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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 57295 ***
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+Transcriber's Notes:
+     1. Page scan source: The Internet Archive
+        https://archive.org/details/underlockkeystor02spei
+        (Library of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
+
+
+
+
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+
+UNDER LOCK AND KEY.
+---------
+VOL. II.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+UNDER LOCK AND KEY.
+
+
+
+A Story.
+
+
+
+
+BY
+T. W. SPEIGHT,
+AUTHOR OF "BROUGHT TO LIGHT," "FOOLISH MARGARET,"
+ETC.
+
+
+
+
+IN THREE VOLUMES,
+VOL. II.
+
+
+
+
+LONDON:
+TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND,
+1869.
+[_All rights of Translation and Reproduction are reserved_.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+LONDON:
+SAVILL, EDWARDS AND CO., PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET,
+COVENT GARDEN.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+OF
+THE SECOND VOLUME.
+
+CHAP.
+        I. JANET IN A NEW CHARACTER.
+       II. THE DAWN OF LOVE.
+      III. THE NARRATIVE OF SERGEANT NICHOLAS.
+       IV. COUNSEL TAKEN WITH MR. MADGIN.
+        V. MR. MADGIN AT THE HELM.
+       VI. MR. MADGIN's SECRET JOURNEY.
+      VII. ENTER MADGIN, JUNIOR.
+     VIII. MADGIN JUNIOR'S FIRST REPORT.
+       IX. LOST AS SOON AS FOUND.
+        X. THE CONFESSION.
+       XI. THE CONFESSION CONTINUED.
+      XII. MADGIN JUNIOR'S SECOND REPORT.
+     XIII. ROOM NUMBER FOUR IN THE CORRIDOR.
+      XIV. AT THE CURTAINED DOOR.
+       XV. THE LITTLE PACKET FROM LONDON.
+      XVI. MADGIN JUNIOR'S THIRD REPORT.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+UNDER LOCK AND KEY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+JANET IN A NEW CHARACTER.
+
+
+On entering Lady Pollexfen's room for the second time, Janet found
+that the mistress of Dupley Walls had completed her toilette in the
+interim, and was now sitting robed in stiff rustling silk, with an
+Indian fan in one hand and a curiously-chased vinaigrette in the
+other. She motioned with her fan to Janet. "Be seated," she said, in
+the iciest of tones, and Janet sat down on a chair a yard or two
+removed from her ladyship.
+
+"Since you were here last, Miss Holme," she began, "I have seen Sister
+Agnes, who informs me that she has already given you an outline of the
+duties I shall require you to perform should you agree to accept the
+situation which ill health obliges her to vacate. At the same time, I
+wish you clearly to understand that I do not consider you in any way
+bound by what I may have done for you in time gone by, neither would I
+have you in this matter run counter to your inclinations in the
+slightest degree. If you would prefer that a situation as governess
+should be obtained for you, say so without hesitation, and any small
+influence I may have shall be used ungrudgingly in your behalf. Should
+you agree to remain at Dupley Walls your salary will be thirty guineas
+a year. If you wish it, you can take a day for consideration, and let
+me have your decision in the morning."
+
+Lady Pollexfen's mention of a fixed salary stung Janet to the quick;
+it was so entirely unexpected. It stung her, but only for a moment;
+the next she saw and gratefully recognised the fact that she should no
+longer be a pensioner on the bounty of Lady Pollexfen. A dependent she
+might be--a servant even, if you like; but at least she would be
+earning her living by the labour of her own hands, and even about the
+very thought of such a thing there was a sweet sense of independence
+that flushed her warmly through and through.
+
+Her hesitation lasted but a moment, then she spoke. "Your ladyship is
+very kind, but I require no time for consideration," she said. "I have
+already made up my mind to take the position which you have so
+generously offered me, and if my ability to please you only prove
+equal to my inclination, your ladyship will not have much cause to
+complain."
+
+A faint smile of something like satisfaction flitted across Lady
+Pollexfen's face. "Very good, Miss Holme," she said, in a more
+gracious tone than she had yet used. "I am pleased to find that you
+have taken so sensible a view of the matter, and that you understand
+so thoroughly your position under my roof. How soon shall you be
+prepared to begin your new duties?"
+
+"I am ready at this moment."
+
+"Come to me an hour hence and I will then instruct you."
+
+In this second interview, brief though it was, Janet could not avoid
+being struck by Lady Pollexfen's stately dignity of manner. Her tone
+and style were those of a high-bred gentlewoman. It seemed scarcely
+possible that she and the querulous shrivelled-up old woman in the
+cashmere dressing-robe could be one individual.
+
+Unhappily, as Janet to her cost was not long in finding out, her
+ladyship's querulous moods were much more frequent than her moods of
+quiet dignity. At such times she was very difficult to please;
+sometimes, indeed, it was utterly impossible to please her not even an
+angel could have done it. Then, indeed, Janet felt her duty weigh very
+hardly upon her. By nature her temper was quick and passionate--her
+impulses high and generous; but when Lady Pollexfen was in her worse
+moods she had to curb the former as with an iron chain, while the
+latter were outraged continually by Lady Pollexfen's mean and miserly
+mode of life, and by a certain low and sordid tone of thought which at
+such times pervaded all she said and did. And yet, strange to say, she
+had rare fits of generosity and goodwill--times when her soul seemed
+to sit in sackcloth and ashes, as if in repentance for those other
+occasions when the "dark fit" was on her and the things of this world
+claimed her too entirely as their own.
+
+After her second interview with Lady Pollexfen, Janet at once hurried
+off to Sister Agnes to tell her the news. "On one point only, so far
+as I see at present, shall I require any special information," she
+said. "I shall require to know exactly the mode of procedure necessary
+to be observed when I pay my midnight visits to Sir John Pollexfen."
+
+"It is not my intention that you should visit Sir John," said Sister
+Agnes. "That portion of my old duties will continue to be performed by
+me."
+
+"Not till you are stronger--not till your health is better than it is
+now," said Janet earnestly. "I am young and strong; it is merely a
+part of what I have undertaken to do, and you must please let me do
+it. I have outgrown my childish fears and could visit the Black Room
+now without the quiver of a nerve."
+
+"You think so, by daylight, but wait till the house is dark and
+silent, and then say the same conscientiously--if you can."
+
+But Janet was determined not to yield the point, nor could Sister
+Agnes move her from her decision. Ultimately a compromise was entered
+into by which it was agreed that for one evening at least they should
+visit the Black Room together, and that the settlement of the question
+should be left till the following day.
+
+Precisely as midnight struck they set out together up the wide
+old-fashioned staircase, past the door of Janet's old room, up the
+narrower staircase beyond, till the streak of light came into view and
+the grim nail-studded door itself was reached. Janet was secretly glad
+that she was not there alone, so much she acknowledged to herself as
+they halted for a moment while Sister Agnes unlocked the door. But
+when the latter asked her if she were not afraid, if she would not
+much rather be snug in bed, Janet only said: "Give me the key, tell me
+what I have to do inside the room, and then leave me."
+
+But Sister Agnes would not consent to that, and they entered the room
+together. Instead of seven years, it seemed to Janet only seven hours
+since she had been there last, so vividly was the recollection of her
+first visit still impressed upon her mind. Everything was unchanged in
+that chamber of the dead, except, perhaps, the sprawling cupids on the
+ceiling, which looked a shade dingier than of old, and more in need of
+soap and water than ever. But the black draperies on the walls, the
+huge candles in the silver tripods, the pall-covered coffin in the
+middle of the room, were all as Janet had seen them last. There, too,
+was the oaken _prie-dieu_ a yard or two away from the head of the
+coffin. Sister Agnes knelt on it for a few moments, and bent her head
+in silent prayer.
+
+"My visit to this room every midnight," said Sister Agnes, "is made
+for the simple purpose of renewing the candles, and of seeing that
+everything is as it should be. That the visit should be made at
+midnight, and at no other time, is one of Lady Pollexfen's whims--a
+whim that by process of time has crystallized into a law. The room is
+never entered by day."
+
+"Was it whim or madness that caused Sir John Pollexfen to leave orders
+that his body should be kept above ground for twenty years?"
+
+"Who shall tell by what motive he was influenced when he had that
+particular clause inserted in his will? Dupley Walls itself hangs on
+the proper fulfilment of the clause. If Lady Pollexfen were to cause
+her husband's remains to be interred in the family vault before the
+expiry of the twenty years, the very day she did so the estate would
+pass from her to the present baronet, a distant cousin, between whom
+and her ladyship there has been a bitter feud of many years' standing.
+Although Dupley Walls has been in the family for a hundred and fifty
+years, it has never been entailed. The entailed estate is in
+Yorkshire, and there Sir Mark, the present baronet, resides. Lady
+Pollexfen has the power of bequeathing Dupley Walls to whomsoever she
+may please, providing she carry out strictly the instructions
+contained in her husband's will, it is possible that in a court of law
+the will might have been set aside on the ground of insanity, or the
+whole matter might have been thrown into Chancery. But Lady Pollexfen
+did not choose to submit to such an ordeal. All the courts of law
+in the kingdom could have given her no more than she possessed
+already--they could merely have given her permission to bury her
+husband's body, and it did not seem to her that such a permission
+could compensate for the turning into public gossip of a private
+chapter of family history. So here Sir John Pollexfen has remained
+since his death, and here he will stay till the last of the twenty
+years has become a thing of the past. Two or three times every year
+Mr. Winter, Sir Mark's lawyer, comes over to Dupley Walls to satisfy
+himself by ocular proof that Sir John's instructions are being duly
+carried out. This he has a legal right to do in the interests of his
+client. Sometimes he is conducted to this room by Lady Pollexfen,
+sometimes by me; but even in his case her ladyship will not relax her
+rule of not having the room visited by day."
+
+Sister Agnes then showed Janet that behind the black draperies there
+was a cupboard in the wall, which on being opened proved to contain a
+quantity of large candles. One by one Sister Agnes took out of the
+silver tripod what remained of the candles of the previous day, and
+filled up their places with fresh ones. Janet looked on attentively.
+Then, for the second time, Sister Agnes knelt on the _prie-dieu_ for a
+few moments, and then she and Janet left the room.
+
+Next day Sister Agnes was so ill, and Janet pressed so earnestly to be
+allowed to attend to the Black Room in place of her, and alone, that
+she was obliged to give a reluctant consent.
+
+It was not without an inward tremor that Janet heard the clock strike
+twelve. Sister Agnes had insisted on accompanying her part of the way
+upstairs, and would, in fact, have gone the whole distance with her,
+had not Janet insisted on going forward alone. In a single breath, as
+it seemed to her, she ran up the remaining stairs, unlocked the door,
+and entered the room. Her nerves were not sufficiently composed to
+allow of her making use of the _prie-dieu_. All she cared for just
+then was to get through her duty as quickly as possible, and get back
+in safety to the world of living beings downstairs. She set her teeth,
+and by a supreme effort of will went through the small duty that was
+required of her steadily but swiftly. Her face was never turned away
+from the coffin the whole time; and when she had finished her task she
+walked backwards to the door, opened it, walked backwards out, and in
+another breath was downstairs, and safe in the protecting arms of
+Sister Agnes.
+
+Next night she insisted upon going entirely alone, and made so light
+of the matter that Sister Agnes no longer opposed her wish to make the
+midnight visit to the Black Room a part of her ordinary duty. But
+inwardly Janet could never quite overcome her secret awe of the room
+and its silent occupant. She always dreaded the coming of the hour
+that took her there, and when her task was over, she never closed the
+door without a feeling of relief. In this case, custom with her never
+bred familiarity. To the last occasion of her going there she went
+the prey of hidden fears--fears of she knew not what, which she
+derided to herself even while they made her their victim. There was a
+morbid thread running through the tissue of her nerves, which by
+intense force of will might be kept from growing and spreading, but
+which no effort of hers could quite pluck out or eradicate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+THE DAWN OF LOVE.
+
+
+Major Strickland did not forget his promise to Janet. On the eighth
+morning after his return from London he walked over from Tydsbury to
+Dupley Walls, saw Lady Pollexfen, and obtained leave of absence for
+Miss Holme for the day. Then he paid a flying visit to Sister Agnes,
+for whom he had a great reverence and admiration, and ended by
+carrying off Janet in triumph.
+
+The park of Dupley Walls extends almost to the suburbs of Tydsbury, a
+town of eight thousand inhabitants, but of such small commercial
+importance that the nearest railway station is three miles away across
+country, and nearly five miles from Dupley Walls.
+
+Major Strickland no longer resided at Rose Cottage, but at a pretty
+little villa just outside Tydsbury. Some small accession of fortune
+had come to him by the death of a relative; and an addition to his
+family in the person of Aunt Felicité, a lady old and nearly blind,
+the widow of a kinsman of the major. Besides its tiny lawn and
+flower-beds in front, the Lindens had a long stretch of garden ground
+behind, otherwise the major would scarcely have been happy in his new
+home. He was secretary to the Tydsbury Horticultural Society, and his
+fame as a grower of prize roses and prize geraniums was in these
+latter days far sweeter to him than any fame that had ever accrued to
+him as a soldier.
+
+Janet found Aunt Felicité a most quaint and charming old lady, as
+cheerful and full of vivacity as many a girl of seventeen. She kissed
+Janet on both cheeks when the major introduced her; asked whether she
+was _fiancée_; complimented her on her French; declaimed a passage
+from Racine; put her poodle through a variety of amusing tricks; and
+pressed Janet to assist at her luncheon of cream cheese, French roll,
+strawberries, and white wine.
+
+A slight sense of disappointment swept across Janet's mind, like the
+shadow of a cloud across a sunny field. She had been two hours at the
+Lindens without having seen Captain George. In vain she told herself
+that she had come to spend the day with Major Strickland, and to be
+introduced to Aunt Felicité, and that nothing more was wanting to her
+complete contentment. That something more was needed she knew quite
+well, but she would not acknowledge it even to herself. He knew of her
+coming, he had been with Aunt Felicité only half an hour before--so
+much she learned within five minutes of her arrival; yet now, at the
+end of two hours, he had not condescended even to come and speak to
+her. She roused herself from the sense of despondency that was
+creeping over her, and put on a gaiety that she was far from feeling.
+A very bitter sense of self-contempt was just then at work in her
+heart: she felt that never before had she despised herself so utterly.
+She took her hat in her hand, and put her arm within the major's, and
+walked with him round his little demesne. It was a walk that took up
+an hour or more, for there was much to see and learn, and Janet was
+bent this morning on having a long lesson in botany, and the old
+soldier was only too happy to have secured a listener so enthusiastic
+and appreciative to whom he could dilate on his favourite hobby.
+
+But all this time Janet's eyes and ears were on the alert in a double
+sense of which the major knew nothing. He was busy with a description
+of the last spring flower-show, and how the Duke of Cheltenham's
+auriculas were by no means equal to those of Major Strickland, when
+Janet gave a little start as though a gnat had stung her, and bent to
+smell a sweet blush-rose, whose tints were rivalled by the sudden
+delicate glow that flushed her cheek.
+
+"Yes, yes!" she said, hurriedly, as the major paused for a moment;
+"and so the duke's gardener was jealous because you carried away the
+prize?"
+
+"I never saw a man more put out in my life," said the major. "He shook
+his fist at my flowers, and said before everybody, 'Let the old major
+only wait till autumn, and then see if my dahlias don't----.' But
+yonder comes Geordie. Bless my heart! what has he been doing at
+Tydsbury all this time?"
+
+Janet's instinct had not deceived her: she had heard and recognised
+his footstep a full minute before the major knew that he was near. She
+gave one quick, shy glance round as he opened the gate, and then she
+wandered a yard or two further down the path.
+
+"Good morning, uncle," said Captain George, as he came up. "You set
+out for Dupley Walls so early this morning that I did not see you
+before you started. I am glad to find that you did not come back
+alone."
+
+Janet had turned as he began to speak, but did not come back to the
+major's side. Captain George advanced a few steps and lifted his hat.
+"Good morning, Miss Holme," he said, with outstretched hand. "I need
+hardly say how pleased I am to see you at the Lindens. My uncle has
+succeeded so well on his first embassy that we must send him again and
+often on the same errand."
+
+Janet murmured a few words in reply--what, she could not afterward
+have told; but as her eyes met his for a moment, she read in them
+something that made her forgive him on the spot, even while she
+declared to herself that she had nothing to forgive, and that brought
+to her cheek a second blush more vivid than the first.
+
+"All very well, young gentleman," said the major, "but  you have not
+yet explained your four hours' absence. We shall order you under
+arrest unless you have some reasonable excuse to submit."
+
+"The best of all excuses--that of urgent business," said the captain.
+
+"You! business!" said the laughing major; "why, it was only last night
+that you were bewailing your lot as being one of those unhappy mortals
+who have no work to do."
+
+"To those they love, the gods lend patient hearing. I forget the
+Latin, but that does not matter just now. What I wish to convey is
+this--that I need no longer be idle unless I choose. I have got some
+work to do. Lend me your ears, both of you. About an hour after you,
+sir, had started for Dupley Walls I received a note from the editor of
+the _Tydsbury Courier_, in which he requested me to give him an early
+call. My curiosity prompted me to look in upon him as soon as
+breakfast was over. I found that he was brother to the editor of one
+of the London magazines, a gentleman whom I met one evening at a party
+in town. The London editor remembered me, and had written to the
+Tydsbury editor to make arrangements with me for writing a series of
+magazine articles on India, and my experiences there during the late
+mutiny. I need not bore you with details; it is sufficient to say that
+my objections were talked down one by one, and I left the office
+committed to a sixteen-page article by the sixth of next month."
+
+"You an author!" exclaimed the major. "I should as soon have thought
+of your enlisting in the marines."
+
+"It will only be for a few months, uncle,--only till my limited stock
+of experiences shall be exhausted. After that I shall be relegated to
+my natural obscurity, doubtless never to emerge again."
+
+"Hem," said the major, nervously. "Geordie, my boy, I have by me one
+or two little poems which I wrote when I was about nineteen--trifles
+flung off on the inspiration of the moment. Perhaps, when you come to
+know your friend the editor better than you do now, you might induce
+him to bring them out--to find an odd corner for them in his magazine.
+I wouldn't want paying for them, you know. You might just mention that
+fact; and I assure you that I have seen many worse things than they
+are in print."
+
+"What, uncle, you an author! Oh, fie! I should as soon have thought of
+your wishing to dance on the tight-rope as to appear in print. But we
+must look over these little effusions, eh, Miss Holme? We must unearth
+this genius, and be the first to give his lucubrations to the world."
+
+"If you, were younger, sir, or I not quite so old, I would box your
+ears," said the major, who seemed hardly to know whether to laugh or
+be angry. Finally he laughed, George and Janet chimed in, and all
+three went back indoors.
+
+After an early dinner the major took rod and line and set off to
+capture a few trout for supper. Aunt Felicité took her post-prandial
+nap discreetly, in an easy-chair, and Captain George and Miss Holme
+were left to their own devices. In Love's sweet Castle of Indolence
+the hours that make up a summer afternoon pass like so many minutes.
+They two had blown the magic horn and had gone in. The gates of brass
+had closed behind them, shutting them up from the common outer world.
+Over all things was a glamour as of witchcraft. Soft music filled the
+air; soft breezes came to them as from fields of amaranth and
+asphodel. They walked ever in a magic circle, that widened before them
+as they went. Eros in passing had touched them with his golden dart.
+Each of them hid the sweet sting from the other, yet neither of them
+would have been whole again for anything the world could have offered.
+What need to tell the old old story over again--the story of the dawn
+of love in two young hearts that had never loved before?
+
+Janet went home that night in a flutter of happiness--a happiness so
+sweet and strange and yet so vague that she could not have analysed it
+even had she been casuist enough to try to do so. But she was content
+to accept the fact as a fact; beyond that she cared nothing. No
+syllable of love had been spoken between her and George: they had
+passed what to an outsider would have seemed a very commonplace
+afternoon. They had talked together--not sentiment, but every-day
+topics of the world around them; they had read together--poetry,
+but nothing more passionate than "Aurora Leigh;" they had walked
+together--rather a silent and stupid walk, our friendly outsider would
+have urged; but if they were content, no one else had any right to
+complain. And so the day had worn itself away,--a red-letter day for
+ever in the calendar of their young lives.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+THE NARRATIVE OF SERGEANT NICHOLAS.
+
+
+One morning when Janet had been about three weeks at Dupley Walls, she
+was summoned to the door by one of the servants, and found there a
+tall, thin, middle-aged man, dressed in plain clothes, and having all
+the appearance of a discharged soldier.
+
+"I have come a long way, miss," he said to Janet, carrying a finger to
+his forehead, "in order to see Lady Pollexfen and have a little
+private talk with her."
+
+"I am afraid that her ladyship will scarcely see you, unless you can
+give her some idea of the business that you have called upon."
+
+"My name, miss, is Sergeant John Nicholas. I served formerly in India,
+where I was body-servant to her ladyship's son, Captain Charles
+Pollexfen, who died there of cholera nearly twenty years ago, and I
+have something of importance to communicate."
+
+Janet made the old soldier come in and sit down in the hall while she
+took his message to Lady Pollexfen. Her ladyship was not yet up, but
+was taking her chocolate in bed, with a faded Indian shawl thrown
+round her shoulders. She began to tremble violently the moment Janet
+delivered the old soldier's message, and could scarcely set down her
+cup and saucer. Then she began to cry, and to kiss the hem of the
+Indian shawl. Janet went softly out of the room and waited. She had
+never even heard of this Captain Charles Pollexfen, and yet no mere
+empty name could have thus affected the stern mistress of Dupley
+Walls. Those few tears opened up quite a new view of Lady Pollexfen's
+character. Janet began to see that there might be elements of tragedy
+in the old woman's life of which she knew nothing: that many of the
+moods which seemed to her so strange and inexplicable might be so
+merely for want of the key by which alone they could be rightly read.
+
+Presently her ladyship's gong sounded. Janet went back into the room,
+and found her still sitting up in bed, sipping her chocolate with a
+steady hand. All traces of tears had vanished: she looked even more
+stern and repressed than usual.
+
+"Request the person of whom you spoke to me a while ago to wait," she
+said. "I will see him at eleven in my private sitting-room."
+
+So Sergeant Nicholas was sent to get his breakfast in the servants'
+room, and wait till Lady Pollexfen was ready to receive him.
