The Hand in the Dark
value. The money value of one large diamond of first quality is very
much greater than the same stone cut into three. But it would be
difficult to sell the diamond in its present form. The chances are that
it would be recognized in Hatton Garden--if it were offered for sale
there."
"But if the diamond fell into the hands of somebody with a knowledge of
precious stones he might keep it close for a while and then dispose of
it abroad--in America, for instance," returned Colwyn. "That trick has
been performed with better-known stones than the Heredith diamond. In
fact, it strikes me as possible to sell the whole necklace that way. The
disposal of the necklace depends largely upon who stole it--upon whether
it has fallen into experienced or inexperienced hands. There are jewel
dealers who ask no awkward questions if they can get things at their own
price."
"Quite so," assented Musard, casting a quick glance at his companion's
face. "It would be a risk, though--the thief might pick the wrong man. I
can give you the addresses of two or three men in Hatton Garden who
should be able to tell you if the necklace has been offered there. They
know everything that is going on in the trade."
"I shall be glad to have them."
Musard scribbled several names and addresses on a leaf of his
pocket-book, tore it out, and handed it to the detective.
"There is a curious coincidence about the loss of this, necklace," he
remarked casually, as he rose to go. "It is another example of the
misfortune which attaches to the possession of a blue diamond."
"Are you thinking of the Hope blue diamond? That certainly has a
sinister history."
"That is the most notorious instance. But all blue diamonds are unlucky.
I could tell you some gruesome stories connected with them. The previous
wearer of the Heredith necklace--Philip's mother--died in giving birth
to him. Incidentally, there is a curious legend attached to the
moat-house in the form of a curse laid on it by the original builder,
who was burnt alive in the old house. He prophesied that as the house of
the Herediths was founded in horror it should end in horror. These old
family curses sometimes come home to roost after a long lapse of time,
though modern cynicism affects to sneer at such fancies. Of course,
there may be nothing in it, but we have had more than enough horror in
the moat-house recently, and poor Mrs. Heredith had a blue diamond in
her room when she was murdered. But I must not keep you any longer, Mr.
Colwyn. If there has been any miscarriage of justice in this terrible
case I trust that you will be successful in bringing it to light."
He lingered after shaking hands, as though he would have liked to
continue the conversation. Apparently not finding sufficient
encouragement in the detective's face to do so, he turned and left the
room, and Colwyn resumed his preparations for departure.
When they were completed he, too, went downstairs, carrying his bag.
Miss Heredith and Phil were waiting to bid farewell to him. As Miss
Heredith said good-bye, she looked into his face with the perplexed
expression of a simple soul seeking reassurance from a stronger mind in
the deep vortex of extraordinary events into which she had been plunged
beyond her depth. Phil looked white and ill, and the hand which he gave
into the detective's cool firm grasp was hot and feverish. While his
aunt murmured those conventional phrases under which women seek to cover
the realities of life as they bedeck corpses with flowers, Phil stood
aside with the impatient air of one scornful of the futility of such
things. As Miss Heredith ceased speaking he took a step forward, his
dark eyes fixed eagerly and searchingly on Colwyn.
"You will lose no time?" he said. "You will find out everything?"
"I have already promised you that I will continue my investigations,"
replied Colwyn. The quiet sincerity of his words was the indication of a
mind which despised the weakness of mere verbal emphasis.
"Lose no time. Spare no money," said Phil rapidly. His words and
utterance contrasted forcibly with the stillness and composure of the
man he was addressing. "Think what it means! Let me know everything that
happens. Send me telegrams. Follow this thing out night and day. I
depend on you--"
"Phil, Phil!" remonstrated Miss Heredith. "Mr. Colwyn has already
promised to do all he can. You must be patient."
"Patience! My God, don't talk to me of patience," retorted her nephew
fiercely. "I shall have no patience nor peace till this thing is
settled."
Miss Heredith looked at him sadly. His breach of good manners in
uttering an oath in her presence hurt her worse than a blow, but her
heart sickened with the realization that it was but another
manifestation of the complete change in him which had been brought about
by his wife's murder. Colwyn brought the scene to a close.
"Of course I shall communicate with you," he said to Phil, as he took
his departure. Phil accompanied him to his car, and stood under the
portico watching him as he drove away. Colwyn glanced back as he crossed
the moat-house bridge. The young man was still standing in the open
doorway, looking after him. The next moment the bend of the carriage way
hid him from view.
Colwyn encountered Tufnell at the next bend of the drive, waiting for
him on the path under the trees which bordered the edge. The detective
pulled up his car and stepped out.
"It was just off here, sir, that I thought I saw the figure that night,"
said the butler.
He plunged into a leafy avenue which led off the path at right angles,
and followed it into the wood until he reached the mossy trunk of a
great oak, which flung a gnarled arm horizontally across the narrow walk
as though barring further intrusion into its domain. Tufnell stopped,
and turned to the detective.
