by Louis Tracy
CHAPTER V.
_Perplexing a Magistrate._
In after years Philip never forgot the shame of that march through thestaring streets. The everlasting idlers of London's busiestthoroughfares gathered around the policeman and his prisoner withgrinning callousness.
"Wot's 'e bin a-doin' of?"
"Nicked a lydy's purse, eh?"
"Naw! Bin ticklin' the till, more like."
"Bli-me, don't 'e look sick!"
They ran and buzzed around him like wasps, stinging most bitterly withcoarse words and coarser laughter. An omnibus slowed its pace to letthem cross the road, and Philip knew that the people on top craned theirnecks to have a good look at him. When nearing the viaduct steps, thepoliceman growled something at the pursuing crowd. Another constablestrode rapidly to the entrance and cut off the loafers, sternly advisingthem to find some other destination. But the respite was a brief one.The pair reached Farringdon Street, and had barely attracted attentionbefore they passed the restaurant where Philip had lunched. The hour wasyet early for mid-day customers, and the bald-headed proprietor saw themcoming. He rushed out. The greengrocer, too, turned from his wares andjoined in the exclamations of his friend at this speedy _denouement_ ofthe trivial incident of twenty minutes earlier.
The restaurant keeper was made jubilant by this dramatic vindication ofthe accuracy of his judgment.
"The thievin' young scamp!" he ejaculated. "That's right, Mr. Policeman.Lock 'im up. 'E's a reg'lar wrong 'un."
The constable stopped. "Hello!" he said. "Do you know him?"
"I should think I did. 'E kem 'ere just now an' obtained a good blowouton false pretencies, an'----"
"Old 'ard," put in the greengrocer, "that's not quite the ticket. 'Easked you to trust 'im, but you wouldn't."
The stout man gurgled.
"Not me. I know 'is sort. But 'e 'ad you a fair treat, Billy."
"Mebbe, an' mebbe not. Ennyhow, two bob won't break me, an' I'm sorryfor the kid. Wot's 'e done, Mr. Policeman?" Mr. Judd was nettled, yetunwilling to acknowledge he was wholly wrong.
"Stole a heap of diamonds. Do either of you know him?"
"Never saw him afore this mornin'."
"Never bin in my 'ouse before."
"Then come along," and Philip was tugged onward, but not before he foundcourage to say:
"Thank you once more, Mr. Judd. I will keep my word, never fear."
"What are you thanking him for?" said the constable.
"For believing in me," was the curt answer.
The policeman tried to extract some meaning from the words, but failed.He privately admitted that it was an extraordinary affair. How came aboy who spoke like a gentleman and was dressed like a street Arab to bewandering about London with a pocketful of diamonds and admitted to theprivate office of the chief diamond merchant in Hatton Garden? He gaveit up, but silently thanked the stars which connected him with animportant case.
At last Philip's Via Dolorosa ended in the Bridewell police station. Hewas paraded before the inspector in charge, a functionary who would nothave exhibited any surprise had the German Emperor been brought beforehim charged with shoplifting.
He opened a huge ledger, tried if his pen would make a hair stroke on apiece of paper, and said, laconically:
"Name?"
No answer from the prisoner, followed by emphatic demands from inspectorand constable, the former volunteering the information that to refuseyour name and address was in itself an offense against the law.
Philip's _sang-froid_ was coming to his aid. The horror of his passagethrough the gaping mob had cauterized all other sentiments, and he nowsaw that if he would preserve his incognito he must adopt a ruse.
"Philip Morland," he said, doggedly, when the inspector asked him hisname for the last time before recording a definite refusal.
"Philip Morland!" It sounded curiously familiar in his ears. His motherwas a Miss Morland prior to her marriage, but he had not noticed the oddcoincidence that he should have been christened after the "Sir Philip"of the packet of letters so fortunately left behind that morning.
"Address?"
"Park Lane."
The inspector began to write before the absurdity of the reply dawned onhim. He stopped.
"Is your mother a caretaker there, or your father employed in a mews?"
"My father and mother are dead."
"Then will you kindly inform us what number in Park Lane you live at?"
"I have not determined that as yet. I intend to buy a house there."