+
+At eleven precisely he was summoned to her ladyship's presence. She
+received him with stately graciousness, and waved him to a chair a
+yard or two away. She was dressed for the day in one of her stiff
+brocaded silks, and sat as upright as a dart, manipulating a small
+fan. Miss Holme stood close at the back of her chair.
+
+"So, my good man, I understand that you were acquainted with my son,
+the late Captain Pollexfen, who died in India twenty years ago?"
+
+"I was his body-servant for two years previous to his death."
+
+"Were you with him when he died?"
+
+"I was, your ladyship. These fingers closed his eyes."
+
+The hand that held the fan began to tremble again. She remained silent
+for a few moments, and by a strong effort overmastered her agitation.
+
+"You have some communication which you wish to make to me respecting
+my dead son?"
+
+"I have, your ladyship. A communication of a very singular kind."
+
+"Why has it not been made before now?"
+
+"That your ladyship will learn in the course of what I have to say.
+But perhaps you will kindly allow me to tell my story my own way."
+
+"By all means. Pray begin: I am all attention."
+
+The sergeant touched his forelock, gave a preliminary cough, fixed his
+clear grey eye on Lady Pollexfen, and began his narrative as under:--
+
+"Your ladyship and miss; I, John Nicholas, a Staffordshire man born
+and bred, went out to India twenty-three years ago as lance-corporal
+in the hundred and first regiment of foot. After I had been in India a
+few months, I got drunk and misbehaved myself, and was reduced to the
+ranks. Well, ma'am, Captain Pollexfen took a fancy to me, thought I
+was not such a bad dog after all, and got me appointed as his servant.
+And a better master no man need ever wish to have--kind, generous, and
+a perfect gentleman from top to toe. I loved him, and would have gone
+through fire and water to serve him."
+
+Her ladyship's fan was trembling again. "Oblige me with my salts, Miss
+Holme," she said. She pressed them to her nose, and motioned to the
+sergeant to proceed.
+
+"When I had been with the captain a few months," resumed the old
+soldier, "he got leave of absence for several weeks, and everybody
+knew that it was his intention to spend his holiday in a shooting
+excursion among the hills. I was to go with him, of course, and the
+usual troop of native servants; but besides himself there was only one
+European gentleman in the party, and he was not an Englishman. He was
+a Russian, and his name was Platzoff. He was a gentleman of fortune,
+and was travelling in India at the time, and had come to my master
+with letters of introduction. Well, Captain Pollexfen just took
+wonderfully to him, and the two were almost inseparable. Perhaps it
+hardly becomes one like me to offer an opinion on such a point; but,
+knowing what afterwards happened, I must say that I never either liked
+or trusted that Russian from the day I first set eyes on him. He
+seemed to me too double-faced and cunning for an honest English
+gentleman to have much to do with. But he had travelled a great deal,
+and was very good company, which was perhaps the reason why Captain
+Pollexfen took so kindly to him. Be that as it may, however, it was
+decided that they should go on the hunting excursion together--not
+that the Russian was much of a shot, or cared a great deal about
+hunting, but because, as I heard him say, he liked to see all kinds of
+life, and tiger-stalking was something quite fresh to him.
+
+"He was a curious-looking gentleman, too, that Russian--just the sort
+of face that you would never forget after once seeing it, with skin
+that was dried and yellow like parchment; black hair that was trained
+into a heavy curl on the top of his forehead, and a big hooked nose.
+
+"Well, your ladyship and miss, away we went with our elephants and
+train of servants, and very pleasantly we spent our two months' leave
+of absence. The captain he shot tigers, and the Russian he did his
+best at pig-sticking. Our last week had come, and in three more days
+we were to set off on our return, when that terrible misfortune
+happened which deprived me of the best of masters, and your ladyship
+of the best of sons.
+
+"Early one morning I was roused by Rung Budruck, the captive's
+favourite sycee or groom. 'Get up at once,' he said, shaking me by the
+shoulder. The sahib captain is very ill. The black devil has seized
+him. He must have opium or he will die.' I ran at once to the
+captain's tent, and as soon as I set eyes on him I saw that he had
+been seized with cholera. I went off at once and fetched M. Platzoff.
+We had nothing in the way of medicine with us except brandy and opium.
+Under the Russian's directions these were given to my poor master in
+large quantities, but he grew gradually worse. Rung and I in
+everything obeyed M. Platzoff, who seemed to know quite well what
+ought to be done in such cases; and to tell the truth, your ladyship,
+he seemed as much put about as if the captain had been his own
+brother. Well, the captain grew weaker as the day went on, and towards
+evening it grew quite clear that he could not last much longer. The
+pain had left him by this time, but he was so frightfully reduced that
+we could not bring him round. He was lying in every respect like one
+already dead, except for his faint breathing, when the Russian left
+the tent for a moment, and I took his place at the head of the bed.
+Rung was standing with folded arms a yard or two away. None of the
+other native servants could be persuaded to enter the tent, so
+frightened were they of catching the complaint. Suddenly my poor
+master opened his eyes, and his lips moved. I put my ear to his mouth.
+'The diamond,' he whispered. 'Take it--mother--give my love.' Not a
+word more on earth, your ladyship. His limbs stiffened; his head fell
+back; he gave a great sigh and died. I gently closed the eyes that
+could see no more, and left the tent crying.
+
+"Your ladyship, we buried Captain Pollexfen by torchlight four hours
+later. We dug his grave deep in a corner of the jungle, and there we
+left him to his last sleep. Over his grave we piled a heap of stones,
+as I have read that they used to do in the old times over the grave of
+a chief. It was all we could do.
+
+"About an hour later M. Platzoff came to me. 'I shall start before
+daybreak for Chinapore,' he said, 'with one elephant and a couple of
+men. I will take with me the news of my poor friend's untimely fate,
+and you can come on with the luggage and other effects in the ordinary
+way. You will find me at Chinapore when you reach there.' Next morning
+I found that he was gone.
+
+"What my dear master had said with his last breath about a diamond
+puzzled me. I could only conclude that amongst his effects there must
+be some valuable stone of which he wished special care to be taken,
+and which he desired to be sent home to you, madam, in England. I knew
+nothing of any such stone, and I considered it beyond my position to
+search for it among his luggage. I decided that when I got to
+Chinapore I would give his message to the Colonel, and leave that
+gentleman to take such steps in the matter as he might think best.
+
+"I had hardly settled all this in my mind when Rung Budruck came to
+me. 'The Russian sahib has gone: I have something to tell you,' he
+said, only he spoke in broken English. 'Yesterday, just after the
+sahib captain was dead, the Russian came back. You had left the tent,
+and I was sitting on the ground behind the captain's big trunk, the
+lid of which was open. I was sitting with my chin in my hand, very sad
+at heart, when the Russian came in. He looked carefully round the
+tent. Me he could not see, but I could see him through the opening
+between the hinges of the box. What did he do? He unfastened the bosom
+of the sahib captain's shirt, and then he drew over the captain's head
+the steel chain with the little gold box hanging to it that he always
+wore. He opened the box, and saw there was that in it which he
+expected to find there. Then he hid away both chain and box in one of
+his pockets, rebuttoned the dead man's shirt, and left the tent!' 'But
+you have not told me what there was in the box,' I said. He put the
+tips of his fingers together and smiled: 'In that box was the Great
+Mogul Diamond!'
+
+"Your ladyship, I was so startled when Rung said this that the wind of
+a bullet would have knocked me down. A new light was all at once
+thrown on the captain's dying words. 'But how do you know, Rung, that
+the box contained a diamond?' I asked when I had partly got over my
+surprise. He smiled again, with that strange slow smile which those
+fellows have. 'It matters not how, but Rung knew that the diamond was
+there. He had seen the captain open the box, and take it out and look
+at it many a time when the captain thought no one could see him. He
+could have stolen it from him almost any night when he was asleep, but
+that was left for his friend to do.' 'Was the diamond you speak of a
+very valuable one?' I asked. 'It was a green diamond of immense
+value,' answered Rung; 'it was called _The Great Mogul_ because it was
+first worn by the terrible Aureng-Zebe himself, who had it set in the
+haft of his scimetar.' 'But by what means did Captain Pollexfen become
+possessed of so valuable a stone?' Said he, 'Two years ago, at the
+risk of his own life, he rescued the eldest son of the Rajah of
+Gondulpootra from a tiger who had carried away the child into the
+jungle. The rajah is one of the richest men in India, and he showed
+his gratitude by secretly presenting the _Great Mogul Diamond_ to the
+man who had saved the life of his child.' 'But why should Captain
+Pollexfen carry so valuable a stone about his person?' I asked. 'Would
+it not have been wiser to deposit it in the bank at Bombay till such
+time as the captain could take it with him to England?' Said Rung,
+'The stone is a charmed stone, and it was the rajah's particular wish
+that the Sahib Pollexfen should always wear it about his person. So
+long as he did so he could not come to his death by fire, by water, or
+by sword thrust.' Said I, 'But how did the Russian know that Captain
+Pollexfen carried the diamond about his person?' Said Rung, 'One night
+when the captain had had too much wine he showed the diamond to his
+friend.' Said I, 'But how does it happen, Rung, that you know this?'
+Said Rung, smiling and putting his finger tips together, 'How does it
+happen that I know so much about you?' And then he told me a lot of
+things about myself that I thought no soul in India knew. It was just
+wonderful how he did it. 'So it is: let that be sufficient,' he
+finished by saying. Said I, 'Why did you not tell me till after the
+Russian had gone away that you saw him steal the diamond? If you had
+told me at the time I could have charged him with it.' Said Rung, 'You
+are ignorant; you are little more than a child. The Russian sahib had
+the evil eye. Had I crossed his purposes before his face he would have
+cursed me while he looked at me, and I should have withered away and
+died. He has got the diamond, and only by magic can it ever be
+recovered from him.'
+
+"Your ladyship and miss,--I hope I am not tedious nor wandering from
+the point. It will be sufficient to say that when I got down to
+Chinapore I found that M. Platzoff had indeed been there, but only
+just long enough to see the colonel and give him an account of Captain
+Pollexfen's death, after which he had at once engaged a palanquin and
+bearers and set out with all speed for Bombay. It was now my turn to
+see the colonel, and after I had given over into his hands all my dead
+master's property that I had brought with me from the Hills, I told
+him the story of the diamond as Rung had told it to me. He was much
+struck by it, and ordered me to take Rung to him the next morning. But
+that very night Rung disappeared, and was never seen in the camp
+again. Whether he was frightened at what he called the Russian's evil
+eye--frightened that Platzoff could blight him even from a distance, I
+have no means of knowing. In any case, gone he was; and from that day
+to this I have never set eyes on him. Well, the colonel said he would
+take a note of what I had told him about the diamond, and that I must
+leave the matter entirely in his hands.
+
+"Your ladyship, a fortnight after that the colonel shot himself.
+
+"To make short a long story--we got a fresh colonel, and were removed
+to another part of the country; and there, a few weeks later, I was
+knocked down by fever, and was a long time before I thoroughly
+recovered my strength. A year or two later our regiment was ordered
+back to England, but a day or two before we should have sailed I had a
+letter telling me that my old sweetheart was dead. This news seemed to
+take all care for life out of me, and on the spur of the moment I
+volunteered into a regiment bound for China, in which country war was
+just breaking out. There, and at other places abroad, I stopped till
+just four months ago, when I was finally discharged, with my pension,
+and a bullet in my pocket that had been taken out of my skull. I only
+landed in England nine days ago, and as soon as it was possible for me
+to do so, I came to see your ladyship. And I think that is all." The
+sergeant's forefinger went to his forehead again as he brought his
+narrative to an end.
+
+Lady Pollexfen kept on fanning herself in silence for a little while
+after the old soldier had done speaking. Her features wore the proud,
+impassive look that they generally put on when before strangers: in
+the present case they were no index to the feelings at work
+underneath. At length she spoke.
+
+"After the suicide of your colonel did you mention the supposed
+robbery of the diamond to any one else?"
+
+"To no one else, your ladyship. For several reasons. I was unaware
+what steps he might have taken between the time of my telling him and
+the time of his death to prove or disprove the truth of the story. In
+the second place, Rung had disappeared. I could only tell the story at
+secondhand. It had been told me by an eyewitness, but that witness
+was a native, and the word of a native does not go for much in those
+parts. In the third place, the Russian had also disappeared, and had
+left no trace behind. What could I? Had I told the story to my new
+colonel, I should mayhap only have been scouted as a liar or a madman.
+Besides, we were every day expecting to be ordered home, and I had
+made up my mind that I would at once come and see your ladyship. At
+that time I had no intention of going to China, and when once I got
+there it was too late to speak out. But through all the years I have
+been away my poor dear master's last words have lived in my memory.
+Many a thousand times have I thought of them both day and night, and
+prayed that I might live to get back to Old England, if it was only to
+give your ladyship the message with which I had been charged."
+
+"But why could you not write to me?" asked Lady Pollexfen.
+
+"Your ladyship, I am no scholar," answered the old soldier, with a
+vivid blush. "What I have told you to-day in half an hour would have
+taken me years to set down--in fact, I could never have done it."
+
+"So be it," said Lady Pollexfen. "My obligation to you is all the
+greater for bearing in mind for so many years my poor boy's last
+message, and for being at so much trouble to deliver it." She sighed
+deeply and rose from her chair. The sergeant rose too, thinking that
+his interview was at an end, but at her ladyship's request he reseated
+himself.
+
+Rejecting Janet's proffered arm, which she was in the habit of leaning
+on in her perambulations about the house and grounds, Lady Pollexfen
+walked slowly and painfully out of the room. Presently she returned,
+carrying an open letter in her hand. Both the ink and the paper on
+which it was written were faded and yellow with age.
+
+"This is the last letter I ever received from my son," said her
+ladyship. "I have preserved it religiously, and it bears out very
+singularly what you, sergeant, have just told me respecting the
+message which my darling sent me with his dying breath. In a few lines
+at the end he makes mention of a something of great value which he is
+going to bring home with him; but he writes about it in such guarded
+terms that I never could satisfy myself as to the precise meaning of
+what he intended to convey. You Miss Holme, will perhaps be good
+enough to read the lines in question aloud. They are contained in a
+postscript."
+
+Janet took the letter with reverent tenderness. Lady Pollexfen's
+trembling finger pointed out the lines she was to read. Janet read as
+under:--
+
+
+"P.S.--I have reserved my most important bit of news till the last, as
+lady correspondents are said to do. Observe, I write 'are said to do,'
+because in this matter I have very little personal experience of my
+own to go upon. You, dear mum, are my solitary lady correspondent, and
+postscripts are a luxury in which you rarely indulge. But to proceed,
+as the novelists say. Some two years ago it was my good fortune to
+rescue a little yellow-skinned prince-kin from the clutches of a very
+fine young tiger (my feet are on his hide at this present writing),
+who was carrying him off as a tit-bit for his supper. He was terribly
+mauled, you may be sure, but his people followed my advice in their
+mode of doctoring him, and he gradually got round again. The lad's
+father is a rajah, immensely rich, and a direct descendent of that
+ancient Mogul dynasty which once ruled this country with a rod of
+iron. The rajah has daughters innumerable, but only this one son. His
+gratitude for what I had done was unbounded. A few weeks ago he gave
+me a most astounding proof of it. By a secret and trusty messenger he
+sent me----. But no, dear mum, I will not tell you what the rajah sent
+me. This letter might chance to fall into other hands than yours
+(Indian letters do _sometimes_ miscarry), and the secret is one which
+had better be kept in the family--at least for the present. So, mother
+mine, your curiosity must rest unsatisfied for a little while to come.
+I hope to be with you before many months are over, and then you shall
+know everything.
+
+"The value of the rajah's present is something immense. I shall sell
+it when I get to England, and out of the proceeds I shall--well, I
+don't exactly know what I shall do. Purchase my next step for one
+thing, but that will cost a mere trifle. Then, perhaps, buy a
+comfortable estate in the country, or a house in Park-lane. Your six
+weeks every season in London lodgings was always inexplicable to me.
+
+"Or shall I not sell the rajah's present, but offer myself in marriage
+to some fair princess, with my heart in one hand and the G.M.D. in the
+other? Madder things than that are recorded in history. In any case,
+don't forget to pray for the safe arrival of your son, and (if such a
+petition is allowable) that he may not fail to bring with him the
+G.M.D.
+
+     "C.P."
+
+
+"I never could understand before to-day what the letters G.M.D. were
+meant for," said Lady Pollexfen, as Janet gave her back the letter.
+"It is now quite evident that they were intended for _Great Mogul
+Diamond_; all of which, as I said before, is confirmatory of the story
+you have just told me. Of course, after the lapse of so many years,
+there is not the remotest possibility of recovering the diamond; but
+my obligation to you, Sergeant Nicholas, is in no wise lessened by
+that fact. What are your engagements? Are you obliged to leave here
+immediately, or can you remain a short time in the neighbourhood?"
+
+"I can give your ladyship a week, or even a fortnight, if you wish
+it."
+
+"I am greatly obliged to you. I do wish it--I wish to talk to you
+respecting my son, and you are the only one now living who can tell me
+about him. You shall find that I am not ungrateful for what you have
+done for me. In the meantime, you will stop at the King's Arms, in
+Tydsbury. Miss Holme will give you a note to the landlord. Come up
+here tomorrow at eleven. And now I must say good morning. I am not
+very strong, and your news has shaken me a little. Will you do me the
+honour of shaking hands with me? It was your hands that closed my poor
+boy's eyes--that touched him last on earth; let those hands now be
+touched by his mother."
+
+Lady Pollexfen stood up and extended both her withered hands. The old
+soldier came forward with a blush and took them respectfully,
+tenderly. He bent his head and touched each of them in turn with his
+lips. Tears stood in his eyes.
+
+"God bless you, Sergeant Nicholas! You are a good man, and a true
+gentleman," said Lady Pollexfen. Then she turned and slowly left the
+room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+COUNSEL TAKEN WITH MR. MADGIN.
+
+
+After her interview with Sergeant Nicholas, Lady Pollexfen dismissed
+Janet for the day, and retired to her own rooms, nor was she seen out
+of them till the following morning. No one was admitted to see her
+save Dance. Janet, after sitting with Sister Agnes all the afternoon,
+went down at dusk to the housekeeper's room.
+
+"Whatever did you do to her ladyship this morning?" asked Dance as
+soon as she entered. "She has tasted neither bit nor sup since
+breakfast, but ever since that old shabby-looking fellow went away she
+has lain on the sofa, staring at the wall as if there was some writing
+on it she was trying to read but didn't know how. I thought she was
+ill, and asked her if I should send for the doctor. She laughed at me
+without taking her eyes off the wall, and bade me begone for an old
+fool. If there's not a change by morning, I shall just send for the
+doctor without asking her leave. Surely you and that old fellow have
+bewitched her ladyship between you."
+
+Janet in reply told Dance all that had passed at the morning's
+interview, feeling quite sure that in doing so she was violating no
+confidence, and that Lady Pollexfen herself would be the first to tell
+everything to her faithful old servant as soon as she should be
+sufficiently composed to do so. As a matter of course Dance was full
+of wonder.
+
+"Did you know Captain Pollexfen?" asked Janet, as soon as the old
+dame's surprise had in some measure toned itself down.
+
+"Did I know curly-pated, black-eyed Master Charley?" asked the old
+woman. "Ay--who better? These arms, withered and yellow now, then
+plump and strong, held him before he had been an hour in the world.
+The day he left England I went with her ladyship to see him aboard
+ship. As he shook me by the hand for the last time he said, 'You will
+never leave my mother, will you, Dance?' And I said, 'Never, while I
+live, dear Master Charles,' and I've kept my word."
+
+"Her ladyship has never been like the same woman since she heard the
+news of his death," resumed Dance after a pause. "It seemed to sour
+her and harden her, and make her altogether different. There had been
+a great deal of unhappiness at home for some years before he went
+away. He and his father, Sir John--he that now lies so quiet
+upstairs--had a terrible quarrel just after Master Charles went into
+the army, and it was a quarrel that was never made up in this world.
+He was an awful man--Sir John--a wicked man: pray that such a one may
+never cross your path. The only happiness he seemed to have on earth
+was in making those over whom he had any power, miserable. It was
+impossible for my lady to love him, but she tried to do her duty by
+him till he and Master Charles fell out. What the quarrel was about I
+never rightly understood, but my lady would have it that Master
+Charles was in the right and her husband in the wrong. One result was
+that Sir John stopped the income that he had always allowed his son,
+and took a frightful oath that if Master Charles were dying of
+starvation before his eyes, he would not give him as much as a penny
+to buy bread with. But her ladyship, who had money in her own right,
+said that Master Charles's income should go on as usual. Then she and
+Sir John quarrelled; and she left him and came to live at Dupley
+Walls, leaving him at Dene Folly; and here she stayed till Sir John
+was taken with his last illness and sent for her. He sent for her, not
+to make up the quarrel, but to jibe and sneer at her, and to make her
+wait on him day and night, as if she were a paid nurse from a
+hospital. While this was going on, and after Sir John had been quite
+given up by the doctors, news came from India of Master Charles's
+death. Well, her ladyship went nigh distracted; but as for the
+baronet, it was said, though I won't vouch for the truth of it, that
+he only laughed when the news was told him, and said that if he was
+plagued as much with corns in the next world as he had been in this,
+he should find Master Charles's arm very useful to lean upon. Two
+days later he died, and the title, and Dene Folly with it, went to a
+far-away cousin, whom neither Sir John nor his wife had ever seen.
+Then it was found how the baronet had contrived that his spite should
+outlive him--for only out of spite and mean cruelty could he have made
+such a will as he did make: that Dupley Walls should not become her
+ladyship's absolute property till the end of twenty years, during the
+whole of which time his body was to remain unburied, and to be kept
+under the same roof with his widow, wherever she might live. The mean,
+paltry scoundrel! Perhaps her ladyship might have had the will set
+aside, but the would not go to law about it. Thank Heaven! the twenty
+years are nearly at an end. Dupley Walls has been a haunted house ever
+since that midnight when Sir John was borne in on the shoulders of six
+strong men. And now tell me whether her ladyship is not a woman to be
+pitied."
