The dream detective
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.”
“I shall not so hesitate,” replied Moris Klaw.
IV
We entered the small room from which the Blue Rajah had been spirited
away. Grimsby, who was badly puzzled, was evidently glad of Klaw’s
coöperation. Moris Klaw’s letter of warning, leading to the request
for Moris Klaw’s attendance, had enabled the Scotland Yard man to
summon that keen intellect to his aid without compromising his
professional reputation. He would lose no credit that might accrue if
the gem were recovered and, in short, was congratulating himself upon
a diplomatic move.
“It’s beyond me,” he said, “how the thing was got out of the room.
With this door shut, the window fastened, and the other door
double-locked, as it always is, practically the place is a box.”
Moris Klaw, from its hiding place in the lining of his hat, took out
the scent spray and squirted verbena upon his face.
“A box--yes,” he rumbled; “and so stuffy. No air.”
“There’s no ventilation,” explained Grimsby. “That square hole over
the door is intended for ventilation, but as there’s no corresponding
aperture over the window or elsewhere it’s useless. Anyway, it only
opens on the passage.”
“Ah. You searched them all quite thoroughly?”
“Certainly; like Kaffirs. But I didn’t expect to find it.”
“Blessed is he who expecteth little. Isis, my child, there is someone
knocking.”
Isis opened the door communicating with Mr. Anderson’s office, and a
boy entered carrying a tray with a coffee pot and cup upon it.
“Good,” said Moris Klaw. “I shall not sleep in this room, Mr. Searles.
It is difficult to sleep in the morning and I cannot wait for night. I
shall sit here at this table for one hour with my mind a perfect
blank. I shall think of nothing. That is a great art, Mr. Searles--to
think of nothing. Few people but ascetics can do it. Try it for
yourself, and you will find that thinking of trying not to think is
the nearest you will get to it! I shall expose my mind, a sensitive
blank, to the etheric waves created here by mental emotion.
“I shall secure many alien impressions of horror at finding the Blue
Rajah to be missing. That is unavoidable. But I hope, amongst all
these, to find that other thought-thing--the fear of the robber at the
critical moment of his crime! That should be a cogent and forceful
thought--keener and therefore stronger to survive, because a thought
of danger but of gain, than the thoughts of loss with which this
atmosphere is laden.”
He stood up, removing his caped coat and revealing the shabby tweed
suit which he wore. A big French knot of black silk looked grotesquely
out of place beneath his yellow face with its edging of toneless
beard.
“Isis,” he said, “lay my cloak carefully upon that chair by the
window. I will sit there.”
Grimsby stepped forward to assist.
“No, no!” said Isis, but smiled enchantingly. “No hand but mine must
touch it until my father has secured his impression!”
She laid the coat upon the chair, completely covering it; and Moris
Klaw sat down.
“Another cup of coffee,” he said; and his daughter poured one out and
handed it to him. “This is Java coffee and truly not coffee at all.
There is no coffee but _Mocha_--a thing you English will never learn.
Return in an hour, gentlemen. Isis, ask that no disturbing sound is
allowed within or without. That Committee, it can go home. None of it
has the diamond.”
“And the other gentlemen?” asked Grimsby. “They’ll be anxious to get
about their business, too. There’s Sir John Carron from the India
Office and Mr. Gautami Chinje--the Gaekwar’s representative.”
“Of course--certainly,” mused Moris Klaw. “But, of course, too, they
will all be anxious to know immediately the result of my inquiries.
Listen--Mr. Anderson will remain; he can represent the city. Mr.
Chinje, you will perhaps ask him to remain, to represent the
Gaekwar--the vendor; and Sir John Carron, he might be so good. Make
those arrangements, Mr. Grimsby, and let nothing again disturb me.”
We left him, returning to the outer office.
Sir John Carron expressed himself willing to remain.
“If I may use your telephone for a moment, Mr. Anderson,” he said, “I
can put off an engagement.”
