Mr. Anderson replaced the keys in his pocket. His ruddy face suddenly had grown pale. Sir Michael Cayley, the empty case in his hand, stood staring across the room like a man dazed. Then he forced speech to his lips.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “since it is physically impossible for the diamond to have left this room, in this room it must be searched for--and found. First, is it by any chance upon the floor?”
A brief examination showed that it was not.
“Then,” continued Sir Michael, “the painful conclusion is unavoidable that it is upon someone’s person!”
An angry murmur arose. Mr. Anderson raised his hand.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “Sir Michael states no more than the fact.”
And, his face remaining very pale, he removed his coat and waistcoat and threw them upon the table, emptied his trouser pockets and turned out the linings.
“Be good enough to examine them, gentlemen,” he said.
There was a momentary hesitation; but the Lord Mayor stepped forward and in a businesslike way examined the contents of the several pockets. He turned to Mr. Anderson.
“Thank you,” he said. “If the others are satisfied, I am.”
There was a murmur of assent; and as the owner of the office picked up his property, Sir Michael, in turn, submitted himself to examination. All the others followed suit, without further hesitation. And the result of the inquiry was nil.
Eight anxious faces surrounded the little table.
“I suggest,” said Mr. Anderson, quietly, “that we admit the detective who is in my office. His experience may enable him to succeed where we have failed.”
All agreeing, the communicating door was opened. Mr. Anderson, without quitting the room, called to Inspector Grimsby. The inspector entered. The door was relocked.
“Inspector,” said Mr. Anderson, “the diamond is missing!”
Whereupon Grimsby’s eyes opened widely in amazement.
“Are you sure, sir?”
“Unfortunately, I cannot doubt it.”
“When did you last see it?”
“At the moment when that uproar broke out below,” said Mr. Dell.
“Ah,” murmured Grimsby, thoughtfully. “You all rushed to the window, I expect?”
“Exactly.”
“Leaving the diamond on the table?”
“Yes.”
“That’s when it was stolen!”
“Very possibly, Inspector,” said the Lord Mayor, a stoutly built man with an imperious manner. “But who took it and where did he conceal it?”
“You must all submit to be searched, gentlemen!”
“We have already done so.”
“I am more used to that sort of thing. Do you all agree to being searched by me?”
All did. The previous performance was repeated. Grimsby not only searched the garments but passed his hands all over the persons of the eight, even making them open their mouths and tapping at their teeth with a lead pencil!
“I did some I.D.B. work in South Africa,” he explained. “It’s wonderful where a clever man can hide a diamond.”
But no diamond was found!
The better to bring home to those who read these records the truly amazing nature of this circumstance, I will explain again, here, the construction and furniture of the apartment.
It was a small room, some fourteen feet by eighteen. It contained eight oak chairs and an oak table; a red carpet; its walls were distempered and bare, save for the framed photograph previously mentioned. The one window was closed and fastened. The door opening on the corridor was double-locked. Save when it had been opened to admit Grimsby, the door communicating with the next office had also been locked throughout the course of the meeting. There was no fireplace. Ventilation was provided for by a small, square ventilator above the corridor door.
Having convinced himself that the diamond was not upon the person of any one present, Inspector Grimsby took but two or three minutes to satisfy himself that it was not concealed elsewhere.
“Gentlemen,” he said, slowly, “the Blue Rajah is not in this room!”
The Lord Mayor glared. He was a director of the company with which the diamond was insured.
“My good man,” he said, “it isn’t humanly possible for anything--anything--to have gone out of this room since we entered it!”
“I’m disposed to agree with you, sir,” replied Grimsby. “But at the same time I’ll stake my reputation that the diamond isn’t inside these four walls! Although my search of you gentlemen was a mere formality, I assure you it was thorough. I’ve searched a few score Kaffirs and I know my business. As to the room itself, it’s as bare as a drawing board. A child could find the smallest bead in it inside twenty seconds. You can take it from me as a stone certainty that the diamond has gone!”
“Then we are wasting precious time!” cried Sir Michael. “Commence the pursuit at once, Inspector!”
Grimsby’s jaw shot out doggedly.
“If you could give me a hint where to begin, sir,” he said, “I shouldn’t waste another second!”
“Hang it all, that’s your business, my man!”
“I know it is, sir. But I’m only a poor human policeman, after all. We sha’n’t gain anything by getting angry, shall we? This room, to all intents and purposes, is a locked box from which something has been abstracted without lifting the lid. That’s a conjuring trick, and as puzzling to me as it is to you.”