+
+
+At a quarter before eleven next morning Mr. Solomon Madgin, Lady
+Pollexfen's agent and general man-of-business, arrived by appointment
+at Dupley Walls. Mr. Madgin was indispensable to her ladyship, who had
+a considerable quantity of house property in and around Tydsbury,
+consisting chiefly of small tenements, the rents of which had to be
+collected weekly. Then Mr. Madgin was bailiff for the Dupley Walls
+estate, in connexion with which were several small farms or "holdings"
+which required to be well looked after in many ways. Besides all this,
+her ladyship, having a few spare thousands, had taken of late years to
+dabbling in scrip and shares in a small way, and under the skilful
+pilotage of Mr. Madgin had hitherto contrived to steer clear of those
+rocks and shoals of speculation on which so many gallant argosies are
+wrecked. In short, everything except the law-business of the estate
+filtered through Mr. Madgin's hands, and as he did his work cheaply
+and well, and put up with her ladyship's ill temper without a murmur,
+the mistress of Dupley Walls could hardly have found any one who would
+have suited her better.
+
+Mr. Solomon Madgin was a little dried-up man, about sixty years old.
+His tail-coat and vest of rusty black were of the fashion of twenty
+years ago. He wore drab trowsers, and shoes tied with bows of black
+ribbon. His head, bald on the crown, had an ample fringe of white hair
+at the back and sides, and was covered, when he went abroad, with a
+beaver hat, very fluffy and much too tall for him, and which, once
+upon a time, had probably been nearly as white as his hair, but was
+now time-worn and weather-stained to one uniform and consistent drab.
+Round his neck he always wore a voluminous cravat of unstarched muslin
+fastened in front with an old-fashioned pearl brooch, above which
+protruded the two spiked points of a very stiff and pugnacious-looking
+collar. A strong alpaca umbrella, unfashionably corpulent, was his
+constant companion. Mr. Madgin's whiskers were shaved off in an exact
+line with the end of his nose. His eyebrows were very white and bushy,
+and could serve on occasion as a screen to the greenish crafty-looking
+eyes below them, which never liked to be peered into too closely. The
+ordinary expression of his thin dried-up face was one of hard worldly
+shrewdness; but there was a lurking _bonhommie_ in his smile which
+seemed to imply that, away from business, he might possibly mellow
+into a boon companion.
+
+Mr. Madgin had to wait a few minutes this morning before Lady
+Pollexfen could receive him. When he was ushered into her sitting-room
+he was surprised to find that she and Miss Holme were not alone; that
+a plainly-dressed man, who looked almost as old as Mr. Madgin himself,
+was seated at the table. After one suspicious glance at the stranger,
+Mr. Madgin made his bow to the ladies and walked up to the table with
+his bag of papers.
+
+"You can put all those things away for the day, Mr. Madgin," said her
+ladyship. "A far more important matter claims our attention just now.
+In the first place, I must introduce to you Sergeant Nicholas, many
+years ago servant to my son, Captain Pollexfen, who died in India.
+(Sergeant, this is Mr. Madgin, my man of business.) The sergeant, who
+has only just returned to England, told me yesterday a very curious
+story which I am desirous that he should repeat in your presence
+to-day. The story relates to a diamond of great value, said to have
+been stolen from the body of my son immediately after death, and I
+shall require you to give me your opinion as to the feasibility of its
+recovery. You will take such notes of the narrative as you may think
+necessary, and the sergeant will afterwards answer, to the best of his
+ability, any questions you may choose to put to him." Then turning to
+the old soldier, she added: "You will be good enough, sergeant, to
+repeat to Mr. Madgin such parts of your narrative of yesterday as have
+any reference to the diamond. Begin with my son's dying message.
+Repeat word for word, as closely as you can remember, all that was
+told you by the sycee Rung. Describe as minutely as possible the
+personal appearance of M. Platzoff; and detail any other points that
+bear on the loss of the diamond."
+
+So the sergeant began, but the repetition of a long narrative not
+learnt by heart is by no means an easy matter, especially when they to
+whom it was first told hear it for the second time, but rather as
+critics than as ordinary listeners. Besides, the taking of notes was a
+process that smacked of a court-martial and tended to flurry the
+narrator, making him feel as if he were upon his oath and liable to be
+browbeat by the counsel for the other side. He was heartily glad when
+he got to the end of what he had to tell. The postscript to Captain
+Pollexfen's letter was then read by Miss Holme.
+
+Mr. Madgin took copious notes as the sergeant went on, and afterwards
+put a few questions to him on different points which he thought not
+sufficiently clear. Then he laid down his pen, rubbed his hands, and
+ran his fingers through his scanty hair. Lady Pollexfen rang for her
+butler, and gave the sergeant into his keeping, knowing that he could
+not be in better hands. Then she said:--"I will leave you, Mr. Madgin,
+for half an hour. Go carefully through your notes, and let me have
+your opinion when I come back as to whether, after so long a time, you
+think it worth while to institute any proceedings for the recovery of
+the diamond."
+
+So Mr. Madgin was left alone with what he called his "considering
+cap." As soon as the door was closed behind her ladyship, he
+tilted back his chair, stuck his feet on the table, buried his
+hands deep in his pockets, and shut his eyes, and so remained for full
+five-and-twenty minutes. He was busy consulting his notes when Lady
+Pollexfen re-entered the room. Mr. Madgin began at once.
+
+"I must confess," he said, "that the case which your ladyship has
+submitted to me seems, from what I can see of it at present, to be
+surrounded with difficulties. Still, I am far from counselling your
+ladyship to despair entirely. The few points which, at the first
+glance, present themselves as requiring for solution are these:--Who
+was the M. Platzoff who is said to have stolen the diamond? and what
+position in life did he really occupy? Is he alive or dead? If alive,
+where is he now living? If he did really steal the diamond, are not
+the chances as a hundred to one that he disposed of it long ago? But
+even granting that we were in a position to answer all these
+questions; suppose even that this M. Platzoff were living in Tydsbury
+at the present moment, and that fact were known to us, how much nearer
+should we be to the recovery of the diamond than we are now? Your
+ladyship must please to bear in mind that as the case is now we have
+not an inch of legal ground to stand upon. We have no evidence that
+would be worth a rush in a court of law that M. Platzoff really
+purloined the diamond. We have no trustworthy evidence that the
+diamond itself ever had an existence."
+
+"Surely, Mr. Madgin, my son's letter is sufficient to prove that
+fact."
+
+"Sufficient, perhaps, in conjunction with the other evidence, to prove
+it in a moral sense, but certainly not in a legal one," said Mr.
+Madgin, quietly, but decisively. "Your ladyship must please to bear in
+mind that Captain Pollexfen in his letter makes no absolute mention of
+the diamond by name; he merely writes of it vaguely under certain
+initials, and, if called upon, how could you prove that he intended
+those initials to stand for the words _Great Mogul Diamond_, and not
+for something altogether different? If M. Platzoff were your
+ladyship's next-door neighbour, and you knew for certain that he had
+the diamond still in his possession, you could only get it from him as
+he himself got it from your son--by subterfuge and artifice. Your
+ladyship will please to observe that I have put forward no opinion in
+the case. I have merely offered a statement of plain facts as they
+show themselves on the surface. With those facts before you it rests
+with your ladyship to decide what further steps you wish taken in the
+matter."
+
+"My good Madgin, do you know what it is to hate?" demanded Lady
+Pollexfen. "To hate with a hatred that dwarfs all other passions of
+the soul, and makes them pigmies by comparison? If you know this, you
+know the feeling with which I regard M. Platzoff. If you want the key
+to the feeling, you have it in the fact that his accursed hands robbed
+my dead son: even then you must have a mother's heart to feel all that
+I feel." She paused for a moment as if to recover breath; then she
+resumed. "See you, Mr. Solomon Madgin, I have a conviction, an
+intuition, call it what you will, that this Russian scoundrel is still
+alive. That is the first fact you have got to find out. The next is,
+where he is now residing. Then you will have to ascertain whether he
+has the diamond still in his possession, and if so, by what means it
+can be recovered. Only recover it for me--I ask not how or by what
+means--only put into my hands the diamond that was stolen off my son's
+breast as he lay dead; and the day you do that, my good Madgin, I will
+present you with a cheque for five thousand pounds!"
+
+Mr. Madgin sat like one astounded; the power of reply seemed taken
+from him. "Go now," said Lady Pollexfen, after a few moments.
+"Ordinary business is out of the question today. Go home and carefully
+digest what I have just said to you. That you are a man of resources,
+I know well; had you not been so, I would not have employed you in
+this matter. Come to me to-morrow, next day, next week--when you like;
+only don't come barren of ideas; don't come without a plan, likely or
+unlikely, of some sort of a campaign."
+
+Mr. Madgin rose and swept his papers mechanically into his bag. "Your
+ladyship said five thousand pounds, if I mistake not?" he stammered
+out.
+
+"A cheque for five thousand pounds shall be yours on the day you bring
+me the diamond. Is not my word sufficient, or do you wish to have it
+under bond and seal?" she asked with some hauteur.
+
+"Your ladyship's word is an all-sufficient bond," answered Mr. Madgin,
+with sweet humility. He paused with the handle of the door in his
+hand. "Supposing I were to see my way to carry out your ladyship's
+wishes in this respect," he said deferentially, "or even to carry
+out a portion of them only, still it could not be done without
+expense--not without considerable expense, maybe."
+
+"I give you carte-blanche as regards expenses," said her ladyship with
+decision.
+
+Then Mr. Madgin gave a farewell duck of the head, and went. He took
+his way homeward through the park, like a man walking in his sleep.
+With wide-open eyes, and hat well set on the back of his head, with
+his blue bag in one hand, and his umbrella under his arm, he trudged
+onward, even after he got into the busy streets of the little town,
+without seeing anything or anybody. What he saw, he saw
+introspectively. On the one hand glittered the tempting bait held out
+by Lady Pollexfen; on the other loomed the dark problem that had to be
+solved before he could call the golden apple his.
+
+"The most arrant wild-goose chase that ever I heard of in all my
+life," he muttered to himself, as he halted at his own door. "Not a
+single ray of light anywhere--not one."
+
+"Popsey," he called out to his daughter, when he got inside, "bring
+the decanter of gin, some cold water, an ounce of bird's-eye, and a
+clean churchwarden, into the office; and don't let me be disturbed by
+any one for four hours."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+MR. MADGIN AT THE HELM.
+
+
+Mr. Madgin's house stood somewhat back from the main street of
+Tydsbury. It was an old-fashioned house, of modest exterior, and had
+an air of being elbowed into the background by the smarter and more
+modern domiciles on each side of it. Its steep overhanging roof, and
+porched doorway, gave it a sleepy, reposeful look, as though it were
+watching the on-goings of the little town through half-closed lids,
+and taking small cognizance thereof.
+
+Entering from the street through a little wooden gateway of a bright
+green colour, a narrow pathway, paved with round pebbles that were
+very trying to people with tender feet, conducted you to the front
+door, on which shone a brass plate of surpassing brightness, whereon
+was inscribed:--
+
+
+                          Mr. Solomon Madgin,
+                           _General Agent_,
+                             _Valuer, &c_.
+
+
+The house was a double-fronted one. On one side of the passage as you
+went in was the office, on the other side was the family sitting-room.
+Not that Mr. Madgin's family was a large one. It consisted merely of
+himself, his daughter Mirpah, and one strong servant girl with an
+unlimited capacity for hard work. Mirpah Madgin deserves some notice
+at our hands.
+
+She was a tall, superb-looking young woman of two-and-twenty, and bore
+not the slightest resemblance in person, whatever she might do in mind
+or disposition, to that sly old fox her father. Mirpah's mother had
+been of Jewish extraction, and in Mirpah's face you read the
+unmistakable signs of that grand style of beauty which is everywhere
+associated with the downtrodden race. She moved about the little house
+in her inexpensive prints and muslins like a dis-crowned queen. That
+she had reached the age of two-and-twenty without having been in love
+was no source of surprise to those who knew her, for Mirpah Madgin
+hardly looked like a girl who would marry a poor clerk or a petty
+tradesman, or who could ever sink into the common-place drudge of a
+hand-to-mouth household. She looked like a girl who would some day be
+claimed by a veritable hero of romance--by some Ivanhoe of modern
+life, well endowed with this world's goods--who would wed her, and
+ride away with her to the fairy realms of Tyburnia and Rotten Row.
+
+And yet, truth to tell, the thread of romance inwoven with the
+composition of Mirpah Madgin was a very slender one. In so far she
+belied her own beauty. For a young woman she was strangely practical,
+and that in a curiously unfeminine way. She was her father's managing
+clerk and _alter ego_. The housewifely acts of sewing and cooking she
+held in utter distaste. For domestic management in any of its forms
+she had no faculty, unless it were for that portion of it which
+necessitated a watchful eye upon the purse-strings. Such an eye she
+had been trained to use since she was quite a girl, and Mirpah the
+superb could on occasion haggle over a penny as keenly as the most
+ancient fishwife in Tydsbury market.
+
+At five minutes past nine precisely, six mornings out of every seven,
+Mirpah Madgin sat down in her father's office and proceeded to open
+the letters. Mr. Madgin's business was a multifarious one. Not only
+was he Lady Pollexfen's general agent and man of business, although
+that was his most onerous and lucrative appointment, and the one that
+engaged most of his time and thoughts, but he was also agent for
+several lesser concerns, always contriving to have a number of small
+irons in the fire at one time. Much of Mr. Madgin's time was spent in
+the collection of rents and in out-door work generally, so that nearly
+the whole of the office duties devolved upon Mirpah, and by no clerk
+could they have been more efficiently performed. She made up and
+balanced the numerous accounts with which Mr. Madgin had to deal in
+one shape or another. Three-fourths of the letters that emanated from
+Mr. Madgin's office were written by her. From long practice she had
+learned to write so like her father that only an expert could have
+detected the difference between the two hands; and she invariably
+signed herself "Yours truly, Solomon Madgin." Indeed, so accustomed
+was she to writing her father's name that in her correspondence with
+her brother, who was an actor in London, she more frequently than not
+signed it in place of her own; so that Madgin junior had to look
+whether the letter was addressed to him as a son or as a brother
+before he could tell by whom it had been written.
+
+As her father's assistant Mirpah was happy after a quiet, staid sort
+of fashion. The energies of her nature found their vent in the busy
+life in which she took so much delight. She was not at all
+sentimental: she was not the least bit romantic. She was thoroughly
+practical, and was as keen in money-making as her father himself. Yet
+with all this Mirpah Madgin could be charitable on occasion, and was
+by no means deficient of high and generous impulses--only she never
+allowed her impulses to interfere with "business."
+
+Mr. Madgin never took any important step without first consulting his
+daughter. Herein he acted wisely, for Mirpah's clear good sense, and
+feminine quickness at penetrating motives where he himself was
+sometimes at fault, had often proved invaluable to him in difficult
+transactions. In a matter of so much moment as that of the Great Mogul
+Diamond it was not likely that he would be long contented without
+taking her into his confidence. He had scarcely finished his first
+pipe when he heard her opening the door with her latch-key, and his
+face brightened at the sound. She had been on one of those holy
+pilgrimages in which all who are thus privileged take so much delight:
+she had been to the bank to increase the little store which lay there
+already in her father's name. She came into the room tired but
+smiling. A white straw bonnet, a black silk mantle, and a muslin dress
+small in pattern, formed the chief items of her quiet attire. She was
+carefully gloved and booted; but to whatever she wore Mirpah imparted
+an air of distinction that put it at once beyond a suggestion of
+improvement.
+
+"Smoking at this time of day, papa!" exclaimed Mirpah. "And the
+gin-bottle out, too! Are we about to retire on our fortunes, or what
+does it all mean?"
+
+"It means, girl, that I have got one of the hardest nuts to crack that
+was ever put before me. If I crack it, I get five thousand pounds for
+the kernel. If I don't crack it--but that's a possibility I can't bear
+to think about."
+
+"Five thousand pounds! That would indeed be a kernel worth having. My
+teeth are younger than yours, and perhaps I may be able to help you."
+
+Mr. Madgin smoked in silence for a little while, while Mirpah toyed
+patiently with her bonnet strings. "The nut is simply this," said the
+old man at last: "In India, twenty years ago, a diamond was stolen
+from a dying man. I am now told to find the thief, to obtain from him
+the diamond either by fair means or foul--supposing always that he is
+still alive and has the diamond still in his possession--and on the
+day I give the stone to its rightful owner the aforementioned five
+thousand pounds become mine."
+
+"A grand prize, and one worth striving for!"
+
+"Even so; but how can I strive, when I have nothing to strive against?
+I am like a man put into a dark room to fight a duel. I cannot find my
+antagonist. I grope about, not knowing whether he is on the right hand
+of me or the left, before me or behind me. In fact, I am utterly at
+sea; and the more I think about the matter the more hopelessly
+bewildered I seem to become."
+
+"Two heads are better than one, papa. Let me try to help you. Tell me
+the case from beginning to end, with all the details as they are known
+to you."
+
+Mr. Madgin willingly complied, and related _in extenso_ all that he
+had heard that morning at Dupley Walls. The little man had a high
+opinion of his daughter's sagacity. That such an opinion was in nowise
+lessened by the result of the present case will be best seen by the
+following excerpts from Mr. Madgin's diary, which, as having a
+particular bearing on the case of the Great Mogul Diamond, we proceed
+at once to lay before the reader:--
+
+
+           "EXCERPTS FROM THE DIARY OF MR. SOLOMON MADGIN."
+
+
+"July 9th, Evening.--After the wonderful revelation made to me by Lady
+Pollexfen this morning, I came home, and got behind a churchwarden,
+and set my wits to work to think the matter out. I shut my eyes and
+puffed away for an hour and a half, but at the end of that time I was
+as much in a fog as when I first sat down. Nowhere could I discern a
+single ray of light. Then in came Mirpah, and when she begged of me to
+tell her the story, I was glad to do so, remembering how often she had
+helped me through a puzzle in days gone by--but none of them of such
+magnitude as this one. So I told her everything as far as it was known
+to myself. After that we discussed the whole case carefully step by
+step. The immediate result of this discussion was, that as soon as tea
+was over, I went as far as the White Hart tavern in search of Sergeant
+Nicholas. I found him on the bowling-green watching the players. I
+called for a quart of old ale and some tobacco, and before long we
+were as cosy as two old cronies who have known each other for twenty
+years. The morning had shown me that the Sergeant was a man of some
+intelligence and of much worldly experience; and when I had lowered
+myself imperceptibly to the level of his intellect, so as to put him
+more completely at his ease, I had no difficulty in inducing him to
+talk freely and fully on that one subject which, for the last few
+hours, has had for me an interest paramount to that of any other. My
+primary object was to induce him to retail to me every scrap Of
+information that he could call to mind respecting the Russian,
+Platzoff, who is said to have stolen the diamond. It was Mirpah's
+opinion and mine, that he must be in possession of many bits of
+special knowledge, such as might seem of no consequence to him, but
+which might be invaluable to us in our search, and such as he would
+naturally leave out of the narrative he told Lady Pollexfen. The
+result proved that our opinion was well founded. I did not leave the
+sergeant till I had pumped him thoroughly dry. (Mem.: an excellent tap
+of old ale at the White Hart. Must try some of it at home.)
+
+"I found Mirpah watering her geraniums in the back garden. She was all
+impatience to learn the result of my interview. I am thankful that
+increasing years have not impaired my memory. I repeated to Mirpah
+every word bearing on the case in point that the sergeant had confided
+to me. Then I waited in silence for her opinion. I was anxious to know
+whether it coincided in any way with my own. I am happy to think that
+it did coincide. Father and daughter were agreed.
+
+"'I think that you have done a very good afternoon's work, papa,' said
+Mirpah, after a few moments given to silent thought. 'After a lapse of
+twenty years, it is not likely that Sergeant Nicholas should have a
+very clear recollection of any conversation that he may have overheard
+between Captain Pollexfen and M. Platzoff. Indeed, had he pretended to
+repeat any such conversation, I should have felt strongly inclined to
+doubt the truth of his entire narrative. Happily he disclaims any such
+abnormal powers of memory. He can remember nothing but a chance phrase
+or two which some secondary circumstance fixed indelibly on his mind.
+But he can remember a great number of little facts bearing on the
+relations between his master and the Russian. These facts, considered
+singly, may seem of little or no importance, but taken in the
+aggregate, and regarded as so many bits of mosaic work forming part of
+a complicated whole, they assume an aspect of far greater importance.
+In any case, they put us on a trail, which may turn out to be the
+right one or the wrong one, but which at present certainly seems to me
+worth following up. Finally, they all tend to deepen our first
+suspicion that M. Platzoff was neither more nor less than a political
+refugee. The next point is to ascertain whether he is still alive.'
+
+"Here again the clear logical intellect of Mirpah (so like my own)
+came to my assistance. Before parting for the night we were agreed as
+to what our mode of procedure ought to be on the morrow. This most
+extraordinary case engages all my thoughts. I am afraid that I shall
+not be able to sleep much to-night.
+
+"July 10th.--I owe it to Mirpah to say that it was entirely in
+consequence of a hint from her that I went at an early hour this
+morning to the office of the _Tydsbury Courier_ there to consult a
+file of that newspaper. Six months ago the daughter of Sir John
+Pennythorne was married to a rich London gentleman. Mirpah had read
+the account of the festivities consequent on that event, and seemed to
+remember that among other friends of the bridegroom invited down to
+Finch Hall was some foreign gentleman who was stated in the newspaper
+to belong to the Russian Legation in London. Acting on Mirpah's hint,
+I went back through the files of the _Courier_ till I lighted on the
+account of the wedding. True enough, among other guests on that
+occasion, I found catalogued the name of a certain Monsieur H---- of
+the Russian Embassy. I had got all I wanted from the _Tydsbury
+Courier_.
+
+"My next proceeding was to hasten up to Dupley Walls, to obtain an
+interview with Lady Pollexfen, and to induce her ladyship to write to
+Sir John Pennythorne asking him to write to the aforesaid M. H----,
+and inquire whether, among the archives (I think that is the correct
+word) of the Embassy, they had any record of a political refugee by
+name Paul Platzoff, who, twenty years ago, was in India, &c. I had
+considerable difficulty in persuading her ladyship to write, but at
+last the letter was sent. I await the result anxiously. The chances
+seem to me something like a thousand to one against our inquiry being
+productive of any tangible result. What I dread more than all is that
+M. Platzoff is no longer among the living.
