His dinner was spoilt by waiting, but he troubled little of that. He spread before him, and examined again, the pieces of glass and the cork. The bottle had been a druggist’s ordinary flat bottle, graduated with dose-marks, and altogether seven inches high, or thereabout. It had, without a doubt, contained the chloroform wherewith Léon Bouvier had been assaulted, as Dorrington had judged from the smell of the cork. The fact of the bottle being corked showed that the chloroform had not been bought all at once—since in that case it would have been put up in a stoppered bottle. More probably it had been procured in very small quantities (ostensibly for toothache, or something of that kind) at different druggists, and put together in this larger bottle, which had originally been used for something else. The bottle had been distinguished by a label—the usual white label affixed by the druggist, with directions as to taking the medicine—and this label had been scraped off; all except a small piece at the bottom edge by the right hand side, whereon might be just distinguished the greater part of the letters N, E. The piece of glass that had lain a little way apart from the bottle was not a part of it, as a casual observer might have supposed. It was a fragment of a concave lens, with a channel ground in the edge.
III
At ten precisely next morning, as usual, Mr. Ludwig Hamer mounted the stairs of the house in Hatton Garden, wherein he rented half a room as office. He was a tall, fair man, wearing thick convex pince-nez. He spoke English like a native, and, indeed, he called himself an Englishman, though there were those who doubted the Briticism of his name. Scarce had he entered his office when Dorrington followed him.
The room had never been a very large one, and now a partition divided it in two, leaving a passage at one side only, by the window. On each side of this partition stood a small pedestal table, a couple of chairs, a copying-press, and the other articles usual in a meagrely furnished office. Dorrington strode past Bouvier’s half of the room and came upon Hamer as he was hanging his coat on a peg. The letter of introduction had been burnt, since Dorrington had only asked for it in order to get Hamer’s name and the Hatton Garden address without betraying to Bouvier the fact that he did not already know all about it.
“Good morning, Mr. Hamer,” said Dorrington, loudly. “Sorry to see you’re not well”—he pointed familiarly with his stick at a range of medicine bottles on the mantelpiece—“but it’s very trying weather, of course. You’ve been suffering from toothache, I believe?”
Hamer seemed at first disposed to resent the loudness and familiarity of this speech, but at the reference to toothache he started suddenly and set his lips.
“Chloroform’s a capital thing for toothache, Mr. Hamer, and for—for other things. I’m not in your line of business myself, but I believe it has even been used in the diamond trade.”
“What do you mean?” asked Hamer, flushing angrily.
“Mean? Why, bless me—nothing more than I said. By the way, I’m afraid you dropped one of your medicine bottles last night. I’ve brought it back, though I’m afraid it’s past repair. It’s a good job you didn’t quite clear the label off before you took it out with you, else I might have had a difficulty.” Dorrington placed the fragments on the table. “You see you’ve just left the first letter of ‘E.C.’ in the druggist’s address, and the last ‘N’ of Hatton Garden, just before it. There doesn’t happen to be any other Garden in E.C. district that I know of, nor does the name of any other thoroughfare end in N—they are mostly streets, or lanes, or courts, you see. And there seems to be only one druggist in Hatton Garden—capital fellow, no doubt—the one whose name and address I observe on those bottles on the mantelpiece.”
Dorrington stood with his foot on a chair, and tapped his knee carelessly with his stick. Hamer dropped into the other chair and regarded him with a frown, though his face was pale. Presently he said, in a strained voice, “Well?”
“Yes; there is something else, Mr. Hamer, as you appear to suggest. I see you’re wearing a new pair of glasses this morning; pity you broke the others last night, but I’ve brought the piece you left behind.” He gathered up the broken bottle, and held up the piece of concave lens. “I think, after all, it’s really best to use a cord with pince-nez. It’s awkward, and it catches in things, I know, but it saves a breakage, and you’re liable to get the glasses knocked off, you know—in certain circumstances.”
Hamer sprang to his feet with a snarl, slammed the door, locked it, and turned on Dorrington. But now Dorrington had a revolver in his hand, though his manner was as genial as ever.