Some constables lounging about the office laughed, and the inspector,incensed out of his routine habits, shouted, angrily:
"This is no place for joking, boy. Answer me properly, or it will beworse for you."
"I have answered you quite properly. The constable who brought me herehas in his possession diamonds worth many thousands of pounds belongingto me. I own a hundred times as many. Surely I can buy a house in ParkLane if I like."
The inspector was staggered by this well-bred insolence. He wassearching for some crushing legal threat that would frighten the boyinto a state of due humility when Mr. Isaacstein entered.
The Hatton Garden magnate again related the circumstances attendingPhilip's arrest, and the inspector promptly asked:
"What charge shall I enter? You gave him into custody. Do you think hehas stolen the diamonds?"
Isaacstein had been thinking hard during a short cab drive. His replywas unexpectedly frank.
"He could not have stolen what never existed. There is no such knowncollection of meteoric diamonds in the world."
"But there must be, because they are here."
By this time the parcel of dirty-white stones was lying open on thecounter, and both Jew and policeman were gazing at them intently. Therewas a nettling logic in the inspector's retort.
"I cannot answer riddles," said Isaacstein, shortly. "I can only statethe facts. If any other man in the city of London is a higher authorityon diamonds than I, go to him and ask his opinion."
"Mr. Isaacstein is right," interposed Philip. "No one else owns diamondslike mine. No one else can obtain them. I have robbed no man. Give me mydiamonds and let me go."
The inspector laughed officially. He gazed intently at Philip, and thensought illumination from the Jew's perturbed countenance, but Isaacsteinwas moodily examining the contents of the paper and turning over boththe stones and the scraps of iron with an air of profound mystification.
"I'll tell you what," said the inspector, jubilantly, after a slightpause. "We will charge him with being in unlawful possession of certaindiamonds, supposed to have been stolen. He has given me a false name anda silly address. Park Lane, the young imp said he lived in."
"A man in your position ought to be more accurate," interposed Philip."I did not say I lived in Park Lane. I told you I intended to buy ahouse there."
Seldom, indeed, were the minor deities of the police station bearded inthis fashion, and by a callow youth. But the inspector was making thecopperplate hair strokes which had gained him promotion, and his brainhad gone back to its normal dullness.
"I will just see if we cannot bring him before a magistrate at once," hesaid, addressing Mr. Isaacstein. "Can you make it convenient to attendthe court within an hour, sir? Then we will get a week's remand, and wewill soon find out----"
"A week's remand!" Philip became white again, and those large eyes ofhis began to burn. "What have I done----"
"Silence! Search him carefully and take him to the cells."
The boy turned despairingly to the Jew.
"Mr. Isaacstein," he said, with a pitiful break in his voice, "why doyou let them do this thing? You are a rich man, and well known. Tellthem they are wrong."
But Isaacstein was wobbling now in a renewed state of excitement.
"What can I do, boy!" he vociferated, almost hysterically. "You must saywhere you got these stones, and then, perhaps, you can clear upeverything."
Philip's lips met in a thin seam.
>
"I will never tell you," he answered, and not another word would heutter.
They searched him and found nothing in his pockets save a key, a brokenknife, some bits of string neatly coiled, and a couple of buttons. Hespent the next hour miserably in a whitewashed cell. He refused somecoffee and bread brought to him at twelve o'clock, and this was the onlysentient break in a wild jumble of conflicting thoughts. The idea cameto him that he must be dreaming--that soon he would awaken amidst thefamiliar surroundings of Johnson's Mews. To convince himself that thiswas not so, he reviewed the history of the preceding twenty-four hours.At that time yesterday he was going to Fleet Street with a capital ofninepence to buy a quire of newspapers. He remembered where he had soldeach of the five copies, where he bought a penny bun, and how he came tolose his stock and get cuffed into the bargain for rescuing a girl froman overturning carriage.