+
+"July 20th.--Nine days without a word from Sir John Pennythorne,
+except to say that he had written his friend Monsieur H----  as
+requested by Lady Pollexfen. I began to despair. Each morning I
+inquired of her ladyship whether she had received any reply from Sir
+John, and each morning her ladyship said: 'I have had no reply, Mr.
+Madgin, beyond the one you have already seen.'
+
+"Certain matters connected with a lease took me up to Dupley Walls
+this afternoon for the second time to-day. The afternoon post came in
+while I was there. Among other letters was one from Sir John
+Pennythorne, which, when she had read it, her ladyship tossed over to
+me. It enclosed one from M. H---- to Sir John. It was on the latter
+that I pounced. It was written in French, but even at the first hasty
+reading I could make it out sufficiently to know that it was of far
+greater importance than even in my wildest dreams I had dared to
+imagine.
+
+"I never saw Lady Pollexfen so excited as she was during the few
+moments which I took up in reading the letter. During the nine days
+that had elapsed since the writing of her letter to Sir John she had
+treated me somewhat slightingly; there was, or so I fancied, a spice
+of contempt in her manner towards me. The step I had induced her to
+take in writing to Sir John had met with no approbation at her hands;
+it had seemed to her an utterly futile and ridiculous thing to do;
+therefore was I now proportionately well pleased to find that my wild
+idea had been productive of such excellent fruit.
+
+"'I must certainly compliment you, Mr. Madgin, on the success of your
+first step,' said her ladyship. 'It was like one of the fine intuitions
+of genius to imagine that you saw a way to reach M. Platzoff through
+the Russian Embassy. You have been fully justified by the result.
+Madgin, the man yet lives!--the man whose sacrilegious hands robbed my
+dead son of that which he had left as a sacred gift to his mother. May
+the curse of a widowed mother attend him through life! Let me hear the
+letter again, Madgin; or stay, I will read it myself: your French is
+execrable. Ha, ha! Monsieur Paul Platzoff, we shall have our revenge
+out of you yet.'
+
+"She read the letter through for the second time with a sort of
+deliberate eagerness which showed me how deeply interested her heart
+was in the affair. She dropped her eye-glass and gave a great sigh
+when she came to the end of it. 'And what do you propose to do next,
+Mr. Madgin?' she asked. 'Your conduct so far satisfies me that I
+cannot do better than leave the case entirely in your hands.'
+
+"'With all due deference to your ladyship,' I replied, 'I think that
+my next step ought to be to reconnoitre the enemy's camp.'
+
+"'Exactly my own thought,' said her ladyship. 'When can you start for
+Windermere?'
+
+"'To-morrow morning, at nine.'
+
+"After a little more conversation I left her ladyship. She seemed in
+better spirits than I had seen her for a long time.
+
+"I need not attempt to describe dear Mirpah's delight when I read over
+to her the contents of Monsieur H.'s note. She put her arms round me
+and kissed me. 'The five thousand pounds shall yet be yours, papa,'
+she said. Stranger things than that have come to pass before now. But
+I am working only for her and James. Should I ever be so fortunate as
+to touch the five thousand pounds, one-half of it will go to form a
+dowry for my Mirpah. Below is a free translation of the business part
+of M. H.'s letter, which was simply an extract from some secret ledger
+kept at the Embassy:--
+
+"Platzoff, Paul. A Russian by birth and a conspirator by choice. Born
+in Moscow in 1802, his father being a rich leather-merchant of that
+city. Implicated at the age of nineteen in sundry insurrectionary
+movements; tried, and sentenced to three years' imprisonment in a
+military fortress. After his release, left Russia without permission,
+having first secretly transferred his property into foreign
+securities. Went to Paris. Issued a scurrilous pamphlet directed
+against his Majesty the Emperor. Spent several years in travel,--now
+in Europe, now in the East, striving wherever he went to promulgate
+his revolutionary ideas. More than suspected of being a member of
+several secret political societies. Has resided for the last few years
+at Bon Repos, on the banks of Windermere, from which place he
+communicates constantly with other characters as desperate as himself.
+Russia has no more bitter and determined enemy than Paul Platzoff. He
+is at once clever and unscrupulous. While he lives he will not cease
+to conspire.'
+
+"After this followed a description of Platzoff's personal appearance,
+which it is needless to transcribe here.
+
+"I start for Windermere by the first train tomorrow."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+MR. MADGIN'S SECRET JOURNEY.
+
+
+Mr. Madgin left home by an early train on the morning of the day
+following that on which Lady Pollexfen had received a reply from Sir
+John Pennythorne. His first intention had been to make the best of his
+way to Windermere, and there ascertain the exact locality of Bon
+Repos. But a fresh view of the case presented itself to his mind as he
+lay thinking in bed. Instead of taking the train for the north, he
+took one for the south, and found himself at Euston as the London
+clocks were striking twelve. After an early dinner, and a careful
+consultation of the Post Office Directory, Mr. Madgin ordered a
+hansom, and was driven to Hatton-garden, in and about which unfragrant
+locality the diamond merchants most do congregate. After due inquiries
+made and answered, Mr. Madgin was driven eastward for another mile or
+more. Here a similar set of inquiries elicited a similar set of
+answers. Mr. Madgin went back to his hotel well pleased with his day's
+work.
+
+His inquiries had satisfied him that no green diamond of the size and
+value attributed to the Great Mogul had either been seen or heard of
+in the London market during the last twenty years. It still remained
+to test the foreign markets in the same way. Mr. Madgin's idea was
+that this work could be done better by some trustworthy agent well
+acquainted with the trade than by himself. He accordingly left
+instructions with an eminent diamond merchant to have all needful
+inquiries made at Paris, Amsterdam, and St. Petersburgh, as to whether
+such a stone as the Great Mogul had come under the cognizance of the
+trade any time during the last twenty years. The result of the inquiry
+was to be communicated to Mr. Madgin by letter.
+
+Nest day Mr. Madgin journeyed down to Windermere. Arrived at Bowness,
+he found no difficulty in ascertaining the exact locality of Bon
+Repos, the house and its owner being known by sight or repute to
+almost every inhabitant of the little town. Mr. Madgin stopped all
+night at Bowness. Next morning he hired a small boat, and was pulled
+across the lake to a point about half a mile below Bon Repos, and
+there he landed.
+
+Mr. Madgin was travelling _incog_. The name upon his portmanteau was
+"Jared Deedes, Esq." He was dressed in a suit of glossy black, with a
+white neckcloth, and gold-rimmed spectacles. He had quite an episcopal
+air. He did not call himself a clergyman, but people were at liberty
+to accept him as one if they chose.
+
+Assisted by the most unimpeachable of malaccas, Mr. Madgin took the
+high-road that wound round the grounds of Bon Repos. But so completely
+was the house hidden in its nest of greenery that the chimney-pots
+were all of it that was visible from the road. But under a spur of the
+hill by which the house was shut in at the back Mr. Madgin found a
+tiny hamlet of a dozen houses, by far the most imposing of which was
+the village inn--hotel, it called itself, and showed to the world the
+sign of The Jolly Fishers. Into this humble hostelry Mr. Madgin
+marched without hesitation, and called for some refreshment. So
+impressed was the landlord with the clerical appearance of his guest,
+that he whipped off his apron, ushered him into the state parlour, and
+made haste to wait upon him himself. He, the guest, had actually
+called for a bottle of the best dry sherry, and when the landlord took
+it in he invited him to fetch another glass, and come and join him
+over it. Mr. Jared Deedes was a tourist--well-to-do, without doubt;
+the landlord could see as much as that--and having never visited
+Lakeland before, he was naturally delighted with the freshness and
+novelty of everything that he saw. The change from London life was so
+thorough, so complete in every respect, that he could hardly believe
+he had left the great Babel no longer ago than yesterday. It seemed
+years since he had been there. He had thought Bowness a charming spot,
+but this little nook surpassed Bowness, inasmuch as it was still
+farther removed and shut out from the frivolities and follies of the
+great world. Here one was almost alone with Nature and her wondrous
+works. Then Mr. Deedes filled up his own glass and that of the
+landlord.
+
+"Perhaps, sir, you would like to stay here for a night or two,"
+suggested the host timidly; "we have a couple of spare beds."
+
+"Nothing would please me better," answered Mr. Deedes, with solemn
+alacrity. "I feel that the healthful air of these hills is doing me an
+immensity of good. Kindly send to the Crown at Bowness for my
+portmanteau, and ascertain what you have in the house for dinner."
+
+After a while came dinner, and a little later on, Mr. Deedes having
+expressed a desire to see something of the lake, the landlord sent to
+borrow a boat, and then took his guest for an hour's row on
+Windermere. From the water they had a capital view of the low white
+front of Bon Repos. There were two gentlemen smoking on the terrace.
+The lesser of the two, said the landlord, was M. Platzoff. The taller
+man was Captain Ducie, at present a guest at Bon Repos. Then the
+landlord wandered off into a long rambling account of Bon Repos and
+its owner. Mr. Deedes was much interested in hearing about the
+eccentric habits and strange mode of life of M. Platzoff, with the
+details of which the landlord was as thoroughly acquainted as though
+he had formed one of the household. Their row on the lake was
+prolonged for a couple of hours, and Mr. Deedes went back to the hotel
+much edified.
+
+In the dusk of evening he encountered Cleon, M. Platzoff's valet, as
+he was lounging slowly down the village street on his way to the Jolly
+Fishers. Mr. Deedes scrutinized the dark-skinned servant narrowly in
+passing. "The face of a cunning unscrupulous rascal, if ever I saw
+one," he muttered to himself. "Nevertheless, I must make his
+acquaintance."
+
+And he did make his acquaintance. As Cleon and the landlord sat
+hob-nobbing together in the little snuggery behind the bar, Mr. Deedes
+put in his head to ask a question of the latter. Thereupon the
+landlord begged permission to introduce his friend Mr. Cleon to the
+notice of his guest, Mr. Deedes. The two men bowed, Mr. Cleon rather
+sulkily; but Mr. Deedes was all affability and smiling _bonhommie_. He
+had several questions to ask, and he sat down on the only vacant chair
+in the little room. He wanted to know the distance to Keswick; how
+much higher Helvellyn was than Fairfield; whether it was possible to
+get any potted char for breakfast; and so on; on all which questions
+both Cleon and the landlord had something to say. But talking being
+dry work, as Mr. Deedes smilingly observed, brought naturally to mind.
+the fact that the landlord had some excellent dry sherry, and that one
+could not do better this warm evening than have another bottle fetched
+up out of the cool depths of the cellar. Mr. Cleon, being pressed, was
+nothing loth to join Mr. Deedes over this bottle. Mr. Deedes, without
+condescending into familiarity, made himself very agreeable, but did
+not sit long. After imbibing a couple of glasses, he bade the landlord
+and the valet an affable good-night, and went off decorously to bed.
+
+Mr. Deedes was up betimes next morning, and took a three miles' trudge
+over the hills before breakfast. He spent a quiet day mooning about
+the neighbourhood, and really enjoying himself after his own fashion,
+although his mind was busily engaged all the time in trying to solve
+the mystery of the Great Diamond. In the evening he took care to have
+a few pleasant words with Cleon, and then early to bed. Two more days
+passed away after a similar quiet fashion, and then Mr. Deedes began
+to chafe inwardly at the small progress he was making.
+
+Although he had been so successful in tracing out M. Platzoff, and in
+working the case up to its present point in a remarkably short space
+of time, he acknowledged to himself that he was completely baffled
+when he came to consider what his next step ought to be. He could not,
+indeed, see his way to a single step beyond his present stand-point.
+Much as he seemed to have gained at a single leap, was he in reality
+one hair's-breadth nearer the secret object of his quest than on that
+day when the name of the Great Mogul Diamond first made music in his
+ears? He doubted it greatly.
+
+When he first decided on coming down to Bon Repos he trusted that the
+chapter of accidents and the good fortune which had so far attended
+him would somehow put it in his power to scrape an acquaintance with
+M. Platzoff himself, and such an acquaintance once made, it would be
+his own fault if, in one way or another, he did not make it
+subservient to the ambitious end he had in view. But in M. Platzoff he
+found a recluse: a man who made no fresh acquaintanceships; who held
+the whole tourist tribe in horror, and who even kept himself aloof
+from such of the neighbouring families as might be considered his
+equals in social position. It was quite evident to Mr. Deedes that he
+might reside close to Bon Repos for twenty years, and at the end of
+that time not have succeeded in addressing half a dozen words to its
+owner.
+
+Then again he had succeeded little better with regard to Cleon than
+with regard to Cleon's master. All his advances, made with a mixture
+of affability and _bonhommie_ which Mr. Deedes flattered himself was
+irresistible with most people, were productive of little or no effect
+upon the mulatto. He received them, not with suspicion, for he had
+nothing of which to suspect harmless Mr. Deedes, but with a sort of
+sulky indifference, as though he considered them rather a nuisance
+than otherwise, and would have preferred their being offered to anyone
+else. Did Mr. Deedes, in conversation with him and the landlord,
+venture to bring the talk round to Bon Repos and M. Platzoff; did he
+hazard the remark that since his arrival in Lakeland several people
+had spoken to him of the strange character and eccentric mode of life
+of Mr. Cleon's employer--he was met with a stony silence, which told
+him as plainly as any words could have done that M. Platzoff and his
+affairs were matters that in no wise concerned him. It was quite
+evident that neither the Russian nor his dark-skinned valet was of any
+avail for the furtherance of that scheme which had brought Mr. Deedes
+all the way to the wilds of Westmoreland.
+
+He began to despair, and was on the point of writing to Mirpah,
+thinking that her shrewd woman's wit might be able to suggest some
+stratagem or mode of attack other than that made use of by him, when
+suddenly a prospect opened before him such as in his wildest dreams of
+success he dared not have bodied forth. He was not slow to avail
+himself of it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+ENTER MADGIN, JUNIOR.
+
+
+"Beg your pardon, sir," said the landlord of the Jolly Fishers one
+morning to his guest, Mr. Deedes, "but I think I have more than once
+heard you say that you came from London?"
+
+"I do come from London," answered Mr. Deedes; "I am a Cockney born and
+bred. I came direct from London to Windermere. But why do you ask?"
+
+"Simply, sir, because they are in want of a footman at Bon Repos, to
+fill up the place of one who has gone away to get married. Mossoo
+Platzoff don't like advertising for servants, and Mr. Cleon is at a
+loss where to find a fellow that can wait at table and has some
+manners about him. You see, sir, the country louts about here are
+neither useful nor ornamental in a gentleman's house. Now, sir, it
+struck me that among your friends you might perhaps know some
+gentleman who would be glad to recommend a respectable man for such a
+place. Must have a good character from his last situation, and be able
+to wait at table; and I hope, sir, you will pardon the liberty I've
+taken in mentioning it to you."
+
+Mr. Deedes was holding up a glass of wine to the light as the landlord
+brought his little speech to a close. He sipped the wine slowly, with
+his eyes bent on the floor; then he put down the glass and rubbed his
+hands softly one within the other. Then he spoke.
+
+"It happens, singularly enough," he said, "that a particular friend of
+mine--Mr. Madgin, a gentleman, I daresay, whose name you have never
+heard--spoke to me only three weeks ago about one of his people for
+whom he was desirous of obtaining another situation, he himself being
+about to break up his establishment and go to reside on the Continent,
+I will write Mr. Madgin to-night, and if the young man has not engaged
+himself I will ask my friend to send him down here. He will have a
+first-class testimonial, and I have no doubt he would suit M. Platzoff
+admirably. I am obliged to you, landlord, for mentioning this matter
+to me."
+
+Mr. Deedes went off at once to his room, and wrote and despatched the
+following letter:--
+
+
+"My dear Boy,--I saw by an advertisement in last week's _Era_ that you
+are still out of an engagement. I have an opening for you down here in
+a drama of real life. It will be greatly to your advantage to accept
+it, so do not hesitate for a moment. Come without delay. Book yourself
+from Euston-square to Windermere. Take steamer from the latter place
+to Newby-bridge. There, at the hotel, await my arrival. Bear in mind
+that down here my name is _Mr. Jared Deedes_, and that yours is _James
+Jasmin_, a footman, at present out of a situation. To a person of your
+intelligence I need not say more.
+
+"Your affectionate father,
+
+"S. M."
+
+
+"N.B.--This communication is secret and confidential. All expenses
+paid. Do not on any account fail to come. I will be at the
+Newby-bridge Hotel on Thursday morning at eleven."
+
+
+This letter he addressed, "Mr. James Madgin, Royal Tabard Theatre,
+Southwark, London." Having posted it with his own hands, he went for a
+long solitary ramble among the hills. He wanted to think out and
+elaborate the great scheme that had unfolded itself before his dazzled
+eyes while the landlord was talking to him. He had seen the whole
+compass of it at a glance; he wanted now to consider it in detail.
+There was an elation in his eye and an elasticity in his tread that
+made him seem ten years younger than on the previous day.
+
+He had requested the landlord to tell Mr. Cleon what steps he was
+about to take with the view of supplying M. Platzoff with a new
+footman. In these proceedings the mulatto acquiesced ungraciously.
+Truth to tell, he was bored by Mr. Deedes and his friendly
+officiousness, and although secretly glad that the trouble of hunting
+out a new servant had been taken off his hands, he was not a man
+willingly to acknowledge his obligations to another.
+
+Mr. Deedes set out immediately after breakfast on Thursday morning,
+and having walked to the Ferry Hotel, he took the steamer from that
+place to Newby-bridge. Mr. James Jasmin was at the landing-stage
+awaiting his arrival. After shaking hands heartily, and inquiring as
+to each other's health, the two wandered off arm in arm down one of
+the quiet country roads. Then Mr. Deedes explained to Mr. Jasmin his
+reasons for sending for him from London, and with what view he was
+desirous of introducing him into Bon Repos. The younger man listened
+attentively. When the elder one had done, he said:--
+
+"Father, this is a very pretty scheme of yours, but it seems to me
+that I am to be nothing more than a catspaw in the affair. You have
+only given me half your confidence. You must give me the whole of it
+before I can agree to act as you wish. I want to hear the whole
+history of the case, and how you came to be mixed up in it. Further--I
+want to know how much Lady Pollexfen intends to give you in case you
+succeed in getting back the Diamond, and what my share of the
+recompense is to be?"
+
+"Dear! dear! what a headstrong boy you are!" moaned Mr. Deedes. "Why
+can't you be content with what I tell you, and leave the rest to me?"
+
+The younger man made no reply in words, but turned abruptly on his
+heel and began to walk back.
+
+"James! James!" cried the old man, catching his son by the coat tails,
+"do not go off in that way. It shall be as you wish. I will tell you
+everything. You headstrong boy! Do you want to break your poor
+father's heart?"
+
+"Break your fiddlestick!" said Mr. Jasmin, irreverently. "Let us sit
+down on this green bank, and you shall tell me all about the Diamond
+while I try the quality of these cigars. I am all attention."
+
+Thus adjured, Mr. Deedes sighed deeply, wiped his forehead with his
+handkerchief, looked meditatively into his hat for a few seconds, and
+then began.
+
+Beginning with the narrative of Sergeant Nicholas, Mr. Deedes went on
+from that point to detail by what means he had discovered that M.
+Platzoff was still alive and where he was now living. Then he told of
+his coming down to Bon Repos and all that had happened to him since
+that time. He had already told his son with what view he had sent for
+him from London--that not being able to make any further headway in
+the case himself, he was desirous of introducing his dear James, in
+the guise of a servant, into Bon Repos, as an agent on whose integrity
+and cleverness he could alike depend.
+
+"But you have not yet told your dear James the amount of the
+honorarium you will be entitled to receive in case you recover the
+stolen Diamond."
+
+"What do you say to five thousand pounds?" asked Mr. Deedes, in a
+solemn whisper.
+
+The younger man opened his eyes. "Hum! A very pretty little amount,"
+he said, "but I have yet to learn what proportion of that sum will
+percolate into the pockets of this child. In other words, what is to
+be my share of the plunder?"
+
+"Plunder, my dear boy, is a strange word to make use of. Pray be more
+particular in your choice of terms. The mercenary view you take of the
+case is very distressing to my feelings. A proper recompense for your
+time and trouble it was my intention to make you; but as regards the
+five thousand pounds, I hoped to be able to fund it _in toto_, to add
+it to my little capital, and to leave it intact for those who will
+come after me. And you know very well, James, that there will only be
+you and Mirpah to divide whatever the old man may die possessed of."
+
+"But, my dear dad, you are not going to die for these five-and-twenty
+years. My present necessities are imperative: like the daughters of
+the horse-leech, they are continually asking for more."
+
+"James! James! how changed you are from the dear unselfish boy of ten
+years ago!"
+
+"And very proper too. But do let us be business-like, if you please.
+The _rôle_ of the 'heavy father' doesn't suit you at all. Keep
+sentiment out of the case, and then we shall do very well. Listen to
+my ultimatum. The day I place the Great Mogul Diamond in your hands
+you must give me a cheque for fifteen hundred pounds."
+
+"Fifteen hundred pounds!" gasped the old man. "James! James! do you
+wish to see me die in a workhouse?"
+
+"Fifteen hundred pounds. Not one penny less," reiterated Madgin,
+junior. "What do you mean by a workhouse? You will then have three
+thousand five hundred pounds to the good, and will have got the job
+done very cheaply. But there is another side to the question. Both you
+and I have been counting our chickens before they are hatched. Suppose
+I don't succeed in laying hold of the Diamond--what then? And, mind
+you, I don't think I shall succeed. To begin with--I don't half
+believe in the existence of your big Diamond. It looks to me very much
+like a hoax from beginning to end. But granting the existence of the
+stone, and that it was stolen by your Russian friend, are not the
+chances a thousand to one either that he has disposed of it long ago,
+or else that he has hidden it away in some place so safe that the
+cleverest burglar in London would be puzzled to get at it. Suppose,
+for instance, that it is deposited by him at his banker's: in that
+case, what are your expectations worth? Not a brass farthing. No, my
+dear dad, the risk of failure is too great, outweighing, as it does,
+the chances of success a thousandfold, for me to have the remotest
+hope of ever fingering the fifteen hundred pounds. I have, therefore,
+to appraise my time and services as the hero of a losing cause. I say
+the hero; for I certainly consider that I am about to play the leading
+part in the forthcoming drama--that I am the bright particular 'star'
+round which the lesser lights will all revolve. Such being the case, I
+do not consider that I am rating my services too highly when I name
+two hundred guineas as the lowest sum for which I am willing to play
+the part of James Jasmin, footman, spy, and amateur detective."