“Yes, yes,” he said; “best to shut the door, of course. People listen, don’t they? But sit down again. I’m not anxious to hurt you, and, as you will perceive, you’re quite unable to hurt me. What I chiefly came to say is this: last evening my client, M. Léon Bouvier, of this office and the Café des Bons Camarades, was attacked in the passage adjoining his house by a man who was waiting for him, with a woman—was it really Mrs. Hamer? but there, I won’t ask—keeping watch. He was robbed of a small old wooden box, containing charcoal and—a diamond. My name is Dorrington—firm of Dorrington & Hicks, which you may have heard of. That’s my card. I’ve come to take away that diamond.”
Hamer was pale and angry, but, in his way, was almost as calm as Dorrington. He put down the card without looking at it. “I don’t understand you,” he said. “How do you know I’ve got it?”
“Come, come, Mr. Hamer,” Dorrington replied, rubbing the barrel of his revolver on his knee, “that’s hardly worthy of you. You’re a man of business, with a head on your shoulders—the sort of man I like doing business with, in fact. Men like ourselves needn’t trifle. I’ve shown you most of the cards I hold, though not all, I assure you. I’ll tell you, if you like, all about your little tour round among the druggists with the convenient toothache, all about the evenings on which you watched Bouvier home, and so on. But, really, need we, as men of the world, descend to such peddling detail?”
“Well, suppose I have got it, and suppose I refuse to give it you. What then?”
“What then? But why should we talk of unpleasant things? You won’t refuse, you know.”
“Do you mean you’d get it out of me by help of that pistol?”
“Well,” said Dorrington, deliberately, “the pistol is noisy, and it makes a mess, and all that, but it’s a useful thing, and I might do it with that, you know, in certain circumstances. But I wasn’t thinking of it—there’s a much less troublesome way.”
“Which?”
“You’re a slower man than I took you for, Mr. Hamer—or perhaps you haven’t quite appreciated me yet. If I were to go to that window and call the police, what with the little bits of evidence in my pocket, and the other little bits that the druggists who sold the chloroform would give, and the other bits in reserve, that I prefer not to talk about just now—there would be rather an awkwardly complete case of robbery with violence, wouldn’t there? And you’d have to lose the diamond after all, to say nothing of a little rest in gaol and general ruination.”
“That sounds very well, but what about your client? Come now, you call me a man of the world, and I am one. How will your client account for the possession of a diamond worth eighty thousand pounds or so? He doesn’t seem a millionaire. The police would want to know about him as well as about me, if you were such a fool as to bring them in. Where did he steal it, eh?”
Dorrington smiled and bowed at the question. “That’s a very good card to play, Mr. Hamer,” he said, “a capital card, really. To a superficial observer it might look like winning the trick. But I think I can trump it.” He bent farther forward and tapped the table with the pistol-barrel. “Suppose I don’t care one solitary dump what becomes of my client? Suppose I don’t care whether he goes to gaol or stays out of it—in short, suppose I prefer my own interests to his?”
“Ho! ho!” Hamer cried. “I begin to understand. You want to grab the diamond for yourself then?
”
“I haven’t said anything of the kind, Mr. Hamer,” Dorrington replied, suavely. “I have simply demanded the diamond which you stole last night, and I have mentioned an alternative.”
“Oh, yes, yes, but we understand one another. Come, we’ll arrange this. How much do you want?”
Dorrington stared at him stonily. “I—I beg your pardon,” he said, “but I don’t understand. I want the diamond you stole.”
“But come now, we’ll divide. Bouvier had no right to it, and he’s out. You and I, perhaps, haven’t much right to it, legally, but it’s between us, and we’re both in the same position.”
“Pardon me,” Dorrington replied, silkily, “but there you mistake. We are not in the same position, by a long way. You are liable to an instant criminal prosecution. I have simply come, authorised by my client, who bears all the responsibility, to demand a piece of property which you have stolen. That is the difference between our positions, Mr. Hamer. Come now, a policeman is just standing opposite. Shall I open the window and call him, or do you give in?”
