Mr. Beck laughed to himself as if he had made rather a good joke, and stopped abruptly as he glanced at a church clock.
“Four o’clock,” he muttered. “How fast the day has gone by! Four is his hour, and I have no time to lose. I suppose I’ll find him at the old spot”; and he set off at a double-quick pace, five miles an hour at least, without appearance of effort, in the direction of Simpson’s restaurant in the Strand.
Just a word about the man he was going to meet. M. Grabeau was at this time the cleverest and most popular drawing-room entertainer in London. He was a somewhat shy man, and could neither sing nor talk much in public. But for all that he was a veritable variety show in himself. He was a marvellous mimic and ventriloquist, a quick-change artist, but above all, a conjuror. He could maneuvre a pack of cards as a captain his company. They were animated and intelligent beings in his hands, obedient to his word of command.
In the construction and manufacture of mechanical tricks and toys he was possessed of a skill and ingenuity almost beyond belief. He had himself devised and constructed, with Mr. Edison’s permission, a doll, with a phonograph in her interior, which imitated nature with almost absolute perfection, and sang “Home, Sweet Home,” not merely with the voice, but with the manner and gesture of one of the most popular singers on the concert stage. Indeed, there were malicious persons (rivals, for the most part) who insisted that the voice and gesture of the imitation singer were less wooden than the real.
Mr. Beck had met M. Grabeau at some of those social functions where the introduction of a detective, either as a footman or a musician, had been thought a prudent precaution, and the acquaintance between them had ripened into companionship, if not friendship. Mr. Beck’s profession had an intense attraction for the Frenchman, who knew all Gaboriau’s novels by heart.
“They are so clevaire,” he would say, with much gesticulation, to the stolid Mr. Beck; “they are too clevaire. The tangle in the commencement is superb. But what you call the unravel is not so good; the knots do not come undone so——”
Then he would hold up a string tied in a very kink of hard knots, and show it a moment later clean and smooth. It was one of his tricks.
“But the life of the detective, the real detective you will observe, it is charming. It is beyond the hunt of the fox. It is the hunt of the man. The clevaire man who runs, and what you call doubles, and hides and fights too, sometime. It is glorious; it is life.”
“Going to waste,” Mr. Beck would mutter disconsolately after one of these interviews, when the Frenchman would spy out and pick up an almost invisible clue. “Going to waste. He would make one of the best detectives in the service, and he fiddles away his time at play-acting and trinket-selling and money-making.” So Mr. Beck would shake his head over this melancholy instance of misplaced genius.
Naturally, when Mr. Beck got tangled over the vanishing-diamond puzzle, he was anxious to consult his friend, M. Grabeau.
“I hope he’s here,” said Mr. Beck to himself, as he entered Simpson’s restaurant.
One look round relieved his mind on that score. M. Grabeau was there at his accustomed place at a corner table, at his accustomed dinner—a plate of roast beef underdone. For M. Grabeau affected English dishes and English cookery, and liked the honest, substantial fare of Simpson’s.
A stout, good-humored man was M. Grabeau, with a quick eye, a close-cropped, shiny black head, blue eyes, and a smooth, cream-colored face.
He noticed Mr. Beck the moment he entered the room, and put down the evening paper on which a moment before he was intent.
“Hullo!” he cried out, pleasantly, “that is you? Bon-soir, Monsieur Beck. I hope that you carry yourself well?”
It was noticeable about M. Grabeau that, though he could mimic any voice perfectly, when he spoke as M. Grabeau he spoke with a strong French accent, and interlarded his sentences with scraps of French.
Mr. Beck nodded, hung up his hat, and seated himself.
“Boiled mutton,” he said to the waiter, “and a pint of stout.”
“The fact is, monsieur,” he went on in much the same tone, when the waiter whisked away to execute his order, “I wanted a word with you.”
