CHAPTER IX.

THE VERDICT OF MR. VERMUSEN.

Captain Ducie had a long wet walk back to his hotel, and by the time he reached it he felt thoroughly exhausted. He had a bath, and dined, and spent a quiet evening in the smoke-room, with no company save that of his own thoughts.

There was a deep underglow of satisfaction in his heart at recovering the Diamond, but there was one pressing question that required his immediate decision.

The body of the mulatto would in all probability be found on the morrow, or, at the latest, in the course of the following day. Although there could be little doubt that his death would be set down to pure accident, still an inquiry would be set on foot as to his name, position in life, &c., and the affair would be a nine days' wonder in the little island. The boatmen would naturally state that he, Captain Ducie, had been seen in the mulatto's company only a few hours before he came by his death; justice, in the persons of a coroner and twelve jurymen, would take cognizance of the affair; and he would be called upon to state the reason of his persistent pursuit of the mulatto, and what passed between them after landing at the bay of St. Lazare. Such an inquiry would be distasteful to him in every way, and it seemed to him that the wisest thing he could do would be to start for England by the morning steamer. He would spend a couple of days in London, and then set out for Paris.

Once in the French capital, he must look out for some means of disposing of his Diamond. That was a negotiation which could not much longer be delayed.

His available funds were within a few sovereigns of being exhausted, and all his well-to-do friends had turned their backs on him long ago. But all his well-to-do friends might go hang. For the future he should be independent of them and their charity.

He should take up his permanent residence abroad: continental life was so much freer and more sociable than our cold-blooded insular mode of wearing out existence.

He was still very sore on the subject of Mirpah Van Loal, and he would be so for some time to come. He winced mentally whenever her image crossed his mind. His self-love had been terribly wounded by her desertion of him; but beyond that there was an element of mystery about the sudden disappearance of herself and her father that puzzled him exceedingly.

Change of scene might be beneficial to him in more senses than one: he had better get away from the island as soon as possible.

He called for his bill and settled it, so that it might not delay his departure in the morning, after which his balance of ready money was reduced to a trifle. He must raise a few sovereigns on his watch when he got to London, otherwise he would hardly have sufficient to take him across the Channel.

As the clock struck ten, he took his bed-candle and went upstairs. He put back the Diamond in the place from which it had been taken by the mulatto--that is to say, in the sealskin pouch that hung by a steel chain round his neck.

Before getting into bed he did not fail to subject his room to a careful examination, nor to satisfy himself as to the security of his door. He was terribly tired, and in five minutes after putting his head on the pillow he was soundly asleep.

He awoke all in a moment.

The night-lamp in his room, burning dim and low, just served to show that all was still dark outside. He awoke all in a moment, with the terribly vivid sensation of a cold wet hand laid heavily across his mouth. He started up in bed with a shudder that shook him from head to foot. He expected to see something near him--what, he could not have told.

The sight of the familiar features of his own room swept away his fright at once, but he could not quite so readily get over the sensation of sickness and disgust, which affected him as deeply as if the hand had been a real one. His lips felt dry and parched, and he put out his tongue to wet them.

Again he shuddered. His lips tasted of salt water--tasted as if he had been drinking seawater, and had allowed the salt to dry on them. The hand that had been laid across his face was cold and wet, and smelled of the sea.

He leaped out of bed, feeling utterly upset. On looking at his watch he found that it was just four o'clock. There would be no daylight for another hour.

"Serve me right for eating that lobster," he said. "A man at my time of life has no business with suppers of any kind. If people will trifle with their digestive organs, they must expect to suffer for their folly."

He did not get into bed again, not caring to risk a repetition of that terrible sensation. Instead, he wrapped himself in a warm overcoat, selected a comfortable chair, lighted his meerschaum, and smoked away till day had fairly broken, and it was time to wash and dress in readiness for the steamer.

He was turning over some toilet appurtenances when his eye caught the corner of a letter protruding from under the looking-glass. He drew it out and found that it was addressed to himself, and that it bore the London post-mark. It had doubtless been laid on the table with the view of catching his eye, and then by some accident had got slipped under the glass. He opened it with some curiosity, saw that it was in a man's writing, and then glanced at the signature before beginning to read it.

The colour mounted into his cheek as he read the signature, "Solomon Van Loal," and with eager curiosity he turned back to the beginning.

The letter began without either date or address, and ran as under:--

"Sir,--The most cunning people are apt to deceive themselves at times, and few people are so easily gulled, when their suspicions are not aroused, as those who make a point of preying upon others. You, sir, in your own person, afford a conspicuous example of the truth of the above remarks.

"In extreme cases, where, for instance, a great wrong has to be righted, it sometimes becomes necessary to fight Fraud with its own weapons. If it is smitten, shall it cry out? if it is outwitted and compelled to disgorge its ill-gotten gains, shall it make a noise in the market-place? Let it rather fold its cloak decently about its head, and go on its way in silence, thankful that its shoulders have escaped the whip of justice for a little while longer.