"It seemed to me as though a man was crouching just about here, sir," he
said in a whisper, as if he feared that the intruder might still be
hiding there and overhear his words.
Colwyn carefully examined the spot. The moss and grass where he stood
grew fresh underfoot, with no marks to suggest that they had been
trodden on recently. But close by, behind the horizontal branch of the
great oak, was a tangled patch of undergrowth and brambles, broken and
pressed down in places, as though it had been entered by a human being.
As Colwyn was looking at this place, his eye was attracted by a yellow
speck in the background of green. It was a tiny fragment of khaki,
caught on one of the bramble bushes.
CHAPTER XIX
Superintendent Merrington sat in his office at Scotland Yard, irascible
with the exertions of a trying day which had made heavy inroads upon his
temper and patience. He had several big cases on his hands, his time had
been broken into by a series of visitors with grievances, and he had
been called upon to adjust a vexatious claim of a woman attacked in the
street by a police dog, while the animal was supposed to be on duty
tracking a sacrilegious thief who had felled a priest in an oratory and
bolted with the silver candlesticks from the altar.
The woman had gone mad from the shock and had been placed in a public
asylum, where she had imagined herself to be a horse, and in that guise
had neighed harmlessly, for some years, until cured by auto-suggestion
by a rising young brain doctor who had devoted much time and study to
her peculiar case. Her first act of returned reason was to bring a heavy
claim for damages against Scotland Yard, and Merrington had fought it
out that day with an avaricious lawyer who had taken up the case on the
promise of an equal division of the spoils.
Merrington had preferred to pay rather than contest the suit in law, and
he was exceedingly wroth in consequence. He was angry with the old woman
for presuming to get cured, and angry with the brain doctor for curing
her. He considered that the brain doctor had been guilty of a piece of
meddlesome interference in restoring the old lady to so-called sanity in
a world of fools, without achieving any object except robbery from the
public funds by a rascally lawyer. To use Merrington's own words,
expressed with intense exasperation to an astonished subordinate, the
old woman was quite all right as a horse, comfortable and well-fed, and
had probably got more out of life in that guise than she ever had as a
human being, compelled to all sorts of shifts and contrivances and mean
scrapings before her betters for a scanty living, with nothing but the
work-house ahead of her. He concluded in a sort of grumbling epilogue
that some people never knew when to leave well alone.
It was in no very amiable frame of mind, therefore, that he received
Colwyn's card with a pencilled request for an immediate interview.
Merrington disapproved of all private detectives as an unwarrantable
usurpation of the functions of Scotland Yard, but he particularly
disapproved of a private detective like Colwyn, whose popular renown was
far greater than his own. But there were politic reasons for the
extension of courtesy to him. The famous private detective was such a
powerful rival that it was best to conciliate him with a little
politeness, which cost nothing, and he had done Scotland Yard several
good turns which at least demanded an outward show of gratitude. He had
influence in the right quarter, too, and, altogether, was not a person
to be lightly affronted. The consideration of these factors impelled
Merrington to inform the waiting janitor that he would see Mr. Colwyn at
once, and even caused him to crease his fat red features into a smile of
welcome as he awaited his entrance.
When Colwyn appeared in the doorway the big man he had called to see got
up from his swing-chair to shake hands with him. When his visitor was
seated Merrington leaned back in his own chair and remarked, in his
great rolling voice:
"What can I do for you, Mr. Colwyn?"
"Nothing personally. I have called to have a talk with you about the
Heredith case."
The veneer of welcome disappeared from Merrington's face at this
opening, though a large framed photograph of himself on the wall behind
his chair continued to smile down at the private detective with unwonted
amiability.
"Ah, yes, the Heredith case," he responded. "A strange affair, that. I
investigated it personally. It was a pity you were not in it. There were
points about that murder--distinct points. You would have enjoyed it."
Merrington's professional commiseration of Colwyn's ill-luck in missing
an enjoyable murder was intended to convey a distinct rebuke to the
other's presumption in discussing a case in which he had not been
engaged. But Colwyn's next words startled Merrington out of his attitude
of censorious dignity.
"I was not in the case at first, but I was called into it subsequently
by the husband of the murdered woman. He is dissatisfied with the
outcome. He thinks a mistake has been made in arresting the girl Hazel
Rath."
The silence with which Merrington received this information was an
involuntary tribute to his visitor, implying, as it did, that he knew
Colwyn would not have come to see him without weighty reason for the
support of what sounded like the repetition of a mere expression of
opinion.
"I was reluctant to interfere until Mr. Heredith told me something which
suggested that one of your men was in danger of underestimating an
important clue," continued Colwyn. "That decided me. I went back with
Mr. Heredith in my car the night before last. After my arrival at the
moat-house I made an interesting discovery--quite by accident. I
discovered that a pearl necklace which had been given to Mrs. Heredith
by Sir Philip Heredith was missing from the jewel-case in which it had
been locked. That jewel-case was in Mrs. Heredith's bedroom on the night