“Ah-hah! I know,” said the other, vivaciously. “It’s the Harcourt diamonds that have come to you, is it not? The wonderful diamonds of which one talked all the evening at the Harcourt reception. They have disappeared, and his lordship has employed M. Beck, the great detective. I thought you would come to me. It’s all here,” and he handed him across the table the Westminster, with his finger on a prominent paragraph headed in big, black letters:
“THE VANISHING DIAMONDS.”
Mr. Beck read it through carefully.
Quite a sensation has been created in fashionable London by the sudden disappearance—it would, perhaps, be premature to say robbery—of the famous “Harcourt Heirloom,” perhaps, after the Crown Jewels, the most famous and valuable diamonds in London. Our representative learned from the eminent jeweler, Mr. Ophir, of Bond Street, that he had with his own hands this morning put the jewels into a case, sealed up the parcel and handed it to the Hon. Mr. Sydney Harcourt. Mr. Harcourt, on the other hand, states that when the case was opened in his presence by his fiancée, Miss Ray—for whom the jewels were meant as a wedding present—it was empty. If Mr. Ophir and the Hon. Sydney Harcourt both speak the truth—and we have no reason to doubt either, or both—the diamonds must have vanished through the case and brown paper in the hansom cab en route between Bond Street and Upper Belgrave Street. We need not say that in position and respectability Mr. Ophir stands at the very head of his business, and the Hon. Sydney Harcourt, though he ran loose for awhile on the racecourse, contracted no serious pecuniary obligations of which the world knows; and his rank, character, and position should protect him from even the smallest taint of suspicion. All these circumstances, of course, heighten the mystery. We understand that the famous detective, Mr. Beck, at the instance of Mr. Ophir, called later on at Upper Belgrave Street. He has a clue as a matter of course. A clue is one of those things that no well-regulated detective is ever without.
M. Grabeau watched Mr. Beck eagerly, reading his face as he read the paper.
“Well,” he asked impatiently, when Mr. Beck at length came to an end, “it is all right there?”
“Pretty accurate for a newspaper reporter!”
“And you have got the clue—you, the famous detective.”
There was sometimes the faintest suggestion of contempt, a vague hint at a sneer, in M. Grabeau’s tone as he talked to Mr. Beck, which Mr. Beck never appeared to resent or even notice in the least.
“Well, yes, monsieur, I think I have a bit of a clue. But I came to hear your notion of the business. I have an idea that you are the man to put me on the right track. It would not be the first time, you know.”
Monsieur beamed at the rough compliment. “You must first tell me all—everything.”
Mr. Beck told him all—everything—with admirable candor, not forgetting the doubling of his own character at Belgrave Street.
“Well,” he said at last, “what do you think, monsieur?”
“M. Ophir,” said M. Grabeau shortly, and closed his mouth sharply with a snap like a trap.
“No,” cried Mr. Beck, in a tone of surprise and admiration. “You don’t say so! You don’t think, then, there is any truth in the hint in the paper that young Harcourt himself made away with the stones to pay some gambling debts?”
“No, my friend, believe me. He of them knows nothing more than he has said. It was not what you call the worth of his while. His father, he is rich; his lady, she is beautiful. I have seen her. Respectable M. Ophir gives to him the jewels. The risk is too great, even if he have debts, which is not proved.”
“But how did Mr. Ophir get them out of the case?”
“He did not even put them in.”
“
I thought I told you that three people saw him put them in—two of his own men and the messenger, a Mr. Mulligan, who came from the casemaker.”
“That messenger—you have seen him then?”
“Well, no. He had not come back to his place of employment when I called.”
“And he will never come. He has vanished. M. Ophir perhaps could tell where he has vanished, but he will not tell you, believe it well.”
“But the other two men saw the jewels packed. There were two others besides the messenger.”
“Hélas! my great detective, are you not a little—I will not say stupid—a little innocent today? You will not think harm of M. Ophir. Très bien. But that which you object, it is so simple. Give me for a moment your watch and chain.”
He leaned across the table, and as if by magic Mr. Beck’s watch and chain were in his hands—a heavy gold watch with a heavy gold chain that fitted to the waistcoat buttonhole with a gold bar.