“Oh, I give in, I suppose,” Hamer groaned. “But you’re a deal too hard. A man of your abilities shouldn’t be so mean.”
“That’s right and reasonable,” Dorrington answered briskly. “The wise man is the man who knows when he is beaten, and saves further trouble. You may not find me so mean after all, but I must have the stone first. I hold the trumps, and I’m not going to let the other player make conditions. Where’s the diamond?”
“It isn’t here—it’s at home. You’ll have to get it out of Mrs. Hamer. Shall I go and wire to her?”
“No, no,” said Dorrington, “that’s not the way. We’ll just go together, and take Mrs. Hamer by surprise, I think. I mustn’t let you out of sight, you know. Come, we’ll get a hansom. Is it far?”
“Bessborough Street, Pimlico. You’ll find Mrs. Hamer has a temper of her own.”
“Well, well, we all have our failings. But before we start, now, observe.” For a moment Dorrington was stern and menacing. “You wriggled a little at first, but that was quite natural. Now you’ve given in; and at the first sign of another wriggle I stop it once and for all. Understand? No tricks, now.”
They entered a hansom at the door. Hamer was moody and silent at first, but under the influence of Dorrington’s gay talk he opened out after a while. “Well,” he said, “you’re far the cleverest of the three, no doubt, and perhaps in that way you deserve to win. It’s mighty smart for you to come in like this, and push Bouvier on one side and me on the other, and both of us helpless. But it’s rough on me after having all the trouble.”
“Don’t be a bad loser, man!” Dorrington answered. “You might have had a deal more trouble and a deal more roughness too, I assure you.”
“Oh yes, so I might. I’m not grumbling. But there’s one thing has puzzled me all along. Where did Bouvier get that stone from?”
“He inherited it. It’s the most important of the family jewels, I assure you.”
“Oh, skittles! I might have known you wouldn’t tell me, even if you knew yourself. But I should like to know. What sort of a duffer must it have been that let Bouvier do him for that big stone—Bouvier of all men in the world? Why, he was a record flat himself—couldn’t tell a diamond from a glass marble, I should think. Why, he used to buy peddling little trays of rotters in the Garden at twice their value! And then he’d sell them for what he could get. I knew very well he wasn’t going on systematically dropping money like that for no reason at all. He had some axe to grind, that was plain. And after a while he got asking timid questions as to the sale of big diamonds, and how it was done, and who bought them, and all that. That put me on it at once. All this buying and selling at a loss was a blind. He wanted to get into the trade to sell stolen diamonds, that was clear; and there was some value in them too, else he couldn’t afford to waste months of time and lose money every day over it. So I kept my eye on him. I noticed, when he put his overcoat on, and thought I wasn’t looking, he would settle a string of some sort round his neck, under his shirt-collar, and feel to pack up something close under his armpit. Then I just watched him home, and saw the sort of shanty he lived in. I mentioned these things to Mrs. H., and she was naturally indignant at the idea of a chap like Bouvier having something valuable in a dishonest way, and agreed with me that if possible it ought to be got from him, if only in the interests of virtue.” Hamer laughed jerkily. “So at any rate we determined to get a look at whatever it was hanging round his neck, and we made the arrangements you know about. It seemed to me that Bouvier was pretty sure to lose it before long, one way or another, if it had any value at all, to judge by the way he was done in other matters. But I assure you I nearly fell down like Bouvier himself when I saw what it was. No wonder we left the bottle behind where I’d dropped it, after soaking the shawl—I wonder I didn’t leave the shawl itself, and my hat, and everything. I assure you we sat up half last night looking at that wonderful stone!”
“No doubt. I shall have a good look at it myself, I assure you. Here is Bessborough Street. Which is the number?”
They alighted, and entered a house rather smaller than those about it. “Ask Mrs. Hamer to come here,” said Hamer, gloomily, to the servant.