"I speak in no unmeaning parables, Captain Ducie. More underlies my words than may at first sight appear. If you do not understand my meaning when you read this, you will not long remain in ignorance of it.

"One word of warning in conclusion. Much of that which you believe to be locked up in your own bosom is known to me in all its details. There are certain episodes, having reference to your sojourn at Bon Repos, which you would hardly care to have made public. Take the advice of him who writes this letter, and keep a discreet tongue in your head, otherwise you will make an implacable enemy of one who can work you more harm than you are aware of, and who now signs himself,

"Yours as you may prove to deserve it,

"SOLOMON VAN LOAL."

"What, in the fiend's name, does it all mean?" asked Captain Ducie, when he had read to the end of the letter. "Is the man mad, or am I drunk?" His face was very white, but then was an ugly frown on it, as he sat staring at the letter as if he could hardly believe it to be anything more than a foolish hoax. "By heaven! if I had the writer of it here I would twist his neck, old as he is!"

Then he read the letter carefully through again, weighing it sentence by sentence. When he had done, he put it back into its envelope, and looked up with quite a frightened expression in his eyes.

"What does the old fool mean by 'fighting Fraud with its own weapons?' and by 'compelling me to disgorge my ill-gotten gains?' In what way has he 'gulled' me? He has taken nothing of mine, unless----"

He was too sick at heart to finish the sentence even to himself, but with a hand that trembled like that of an old man, he drew forth his sealskin sachet, opened it, and took out of it the Great Mogul Diamond. He took it out with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, and laid it on the palm of his left. There it rested, lustrous, glowing, unmatchable, absorbing the purest rays of the morning into itself, and then flinging them back intensified a thousandfold. The colour came back to Captain Ducie's cheek, his heart resumed its equable beating, and nothing save an almost imperceptible trembling of the hand betrayed the crisis of feeling through which he had just passed.

"What a precious idiot I must be to allow myself to be frightened by the riddles of an old ass like Van Loal! The fellow must be crazy. No doubt he felt an attack coming on, and that was the reason why he left so abruptly. And so enough of him. Not even for the fair Mirpah's sake could I tolerate a lunatic father-in-law. Ah! my beauty," apostrophising the Diamond, "so long as I have you, or the worth of you, what care I how the world wags? You are my only true consolation--my only real friend! Come, _amigo mio_, let you and I, for the benefit and information of such persons as may tenant this chamber in time to come, write down Mr. Solomon Van Loal as an ass. On the middle pane of the middle window, in prominent letters, we will write him down an ass."

The conceit pleased him, and he crossed the floor with the Diamond in his hands, and a malicious smile on his lips, to work out his poor morsel of revenge. He selected the spot with care, right in the centre of the middle pane. He gave a preliminary flourish with his hand, and was about to make the first stroke, but paused. "I'll put my initials, E.D., under it," he said, and the malicious smile deepened as he spoke, "so that if the old rascal ever comes here again he may know to whom he is indebted for his brief immortality."

Then he gave his arm a second flourish, and essayed the first stroke.

With one of the facets of the Diamond he made the first curve of the letter S. But no mark followed.

Again he essayed to make the stroke, and again the glass remained as free from scratch or mark as if he had striven to write on it with a common quill. A mist came over his eyes, and he sank, half fainting, into the nearest chair.

"Ruined! irretrievably ruined!" he cried aloud in a voice of utter anguish. "That consummate villain has stolen the real Diamond, and has left me a worthless imitation in its place! Now--now I understand his letter. Now I understand why I was befooled by his daughter."

The worthless gem had dropped from his fingers, and lay unheeded on the floor. He sat staring at it with lacklustre eyes for a full half-hour. All his patience, his ingenuity, his underhand working--the death of Platzoff, the stealing of the Diamond, the murder of Cleon--had ended in this, that he had been outwitted by one more cunning than himself. And could he complain that he had been otherwise than rightly punished for what he had done? But he did not complain. Hope had died out utterly in his heart; and when that is the case with any one, he is beyond vain repinings. The future? He dared not look at it. The dull, dead present was quite as much as his brain could dwell on just now.

He rose after a while and picked up the Diamond; and going to the window, he again essayed with one facet after another to make even the faintest scratch on the glass. But his latter efforts were as futile as his first had been. Then the thought struck him, and it was a thought that sent a brief glow of hope to his heart, that there might, perhaps, be something peculiar in the cutting of the Diamond which precluded it from marking the window; that its angles might be too much rounded, or something of that sort. The only way by which he could satisfy himself whether he had been duped or no--whether the Diamond was a real or an imitation one--was to take it to some one thoroughly conversant with such things, and obtain his verdict thereon. Even while this thought was in his mind, it came into his memory that he had seen a quaint little shop, in a certain out-of-the-way street in St. Helier, with this legend painted over the window: _H. Vermusen, Lapidary, and Dealer in Precious Stones_. He remembered it from thinking at the time that he might, perchance, call some day on Mr. Vermusen, and show him the Diamond.