Then his mind reverted to his fixed resolve to hang himself, and hisstolid preparations for the last act in his young life's tragedy. Wasthat where the dream started, or was the whole thing a definite reality,needing only a stout heart and unfaltering purpose to carry him throughtriumphantly? Yes. That was it. "Be strong and brave and all will bewell with you." Surely his mother had looked beyond the grave when sheuttered her parting words. Perhaps, if he lay down and closed his eyes,he would see her. He always hoped to see her in his dreams, but neverwas the vision vouchsafed to him. Poor lad, he did not understand thathis sleep was the sound sleep of health and innocence, when dreams, ifthey come at all, are but grotesque distortions of the simple facts ofeveryday existence. Only once had he dimly imagined her presence, andthat was at a moment which his sane mind now refused to resurrect.
Nevertheless, he was tired. Yielding to the conceit, he stretchedhimself on the wooden couch that ran along one side of his narrow cell.
Some one called to him, not unkindly.
"Now, youngster, jump up. The van is here."
He was led through gloomy corridors and placed in a receptacle justlarge enough to hold him uncomfortably in a huge, lumbering vehicle. Hethought he was the only occupant, which was true enough, the prisoners'van having made a special call for his benefit.
After a rumbling journey through unseen streets, he emerged into anotherwalled-in courtyard. He was led through more corridors, and told to"skip lively" up a winding staircase. At the top he came out into a bigroom, with a well-like space in front of him, filled with a huge table,around which sat several gentlemen, among them Mr. Isaacstein, while onan elevated platform beyond was an elderly man, who wore eyeglasses andwho wrote something in a book without looking up when Philip's name wascalled out.
A police inspector, whom Philip had not seen before, made a shortstatement, and was followed by the constable who effected the arrest.His story was brief and correct, and then the inspector stated that Mr.Wilson, of Grant & Sons, Ludgate Circus, would be called at the nexthearing, as he--the inspector--would ask for a remand to enableinquiries to be made. Meanwhile, Mr. Isaacstein, of Hatton Garden, hadmade it convenient to attend that day, and would be pleased to giveevidence if his worship desired to hear him.
"Certainly," said Mr. Abingdon, the magistrate. "This seems to be asomewhat peculiar case, and I will be glad if Mr. Isaacstein can throwany light upon it."
But Mr. Isaacstein could not do any such thing. He wound up a succinctaccount of Philip's visit and utterances by declaring that there was nocollection of meteoric diamonds known to him from which such aremarkable set of stones could be stolen.
This emphatic statement impressed the magistrate.
"Let me see them," he said.
The parcel was handed up to him, and he examined its contents withobvious interest.
"Are you quite sure of their meteoric origin, Mr. Isaacstein?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Can you form any estimate of their probable value?"
"About fifty thousand pounds!"
The reply startled the magistrate, and it sent a thrill through thecourt.
"Really! So much!" Mr. Abingdon was almost scared.
"If, after cutting, they turn out as well as I expect, that is amoderate estimate of their worth."
"I take it, from what you say, that meteoric diamonds are rare?"
Isaacstein closed his throat with a premonitory cough and bunched up hisshoulders. A slight wobble was steadied by his stumpy hands on the railof the witness box. He was really the greatest living authority on thesubject, and he knew it.
"It is a common delusion among diamond miners that diamonds fall fromthe skies in meteoric showers," he said. "There is some sort offoundation for this mistaken view, as the stones are found in volcanicpipes or columns of diamantiferous material, and the crude idea is thatgigantic meteors fell and plowed these deep holes, distributing diamondsin all directions as they passed. But the so-called pipes are really thevents of extinct volcanoes. Ignorant people do not realize that thechemical composition of the earth does not differ greatly from that ofthe bodies which surround it in space, so that the same process ofmanufacture under high temperature and at great pressure which createsa diamond in a meteor has equal powers here. In a word, what hashappened in the outer universe has also happened at Kimberley. Iron actsas the solvent during the period of creation, so to speak. Then, in thelapse of ages, it oxidizes by the action of air or water, and thediamonds remain."
The magistrate nodded.
"There are particles of a mineral that looks like iron among thesestones?" he said.
The question gave Isaacstein time to draw a fresh supply of breath. Sureof his audience now, he proceeded more slowly.