+
+Again Mr. Deedes gasped for breath. He opened his mouth, but words
+refused to come. He shook his head with a fine tragic air, and wiped
+his eyes.
+
+"Take an hour or two to consider of it," said the son, indulgently.
+"If you agree to my proposition, I shall want it put down in black and
+white, and properly signed. If you do not agree to it, I start back
+for town by this night's mail."
+
+"James, James, you are one too many for me!" said the old man,
+pathetically. "Let us go and dine."
+
+The first thing Madgin junior did after they got back to the hotel was
+to place before his father a sheet of note paper, an inkstand, and a
+pen. "Write," he said; and the old man wrote to his dictation:--
+
+
+"I, Solomon Madgin, on the part of Lady Pollexfen, of Dupley Walls, do
+hereby promise and bind myself to pay over into the hands of my son,
+James Madgin, the sum of fifteen hundred pounds (1500_l_.) on the day
+that the aforesaid James Madgin places safely in my hands the stone
+known as the Great Mogul Diamond.
+
+"Should the aforesaid James Madgin, from causes beyond his own
+control, find himself unable to obtain possession of the said Diamond,
+I, Solomon Madgin, bind myself to reimburse him in the sum of two
+hundred guineas (210_l_.) as payment in full for the time and labour
+expended by him in his search for the Great Mogul Diamond."
+
+(Signed) "Solomon Madgin.
+
+"July 21st, 18--."
+
+
+Mr. Madgin threw down the pen when he had signed his name, and
+chuckled quietly to himself. "You don't think, dear boy, that a
+foolish paper like that would be worth anything in a court of law?" he
+said, interrogatively.
+
+"As a legal document it would probably be laughed at," said Madgin
+junior. "But in another point of view I have no doubt that it would
+carry with it a certain moral weight. For instance, suppose the claim
+embodied in this paper were disputed, and I were compelled to resort
+to ulterior measures, the written promise given by you might not be
+found legally binding, but, on the other hand, neither Lady Pollexfen
+nor you would like to see that document copied _in extenso_ into all
+the London papers, nor the whole of your remarkable scheme for the
+recovery of the Great Mogul Diamond detailed by the plaintiff in open
+court, to be talked over next morning through the length and breadth
+of England. 'Extraordinary Case between a Lady of Rank and an Actor.'
+How would that read, eh?"
+
+"My dear James, let me shake hands with you," exclaimed the old man
+with emotion. "You are a most extraordinary young man. I am proud of
+you, my dear boy, I am indeed. What a pity that you adopted the stage
+as your profession! You ought to have entered the law. In the law you
+would have risen,--nothing could have kept you down."
+
+"That is as it may be," returned James. "If I am satisfied with my
+profession you have no cause to grumble. But here comes dinner."
+
+Mr. James Madgin was first low comedian at one of the transpontine
+theatres. The height of his ambition was to have the offer of an
+engagement from one of the West-end managers. Only give him the
+opportunity, and he felt sure that he could work his way with a
+cultivated audience. When a lad of sixteen he had run away from home
+with a company of strolling players, and from that time he had been a
+devoted follower of Thespis. He had roughed it patiently in the
+provinces for years, his only consolation during a long season of
+poverty and neglect arising from the conviction that he was slowly but
+surely improving himself in the difficult art he had chosen as his
+mode of earning his daily bread. When the manager of the Royal Tabard,
+then on a provincial tour, picked him out from all his brother actors,
+and offered him a metropolitan engagement, James Madgin thought
+himself on the high road to fame and fortune. Time had served to show
+him the fallacy of his expectations. He had been four years at the
+Royal Tabard, during the whole of which time he had been in receipt of
+a tolerable salary for his position--that of first low comedian; but
+fame and fortune seemed still as far from his grasp as ever. With
+opportunity given him, he had hoped one day to electrify the town. But
+that hope was now buried very deep down in his heart, and if ever
+brought out, like an "old property," to be looked at and turned about,
+its only greeting was a quiet sneer, after which it was relegated to
+the limbo whence it had been disinterred. James Madgin had given up
+the expectation of ever shining in the theatrical system as a "great
+star;" he was trying to content himself with the thought of living and
+dying a respectable mediocrity,--useful, ornamental even, in his
+proper sphere, but certainly never destined to set the Thames on fire.
+The manager of the Tabard had recently died, and at present James
+Madgin was in want of an engagement.
+
+As father and son sat together at table, you might, knowing their
+relationship to each other, have readily detected a certain likeness
+between them; but it was a likeness of expression rather than of
+features, and would scarcely have been noticed by any casual observer.
+Madgin junior was a fresh-complexioned, sprightly young fellow of six
+or seven-and-twenty, with dark, frank-looking eyes, a prominent nose,
+and thin mobile lips. He had dark-brown hair, closely cropped; and, as
+became one of his profession, he was guiltless of either beard or
+moustache. Like Mirpah, he inherited his eyes and nose from his
+mother, but in no other feature could he be said to resemble his
+beautiful sister.
+
+Father and son were very merry over dinner, and did not spare the wine
+afterwards. The old man could not sufficiently admire the shrewd
+business-like aptitude shown by his son in their recent conference.
+The latter's extraction of a written promise from his own father was
+an action that the elder man could fully appreciate; it was a stroke
+of business that touched him to the heart, and made him feel proud of
+his "dear James."
+
+"But how will you manage about waiting at table?" asked Solomon of his
+son as they strolled out together to smoke their cigars on the little
+bridge by the hotel. "I am afraid that you will betray your ignorance,
+and break down when you come to be put to the test."
+
+"Never fear; I shall pull through somehow," answered James. "I am not
+so ignorant on such matters as you may suppose. Geary used to say that
+I did the flunkey business better than any man he ever had at the
+Tabard: I have always been celebrated for my footmen. Of course I am
+quite aware that the real article is very different from its stage
+counterfeit, but I have actually been at some pains to study the genus
+in its different varieties, and to arrive at some knowledge of the
+special duties it has to perform. One of our supers had been footman
+in the family of a well-known marquis, and from him I picked up a good
+deal of useful information. Then, whenever I have been out to a swell
+dinner of any kind, I have always kept my eye on the fellows who
+waited at table. So, what with one thing and what with another, I
+don't think I shall make any very terrible blunders."
+
+"I hope not, or else Mr. Cleon will give you your _congé_, and that
+will spoil everything. Further, as regards the mulatto, I have a word
+or two to say to you. It is quite evident to me that he is the
+presiding genius at Bon Repos. If you wish to retain your situation
+you must pay court to him far more than to M. Platzoff, with whom,
+indeed, it is doubtful whether you will ever come into personal
+contact. You must therefore, my dear boy, swallow your pride for the
+time being, and take care to let the mulatto see that you regard him
+as a patron to whose kindness you hold yourself deeply indebted."
+
+"All that I can do, and more, to serve my own ends," answered the son.
+"Your words are words of wisdom, and shall live in my memory."
+
+Mr. Madgin stopped with his son till summoned by the whistle of the
+last steamer. The two bade each other an affectionate farewell. When
+next they met it would be as strangers.
+
+Mr. Cleon and the landlord were enjoying the cool of the evening and
+their cigars outside the house as Mr. Deedes walked up to the Jolly
+Fishers. He stopped for a moment to speak to them.
+
+"I had a note this morning from my friend Mr. Madgin of Dupley Walls,"
+he said, "in which that gentleman informs me that the young man, James
+Jasmin, will be with you in the course of the day after to-morrow at
+the latest. He hopes that Jasmin will suit you, and he is evidently
+much pleased that a position has been offered him in an establishment
+in every way so unexceptionable as that of Bon Repos."
+
+The mulatto's white teeth glistened in the twilight. Evidently he was
+pleased. He muttered a few words in reply. Mr. Deedes bowed
+courteously, wished him and the landlord a very good night, and
+withdrew.
+
+Late in the afternoon of the day but one following that of his visit
+to Newby-bridge, as Mr. Deedes was busy with a London newspaper three
+or four days old, the landlord ushered a young man into his room, who,
+with a bow and a carrying of the forefinger to his forehead, announced
+himself as James Jasmin from Dupley Walls.
+
+"Don't you go, landlord," said Mr. Deedes; "I may want you." Then he
+deliberately put on his gold-rimmed glasses, and proceeded to take a
+leisurely survey of the new comer, who was dressed in a neat (but not
+new) suit of black, and was standing in a respectful attitude, and
+slowly brushing his hat with one sleeve of his coat.
+
+"So you are James Jasmin from Dupley Walls, are you?" asked Mr.
+Deedes, looking him slowly down from head to feet.
+
+"Yes, sir,--I am the party, sir," answered James.
+
+"Weil, Jasmin, and how did you leave my friend Mr. Madgin? and what is
+the latest news from Dupley Walls?"
+
+"Master and family all pretty well, sir, thank you. Master has got a
+tenant for the old house, and the family will all start for the
+continent next week."
+
+"Well, Jasmin, I hope you will contrive to suit your new employer as
+well as you appear to have suited my friend. Landlord, let him have
+some dinner, and he had better perhaps wait here till Mr. Cleon comes
+down this evening."
+
+When Mr. Cleon arrived a couple of hours later Jasmin was duly
+presented to him. The mulatto scrutinized him keenly and seemed
+pleased with his appearance, which was decidedly superior to that of
+the ordinary run of Jeameses. He finished by asking him for his
+testimonials.
+
+"I have none with me, sir," answered Jasmin, discreetly emphasizing the
+_sir_. "I can only refer you to my late master, Mr. Madgin of Dupley
+Walls, who will gladly speak as to my qualifications and integrity."
+
+"That being the case I will take you for the present on the
+recommendation of Mr. Deedes, and will write Mr. Madgin in the course
+of a post or two. You can go up to Bon Repos at once, and I will
+induct you into your new duties to-morrow."
+
+Jasmin thanked Mr. Cleon respectfully and withdrew. Ten minutes later,
+with his modest valise in his hand, he set out for his new home. He
+and Mr. Deedes did not see each other again. Next day Mr. Deedes
+announced that he was summoned home by important letters. He bade the
+landlord and Cleon a friendly farewell, and left early on the
+following morning in time to catch the first train from Windermere
+going south.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+MADGIN JUNIOR'S FIRST REPORT.
+
+
+Mr. Madgin, senior, lost no time after his arrival at home before
+hastening up to Dupley Walls to see Lady Pollexfen. He had a brief
+conference with Mirpah while discussing his modest chop and glass of
+bitter ale; and he found time to read a letter which had arrived for
+him some days previously from the London diamond merchant whom he had
+employed to make inquiries as to whether any such gem as the Great
+Mogul had been offered for sale at any of the great European marts
+during the past twenty years. The letter was an assurance that no such
+stone had been in the market, nor was any such known to be in the
+hands of any private individual.
+
+Mr. Madgin took the letter with him to Dupley Walls. In her grim way
+Lady Pollexfen seemed greatly pleased to see him. She was all
+impatience to hear what news he had to tell her. But Mr. Madgin had
+his reservations; he did not deem it advisable to detail to her
+ladyship, step by step, all that he had done. Her sense of honour
+might revolt at certain things he had found it necessary to do in
+furtherance of the great object he had in view. He told her of his
+inquiries among the London diamond merchants, and read to her the
+letter he had received from one of them. Then he went on to describe
+Bon Repos and its owner from the glimpses he had had of both. For all
+such details her ladyship betrayed a curiosity that seemed as if it
+would never be satisfied. He next went on to inform her that he had
+succeeded in placing his son as footman at Bon Repos, and that
+everything now depended on the discoveries James might succeed in
+making. But nothing was said as to the false pretences and the changed
+name under which Madgin junior had entered M. Platzoff's household.
+Those were details which Mr. Madgin kept judiciously to himself. Her
+ladyship was perfectly satisfied with his report; she was more than
+satisfied--she was pleased. She was very sanguine as to the existence
+of the diamond, and also as to its retention by M. Platzoff; far more
+so, in fact, than Mr. Madgin himself was. But the latter was too
+shrewd a man of business to parade his doubts of success before a
+client who paid so liberally, so long as her hobby was ridden after
+her own fashion. Mr. Madgin's chief aim in life was to ride other
+people's hobbies, and be well paid for his jockeyship.
+
+"I am highly gratified, Mr. Madgin," said her ladyship, "by the style,
+_pleine de finesse_, in which you have so far conducted this delicate
+investigation. I will not ask you what your next step is to be. You
+know far better than I can tell you what ought to be done. I leave the
+matter with confidence in your hands."
+
+"Your ladyship is very kind," observed Mr. Madgin, deferentially. "I
+will do my best to deserve a continuance of your good opinion."
+
+"As week after week goes by, Mr. Madgin," resumed Lady Pollexfen, "the
+conviction seems to take deeper root within me that that man--that
+villain--M. Platzoff, has my son's diamond still in his possession. I
+have a sort of spiritual consciousness that such is the ease. My
+waking intuitions, my dreams by night, all point to the same end. You,
+with your cold worldly sense, may laugh at such things; we women, with
+our finer organization, know how often the truth comes to us on mystic
+wings. The diamond will yet be mine!"
+
+"What nonsense women sometimes talk," said Mr. Madgin contemptuously
+to himself, as he walked back through the park. "Who would believe
+that my lady, so sensible on most things, could talk such utter
+rubbish. But women have a way of leaping to results, and ignoring
+processes, that is simply astounding to men of common sense. The
+diamond hers, indeed! Although I have been so successful so far, there
+is as much difference between what I have done and what has yet to be
+done as there is between the simple alphabet and a mathematical
+theorem. To-morrow's post ought to bring me a letter from Bon Repos."
+
+The morrow's post did bring Mr. Madgin a letter from Bon Repos. The
+writer of it was not his son, but Cleon. It was addressed, as a matter
+of course, to Dupley Walls, of which place the mulatto had been led to
+believe Mr. Madgin was the proprietor. The note, which was couched in
+tolerable English, was simply a request to be furnished with a
+testimonial as to the character and abilities of James Jasmin, late
+footman at Dupley Walls. Mr. Madgin replied by return of post as
+under:--
+
+
+"Dupley Walls,
+
+"July 27th.
+
+"Sir,--In reply to your favour of the 25th inst., inquiring as to the
+character and respectability of James Jasmin, late a footman in my
+employ, I beg to say that I can strongly recommend him, and have much
+pleasure in so doing, for any similar employment under you. Jasmin was
+with me for several years; during the whole time I found him to be
+trustworthy, sober, and intelligent in an eminent degree. Had I not
+been reducing my establishment previous to a lengthened residence in
+the south of Europe, I should certainly have retained Jasmin in the
+position which he has occupied for so long a time with credit to
+himself and with satisfaction to me.
+
+           "I have the honour, Sir, to remain,
+
+                      "Your obedient servant,
+
+                           "Solomon Madgin.
+
+"--Cleon, Esq.,
+     Bon Repos,
+       Windermere."
+
+
+After writing and despatching the above epistle, over the composition
+of which he chuckled to himself several times, Mr. Madgin was obliged
+to wait, with what contentment was possible to him, the receipt of a
+communication from his son. But one day passed after another without
+bringing any news from Bon Repos, till Mr. Madgin grew fearful that
+some disaster had befallen both James and his scheme. At length he
+made up his mind to wait two days longer, and should no letter come
+within that time, to start at once for Windermere. Fortunately his
+anxiety was relieved and the journey rendered unnecessary by the
+receipt, next day, of a long letter from his son. It was Mirpah who
+took it from the postman's hand, and Mirpah took it to her father in
+high glee. She knew the writing and deciphered the post-mark. For once
+in his life Mr. Madgin was too agitated to read. He put his hand to
+his side, and motioned Mirpah to open the letter.
+
+"Read it," he said in a husky voice, as she was about to hand it to
+him. So Mirpah sat down near her father and read what follows:--
+
+
+     "Bon Repos,
+July, some date, but I'll be
+     hanged if I know what.
+
+"My dear Dad,--In some rustic nook reclining, Silken tresses softly
+twining, Far-off bells so faintly ringing, While we list the blackbird
+singing, Merrily his roundelay. There! I composed those lines this
+morning during the process of shaving. I don't think they are very
+bad. I put them at the beginning of my letter so as to make sure that
+you will read them, a process of which I might reasonably be doubtful
+had I left them for the fag end of my communication. Learn, sir, that
+you have a son who is a born poet!!!
+
+"But now to business.
+
+"Don't hurry over my letter, dear dad; don't run away with the idea
+that I have any grand discovery to lay before you. My epistle will be
+merely a record of trifles and commonplaces, and that simply from the
+fact that I have nothing better to write about. To me, at least, they
+seem nothing but trifles. For you they may possess an occult
+significance of which I know nothing.
+
+"In the first place. On the day following that of your departure from
+Windermere, I was duly inducted by Cleon into my new duties. They are
+few in number, and by no means difficult. So far I have contrived to
+get through them without any desperate blunder. Another thing I have
+done of which you will be pleased to hear: I have contrived to
+ingratiate myself with the mulatto, and am in high favour with him.
+You were right in your remarks; he is worth cultivation, in so far
+that he is all-powerful in our little establishment. M. Platzoff never
+interferes in the management of Bon Repos. Everything is left to
+Cleon; and whatever the mulatto may be in other respects, so far as I
+can judge he is quite worthy of the trust reposed in him. I believe
+him to be thoroughly attached to his master.
+
+"Of M. Platzoff I have very little to tell you. Even in his own house
+and among his own people he is a recluse. He has his own special
+rooms, and three-fourths of his time is spent in them. Above all
+things he dislikes to see strange faces about him, and I have been
+instructed by Cleon to keep out of his way as much as possible. Even
+the old servants, people who have been under his roof for years, let
+themselves be seen by him as seldom as need be. In person he is a
+little withered-up yellow-skinned man, as dry as a last year's pippin,
+but very keen, bright, and vivacious. He speaks such excellent English
+that he must have lived in this country for many years. One thing I
+have discovered about him, that he is a great smoker. He has a room
+set specially apart for the practice of the sacred rite to which he
+retires every day as soon as dinner is over, and from which he seldom
+emerges again till it is time to retire for the night. Cleon alone is
+privileged to enter this room. I have never yet been inside it.
+Equally forbidden ground is M. Platzoff's bedroom, and a small study
+beyond, all _en suite_.
+
+"Those who keep servants keep spies under their roof. It has been part
+of my purpose to make myself agreeable to the older domestics at Bon
+Repos, and from them I have picked up several little facts which all
+Mr. Cleon's shrewdness has not been able entirely to conceal. In this
+way I have learned that M. Platzoff is a confirmed opium-smoker. That
+once, or sometimes twice, a week he shuts himself up in his room and
+smokes himself into a sort of trance, in which he remains unconscious
+for hours. That at such times Cleon has to look after him as though he
+were a child; and that it depends entirely on the mulatto as to
+whether he ever emerges from his state of coma, or stops in it till he
+dies. The accuracy of this latter statement, however, I must beg leave
+to doubt.
+
+"Further gossip has informed me, whether truly or falsely I am not in
+a position to judge, that M. Platzoff is a refugee from his own
+country. That were he to set foot on the soil of Russia, a life-long
+banishment to Siberia would be the mildest fate that he could expect;
+and that neither in France nor in Austria would he be safe from
+arrest. The people who come as guests to Bon Repos are, so I am
+informed, in nearly every instance foreigners, and, as a natural
+consequence, they are all set down by the servants' gossip as red-hot
+republicans, thirsting for the blood of kings and aristocrats, and
+willing to put a firebrand under every throne in Europe. In fact,
+there cannot be a popular outbreak against bad government in any part
+of Europe without M. Platzoff and his friends being credited with
+having at least a finger in the pie.
+
+"All these statements and suppositions you will of course accept _cum
+grano salis_. They may have their value as serving to give you a rude
+and exaggerated idea as to what manner of man is the owner of Bon
+Repos; and it is quite possible that some elements of truth may be
+hidden in them. To me, M. Platzoff seems nothing more than a mild old
+gentleman; a little eccentric, it may be, as differing from our
+English notions in many things. Not a smiling fiend in patent boots
+and white cravat, whose secret soul is bent on murder and rapine; but
+a shy valetudinarian, whose only firebrand is a harmless fusee
+wherewith to light a pipe of fragrant Cavendish.
+
+"One permanent guest we have at Bon Repos--a guest who was here before
+my arrival, and of whose departure no signs are yet visible. That is
+why I call him permanent. His name is Ducie, and he is an ex-captain
+in the English army. He is a tall, handsome man of four or
+five-and-forty, and is a thorough gentleman both in manners and
+appearance. I like him much, and he has taken quite a fancy to me. One
+thing I can see quite plainly: that he and Cleon are quietly at
+daggers drawn. Why they should be so I cannot tell, unless it is that
+Cleon is jealous of Captain Ducie's influence over Platzoff, although
+the difference in social position of the two men ought to preclude any
+feeling of that kind. Captain Ducie might be M. Platzoff's very good
+friend without infringing in the slightest degree on the privileges of
+Cleon as his master's favourite servant. On one point I am certain:
+that the mulatto suspects Ducie of some purpose or covert scheme in
+making so long a stay at Bon Repos. He has asked me to act as a sort
+of spy on the captain's movements; to watch his comings and goings,
+his hours of getting up and going to bed, and to report to him, Cleon,
+anything that I may see in the slightest degree out of the common way.
+
+"It was not without a certain inward qualm that I accepted the
+position thrust upon me by Cleon. In accepting it I flatter myself
+that I took a common-sense view of the case. In the _petite_ drama of
+real life in which I am now acting an uneventful part, I look upon
+myself as a 'general utility' man, bound to enact any and every
+character which my manager may think proper to entrust into my hands.
+Now, you are my manager, and if it seem to me conducive to your
+interests (you being absent) that, in addition to my present
+character, I should be 'cast' for that of spy or amateur detective, I
+see no good reason why I should refuse it. So far, however, all my
+Fouché-like devices have resulted in nothing. The captain's comings
+and goings--in fact, all his movements--are of a most commonplace and
+uninteresting kind. But I have this advantage, that the character I
+have undertaken enables me to assume, with Cleon's consent, certain
+privileges such as, under other circumstances, would never have been
+granted me. Further, should I succeed in discovering anything of
+importance, it by no means follows that I should consider myself bound
+to reveal the same to Cleon. It might be greatly more to my interest
+to retain any such facts for my own use. Meanwhile, I wait and watch.