Sir Michael softened. Inspector Grimsby is not a man who can be browbeaten.
“Quite right, Inspector,” he said; “I recognize the difficulties. But this loss is horrible. It reflects upon all of us--all of us. If the news of this theft leaks out--if the stone cannot be recovered--a certain stigma--I cannot blind myself to the fact--a certain stigma will attach to our personal integrity. Clean as our records may be, we cannot hope to escape it. For God’s sake, Inspector, set your wits to work.”
Indeed, those were anxious faces that surrounded the detective. Suddenly--
“Ah!” cried the Lord Mayor, “the man Klaw! On his own showing he knows something of this matter! Mr. Grimsby----”
Grimsby held up his hand and nodded.
“With your permission, gentlemen,” he said, “I will try to get into communication with Moris Klaw at once.”
“Good,” said Mr. Anderson; “and meanwhile, whilst we await the result of your efforts, Inspector, I suggest, in the interests of all, that we lunch in my office. It may be inconvenient for many of you, but for my own part I am anxious to remain on these premises until we have news of the whereabouts of the diamond.”
The proposal was carried unanimously. No one of those substantial men of affairs was anxious to lay himself open to the suspicion of having removed the great Blue Rajah from the office! For, as Sir Michael quite justly had pointed out, where a diamond worth an emperor’s ransom is concerned, reputations melt like ice beneath a tropical sun.
In this way, then, I found myself concerned in the case; for Grimsby hastened to call me up, begging me to urge the retiring Moris Klaw to quit his Wapping haunt, to which he clung like Diogenes to his wooden cavern, and to journey to Moorgate Street. Fortunately, I was in my rooms, and, willing enough to enjoy an opportunity of studying Klaw at work, I despatched a district messenger to him, trusting that he would be at his shop.
Since evidently he had apprehended that an attempt would be made this morning, I did not doubt that he would be at home. Indeed, he rang me up less than half an hour later and arranged to meet me at Mr. Anderson’s office.
“I warned him--that Lord Mayor,” came his rumbling continental tones along the wire, “how he must not let it out of his sight. He ignored me. So! Ring him up immediately, and tell him to have ready for me hot black coffee. It stimulates the inner perception when green tea is not obtainable.”
Without delay I followed Moris Klaw’s instructions, and then hurried out and into a cab. My duties, as Klaw’s biographer--self-appointed--forbade my delaying.
We arrived at Basinghall House simultaneously. Our cabs drew up one behind the other. Except for the presence of Inspector Grimsby at the entrance, there was nothing to show that a stupendous robbery had been committed there less than an hour before. As I descended, Grimsby ran and opened the door of the other cab. He offered his hand to the beautiful girl who was within, according her all the nervous deference due to a queen.
And indeed no queen of ancient times could have looked more queenly than Isis Klaw--no Hatshepsu could have carried herself more regally. She wore a dark, close-fitting costume and ermine furs. In contrast to the snowy peltry, her large black eyes and perfect red lips rendered her a study for the brush of a painter, but, like her Oriental grace, defied the pen of the scribe.
Moris Klaw’s daughter, her dazzling beauty enhanced by all the feminine arts of Paris, was a rare exotic one would not have sought in the neighbourhood of Wapping Old Stairs. But her father afforded a contrast at least as singular as her residence.
Behind this seductive vision he appeared, enveloped in his caped coat, his yellow bearded face crowned by the brown bowler of Early Victorian pattern--indeed, apparently of Early Victorian manufacture. He peered at the taximeter through his gold-rimmed pince-nez.
“Two and tenpence,” he rumbled, hoarsely. “That meter requires inspection, my friend. I have watched it popping up those two pennies, and I have perceived that it does so every time the cab bumps upon a drain-hole. I am to pay, then, for all the drains between Wapping and Moorgate Street. Here it is--three shillings. One and fourpence for the company and one and eightpence for yourself.”
He turned aside, raising his hat.
“Good morning, Mr. Searles! Good morning, Mr. Grimsby! I shall charge the City of London one and sixpence for drains. Let us walk on as far as the courtyard I see yonder, and you shall tell me all the facts before I interview those others, who will be, of course, so prejudiced by their misfortune.”
We passed on, and many a clerkly glance followed the furry figure of Isis beneath the archway. Hemmed in by offices, a certain quietude prevailed in the courtyard.
“It is a chilly morning,” said Moris Klaw; “but here we will stop and talk.”
Accordingly Grimsby related the known facts of the case, more often addressing his story to the girl than to her father.
