a repetition of the terrible cry. But none came. Instead, in a little while I heard the noise of approaching footsteps. Then indeed I fled. Anxious as I was to know the meaning of what I had seen and heard, I had no desire to risk my life for the sake of gratifying my curiosity.

"Leaving my candle where I had found it, I passed quickly through the suite of rooms, and did not halt till I reached the dark corridor outside. Here I waited and listened till I heard the footsteps coming through the rooms. Then I turned up the corridor, waited behind the first angle, and watched to see who should come out of the smoke-room. I expected to see none other than Cleon. Instead, I saw Ducie come staggering out, carrying a small lighted lamp in his hand, and having his face all smeared with blood. Some weird tragedy had just been enacted, and I should not have been my father's son if I had not wanted to get to the bottom of it.

"I retired a few paces, and then, calculating my time, I stepped briskly forward as Ducie came up the corridor. We met face to face at the corner, and we both started back in mutual surprise. There was a wildness in the captain's eyes, and he looked as if he were about to faint.

"'Sir! Captain Ducie!' I exclaimed, 'what is the matter? Are you wounded?'

"'A slight accident, that's all: a mere scratch,' he gasped out. 'Lend me your arm as far as my room.'

"I assisted him to his dressing-room, and once there, he sank down on the sofa with a deep sigh.

"'Get me some brandy,' he whispered. 'Before you go, let me tell you,' he added, 'that should I faint you must on no account summon any further assistance, neither must you remove any of my clothes. Bear those two points in mind, and also that you are not to leave me, nor let anyone else approach me till I come round. Now go, and get back as quickly as possible.'

"I had only to go as far as Cleon's room for what I wanted. I found the room just as I had left it. Cleon had not yet returned. 'Would he ever return?' was the question I now asked myself. Had there not been some terrible encounter between him and Ducie, and had not the mulatto had the worst of it? Yet why should there be any encounter between the two, if it were not to determine which of them should obtain possession of the Diamond?

"That the death of M. Platzoff was known to both of them could not be doubted. Supposing, then, that the existence of the Diamond, and the place where it was hidden, were equally well known, what more likely than that there should be a struggle between the two, ending fatally for one of them, for possession of the Diamond? Supposing Captain Ducie to have been the victor in such an encounter, was it at all unlikely that the Diamond was now about his person? Such a supposition would account reasonably enough for the curious injunctions he laid upon me just before I quitted his room.

"Full of this great thought, I hurried back with the brandy. True enough, the captain had fainted. He lay at full length on the sofa, with not an atom of sense left in him. But the singularity of the thing lay in the fact that Captain Ducie's right hand was deeply buried inside his vest, and there grasped some small substance--I could not tell what--with a tenacity that could not have been surpassed had his hand not been opened for twenty years. So much I discovered before I proceeded to apply any of the remedies usual on such occasions. After a few minutes he came to his senses sufficiently to know where he was and what I was about. But before his mind had become quite clear on all points, he withdrew his clenched hand from his waistcoat, stared at it wonderingly for a second or two, but without opening it; then like a flash it seemed to come across his mind what was hidden there, and with a deep 'Ha!' he thrust back his hand, only to withdraw it, open and empty, half a minute later. 'He has hidden away the Diamond in some inner pocket,' I said to myself. From that moment I never doubted that the wondrous gem was in his possession, and I could not help admiring the cool patience and the indomitable pluck he must have displayed before he could call it his own. All the same, I determined to try all I knew to cause it to change hands once more.

"The brandy revived Captain Ducie, and in a few minutes he was able to sit up and tell me what he wanted. He told me that he had been wounded accidentally in the shoulder, and bade me assist him off with his coat and vest. The coat he flung carelessly aside. The vest he doubled up, laid it on the sofa and sat down on it. Then I cut open his shirt and laid bare the wound on his shoulder. It was not very deep, but there had been a good deal of hemorrhage. With the coolness and knowledge of an old campaigner the captain instructed me how to bathe the wound and dress it with some salve which he produced from his dressing-case. Then he put on some clean linen, washed the smears from his face, hid the ugly gash in his cheek with a strip of court-plaster, and dressed. All this was done with a silence and celerity that astonished me.

"'So far, so good,' said Captain Ducie. 'I want you next to pack my small portmanteau. Put into it my dressing-case and all my papers, and as many of my clothes as it will hold. Then go and pack up a few things of your own. I want you to go with me, and in ten minutes I shall expect you to be ready to start.'

"I made some faint objections on the score of leaving M. Platzoff in such an unceremonious way.

"'I will take the entire responsibility on my own shoulders,' he said. 'Your excuses to M. Platzoff shall be made by me. You have nothing to fear on that score. As my shoulder is now, it is quite impossible for me to go up to town alone. You need only be away forty-eight hours, and I shall not forget to remunerate you for your trouble.'

"In ten minutes I was ready to start. 'If Captain Ducie has got the Diamond about him, as I fully believe he has,' I said to myself, 'then is my occupation at Bon Repos gone, and I care not if I never see the place again. My duty is evidently to accompany the gallant captain.'

"When I had packed my own little valise, I stole quietly into Cleon's room. It was still empty: the mulatto had not returned. Then I went softly down the corridor, pushed open the door of the smoke-room and looked in. No hand had touched the body of M. Platzoff since I left it last. I whispered 'Farewell,' covered up the white face, and left the room. I had one thing more to do. Taking a lighted candle in my hand I went into the little gallery that opens out of the drawing-room. In this gallery were several cases containing old coins, old china, rare fossils, and various other curiosities natural and artificial. It was one of these curiosities that I was in quest of. I knew where the key was kept that opened the cases. I got it and opened the case in which lay the object I was in search of. This object, to all appearance, was nothing more than a bit of green glass, except that its shape was rather uncommon. There was a small label near it, and this label I had one day been at the trouble of deciphering. The writing was so minute as almost to require a magnifying glass to read it by. After much difficulty I had succeeded in making out these words:

"'Model in paste of the G.M.D. by Bertolini of Paris.'

"M. Platzoff was dead; Cleon, for aught I knew to the contrary, was dead too. I was about to leave Bon Repos for ever--to leave it with the man who had stolen the genuine Diamond from the man who had stolen it from its rightful owner. Why should not I take possession of the paste Diamond? As a simple curiosity it might be a gratification to Lady P. to possess it. More than that: it seemed to me not impossible that certain eventualities might arise in which the possession of an exact model of the Diamond might be of service to us. Anyhow, I dropped it quietly into my pocket."

END OF VOL. II.