+
+"Thus you will perceive, my dear dad, that an element of interest--a
+dramatic element--is being slowly evolved out of the commonplace
+duties of my present position. This nucleus of interest may grow and
+develope into something startling; or it may die slowly out and expire
+for lack of material to feed itself upon. In any case, dear dad, you
+may expect a frequent feuilleton from
+
+"Your affectionate son,
+
+"J. M., otherwise
+
+"James Jasmin."
+
+
+"P.S.--I should not like to be a real flunkey all my life. Such a
+position is not without its advantages to men of a lazy turn, but it
+is terribly soul-subduing. Not a sign yet of the G. M. D."
+
+
+"There is nothing much in all this to tell her ladyship," said Mr.
+Madgin, as he took off his spectacles and refolded the letter. "Still,
+I do not think it by any means a discouraging report. If James's
+patience only equal his shrewdness and audacity, and if there be
+really anything to worm out, he will be sure to make himself master of
+it in the course of time. Ah! if he had only my patience, now--the
+patience of an old man who has won half his battles by playing a
+waiting game."
+
+"Is it not possible that Lady Pollexfen may want you to read the
+letter?"
+
+"It is quite possible. But James's irreverent style is hardly suited
+in parts for her ladyship's ears. You, dear child, must make an
+improved copy of the letter. Your own good taste will tell you which
+sentences require to be altered or expunged. Here and there you may
+work in a neat compliment to your father; as coming direct from James
+her ladyship will not deem it out of place--it will not sound fulsome
+in her ears, and will serve to remind her of what she too often
+forgets--that in Solomon Madgin she has a faithful steward, who ought
+to be better rewarded than he is. Write out the copy at once, my
+child, and I will take it up to Dupley Walls the first thing to-morrow
+morning."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+LOST AS SOON AS FOUND.
+
+
+Janet's life at this time was a very quiet one; but the long years she
+had spent in France had been so tame and colourless, so wanting in
+home pleasures and endearments, that, by contrast, her days at Dupley
+Walls were full of variety and of that sweet charm which springs from
+a knowledge that you are at once appreciated and loved.
+
+Janet's love for Captain George was as yet a timid callow fledgling
+that could do nothing but flutter in the nest where it was born. Very
+pretty to look at, but not to be looked at too often, for fear lest
+its hiding-place should be found out and some rude hand should take it
+unawares. Her love for Sister Agnes was of a different texture, and
+made up the real quiet happiness of her life. She felt like a plant
+that has been lifted out of the cold corner in which it has found the
+elements of a stunted growth and set to bask in a flood of gracious
+sunshine. In such cases the result is not difficult to foretell. The
+plant grows more and more beautiful under the sweet influence that has
+been brought to bear upon it, and repays the sunshine with its most
+fragrant blossoms. In such like was Janet's young life nourished and
+enriched by the love that existed between her and Sister Agnes. Her
+inner life developed itself unconsciously; her heart grew in wisdom,
+and all the finer qualities of her nature began to unfold themselves
+one by one as delicate leaves unfold themselves in the sun.
+
+Janet was kept very closely to her duties by Lady Pollexfen. Still,
+each day brought its little interregnums--odd hours, or even
+half-hours, when she was not wanted by her task-mistress--when her
+ladyship was sleeping, or lunching, or discussing private matters with
+Mr. Madgin, or what not. By far the greater part of these stolen
+moments were spent with Sister Agnes. More would have been so spent
+had not the invalid given strict injunctions that a certain portion of
+each day should be set apart by Janet for out-door exercise. Sister
+Agnes was far too weak to accompany her. As the summer days went on
+she gathered not strength but weakness, and more and more clearly she
+began to discern the end that was coming so surely upon her. But as
+yet this was a solemn secret known only to herself and to her doctor.
+By no one else within Dupley Walls was it even suspected. Outwardly
+there was no change in her from day to day, or one so slight that
+those who were in the habit of seeing her every few hours never
+perceived it.
+
+Her window had a pleasant outlook across the park. Her couch was
+wheeled close up to it, and there she lay from early in the forenoon
+till late in the afternoon, a pale spiritual-eyed lady, slowly dying,
+although neither by word nor look was there any betrayal of that fact
+to those about her. Janet, we may be sure, had no suspicion of it.
+Never a morning came but her first inquiry was as to whether Sister
+Agnes felt any better.
+
+"A little better this morning, I think, dear," Sister Agnes would
+smilingly say. "Or if not stronger, at least no weaker than I was
+yesterday." And for the time being she would feel that her statement
+was true. Later on in the day some small portion of vitality would
+seem to fade out of her which the freshness and strength of the
+following morning could not wholly replace. But Janet hoped with the
+hopefulness of youth that when the hot languorous days of summer
+should give place to the chastened heats of autumn health and strength
+would come back to Sister Agnes; hoped it devoutly, although she knew
+that should such be the case she herself would no longer be needed by
+Lady Pollexfen, but that she should have to go out into the world and
+fight for her daily bread with such small skill as there might be in
+her. Meanwhile she waited on Sister Agnes, and ministered to her
+simple needs as much as lay in her power to do so. To gather a fresh
+bouquet every morning for the room of her she loved so dearly was one
+of Janet's pleasantest occupations. Then there was always some new and
+interesting book to read aloud, with frequent interludes of music and
+conversation. Now and then an odd hour or two would be devoted to the
+science of the needle. Happy days!--days such as Janet, if she were to
+live to be a hundred years old, could never forget.
+
+Now that she had become more accustomed to Lady Pollexfen and her
+peculiar ways, the duties of her position ceased to press so heavily
+upon Janet. She found, to her surprise, that Lady Pollexfen's often
+positively cruel speeches no longer wounded her feelings so deeply as
+they did at first. The dislike and fear with which she had formerly
+regarded the strange old woman began to give place to a gentler
+feeling--to one of profound pity, and in this very pity she found an
+armour of proof against all the slights and contumely with which she
+was treated. One thing must be said in favour of Lady Pollexfen.
+However capricious she might be in her own treatment of Janet, the
+servants were given to understand that in all things Miss Holme was to
+be regarded as a young gentlewoman, and not as one of themselves.
+Sometimes her ladyship would be overcome by a fit of graciousness,
+which, however, never lasted more than a day or two at a time; but
+while it did last Janet felt that her life was a very pleasant one.
+Such occasions were exceptional. Lady Pollexfen's normal mood was one
+of mingled harshness and suspicion, just rubbed over with a sort of
+cynical _laissez faire_-ism that to a girl of Janet's disposition was
+peculiarly distasteful. Janet never answered her taunts and bitter
+speeches, but now and then a flash of scorn from her beautiful eyes,
+or a sudden rush of colour to her cheek, showed that the barbed words
+had struck home. Janet's icy meekness had often the effect of
+irritating her ladyship far more than any angry retort would have
+done. At the latter she would merely have laughed, but Janet's
+demeanour seemed suggestive of a fine though hidden contempt, and
+betrayed an indifference to her taunts that robbed her of half her
+pleasure in the utterance of them. As a consequence, there being no
+real faults to lay hold of, she sometimes accused Janet of those
+faults from which she was most free.
+
+"Who and what are you, Miss Holme," she one day asked, in her scornful
+way, "that you should give yourself the airs of a _grande dame_ when
+in my presence? Judging from your demeanour, you and not I might be
+the mistress of Dupley Walls. Pride ill becomes a dependent like
+you--a mere nobody--a person who has eaten the bread of charity from
+the day of her birth. If you had even the excuse of good looks! But
+that is quite out of the question. If you are in any way remarkable,
+it is for an incurable _gaucherie_, and for a stolidity of intellect
+that would not discredit a ploughboy."
+
+It was only the teaching and example of Sister Agnes that kept Janet
+on such occasions from breaking into open rebellion, and bidding
+farewell for ever to Dupley Walls. But the gentle counsels of the sick
+woman prevailed, and by degrees these bitter speeches lost much of
+their sting.
+
+Sometimes, when her mood was more than ordinarily spiteful, her
+ladyship would touch Janet's feelings in a different way. It was part
+of Janet's duties to assist Lady Pollexfen with the use of her arm as
+the latter walked from room to room, or on the terrace outside. As the
+two were walking staidly along, the old lady would sometimes pinch
+Janet's arm viciously between her thumb and finger. The first time
+this happened, Janet started and gave utterance to a little shriek.
+
+"What is the matter, child?" said her ladyship, stopping suddenly in
+her walk. "Have you seen a mouse, or what has frightened you? Pray try
+to keep your nerves under better control."
+
+After that first time, Janet bore the infliction in stoical silence,
+but her arm was seldom without two or three blue and black finger
+marks as evidences of the petty torture she had undergone. To Sister
+Agnes she made no mention of this fresh mode of annoyance. The
+knowledge of it would only have jarred the sick woman's feelings still
+more, and would not have spared Janet the infliction.
+
+Once every forenoon, between the hours of ten and twelve, Lady
+Pollexfen marched in her slow and stately fashion, and leaning on
+Janet's arm, from her own rooms on one side of the house to those of
+Sister Agnes on the opposite side, there to make formal inquiry as to
+the state of the latter's health. She never stayed longer than three
+or four minutes at each visit, and she never sat down. She seemed to
+regard these daily visits as a matter of duty, and as such she
+conscientiously included them in each day's programme of things to be
+done but she spent no more time over them than was absolutely
+necessary. Sometimes Janet, on returning alone to the sick woman's
+room, soon after one of these visits, would find Sister Agnes in
+tears. Those were the only occasions on which her habitual serenity
+seemed to be seriously disturbed. But at sight of Janet's loving face
+her tears soon ceased to flow.
+
+About this time Father Spiridion began to be seen more frequently at
+Dupley Walls. His visits were to Sister Agnes. Janet had contracted
+quite a liking for the kindly old man. He was a strange mixture of
+shrewdness and benignity, of prejudice and out-of-the-way knowledge.
+He never met Janet without a smile and a few words of pleasant
+greeting. She was too old now to have sweetmeats given her, so he gave
+her his blessing instead. Now, as of old, one of her greatest treats
+was to hear him play the grand old organ in the gallery.
+
+Slowly and almost imperceptibly Sister Agnes faded from day to day,
+and those most about her suspected nothing. But at daybreak one
+morning there was a ringing of bells, and Dr. Graile was sent for in
+hot haste, and by-and-by it was reported through the house that Sister
+Agnes had become suddenly worse, and that her life was in danger.
+Janet was like one distracted. She was forbidden the room, and three
+whole days and nights passed away before she saw again the face of her
+she so dearly loved. She besieged the doctor and the nurse with
+questions, but from neither of those functionaries could anything
+beyond a grave shake of the head be elicited. How she got through her
+routine of duties with Lady Pollexfen she could never afterwards
+remember. Happily during those few days her ladyship was less exacting
+than common--more silent and subdued, and given to long fits of
+absorbing self-communion.
+
+On the fourth morning a message came to Janet that she was wanted in
+Sister Agnes's room. She went tremblingly. As she put her hand on the
+door it was opened from the inside, and Lady Pollexfen came out. Janet
+had never seen such an expression on her face before. It was set and
+colourless, and full of a deep frowning trouble. The trouble sprang
+from her heart: the frown was a visible sign of her intense will--of
+her unsparing determination to trample that trouble under foot and put
+it away from her for ever. Her eyes were fixed straight before her,
+but seemed to see nothing. Her tall thin figure looked as upright and
+rigid as if east in bronze. She swept slowly past Janet without
+appearing to have seen her.
+
+Janet passed forward into the little sitting-room. She saw with an
+aching heart that this morning the sofa was without its occupant.
+After a word of warning from the nurse, she was allowed to enter the
+bedroom: then the door was closed behind her, and she and Sister Agnes
+were left alone.
+
+Janet could not repress the low cry that sprang to her lips at the
+first glimpse of the changed face before her. On it there now rested
+the unmistakable seal of death. Janet flung herself on her knees by
+the side of the bed in an agony of grief, and pressed to her lips the
+worn white hand that was extended to greet her.
+
+"My poor darling--my poor Janet!" was all that Sister Agnes could
+murmur. There were no tears in her eyes, but on her lips a smile of
+heavenly contentment.
+
+Mindful of the caution that had been given her, Janet, after a few
+minutes, contrived to subdue in some measure the outward signs of the
+grief that was rending her heart.
+
+"Come nearer," whispered Sister Agnes; "let me clasp you in my arms;
+let me feel for a little while that you are all my own. I have
+something to tell you, and not much time to tell it in. Kiss me,
+darling, and then listen to what I have to say without interrupting
+me."
+
+When Janet had nestled to the side of the sick woman, and they had
+kissed each other fondly, Sister Agnes spoke again. Her words were low
+but clear; every syllable fell distinctly on her listener's ears.
+Occasionally she had to pause for breath, but Janet never spoke a word
+till she had done.
+
+"It is a strange confession, dear Janet, that I am about to make," she
+began. "What I have now to tell you I bound myself by a solemn oath
+many years ago never to reveal till my dying day. That day has come at
+last. A few short hours will now end all. I have taken counsel with
+Father Spiridion, from whom I have no secrets. He has given me leave
+to speak. To-day is my last day on earth, and my oath is no longer
+binding. I could not have died happy had I carried my secret with me
+to the grave. But before I go any further, you must give me your
+sacred word never to reveal to Lady Pollexfen, nor indeed to any one
+else, what I am about to tell you, without having first obtained the
+sanction of Father Spiridion and Major Strickland to your taking such
+a step. Later on you will understand fully my reasons for asking for
+such a promise."
+
+Sister Agnes paused, as if waiting for a reply. But Janet could not
+speak. A long, lingering pressure of the arms was her only answer. But
+it was an answer that satisfied the dying woman. She pressed her lips
+fondly to the tear-stained, face that was nestling on her shoulder,
+and then went on with her narration.
+
+"Dearest, the time has now come for me to lift from off your life the
+weight of that mystery which has lain upon it ever since you were
+little more than a lisping child,--since you first began to feel,
+think, and understand, and to wonder why you were unlike other
+children in having no mother nor home of your own. The secret of your
+birth shall be to you a secret no longer. All these years, darling,
+you have not been without a mother's love, though you yourself might
+know it not. Janet, my darling! my daughter! it is your mother whose
+arms are round you now. Hush, sweet one! do not speak. My little
+strength will hardly serve to carry me to the end. Yes, dear one, I am
+your mother, and Lady Pollexfen is your grandmother; I am her
+ladyship's youngest and only living child. Why all these things have
+been kept from you for so long a time, why you have lived
+unacknowledged under the roof that should have held you as its
+greatest treasure, will be duly revealed to you after my death.
+Attached to this silver chain is a tiny key that will open a box which
+will be given to you by Father Spiridion. Inside that box you will
+find a paper written by me, which will tell you everything relating to
+your birth and history that it is needful for you to know. The good
+father and Major Strickland will be your counsellors; put yourself and
+your cause implicitly into their hands, and leave the rest to a Higher
+Power. Sweet one, I have now told you all that it is needful for you
+to know while I am still with you--all that my strength will allow me
+to say. We can be together but a brief while longer; let us during
+that time forget everything save that we are mother and child."
+
+"Oh, mamma, mamma!" sobbed Janet, "are we brought together after all
+these years only to part again in so short a time?"
+
+"Even so, dearest. And why should we grieve that such is the case? Our
+parting is only for a time. No conviction was ever more deeply
+impressed upon me than that is. As I stand now, earthly troubles and
+sorrows have no power to touch me. Even the knowledge that I am about
+to separate from my Janet cannot quench the solemn joy that fills my
+soul. I am so close to eternity that a few years seem to me but as one
+day. And when that brief, troubled day shall be at an end, I pray that
+my daughter and I may meet again in that heavenly rest into which all
+those shall enter who have guided their footsteps aright."
+
+But Janet could not be consoled.
+
+Later on in the day Sister Agnes sent for her again, and mother and
+daughter spent more than an hour together in sacred communion. In the
+dusk of evening Lady Pollexfen went again to her sick daughter's room.
+What passed at that last interview was known to themselves alone. Lady
+Pollexfen never again saw her daughter alive. Then Father Spiridion
+administered the last offices of his church to the dying woman. About
+nine o'clock the doctor drove up in his gig. But the time when he
+could be of service was gone by. At last mother and daughter were left
+alone together, and alone they remained all through the dark hours. At
+daybreak Father Spiridion glided into the room. The fast-sinking woman
+opened her eyes and smiled.
+
+"Play the _Jubilate_ for me," she whispered, "and open wide the
+casement."
+
+The deep voice of the organ, exultant, yearning, solemn, thrilled
+through the room; and on its wings, through the faint grey of the
+autumn morning, the soul of Sister Agnes was borne away.
+
+"Forget not that we shall meet again," were her last words.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+THE CONFESSION.
+
+
+Miss Holme, Father Spiridion, and Major Strickland were seated
+together in the little parlour of the latter on a certain morning a
+few weeks after the death of Sister Agnes. The major had been over to
+Dupley Walls to beg a holiday for Janet, and had brought her back with
+him. This was the day appointed for the opening of the box that had
+been left in the father's charge.
+
+Janet in her black dress looked pale and worn, but very lovely. She
+had been obliged in some measure to conceal the outward tokens of her
+grief for fear of exciting the suspicions of Lady Pollexfen, and the
+effort had lent a touch of sternness to her face such as it had never
+worn before. The wound in her heart was as deep as ever it had been,
+but she had learned already to control her emotions, and her demeanour
+this morning was marked by a gravity and self-restraint that made her
+seem older than her years.
+
+When they were all seated at table Father Spiridion produced the box,
+a very small affair, made of cedar and hooped with silver. Janet
+handed him the key and he proceeded to open it.
+
+"Before making an examination of the contents," he said, turning to
+Janet, "it is requisite that I should enlighten you on one or two
+points. At the request of Sister Agnes I have informed our friend,
+Major Strickland, of the relationship that existed between you and
+her; I have told him also that you are the granddaughter of Lady
+Pollexfen--two facts with which he was previously unacquainted and
+which are a source of great surprise to him. I have further informed
+him as to the particular request of Sister Agnes that he should act
+with me in this case as trustee or executor for the furtherance of
+your interests in whatsoever direction those interests may seem to
+lie. Of the contents of this box I have only a general knowledge. I
+believe the chief article in it will be found to be a statement,
+written out by Sister Agnes, in which will be given such details of
+her early life as she has deemed needful for the complete elucidation
+of the facts that she was desirous of submitting for our
+consideration. Of those details I myself have no knowledge, but with
+her relations towards you and Lady Pollexfen I was made acquainted
+several years ago under the seal of confession. With your permission
+we will now proceed to an examination of the contents of the box."
+
+Father Spiridion opened the box slowly and reverently as though he
+could not forget that it had been last closed by the fingers of the
+dead. Of the contending emotions by which Janet was agitated it would
+be vain to attempt any analysis. She sat with one hand clasped rigidly
+in the other, her large luminous eyes fixed steadfastly on Father
+Spiridion, her bosom rising and falling rather faster than common, but
+looking in other respects as cold and statuesque as though she had
+been cut out of some beautiful stone.
+
+The first article produced by Father Spiridion from the box was a
+miniature painted on ivory of an exceedingly handsome young man, with
+initials in filigree silver at the back. The next article was a large
+old-fashioned gold locket containing hair of two different colours
+worked into the form of a true-lover's knot. Then came a worn
+wedding-ring. Then a marriage-certificate the writing of which was
+faded and yellow with age. Next two or three love-letters signed with
+the same initials, E.F., as were on the back of the miniature. Last of
+all came several sheets of paper stitched together, and folded across,
+and endorsed:
+
+
+   "A Confession.
+
+   "To be read by my daughter, Janet Holme;
+    by my old and faithful friend, Major Strickland;
+    and by my father-confessor, Father Spiridion;
+    by them and by no one else."
+
+
+Each article as it was produced from the box was, after a cursory
+examination, handed over to Janet. She gazed at the portrait and the
+locket with no other sign of outward emotion than a closer knitting of
+her brows. The wedding-ring she kissed passionately. The certificate
+she read carefully twice over, and her face flushed as she read. Then
+she refolded it and put it calmly down in its place on the table. The
+love-letters were merely glanced at, and were then left for future
+consideration. The Confession itself Janet took into her hands for a
+moment. She recognised the writing at once. With a deep sigh she gave
+it back to the priest.
+
+"Read it aloud, dear Father Spiridion, if you please," she said.
+
+The old man rubbed his spectacles slowly and solemnly, as befitted the
+occasion, placed them carefully astride his nose, and after a
+preliminary cough, took up the paper and read what follows,--
+
+
+"My darling Janet,--It is not intended that these lines shall meet
+your eye till the hand that writes them is mingled with the dust from
+which it came. I have been driven to write what is here set down by
+some inward influence--by some occult power working through me, and
+giving me no rest till I promised myself that it should be done. For
+myself, I have done with the world and its active duties long ago. I
+have no longer any interest in it except in so far as I may be
+permitted to watch over your fortunes, to love you with the secret
+love of a mother who dare not acknowledge her child, and to perform
+such small works of charity among the sick and poor as my humble means
+may allow of. But as regards you, the case is altogether different.
+You are on the verge of womanhood, and life, with all its struggles
+and temptations, is still before you. To lift up and clear away the
+mystery that has enveloped your childhood and youth, to inform you
+what your real position is in that great world into which you are
+about to enter, is therefore an act of the simplest justice, and one
+which ought no longer to be delayed. Unfortunately the revelation is
+one which I am forbidden to make while I am alive, but I am advised
+that in the form of a written confession it may be received by you
+after my death. These remarks will be better understood by you
+when you shall have read the whole of what I am now about to set down.
+
+"I was born at Dupley Walls, the youngest of three children. My
+brother Charles, who died in India at the age of twenty, was two years
+older, and my sister Eudoxia, who died when she was fourteen, was six
+years older than me. When I was three years old I was sent for by my
+father's half-sister, a rich maiden lady who lived at Beckley in
+Cumberland. It was understood that I was to be regarded as her adopted
+child, and that some day the great bulk of her fortune would come to
+me. Of my father I remember next to nothing. I never saw him again
+after going to live at Beckley. I have been told, and I have reason to
+believe it true, that he disliked me, and was glad to be rid of me for
+ever. In this respect my sister fared worse than I did. My father
+disliked her almost as much as he disliked me, but poor Eudoxia had no
+rich aunt to release her from a tyranny that was driving her slowly
+into the grave.