“Now observe; this will be our case.” With rapid, dexterous fingers he fashioned the copy of the Westminster Gazette into the semblance of a jewel-case with a closely fitting lid. He opened the box wide, put the watch and chain in, so that Mr. Beck could see it plainly inside, and closed the lid with two fingers only.
“There was no deception.”
He pushed the box across the tablecloth to Mr. Beck, who opened it and found it empty. The wide eyes and bland smile of the detective expressed his astonishment.
“But where has it gone to?” he cried.
“Behold, it is there,” said M. Grabeau, tapping him on the capacious waistcoat.
The watch was comfortably back in Mr. Beck’s waistcoat pocket, for which, by the way, it was a pretty tight fit, and the gold bar of the chain was again securely fastened in his waistcoat buttonhole.
“I could have sworn I saw you put it into the case and leave it there.”
“Eh bien! So could the men of this M. Ophir of whom you speak. I put it in your pocket, he put it in his own. Behold all the difference. His plan was, oh! so much easier.”
“But, monsieur, M. Ophir has the name of a most decent and respectable man.”
M. Grabeau snapped his fingers in contemptuous anger. “This man,” he said, “I know him, I have had what you call shufflings—dealings—with him. He is cold, but he is cunning. He called me—me, Alphonse Grabeau—one cheat. Now I, Alphonse Grabeau, call him, M. Ophir, one thief, and I will prove it. He has stolen the diamonds. I will help you, my friend, to run him up.”
“I am much obliged, monsieur. I rather thought from the first you could give me a lift in this case. Where can I see you tomorrow if I have anything to say to you?”
“I will be in my leetle establishment until two hours of the afternoon. At four I will be here at my dinner. In the evening I will be in the saloon of the Duke of Doubleditch. At any time I will be glad to talk to you of this case—of this M. Ophir, the thief. But you must be punctual, for I am a man of the minute.”
“Quite sure you are going to the Duke’s in the evening?”
“It is equally certain as a musket.”
“Oh, very well, if I don’t see you at the shop I will see you at dinner.”
M. Grabeau drained the last drops of his glass of whisky-and-water, picked up his cane and hat and gloves.
Mr. Beck rose at the same moment.
“Good evening, monsieur,” he said admiringly, “I must shake hands with you if it was to be the last time. I always thought you were almighty clever, but I never rightly knew how clever you are until tonight. It is a thundering pity that——”
“What?” asked M. Grabeau sharply, for Mr. Beck paused in the very middle of his sentence.
“That you are not one of us; that your talents didn’t get fair play and full scope in the right direction.”
M. Grabeau beamed at the compliment, and went out beaming.
Mr. Beck called for a second helping of boiled mutton, and ate it slowly. His face and manner were more vacuous than ever.
* * *
—
Something of special importance must plainly have detained Mr. Beck, for it was a quarter past two next day when he walked with a quick, swinging step up to the “leetle establishment” of M. Grabeau, in Wardour Street. He paused for one moment before the window where all sorts of ingenious and precious knickknacks and trifles were temptingly arranged, then walked into the shop.
There was a young man of about nineteen years alone behind the counter; a young man with a long nose, very fleshy at the top, and an unwholesome complexion, and a pair of beady black eyes.
“Good day, Jacob,” said Mr. Beck. “Master out?”
“Just gone a quarter of an hour ago.”
“Coming back?”
“Not this evening.”
“Oh, well, I’ll see him later on. By the way, Jacob, that’s a new thing you have got. The coral necklet and brooch there in the window. Will you let me have a peep at it?”
Jacob took the case from the window and set it on the counter. The set was a fine specimen of carved coral linked with fine gold, in a case of faded brown morocco and dingy white velvet that looked as old as themselves.
Mr. Beck inspected the trinkets carefully for a full five minutes with intent admiration, turning the case round several times to get a better view. He seemed much interested in a smear of what looked like damp gum on the edge of the leather.
“What’s the damage, Jacob?” he asked at last.