“Yes, yes,” growled the latter, when the tale was told; “and this crying out--this screaming of murder--what occasioned it?”
“That’s the mystery!” explained the detective. “I wish I had run out at once. I might have learned something. As it is, all I can find out amounts to nothing. The clerks and porters and other people who came flocking to the scene found no one here who knew anything about it!”
“The screamer was missing, eh?”
“Vanished! I can’t help thinking it was a ruse; though what anybody profited by it isn’t clear.”
“It is not clear, you say?” rumbled Moris Klaw. “Ah! you have a fog of the mentality, my friend!” Grimsby flushed.
“Of course,” he added, hurriedly, “I can see that it served to divert the attention of the people who ought to have been guarding the diamond. But as both the doors and the window were locked, how did it help to get the stone out of the office?”
Moris Klaw pulled reflectively at his scanty beard.
“We shall see,” he rumbled. “Let us ascend.”
We entered the lift and went up to the office of Messrs. Anderson & Brothers. The Presentation Committee were awaiting the mysterious Moris Klaw but had not anticipated a visit from a pretty woman. They were prepared to adopt toward the man who would seem to have had some foreknowledge of the robbery a certain attitude of suspicion. It was amusing to note the change of front when Isis entered. Moris Klaw singled out the Lord Mayor and the owner of the office with unerring instinct. He removed his hat.
“Good morning, Mr. Anderson!” he said. “Good morning, Sir Michael! Good morning, gentlemen!”
“This is Mr. Moris Klaw,” explained Grimsby, “and Miss Klaw. Mr. Searles.”
Mr. Anderson hastened to place chairs. We became seated. Following a short interval, Sir Michael Cayley cleared his throat.
“We are--er--indebted to you, Mr. Klaw,” he began, “for taking this trouble. But, in view of your note to me----”
Moris Klaw raised his hand.
“So simple,” he said, whilst the Committee watched him, puzzled and surprised--that is, those who were not watching Isis did so. “I have a library, you understand, of records dealing with such historic gems. To show you that I have made some study of these matters I will tell you that the diamond called the Blue Rajah was discovered on the morning of April the thirteenth, 1680, in the Kollur Mine, and stolen the same evening!”
“What is your authority for the exact date, Mr. Klaw?” asked Anderson, with interest; “and for the statement that the diamond was stolen on the day of its discovery?”
“Fact, Mr. Anderson, is my authority,” was the rumbling reply, “and I can tell you more. The diamond is the birth stone of the month of April, and this diamond was itself born on the thirteenth of that month. To illustrate how its history is associated with April, I shall only tell you of the beautiful and unhappy Marie de Lamballe. This great diamond was presented to her on the ninth of April, 1790, and taken from her on the twelfth of April, 1792, after her return from England, and only six months before her fair head was stuck upon a pike and held up to the Queen’s window!”
He paused impressively, waving his long hands in the air.
“I could recount to you,” he resumed, “many such incidents in the history of the Blue Rajah--and all took place within a week of its birthday! What day is to-day?”
“Why, it’s the thirteenth of April!” said Sir Michael Cayley, with a start.
“The thirteenth of April,” rumbled Moris Klaw. “For many years the diamond has been too closely guarded for any new incident to occur, but when I learn how to-day it is to be brought here, how many hands will touch it, how many eyes will look upon it, I know that there is danger! Its history repeats. These incidents”--again he waved his hands--“proceed in cycles. I warned you. But it was perhaps inevitable. The Cycle of Crime is as inevitable and immutable as the cycle of the ages. Man’s will has no power to check it.”
Everyone in the room was deeply impressed. Indeed, no one could have failed to recognize in the speaker a man of powerful mind, one of penetrating and unusual intellect.
“Had I had the good fortune to meet you, Mr. Klaw,” said the Lord Mayor, “I should have attached a greater, and--er--a different, significance to your note. Your theories are strange ones, but to-day they have received strange and ample substantiation. I can only hope--and I do so with every confidence in your great ability”--Moris Klaw rose and bowed--“that you will be able to recover the diamond whose loss you so truly predicted.”
“I will ask you,” replied Moris Klaw, “to have sent in to me the black coffee. Myself, my daughter, Mr. Searles, and Mr. Grimsby will view the room from which the robbery took place.”
“You would wish us to remain here?” asked Mr. Anderson, glancing at the others.
“I would so wish it, yes.”
“I hope, Mr. Klaw,” said Sir Michael Cayley, “that you will not hesitate to send me an account of your fee and expenditures.”