+
+"My father, Sir John Pollexfen, was a man of strong passions; cruel
+and unbending to a degree where he could be so with impunity. He and
+my mother were ill-matched. Knowing as you do, what Lady Pollexfen is
+now, how proud, stern, and unyielding, with yet occasional capricious
+fits of kindness and generous feeling, you will readily understand how
+her married life was one of perpetual discord and soul-fretting
+unhappiness. At length she and my father separated in consequence of a
+disagreement respecting my brother, and they never saw each other
+again till my father lay dying. He carried his dislike of my mother
+beyond the grave, in ordering that his body should be kept unburied
+for twenty years; that it should remain under whatever roof my mother
+might choose to make her permanent residence during that time; and
+that my mother should visit it in person at least once a week during
+the whole period of twenty years, should her life be spared for so
+long a time.
+
+"In the seclusion of Beckley the items of news that reached us from
+Dupley Walls were few and far between. I had never been encouraged to
+write to either of my parents, and neither of them ever thought of
+writing to me. A coldly-worded letter once every six months from my
+aunt to her brother, and an equally cold reply a month or two
+afterwards, were the sole links that bound me to those I would fain
+have loved but could not. At the age of seventeen I knew or remembered
+little more of my parents than I should have done had they died on the
+day I left Dupley Walls. Had they really been dead I should have
+cherished their memory, and thought tenderly of them; but since they
+were alive, their cold neglect chilled me to the heart, and withered
+every flower of love that ought to have flourished there.
+
+"But I was not unhappy. Although my life at Beckley was one of almost
+conventual seclusion, and although my aunt was a woman of
+unsympathetic nature and ascetic disposition, the springs of youth
+were fresh within me, and who could tell what happiness the future
+might not have in store? The situation of the house was a very lonely
+one, and there being so little that was attractive to me within doors,
+it cannot be wondered at that nearly the whole of my spare time was
+spent among the glorious moors and fells by which we were shut in on
+every side. My aunt never made any objection to my long solitary
+rambles: solitude was congenial to herself, she loved best to be
+alone, and to her it seemed only natural and proper that my
+disposition in such things should bear some resemblance to her own.
+
+"It was on the occasion of one of these lonely rambles that I first
+encountered Mr. Fairfax. He had been out fishing, and was crossing the
+moor a little way behind me on his road to the nearest village, when a
+sudden thunderstorm came on. In three minutes I should have been
+drenched to the skin. Mr. Fairfax saw the emergency, hurried up,
+apologized, introduced himself, and insisted on my acceptance of his
+waterproof till the rain should have ceased. I loved him from that
+first time of seeing him. We met again and again. If a man's oaths may
+ever be trusted, he loved me in return. I listened and believed. He
+asked me to elope with him, and I told him that if he would make me
+his wife I would follow him to the end of the world. He said: 'It will
+be my dearest happiness to make you my wife, only you must give me
+your solemn promise never to reveal your marriage without having first
+obtained my permission to do so. Family reasons compel me to ask this
+sacrifice.' To make such a promise implied no sacrifice on my part; it
+was not his family but him that I was about to marry, and to my mind
+there was something very delicious in the thought of being a
+participant in so important a secret.
+
+"But why go into details?--although I could linger over this part of
+my story for years. It is sufficient to say that we eloped, and that
+we were married the same day at Whitehaven, a few miles away. A friend
+of Mr. Fairfax, named Captain Lant, gave me away. The only other
+witness to our marriage was the old pew-opener. Immediately after the
+marriage we bade farewell to Captain Lant, and went northward into
+Scotland. After a happy month spent in the Highlands we came south. I
+would fain have stopped to see the wonders of London, of which I had
+heard so much at different times, but Mr. Fairfax would only agree to
+pass one night there, after which we at once set out for the
+Continent. Avoiding Paris and all the large towns, but lingering here
+and there in some sweet country nook, we came at length to the borders
+of the Lake of Lucerne. Half a mile inland, but overlooking the lake,
+and out of the ordinary track of tourists, we found a tiny villa that
+was in want of a tenant. Mr. Fairfax took it for a term of six months,
+and there we settled down.
+
+"Before leaving Scotland my husband had allowed me to write to my
+father and also to my aunt, informing them of my marriage, but
+mentioning neither my husband's name nor the place where we were then
+living. If any answers were sent, they were to be addressed to me
+under my maiden name at one of the London district post-offices. When
+we reached town my husband sent to the office in question. There was
+only one letter for me. It was from my father, and contained, as
+enclosures, my letters to himself and to my aunt. His reply was a
+cruel one. In it he told me that he had disowned me for ever. That to
+him and to my mother I was as though I had never lived; or rather, as
+though I had died on my wedding morn. That they had put on mourning
+for me, and looked upon me in all respects as one dead. Finally, he
+forbade me ever to communicate with him again either by letter or in
+any other way.
+
+"This letter cut me to the quick. In what way it affected my husband I
+was unable to judge. He read it through in silence, and then tossed it
+contemptuously on one side; nor did he ever allude to it in any way
+again.
+
+"I had been so accustomed from childhood upward to exist on such a
+very small modicum of love that the sting implanted by my father's
+letter would have made no enduring wound had the great compensation of
+a husband's enduring love been granted me in place of that which I had
+lost. It is true that I was married, and that I had a husband who
+loved me; but his love was not of that kind on which my heart could
+rest as on a rock against which all the storms of life would beat in
+vain. Mr. Fairfax, when he married me, meant that his love should be
+of the strong and enduring kind; but by what magic at our command
+shall we change freestone into granite, or chalk into marble? How
+could I blame Mr. Fairfax for the non-possession of a quality which
+Nature had utterly denied him? Constancy was a virtue that he might
+dimly comprehend, but which he altogether failed to reduce into the
+practice of his daily life.
+
+"The pretty castle I had built on my wedding-day proved to be of the
+veriest mushroom growth. The enchanted prince who was to have dwelt
+happily in it his whole life long, refused to be confined within such
+narrow limits, and razed its golden walls to the ground with a sneer.
+
+"However much I might repine in secret for the loss of that which
+could never be mine again, I made no complaint in words. I bore all in
+proud silence: my husband never heard a single murmur from my lips.
+The decay of his love was not a matter of a day or a week. It was
+slow, gradual, sure. I sometimes found myself morbidly trying to
+calculate how long a time would elapse before its last grains would
+vanish as the million that had gone before had vanished, leaving
+nothing but cold indifference behind. There was some slight touch of
+comfort in after days in knowing that those few last grains were still
+mine on that morning when I saw him for the last time.
+
+"We had lived nearly twelve months on the banks of Lucerne. During
+that time my husband had made two journeys to London, on both
+occasions going alone, and on both occasions being away from me
+exactly fourteen days. He never said a word to me as to the nature of
+the business which called him away, and I was too proud to ask him.
+Although his wife, I knew absolutely nothing respecting his
+antecedents, his actual position in society, or what relatives he had
+and who they were. I had married him without asking to be enlightened
+on such matters, and he took care afterwards that my ignorance should
+remain undisturbed. I knew that there was some mystery in the case. He
+had told me as much as that when asking me to swear not to reveal the
+fact of our marriage to any one without his express sanction. More
+than that I did not seek to know. What did it matter to me who or what
+this man's relations were, when the love with which he had bound me to
+himself was slowly breaking link by link? But what I did secretly
+resent was the fact that all letters addressed to him were fetched by
+himself personally from the nearest post-office; and that all letters
+written by him were written furtively, as it were, so that not a line
+of their contents should be seen by me, and were likewise posted by
+himself so that no second pair of eyes should see how they were
+addressed.
+
+"At length there came a day when Mr. Fairfax received a letter which
+seemed to trouble him more than any he had ever received before during
+the brief time I had been his wife. I had no means of judging by whom
+it was written. He read it over at least twenty times, and each time
+its perusal seemed to leave him more puzzled than he had been before.
+Then he put it away, and I did not see it again. But during the two
+days that followed before he answered it there was something in his
+manner which told me how deeply that letter was centred in his
+thoughts. Two or three days still later he announced to me that he was
+going on a sketching expedition, and that he might be away for a
+couple of weeks. It was not the first time he had made a similar
+excuse for leaving me, but he had never before been away for so long a
+time. Whenever Mr. Fairfax was absent, a certain Signora Trachini, the
+widow of a poor Italian gentleman, came and kept me company at the
+villa till his return. This time also she came with her needles, and
+her immense balls of cotton, and her well-thumbed breviary. Then my
+husband, having packed up all things requisite for his expedition,
+bade me a more than ordinarily affectionate farewell, and left me. I
+watched him down the winding road that leads to the lake, a peasant
+trudging behind with his luggage. At the corner where the large orange
+tree grows, he turned and waved his hand. And that was the last that I
+ever saw of Edmund Fairfax."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+THE CONFESSION CONTINUED.
+
+
+"My husband had been about three days gone when bad weather set in.
+For several hours the lake was lashed by a wild storm of wind and
+rain. Then the rain ceased, and fitful gleams of sunshine lighted up
+the landscape, but the wind still blew in fierce troubled gusts, and
+so continued for several days. On the sixth day after my husband's
+departure I was surprised by a visit from Captain Lant, whom I had not
+seen since my wedding-day. He was very grave, but there was nothing in
+his looks from which I could augur that he was the bearer of ill news.
+He was not a man whom I could ever have liked, but I bade him welcome
+for my husband's sake. His first words told me that I had lost that
+husband for ever. Mr. Fairfax had been drowned during the storm three
+days before, while out sketching in a small boat on the Lake of
+Zurich. His body had been recovered; had been recognised by Captain
+Lant, in whose company my husband was making the excursion, but who
+had not been on the lake; and had been buried the following morning in
+the churchyard nearest the scene of the accident. In corroboration of
+his story, Captain Lant brought me my husband's vest, his purse, his
+ring, his watch, his pencil-case, and a small pocket-book, the whole
+of which articles had the appearance of having been in the water for
+several hours. I could not doubt the truth of his tale.
+
+"Captain Lant stayed with me, and did all that could be done to
+facilitate my arrangements for leaving the villa and returning to
+England. Among the luggage which my husband had not taken with him,
+was found a pocket-book containing bank-notes to the value of two
+hundred pounds. The notes were sealed up in an envelope that was
+endorsed with my name, and had these words written below: 'In case of
+any accident happening to myself.' This proof of my husband's
+affectionate forethought touched me to the quick. He might have had a
+presentiment of the terrible ending that was so soon to befall him.
+
+"Before Captain Lant and I parted we had a long conversation together.
+I told him that I knew nothing whatever of my late husband's social
+position, nor whether he had a single relative in the world. On these
+two points I was desirous that Captain Lant should afford me some
+information, but he professed to be as ignorant in the matter as I
+was. Although Mr. Fairfax and he had been very good friends, their
+friendship was only a thing of three years' growth, and of my
+husband's antecedents he could say nothing with certainty. He himself
+believed him to have been the son of a small farmer in the south of
+England, and that his money had come to him from a rich uncle. Further
+than that he professed to know nothing, and with this scanty
+information I was obliged to rest satisfied. Captain Lant and I parted
+at the diligence office. He was going forward to Rome, while all my
+desire was to get back to England.
+
+"On feeling for my notes a few minutes after landing from the steamer,
+I found that they had been stolen. I had omitted to take the numbers
+of them, and the police could do nothing to assist me. Four sovereigns
+and some loose silver was all the money I had in the world. After a
+couple of days spent at a quiet boarding-house in London, I set out
+for Dupley Walls. It was late in autumn, and the weather was
+excessively cold. There was no railway in those days, and the coach by
+which I had to travel was full inside. I travelled outside, and had to
+be lifted down at Tydsbury, so benumbed was I with the intense cold.
+No news from home had reached me during the time of my sojourn on the
+continent, and now, at the Tydsbury hotel, I heard for the first time
+that my father was dead. I heard it to all outward seeming as a
+stranger might have heard it; none there knew who I was.
+
+"I parted with my last half-crown at the hotel, and then I set out
+to walk the three miles to Dupley Walls. You must bear in mind
+that I had not been at the hall since I was four years old, and that,
+consequently, the way was entirely strange to me. I did not leave the
+little town till dusk, and the snow was falling fast by the time I got
+fairly out into the country lanes. I inquired at one or two cottages
+by the way, but I must have wandered far out of the direct road, for
+when I at length reached Dupley Walls, wet through and half dead with
+cold and fatigue, the turret clock was just striking twelve. The house
+loomed vast and dark before me, with nowhere a single ray of light to
+bid me welcome. My heart grew faint within me. I lay down under the
+portico and prayed that I might die. How long I had lain thus I cannot
+tell, when I was roused to partial consciousness by hearing a sound as
+if some metallic substance had fallen on to the flagged floor of the
+hall inside. Then I heard faint sounds as if some one were moving
+about in the darkness, and presently a dim thread of light shone from
+under the door. As I afterwards learned, my mother had been to pay her
+customary visit to the Black Room upstairs, and in returning across
+the hall had dropped her lamp to the ground. On seeing the thread of
+light I staggered to my feet, and beat with both my hands against the
+door. Then a voice cried out, 'Who are you? and what do you want?'
+
+"'My name is Helen Fairfax,' I replied, 'and I want to see Lady
+Pollexfen.'
+
+"There was a dead silence for full two minutes, then I heard the
+rustle of a silk dress, and presently the great bolts were drawn one
+by one, and then the door of my lost home was flung wide open, but not
+for me to enter. On the threshold stood a tall figure, dark and
+threatening, dark except for the white hands, gemmed with rings, one
+of which held on high a small antique lamp, and the white face full of
+wrath and menace.
+
+"'I am Lady Pollexfen,' said this phantom, in a cold, passionless
+voice. 'Once more I ask, Who are you?'
+
+"'Your daughter, madam. Helena, your unhappy child.'
+
+"'My daughter Helena died and was buried long ago. You may be her
+ghost for aught I know or care. In any case, this is no place for you:
+within this door you can never enter: under this roof you can never
+come. Go! I have no daughter. I am childless and a widow.'
+
+"'But, madam--mother, hear me! I am your daughter--I----'
+
+"'I tell you that I have no daughter,' she interrupted, in her cold,
+imperative way. 'My daughter fell into shame, and then to me she
+became as utterly dead as if the ocean were rolling over her bones:
+dead in heart and dead in memory. You are an impostor. Go!'
+
+"'Oh! mother, listen to me. I am not an impostor. I am your own
+daughter Helena. No shame clings to my name. My husband is dead, and
+this is the only place in the wide world where I can ask for shelter
+or a crust of bread.'
+
+"'Not so much as a crust of bread shall you ever have from me. You
+know my will. Go at once and never darken this door again. When you
+die, may you die uncared for and unknown! May your eyes be closed by
+the hands of strangers, and may the hands of strangers lay you in your
+grave! Go!'
+
+"Speaking thus, Lady Pollexfen faded back into the darkness. Slowly
+and resistlessly the door was closed: slowly and deliberately the
+great bolts were pushed into their sockets: the silk dress rustled;
+the ribbon of light shone for a moment under the door; then all was
+darkness and silence, and I was alone.
+
+"I crept away from the cruel door into the less cruel night. The night
+and the snow seemed like friends that would wrap me round, and tend
+me, and hush me into a sleep that should know no waking in this bitter
+world. I was like one on whose soul sits some awful nightmare which
+makes him seem, even in his own eyes, something other than himself. I
+knew that the woman who had smitten me with those cruel words was my
+mother, but I was past wondering at that, or at anything else. All
+that had befallen me was only in the common course of events, and it
+was quite right and proper that I should be walking there alone at
+that hour, with my back turned to the roof that should have sheltered
+me, and with no spot in all the wide world on which I could claim to
+lay my head. In my heart there was no bitterness; only a dull, vague
+longing for peace and rest and a deep winding-sheet of snow. There was
+something within me that would allow me neither pause nor rest till I
+had left the park of Dupley Walls behind. I had shunned the ordinary
+lodge-entrance, and had gained access to the grounds through a stile
+in a bye-lane, connected with which is a right of footpath across one
+corner of the estate. I went back by the same road, and at length
+recognised in a bewildered sort of way that I was out of the park and
+had all the world before me where to choose. A light snow was still
+falling, but the wind had died down, and with it had gone that
+intensity of cold from which I had suffered before. I dragged myself
+slowly onward, but more by a sort of instinct than by any exertion of
+will. But beyond this point I have no clear recollection of anything.
+I only know that when I woke up I found myself in the Home of the
+Sisterhood of Good Works, to which place I had been conveyed by a
+charitable carrier who had found me lying insensible in the snow.
+
+"There I lay very ill for a long time. During one part of my illness
+my mind wandered, and from certain words I let drop at that time,
+the Sisterhood were induced to write to Lady Pollexfen. She--my
+mother--came. She saw me when I was unconscious of her presence, and
+she saw me afterwards when I was slowly coming hack to life and
+health. Then was the unwritten compact entered into by which it was
+agreed that when sufficiently recovered I should go and live at Dupley
+Walls, not as the daughter of its mistress, but, under the assumed
+name of Sister Agnes, as Lady Pollexfen's paid companion and very
+humble friend.
+
+"In the meantime you, my darling Janet, had been born. I nursed you
+myself till you were six months old. Then Lady Pollexfen insisted on
+your being put out, and on my going to live at Dupley Walls. But
+previously to doing this her ladyship extorted from me a double
+promise. First, never by word, look, or deed to reveal to any one the
+fact of the relationship between herself and me. Secondly, never till
+my dying day to reveal either to you or to any one else the fact that
+you and I were mother and daughter. This double promise was not made
+by me without first consulting those whose opinions I was bound to
+revere. At that time I looked upon the promise as a penalty in part
+for the errors of my life. Since that time I have often felt inclined
+to doubt the wisdom of having made it. The penalty has been a far
+heavier one than I thought it would be. To see you, my daughter, the
+one sweet flower that has blossomed out of my withered life, to see
+you and know you as my own, and yet not to dare to claim you as such,
+surely that was too great a penance for one weak mortal to bear!
+
+"My narrative is nearly at a close. By the time you have read thus far
+you will understand why you were brought up at Miss Chinfeather's
+academy, and why you were sent from that place to Dupley Walls. Lady
+Pollexfen's strange treatment will also in part be understood by you.
+You were a disturbing element in that fossilized life to which she had
+become accustomed. Still, if I have read her character aright, you,
+her granddaughter, are far more precious in her sight than I, her
+daughter, ever was. I am very very happy to think that such is the
+case; and I have sometimes ventured to hope that after I shall be
+gone, you and she may be drawn still more closely together. That the
+withered ashes of her affections may yet derive some vital heat from
+the generous impulses of your heart. That her pride may give way
+sufficiently to induce her to place you in your proper position in the
+world, and to allow your hands, as being those of the one nearest and
+dearest to her, to tend her lovingly on that downward path which she
+and I are alike treading; and of which the end can be no great
+distance away.
+
+"I have necessarily left one of the most important points of my
+narrative till the last.
+
+"When Captain Lant told me that he knew nothing positive as to the
+antecedents of your father, but that he believed him to have been the
+son of a small farmer in the south of England, and that his money had
+been left him by a rich uncle, I believed him implicitly. But during
+the long solitary years by which my life has been marked since that
+time I have gone back in thought a thousand times to those few brief
+wedded months, and have brooded over all the circumstances by which
+they were surrounded. One result of this perpetual brooding has been
+that I have learned in my own mind to distrust the statement made by
+Captain Lant. I cannot believe that Mr. Fairfax was the son of a small
+farmer. He was a gentleman, and had about him all the signs of one who
+had been brought up among gentlefolks. From hints and odd words
+dropped by him at different times and afterwards recalled by me in
+memory, I gathered that he had travelled extensively, that he had been
+at college, that he was a member of one or two West-end clubs, that he
+had at one time kept his own hunters, and that he was personally known
+to several people of rank. In all this there was nothing that betrayed
+the farmer's son.
+
+"From this conviction--not arrived at in a day or a month--of
+Captain Lant's untruthfulness, a suspicion has gradually forced itself
+upon me--and at the present moment it is nothing more than a
+suspicion--that the entire story of Mr. Fairfax's sudden death was
+neither more nor less than a clever fabrication to get rid of a woman
+for whom he no longer cared. It may seem cruel to you, my dear Janet,
+even to hint at such a thing in connexion with a man whose memory you
+ought to revere, especially as I have not the slightest atom of
+positive proof on which to base such a suspicion. But now, if ever,
+the whole truth must be told you. About all Captain Lant's statements
+there was an air of unreality which did not strike me so forcibly at
+the time as it did afterwards, when I went back in recollection over
+the events of that terrible time. Sometimes the suspicion that I was
+nothing more than the victim of a clever lie would deepen in my mind
+till it almost assumed the proportions of a certainty. At other times
+it would wither and lose all its vivid colouring, and seem nothing
+more than the dream of a distempered brain. It might have been nothing
+more than such a dream for any action I have taken in it to prove
+either its truth or its falsity. My love for Mr. Fairfax died out long
+ago, and nothing could revivify the cold ashes. If he were not really
+dead, but merely wished to cast me off, he had attained his end, and
+so enough. Had it been possible to lure him back to my side, the wish
+to do so had long passed away. I coveted neither riches nor position:
+my life had aims that were directed otherwhere.
+
+"But with you, my daughter, the case is entirely different. You hold
+your position at Dupley Walls by a precarious tenure. Lady Pollexfen
+is a woman of capricious temper and inflexible will. She might choose
+to turn you adrift to-morrow: to cast you on the world, helpless and
+alone. On the other hand, she may have made adequate provision for you
+in the case of anything happening to herself. But this is a matter
+respecting which I am entirely ignorant, and were I to speak to her
+ladyship respecting it I should only be scouted for my pains. It is
+true that you are nearer to her in blood than any one now living (I am
+writing of myself as though I were already dead), but a woman of Lady
+Pollexfen's peculiar disposition is just as likely as not to repudiate
+any claim which might have its origin in that fact; and it must be
+borne in mind that the absolute disposal of Dupley Walls, and any
+other property she may be possessed of, is vested entirely in her own
+hands.