“Not for sale, sir. Master cautioned me four different times—not for sale, no matter what price I might be offered. Not likely to be tempted much, I should say; there is not half a sovereign’s worth of gold in the lot.”
“Ah!” said Mr. Beck meditatively. Then persuasively: “Well, it is not so much the red affairs I want as the box they are in. My aunt desired me to get her one for a brooch and necklace she picked up cheap at a sale, and this would about do. You were not forbidden to sell the box, were you, Jacob? It doesn’t seem to fit these things as if it were made for them, does it?”
“It fits them most beautifully, Mr. Beck. But there, don’t go. I don’t say I won’t sell it to oblige a friend of the master, if I get a fair price for it.”
“What do you call a fair price?”
“What would you say to a sovereign now?”
Mr. Beck said nothing to a sovereign. He said nothing at all. But he produced the coin in question from his waistcoat pocket and placed it on the counter, turned the contents of the case out in a jingling heap, put the case itself in his pocket, and walked out of the shop.
* * *
—
Mr. Beck let himself in with a latchkey, and walked noiselessly upstairs to his own pretty little sitting-room on the drawing-room floor. He took the old case from his pocket and set it beside another old case—the one he got from Mr. Smithson—on the round table in the centre of the room. There were flowers on the table, and Mr. Beck sniffed their fragrance approvingly; he seemed on this particular afternoon to be pleased with everything.
The two cases were alike, though not identical in form; he opened them. Inside, the shape was almost precisely the same. Mr. Beck gave a short assenting nod at them, as if he was nodding approval of something he had just said himself. Then he walked to the door, closed it softly, and turned the key in the lock. Anyone with an eye to the keyhole—such an eye as Sam Weller graphically described in the witness-box—might have seen Mr. Beck drop into an easy-chair with one of the two cases in his hand, turning it slowly round and round with that look, puzzled yet confident, which so many people wore when that delightful problem “Pigs in Clover” was the rage.
A little later anyone with an ear to the keyhole might have heard Mr. Beck draw a deep breath of relief, and chuckle quietly to himself; then, if the ear was preternaturally acute, might have heard him lock something in his own pet
patent-safe which stood in a neat overcoat of mahogany in a corner of the room.
* * *
—
“Oh! how can people be so mean?” cried Lilian Ray, in a voice that quivered with indignation.
She was standing in the middle of her own drawing-room, and the tattered fragments of the “extra special” edition of the Evening Talebearer fluttered round her like a pink snowstorm. She stamped on the bits of paper with angry little feet.
“Easy, Lil, easy!” cried Harcourt from the sofa where he sat, a gloomy look on his handsome face. “Take it quietly, my pet. It’s the nature of the beasts. Besides, it’s true enough—most of it. I have been as they say, ‘a wild young scamp.’ ‘No one knows the amount of my debts’—because there aren’t any. ‘Mr. Ophir is a gentleman of unimpeachable respectability.’ ‘This is a most unpleasant mystery for the Hon. Sydney Harcourt.’ There’s no denying that’s true, anyway.”
“I wonder at you, Syd—you, a great strong man, to sit there quietly and hear such things said!” She turned on him sharply, her blue eyes very bright behind the unshed tears.
“But I haven’t heard them, Lil.”
“Oh, well, you know what I mean. Why don’t you stamp this thing out, and teach those vile slanderers a lesson they would never forget? Why don’t you go straight to their low den, wherever it is, and—and—oh, how I wish I were a man!”
“Glad you’re not, Lil, for my sake,” he answered, in a tone that brought the quick blood to her cheek.
She ran to him impetuously, and played with his curls as she bent caressingly over him. “My poor boy, I am so sorry to see you worried.”
A sharp knock came to the door, and Lilian was sitting on the sofa, and at the extreme end of it, panting a little, when the footman entered.
“Mr. Beck, sir,” said the footman.
“Show him in. What does the fellow want now, I wonder?”
“I won’t detain you a moment, Mr. Harcourt,” said the imperturbable Mr. Beck, walking quietly into the room.
The Big Book of Victorian Mysteries Page 35