"That is a certain proof of a meteoric source. A striking confirmationof the fact is supplied by a district in Arizona. Here, on a plain fivemiles in diameter, are scattered thousands of masses of metallic iron,varying in weight from half a ton to a fraction of one ounce. Anenormous meteoric shower fell there at some period, and near the centeris a crater-like hole which suggests the impact of some very large bodywhich buried itself in the earth. All mineralogists know the place asthe Canyon Diabolo, or Devil's Gulch, and specimens of its ore are inevery collection. Ordinary tools were spoiled, and even emery wheelsworn by some hard ingredient in the iron, and analysis has revealed thepresence therein of three distinct forms of diamond--the ordinary stone,like these now before you, both transparent and black graphite, andamorphous carbon; that is, carbon without crystallization."
"I gather that the diamantiferous material was present in the form oftiny particles and not in stones at all approaching these in size?" saidMr. Abingdon.
"Exactly. I have never either seen or heard of specimens like those. In1886 a meteor fell in Russia, and contained one per cent. of diamond ina slightly metamorphosed state. In 1846 the Ava meteorite fell inHungary, and it held crystalline graphite in the bright as well as thedark form. But, again, the distribution was well diffused, and of slightcommercial value. Sir William Crookes, or any eminent chemist, will bearme out in the assumption that the diamonds now before your eyes areabsolutely matchless by the product of any recorded meteoric source."
Isaacstein, having delivered his little lecture, looked and feltimportant. The magistrate bent forward with a pleasant smile.
"I am very much obliged to you for the highly interesting informationyou have given," he said. "One more question--the inevitable corollaryof your evidence is that the boy now in the dock has either found ameteor or a meteoric deposit. Can you say if it is a matter of recentoccurrence?"
"Judging by the appearance of the accompanying scraps of iron ore, Ishould say that they have been quite recently in a state of flux fromheat. The silicates seem to be almost eliminated."
The magistrate was unquestionably puzzled. Queer incidents happen inpolice courts daily, and the most unexpected scientific and technicalpoints are elucidated in the effort to secure an accurate comprehensionof matters in dispute. But never, during his long tenancy of the court,had he been called on to deal with a case of this nature. He smi
led inhis perplexity.
"We all remember the copy-book maxim: 'Let justice be done though theheavens fall,'" he said; "but here it is clearly shown that the idealis not easily reached."
Of course, everyone laughed, and the reporters plied pen and pencil withrenewed activity. Here was a sensation with a vengeance--worth all thedisplay it demanded in the evening papers. Headlines would whoop througha quarter of a column, and Philip's meteor again run through space.
The boy himself was apparently the most disinterested person present.While listening to Isaacstein, he again experienced the odd sensation ofaloofness, of lofty domination, amidst a commonplace and insignificantenvironment. The Jew was clever, of course, but his cleverness was thatof the text-book, a dry record of fact which needed genius to illuminatethe printed page. And these lawyers, reporters, policemen, with thevacuous background of loungers, the friends and bottle holders ofthieves and drunkards--the magistrate, even, remote in his dignity andsense of power--what were they to him?--of no greater import than thepaving stones of the streets to the pulsating life of London as itpassed.
The magistrate glanced at Isaacstein and stroked his chin. The Jew gazedintently at the packet of diamonds and rubbed his simous nose. There wasa deep silence in court, broken only by the occasional shuffle of feetamong the audience at the back--a shuffle which stopped instantly whenthe steely glance of a policeman darted in that direction.
At last the magistrate seemed to make up his mind to a definite courseof action.
"There is only one person present," he said, "who can throw light onthis extraordinary case, and that is the boy himself."
He looked at Philip, and all eyes quickly turned toward the thin, raggedfigure standing upright against the rail that shut him off from the wellof the court. The professional people present noted that the magistratedid not allude to the strange-looking youth as "the prisoner."
What was going to happen? Was this destitute urchin going to leave thecourt with diamonds in his pocket worth fifty thousand pounds? Oddlyenough, no one paid heed to Philip's boast that he owned far more thanthat amount. It was not he, but his packet of diamonds, that evokedwonder. And had not Isaacstein, the great merchant and expert, appraisedthem openly! Was it possible that those dirty-white pebbles could beendowed with such potentiality. Fifty thousand pounds! There were men inthe room, and not confined to the unwashed, whose palates dried andtongues swelled at the notion.