To this man he would at once go. These alternations of hope and fear were killing him. He would put off his departure from the island till to-morrow. Even if Cleon's body had been already found, it would take more than another day to so complete the chain of evidence as to bring home the fact that he, Ducie, had been in any way concerned in the mulatto's death. He was safe for another twenty-four hours.

He looked at his watch. Time had flown rapidly. It was now a quarter past six. Would the lapidary's shop be open at that early hour? Hardly. He would finish dressing, and go out on to the sands, and there wait till the clock should strike eight.

As the church clock struck eight, Captain Ducie opened the door of Mr. Vermusen's shop. Mr. Vermusen himself came out of a dark inner den to wait upon his early visitor. A spectacled, high-nosed old gentleman, in a black velvet skull-cap, and a faded velvet dressing-gown.

"In what can I have the pleasure of serving you, sir?" he asked with a slow rubbing of his lean hands and a sharp glance over his spectacles at Captain Ducie's pale haughty face.

Ducie had thoroughly made up his mind during his solitary walk along the sands to bear whatever the diamond-merchant might have to tell him, whether it were good news or bad, without any outward tokens either of elation or dismay. When, therefore, he answered Mr. Vermusen's question his voice was even more low and equable than usual, but he could not altogether hide the anxiety that lurked in his eyes.

"You are a lapidary and dealer in precious stones, I believe?" Mr. Vermusen bowed.

"I have here an object--a something--the value of which I wish to ascertain. It was found a few days ago by a sister of mine at the bottom of an old oak chest that had not been opened for quite forty years. The chest was full of old family papers--leases, title deeds, what not--none of which had been needed for a very long time. Having occasion, however, to look for some missing document, the chest was emptied, and, as already said, this article was found at the bottom. My sister has sent it to me with the view of ascertaining its value."

While speaking, the thumb and finger of his right-hand had been inserted in his waistcoat pocket. They now brought out the Great Mogul Diamond (or its imitation) and dropped it gently into the skinny palm of the old lapidary. A low sigh which he could not repress told with what anxiety Captain Ducie awaited the verdict of Mr. Vermusen.

Grave and immovable as a judge, the diamond-dealer received the glittering gem in his palm. A moment he looked at it through his spectacles; then by a gentle up and down movement of his hand he seemed to be testing its weight as in comparison with its size. Then he fixed a small microscope in his eye and surveyed the facets carefully through it. Then he put it in his mouth and rolled his tongue round it three or four times. Lastly, he put it into a pair of tiny brass scales and weighed it. Then he looked up and spoke.

"Paste, sir--paste," was all he said.

There was a chair close by where Captain Ducie was standing. He sank into it, as it seemed without any volition on his part. For a few moments he did not speak. Then he said very quietly: "You are quite sure that it is nothing more than paste?"

The old lapidary's thick white eyebrows went up in quiet disdain. "I am not in the habit, sir, of making assertions which I cannot maintain by proof," he said, drily. "With your permission, and by the aid of this little file, I will prove to you in a still more effectual way that I have stated nothing more than a simple fact."

"Thanks. No. I ask your pardon for seeming to doubt your word. I am satisfied." He paused, and Mr. Vermusen looked as if he thought the interview ought to end there. But presently Captain Ducie spoke again.

"I presume that you are a dealer in all sorts of gems, both real and factitious. Have you any objection to purchase this one of me at your own price?"

"Such a purchase would be of no use whatever to me. Your gem is too large for setting either as a genuine stone or an imitation one, and to break it up would be to render it still more worthless than it is now. I must decline to purchase it at any price."

Captain Ducie put the glittering impostor back into his pocket. Then he rose, lifted his hat, bade Mr. Vermusen a courteous good-morning, and so quitted the shop without another word.

When he got into the street he hesitated for a moment or two which way he should turn. But all ways were now alike to him. Instinctively he took the road leading to the sea.

As he reached the bottom of the street a heavy broad-wheeled waggon laden with stone was on the point of turning the corner. A sudden impulse came into his mind, and he acted on it without giving himself time for a second thought. He took the Diamond out of his pocket, stooped down, and placed it full in the track of the waggon wheel. With indrawn breath and tense muscles he stood watching the ponderous wheel roll slowly forward. One more turn, and the Diamond was hidden for ever. A faint crunching noise, a tiny heap of glittering dust, and all was over. With a sigh and a shrug of the shoulders, Captain Ducie went his way.