Mr. Chinje had no other engagement, and Mr. Anderson’s duties had
detained him in any event. There was some general, but subdued,
conversation before the rest of the party left; but finally Sir John,
Chinje, Grimsby, Isis Klaw, and myself found ourselves in a waiting
room on the opposite side of the corridor, provided with refreshments,
and the gentlemen of the party with cigars, whilst the hospitable and
deeply anxious Messrs. Anderson piled the table with periodical
literature for our entertainment.
It was a curious interlude, which I shall always remember.
Sir John Carron, a tall, bronzed military man, middle-aged and
perfectly groomed, surveyed Isis Klaw through his monocle with
undisguised admiration. She bore this scrutiny with the perfect
composure which was hers, and presently engaged the admiring baronet
in some conversation about India, in which Mr. Chinje presently
joined. Chinje had all the quiet self-possession of a high-caste
Hindu, and his dark handsome face exhibited no signs of annoyance when
Sir John adopted that tone of breezy patronage characteristic of some
Anglo-Indian officers who find themselves in the company of a
well-bred native. Grimsby, with recognition of his social inferiority
written large upon him, smoked, for the most part, in silence--Isis
having given him permission to light up. Seeing his covert glances at
this intimate trio, I ultimately succeeded in making the conversation
a general one, thereby earning the Scotland Yard man’s evident
gratitude.
“You know, Inspector Grimsby,” said Sir John, “I never was searched
before to-day! But, by Jove, you did it very efficiently! I was
dreadfully tempted to strike you when you calmly turned out my purse!
Your method was far more workmanlike than Sir Michael Cayley’s a few
minutes earlier. He forgot to look in my watch case, but you didn’t!”
Grimsby smiled.
“There’s more in a simple thing like searching a man than most people
take into consideration,” he replied. “I’ve known a Kaffir in the
mines who--excuse me, Miss Klaw--wore no more than Adam, to walk off
with stones worth my year’s wages.”
“I’m prepared to accept your assurance, Inspector,” said Sir John,
“that none of us had the diamond about our persons.”
“My father has accepted it,” added Isis Klaw; “and that is
conclusive.”
Which brought us face to face again with the amazing problem that we
were there to solve. How, by any known natural law, had the Blue Rajah
been taken out of the room? None of us could conjecture. That the
detective was hopelessly mystified, his inaction, awaiting the result
of Moris Klaw’s séance, was sufficient proof. I wondered if the
Commissioner would have approved of his passive attitude and entire
dependence upon the efforts of an amateur, yet failed to perceive what
other he could adopt. One thing was certain: if the diamond was
recovered, its recovery would be recorded among Detective-Inspector
Grimsby’s successful cases! And there he sat placidly smoking one of
Mr. Anderson’s habanas.
At the expiration of the hour specified, Isis Klaw rose and walked
across to Mr. Anderson’s office. Mr. Anderson, his ruddy
face--typically that of a lowland Scot--a shade paler than was its
wont, I fancy, was glancing from his watch to the clock.
Isis knocked on the inner door, opened it, and entered. Sir John
Carron was watching with intense interest. Mr. Chinje met my glance
and smiled a little sceptically.
Moris Klaw came out with his caped coat on and carrying his bowler in
his hand.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “I have secured a mental negative, somewhat
foggy, owing to those other thought forms with which the atmosphere is
laden. But I have identified him--the thief!”
A sound like a gasp repressed came from somewhere immediately behind
me. I turned. Mr. Anderson and Mr. Anderson, junior, stood at my
elbow; close by were Mr. Chinje, Grimsby, and Sir John Carron.
“Who snorts?” rumbled Moris Klaw, peering through his pince-nez.
“Not I,” said Sir John, staring about him.
We all, in turn, denied having uttered the sound.
“Then there is in this office a ghost,” declared Klaw, “or a liar!”
“Excuse me, Mr. Klaw,” began Mr. Anderson, with some heat.
Moris Klaw raised his hand. His daughter’s magnificent eyes blazed
defiance at us all.
“No anger,” implored the rumbling voice. “No anger. Anger is a misuse
of the emotions. There are present eight persons here. Someone
snorted. Eight persons deny the snort. It is a ghost or a liar. Am I
evident to you?”
“Your logic is irrefutable,” admitted the younger Mr. Anderson,
glancing from face to face. “It pains me to have to admit that you are
right!”