The men sat in the drawing-room. Presently Mrs. Hamer entered—a shortish, sharp, keen-eyed woman of forty-five. “This is Mr. Dorrington,” said Hamer, “of Dorrington & Hicks, private detectives. He wants us to give him that diamond.”
The little woman gave a sort of involuntary bounce, and exclaimed. “What? Diamond? What d’ye mean?”
“Oh, it’s no good, Maria,” Hamer answered dolefully. “I’ve tried it every way myself. One comfort is we’re safe, as long as we give it up. Here,” he added, turning to Dorrington, “show her some of your evidence—that’ll convince her.”
Very politely Dorrington brought forth, with full explanations, the cork and the broken glass; while Mrs. Hamer, biting hard at her thin lips, grew shinier and redder in the face every moment, and her hard gray eyes flashed fury.
“And you let this man,” she burst out to her husband, when Dorrington had finished, “you let this man leave your office with these things in his possession after he had shown them to you, and you as big as he is, and bigger! Coward!”
“My dear, you don’t appreciate Mr. Dorrington’s forethought, hang it! I made preparations for the very line of action you recommend, but he was ready. He brought out a very well kept revolver, and he has it in his pocket now!”
Mrs. Hamer only glared, speechless with anger.
“You might just get Mr. Dorrington a whisky and soda, Maria,” Hamer pursued, with a slight lift of the eyebrows which he did not intend Dorrington to see. The woman was on her feet in a moment.
“Thank you, no,” interposed Dorrington, rising also, “I won’t trouble you. I’d rather not drink anything just now, and, although I fear I may appear rude, I can’t allow either of you to leave the room. In short,” he added, “I must stay with you both till I get the diamond.”
“And this man Bouvier,” asked Mrs. Hamer, “what is his right to the stone?”
“Really, I don’t feel competent to offer an opinion, do you know,” Dorrington answered sweetly. “To tell the truth, M. Bouvier doesn’t interest me very much.”
“No go, Maria!” growled Hamer. “I’ve tried it all. The fact is we’ve got to give Dorrington the diamond. If we don’t he’ll just call in the police—then we shall lose diamond and everything else too. He doesn’t care what becomes of Bouvier. He’s got us, that’s what it is. He won’t even bargain to give us a share.”
Mrs. Hamer looked quickly up. “Oh, but that’s nonsense!” she said. “We’ve got the thing. We ought at least to say halves.”
Her sharp eyes searched Dorrington’s face, but there was no encouragement in it. “I am sorry to disappoint a lady,” he said, “but this time
it is my business to impose terms, not to submit to them. Come, the diamond!”
“Well, you’ll give us something, surely?” the woman cried.
“Nothing is sure, madam, except that you will give me that diamond, or face a policeman in five minutes!”
The woman realised her helplessness. “Well,” she said, “much good may it do you. You’ll have to come and get it—I’m keeping it somewhere else. I’ll go and get my hat.”
Again Dorrington interposed. “I think we’ll send your servant for the hat,” he said, reaching for the bell-rope. “I’ll come wherever you like, but I shall not leave you till this affair is settled, I promise you. And, as I reminded your husband a little time ago, you’ll find tricks come expensive.”
The servant brought Mrs. Hamer’s hat and cloak, and that lady put them on, her eyes ablaze with anger. Dorrington made the pair walk before him to the front door, and followed them into the street. “Now,” he said, “where is this place? Remember, no tricks!”
Mrs. Hamer turned towards Vauxhall Bridge. “It’s just over by Upper Kennington Lane,” she said. “Not far.”
She paced out before them, Dorrington and Hamer following, the former affable and business-like, the latter apparently a little puzzled. When they came about the middle of the bridge, the woman turned suddenly. “Come, Mr. Dorrington,” she said, in a more subdued voice than she had yet used, “I give in. It’s no use trying to shake you off, I can see. I have the diamond with me. Here.”
She put a little old black wooden box in his hand. He made to open the lid, which fitted tightly, and at that moment the woman, pulling her other hand free from under her cloak, flung away over the parapet something that shone like fifty points of electric light.
The Arthur Morrison Mystery Page 10