+
+"Under these perplexing circumstances, and with a future on which your
+foothold is so insecure, it has sometimes seemed to me that the wisest
+plan with regard to your interests would be to endeavour to unravel
+the mystery by which the antecedents and social position of your
+father are surrounded. Behind the cloud with which Mr. Fairfax chose
+to enshroud his life previously to our marriage, friends, relatives,
+fortune, happiness, may all await you, his child. So at least my
+dreams have run at times; and dreams at times come true.
+
+"The terms of my oath to Lady Pollexfen forbade me from making any
+such inquiry on my own account, but in this matter you are entirely
+unfettered. If, therefore, your friends and counsellors, Major
+Strickland and Father Spiridion, think it desirable that such an
+investigation should be made in your interests, place the matter
+unreservedly into their hands, and leave them to deal with it in
+whatever way they may think best. That its issue may prove to be for
+your welfare and happiness is your dying mother's fervent prayer.
+
+"Further, should my vague suspicion that Mr. Fairfax did not meet his
+death at the time and under the circumstances as told me by Captain
+Lant, prove to have some foundation in fact, and should the story turn
+out to have been merely an invention to get rid of a wife who had
+become burdensome to him, in such a case your father is probably still
+among the living. Should such prove to be the fact it is by no means
+unlikely that the daughter of his discarded wife might be cherished
+and welcomed by him as even the child of a happier marriage might not
+be. Should the future give you a father--one who will welcome you with
+open hand and open heart--go to him and be to him as a daughter.
+Forget your mother's wrongs: on this point I solemnly charge you: let
+the dead past bury its dead. Be dutiful and loving as a daughter ought
+to be, and leave it for a Higher Power to set straight that which is
+crooked, and to weigh the human heart aright.
+
+"You have been known all these years as Janet Holme, but your real
+name, the one by which you were baptized, is Janet Fairfax. When you
+were sent away to Miss Chinfeather's seminary it was necessary that
+your name should be enrolled in the books of that establishment. My
+mother would not allow you to go either by the name of Miss Fairfax or
+Miss Pollexfen. My own name being Helena Holme Pollexfen, my mother
+chose that you should be designated and known as Janet Holme, and in
+this, as in every other matter, her wishes were acceded to.
+
+"I need hardly tell you that the miniature contained in the box in
+which I shall deposit this paper is that of your father, nor that the
+wedding-ring which you will find near it is the one he placed on my
+finger the day he took me for his wife. The relics brought me by
+Captain Lant as proofs of your father's death I was unfortunate enough
+to lose during my journey back to England.
+
+"And now, dear Janet, my story is told."
+
+
+[The few remaining pages of Sister Agnes's confession are omitted as
+having no bearing on the history of the Great Mogul Diamond. They
+consisted of tender confidences and loving advice, and as such are
+sacred to the eyes of her for whom they were written.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+MADGIN JUNIOR'S SECOND REPORT.
+
+
+"My dear Dad,--Your letter in reply to my first report reached my
+hands a week ago. It had been lying three days at the post-office
+before I had an opportunity of fetching it. I am glad to find that you
+approve of my proceedings, and think, all things considered, that I
+have not made bad use of my time. That you are sanguine as to the
+ultimate result of my mission here shows a buoyancy of disposition on
+your part that would not discredit any dashing young blade of twenty.
+I hope that your opinion will be still further confirmed when you
+shall have read that which I have now to put down.
+
+"I may just remind you that I have now been at Bon Repos a month all
+but two days, and but for a fortunate accident the object for which I
+was sent here would still be as far from its accomplishment as on the
+day of my arrival. Even now it will rest with you to decide whether
+what I have to communicate is of any real value, or advances even by a
+single step the great end we have in view. Privately, I may tell you
+that I think the same great end all fudge. My faith is very lukewarm
+indeed as to the existence of the diamond. But even granting its
+existence, the present possessor, whoever he may be, were he aware of
+our petty machinations, would laugh them utterly to scorn.
+
+"Your reply to this would probably be that since the unknown possessor
+of the diamond is not cognizant of our machinations, we have an
+incalculable advantage on our side. To which I venture to observe that
+we are tilting at shadows--that both the diamond and its owner are
+myths, and have no foundation in fact. And now that I have made my
+protest, and so eased my mind, I will proceed with my narration of
+what has happened at Bon Repos since the date of my last report.
+
+"The fortunate accident of which I made mention a few lines above is
+neither more nor less than the serious illness of Cleon. As a
+consequence of this event I have been brought into closer relations
+with M. Platzoff. Before entering into particulars, I may just add
+that the stranger, Captain Ducie, is still here; but his visit, so
+Cleon informs me, is now drawing to a close. As I informed you before,
+Cleon, for some reason best known to himself, has contracted an
+intense dislike for the captain, and before I had been a week at Bon
+Repos he had set me to act as a spy on his actions. I have watched him
+as far as it has been possible to do so with safety. What little I
+have discovered is not worth setting down here; in fact, I may say
+that I have discovered nothing more singular in the captain's mode of
+life than would appear upon the surface of any ordinary life that was
+closely watched by some one who lacked the key to the motives with
+which its purposes were animated. I have, then, made no actual
+discovery of facts as regards Captain Ducie. But for all that, a dim
+suspicion has grown up in my mind, having birth I cannot tell how or
+when, that the captain is not without certain private designs of his
+own on M. Platzoff, although of what those designs may consist I have
+not the remotest idea. Gentlemanly man as the captain is, there is
+about him a certain faint _soupçon_ of the adventurer, and my first
+suspicion of some design on Platzoff may have had its rise in that
+fact. At all events, I have no better based facts to go upon,--nothing
+that I can set down in black and white. For my own sake more than for
+Cleon's, I have determined to still retain my watch on the captain.
+Time only can tell whether or no my doing so will in any way advance
+our interests.
+
+"Cleon had been ailing for some days, but kept going about his duties
+as usual. One morning, however, he sent for me, and told me that he
+was too ill to rise, and that such portion of his duties for the day
+as could not be postponed must be gone through by me in his stead.
+Such duties would chiefly be those arising from personal attendance on
+M. Platzoff. I could see that he was terribly put about.
+
+"'My master is such a particular man,' he said. 'I have never missed
+waiting on him a single day these twenty years. How he will like a
+stranger to go through the little indispensable offices of the toilet
+for him is more than I dare think of. However, in the present case
+there is no help for it, and you may take it as a proof of the
+confidence I have in you that I have selected you, a comparative
+stranger, to act as my deputy for the time being.'
+
+"He then gave me a silver pass-key, which he told me would open the
+whole _suite_ of private rooms occupied by M. Platzoff. He then
+impressed certain instructions on my mind, a minute observance of
+which, he said, would go some way towards reconciling M. Platzoff to
+the temporary loss of his, Cleon's, services. 'The private
+apartments,' he finished up by saying, 'consist of four rooms _en
+suite_. The first of them is the smoking-room; the second the dressing
+and bath room; the third the bedroom; lastly comes a small private
+library or sanctum, the walls lined with books, which there will be no
+need for you to enter. Take the pass-key and open the doors of the
+smoking and dressing-rooms. When you reach the bedroom give three
+separate taps at the door with the handle of the key. M. Platzoff will
+then bid you enter. But before going in you must speak to him, and
+tell him that I am ill, and that I have deputed you, with his
+permission, to act in my stead. Even then do not go in till he bids
+you enter. Were you to enter unannounced you might come to grief. M.
+Platzoff always keeps a loaded revolver close by his pillow. In the
+sudden excitement of seeing a strange face near him, he might
+unfortunately make use of it. If he bid you not to enter, come back to
+me, and I will consider what further must be done. On second thoughts,
+I will write a line of explanation for you to take with you. It may
+serve to allay any doubts M. Platzoff might feel as to the acceptance
+of your services.'
+
+"I gave him pen and ink. Not without difficulty he wrote the following
+words, which he read to me after they were written:--"
+
+
+"'I am too ill this morning to rise from my bed. Unless this were
+really the case, you may be sure that my customary services would not
+be foregone. I am obliged to send you a stranger--that is, a person
+who is a stranger to you. You may place implicit confidence in him. I
+hope to be with you again to-morrow.'
+
+"'Cleon.'"
+
+
+"The style seemed to me a strangely familiar one in which to address
+his employer. But Cleon was not a man to do anything without a motive.
+In the present case he doubtless knew thoroughly what he was about.
+
+"I took the pass-key, opened and went through the first and second
+rooms, and knocked at the door of the third. 'Enter,' said the voice
+of M. Platzoff from within. Then in the most respectful tone I could
+summon for the occasion I repeated the formula composed for me by
+Cleon. There was complete silence for full two minutes. Then M.
+Platzoff spoke. 'Come in,' he said, 'and let me see who you are.' I
+unlocked and opened the door, and then stood for a few moments on the
+threshold. The room was nearly in total darkness. The venetians were
+down and thick curtains drawn in front of them. A faint sickly odour
+came through the doorway like that of some strongly aromatic drug.
+'Come forward and open the blinds,' said a peremptory voice from the
+bed. I obeyed, and let in the cheerful daylight. 'I have a line from
+Mr. Cleon for you, sir,' I said, 'if you will kindly read it.' 'Give
+it me here,' he said. 'Cleon ill! The world must be coming to an end.
+I thought that fellow was made of cast-iron and could never get out of
+order.'
+
+"I gave him the note. He opened it and read it with the assistance of
+his eyeglass. I seized the opportunity for a quiet glance round. If I
+were an upholsterer, my dear dad, which, thank goodness, I am not, I
+would draw you up a brief inventory of the contents of M. Platzoff's
+bedroom. As circumstances are, I can only say that it was by far the
+most elegantly-fitted sleeping room which it had ever been my fortune
+to enter. In parenthesis I may remark, that in passing through the
+smoke-room I had been much struck with the richness and elegance of
+its decorations. It is fitted up in a semi-Oriental fashion, and
+except that everything in it is real and of the best quality, it looks
+more like a theatrical apartment fitted up for stage purposes than a
+real room in a country gentleman's house. Since that time I have
+become familiarized with the entire _suite_, and have picked up one or
+two ideas for interiors which may prove of service to my friend Davis
+of the Tabard.
+
+"With an impatient 'Pish!' M. Platzoff tossed the note from him as
+soon as he had mastered its contents. He cut quite a comical figure as
+he lay there, his yellow skin looking yellower than ordinary in
+contrast with the white bed-furniture. His wizened face puckered into
+a scowl of perplexity. His blue-black chin-tuft rough and out of
+shape, and his cheeks and upper lip grimy for want of a razor. A
+conical nightcap like an extinguisher on his head, and his
+_robe-de-nuit_ fal-lal'd with lace, as though he were some dainty
+bride of twenty. I could have laughed outright, but I took care to do
+nothing of the kind.
+
+"'What is your name, sir? and how long have you been at Bon Repos?'
+he demanded, with a sort of contemptuous anger in his voice.
+
+"'My name is James Jasmin, sir, at your service; and I have been here
+just one month.'
+
+"'One month! one month!' he shrieked. 'Then what, in the fiend's name,
+does Cleon mean by writing that he has implicit confidence in you? Who
+are you? and where do you come from? How can one have implicit
+confidence in a man whom one has only known for four weeks? Cleon must
+take me for a fool.'
+
+"'My name I have already told you, sir. Before coming here, I was in
+service with Mr. Madgin, of Dupley Walls.'
+
+"M. Platzoff's face turned from yellow to green as I uttered these
+words. 'From Dupley Walls, did you say?' he gasped; 'from Dupley Walls
+in Midlandshire?'
+
+"'That is the place, sir.' He evidently knew something about Dupley
+Walls, but how much or how little, was the question. I felt myself on
+the brink of an abyss. Was I about to be kicked out of Bon Repos as an
+impostor?
+
+"'But--but I have always understood that a certain Lady Pollexfen was
+the owner of Dupley Walls?'
+
+"'Lady Pollexfen is the owner, sir, but she does not live at the hall,
+but at a cottage in the park; the house has been let for several years
+back to Mr. Madgin.'
+
+"'And how long have you been in the employ of this Mr. Madgin?'
+
+"'Since I was quite a boy, sir.'
+
+"'Then why have you left him?'
+
+"'Because he is about to reside on the Continent, and is about to
+break up his English establishment.'
+
+"'Then you are acquainted with Lady Pollexfen?'
+
+"'Only from seeing her frequently, sir. I have never spoken to her.
+She is very old now, and lives a very secluded life.'
+
+"'Has she any of her children living with her?'
+
+"'I am not aware that her ladyship has any children. I have heard speak
+of one son who died in India many years ago.'
+
+"'Ah!' Then after a pause, 'Well, Mr. James Jasmin, I will accept your
+services for the present, but I hope to goodness that Cleon is not
+going to be laid up for any length of time. Ring the bell for my
+shaving-water, and reach me that dressing-gown.'
+
+"Congratulate me, my dear dad, on the dexterity with which I
+extricated myself from a difficulty that in more awkward hands might
+readily have proved fatal.
+
+"It is not requisite that I should enter into any details of the minor
+duties I had to perform for M. Platzoff. They were the ordinary duties
+of a body servant, and it is sufficient to say that I got through them
+without making any very egregious blunder. That I am still engaged in
+the same capacity is a tolerable proof that M. Platzoff is not
+dissatisfied with my services, for Cleon has not yet recovered, and
+although somewhat better, is still confined to his bed. Platzoff is
+not a difficult man to serve under. He does not treat his people like
+dogs, as I have heard of many so-called gentlemen doing. Only attend
+well to his minor comforts, and do not keep him waiting for anything,
+and you will never hear a wrong word from him.
+
+"Midnight is, with certain exceptions, M. Platzoff's fixed hour for
+going to bed. My instructions are to go every night at twelve
+precisely; to give a low treble knock on the door of the smoke-room,
+and then with the aid of the pass-key to go in. I then relieve M.
+Platzoff of his pipe, generally a large Turkish hookah; accompany him
+to his dressing-room, and take his instructions for the morning. After
+that I put out the lights, and then my duties for the day are over.
+
+"But once, sometimes twice a week, M. Platzoff is in the habit of
+smoking opium, or some drug so much like it that I cannot tell the
+difference. Whatever it may be, he smokes it till he falls into a sort
+of trance in which he is unconscious of everything going on around
+him. My instructions are that when, on entering the smoke-room at
+midnight, I find him in such a trance, not to disturb him, but to
+watch by him till I see certain signs that the trance is abating. As
+soon as these signs show themselves, I lift M. Platzoff bodily up and
+carry him to bed, and so leave him till morning. One of Cleon's most
+important duties was the charging of M. Platzoff's pipe when the
+latter was going to have one of his opium séances; but that is too
+nice an operation to be entrusted to my unskilled hands, and in the
+absence of Cleon is, I presume, gone through by the Russian himself.
+
+"My bedroom adjoins that of Cleon, and on two or three occasions it
+has happened that I have been summoned by him in the middle of the
+night to answer M. Platzoff's private bell which rings in his room. On
+answering this bell as Cleon's deputy, I have found that M. Platzoff,
+not being able to sleep, has summoned me to read to him, or to assist
+him on with his dressing-gown, and to light his pipe for him.
+
+"'But,' you will perhaps observe, 'what has all this rigmarole to do
+with the question of the Great Mogul Diamond?'
+
+"I reply that, in all probability, it has nothing whatever to do with
+it. But I think it requisite that you should know the details of my
+life at Bon Repos. Secondly, you must let me say what I have to say
+after my own fashion. And thirdly, the curious incident I have now to
+record would hardly be comprehensible to you without the preliminary
+details here given.
+
+"Last night, or rather about two o'clock this morning, came one of
+those untimely summonses of which I have made mention above. I was
+aroused by Cleon's tapping on the wall that divides our bedrooms. I
+shuffled into a few clothes, anathematizing M. Platzoff and the whole
+business as I did so, and then hurried into Cleon's room. As I
+expected, M. Platzoff's bell had just rung, and it was requisite that
+I should go and ascertain what was wanted. I took my pass-key and
+went. I passed first through the smoking-room, next through the
+dressing-room, and so into the bedroom, which, to my intense
+astonishment, I found lighted up with a pair of wax candles, although
+I had left it in utter darkness barely a couple of hours before. What
+added to my surprise was the fact that the door between the bedroom
+and the library was open, and that the latter apartment was also
+lighted up. Having noted these things with a first intuitive glance
+round, my second glance went to the bed in search of M. Platzoff. He
+was not on it. On passing round the foot of the bed, I found him lying
+with his face on the floor. I lifted him up and saw at once that he
+was in some sort of a fit. I was frightened, but did not lose my
+presence of mind. I had several times carried him out of the
+smoking-room when he was in one of his opium trances, and I had no
+difficulty now in lifting him up, and laying him on the bed. As I
+turned round with the body in my arms I saw something reflected in a
+large mirror opposite that nearly caused me to drop M. Platzoff to the
+ground. What I saw was the reflection from the lighted-up library of
+an oblong opening like a doorway in the bookshelves with which its
+walls were lined--an opening which, had it been there, I should hardly
+have missed noticing before, although I had not been above three or
+four times in the room. As soon as I had laid the unconscious Russian
+on his bed, I stole on tip-toe into the library. I had not been
+mistaken. There _was_ an opening in the wall formed by the sinking
+into a deep recess of a portion of the bookcase. In the recess thus
+formed was an iron door, now shut. As I looked, this question, without
+any consciousness on my own part, was put to me: _Can this be the
+entrance to some secret room in which the Diamond is hidden?_
+
+"I had no time to consider the probability or otherwise of this
+question. Certain sounds from the other room drew me back at once to
+the side of M. Platzoff. Signs of returning consciousness were
+visible. I propped him up with the pillows, and sprinkled water
+on his face, and chafed his hands. Slowly he came back to life.
+'Better--better--all right now,' were his first words; then
+turning his lack-lustre eyes on me, 'Who are you?' he said. 'Ah, I
+remember--Jasmin,' he continued before I could reply. Then all of a
+sudden a frightened look came into his face, and he began to fumble
+nervously in the pocket of his velvet dressing-gown. 'What have you
+lost, sir? Is it anything I can find for you?' I asked. 'No, no,' he
+replied excitedly; 'only my key--only my key. Ah! here it is,' he
+cried a moment later, as he brought into view from one of his pockets
+a curiously-shaped key, the like of which I had never seen before.
+With a great sigh of relief he sank back on his pillows.
+
+"'Go and wake up Wrigley, and tell him to give you some cognac,' he
+said next minute. 'A little brandy is all I need at present.'
+
+"I left the room to carry out his request, and was not away more than
+five minutes. As I handed him the cognac I glanced stealthily at the
+mirror. The opening in the library wall was no longer visible. The
+mirror reflected an unbroken array of shelves closely packed with
+books. M. Platzoff had evidently felt himself strong enough to get out
+of bed and fasten the secret door during my absence.
+
+"He drank a little of the brandy and then told me that I might go back
+to bed. I proffered to sit up in the next room during the remainder of
+the night. But he would not hear of it: only, he said, he would have
+the lights kept burning. I had got my hand on the door when he called
+me back. 'Look here, Jasmin,' he said. 'It is my particular wish that
+not to any one shall you say a single word respecting what has
+happened to-night. Not even to Cleon must you mention it. Obey me in
+this, and you will find that I shall not forget you. Disobey me, and I
+shall be sure to hear of it. What say you?'
+
+"Of course I promised all he asked, and he seemed tolerably easy in
+his mind when I left him. I satisfied Cleon's curiosity with a
+passable excuse, and then went back to bed.
+
+"M. Platzoff is lying later than usual this morning. Consequently I
+have an hour or two to myself, which I now employ in finishing this
+report. Write to me as soon as possible after receipt of it, and let
+me have your opinion as to what my next step ought to be. Cleon will
+be able to resume his duties in two or three days, and when that event
+takes place I shall be relegated to my old position, and shall have
+little or no personal communication with M. Platzoff.
+
+"Your affectionate Son,
+
+     "J.M."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+ROOM NUMBER FOUR IN THE CORRIDOR.
+
+
+It has now become requisite to return to Captain Ducie, whose
+proceedings have been neglected for some time past.
+
+When we left him last he had just found on the floor of his host's
+private library one of the tiny paper pellets which he had dropped
+purposely from his pocket when blindfolded the previous night. The
+finding of this pellet he looked on as proof-positive that the
+entrance to the hiding-place of the Diamond must be in that room. His
+discovery was an important one. It was his first step towards that
+goal whither all his hopes and wishes now tended. It placed him at
+once on a certain vantage ground. Still he was puzzled by the
+consideration of what his second step ought to be. For some time he
+could not see his way at all.
+
+On the pretence of wanting some particular volume from its shelves he
+contrived once and again to visit the private library while Platzoff
+was engaged elsewhere. But he could not visit it without first asking
+permission, owing to the simple fact of its door being always kept
+locked. The required permission was grudgingly granted by Platzoff--he
+could see that, also that it would not be wise to court the privilege
+too often. Indeed, it was a privilege that proved of little or no
+service, either Cleon  or Jasmin being sent with him to unlock and
+relock the door, and evidently having secret instructions not to leave
+the library so long as he was in it. While looking for the required
+volume he could merely take a few careless glances around, and such
+glances merely served to show him that the line of book-shelves was
+unbroken except by the two doorways and the fireplace. He had not,
+indeed, been sanguine enough to expect that such a casual examination
+would reveal to him the secret entrance that led to the cavern. But he
+had half hoped that by some faint sign, by some insignificant token,
+which to those not in the secret would seem utterly meaningless, he
+might be able to seize on the first hint of the wished-for clue. But
+in so far he was doomed to disappointment. No sign nor token of the
+faintest kind was visible to his quick-searching eyes.
+
+So day after day came and went till but two days remained before the
+time fixed for his departure, and it seemed to him that he might just
+as well have never heard of the existence of the Great Mogul Diamond,
+much less have been favoured with the sight of it, for any use that he
+could make of his knowledge. Turn the subject in his mind which way he
+would, in this light and in that, there seemed no egress from the
+difficulty in which he now found himself. But however much Captain
+Ducie might be inwardly chagrined he betrayed no traces of it on the
+surface. On the contrary, he had never striven more assiduously to
+make himself agreeable to his host than he did during this period of
+his deepest mortification. In every way that he could possibly think
+of he tried to make himself indispensable to Platzoff--or, if not
+indispensable, such a pleasant element, such a piquant seasoning to
+the course of everyday life at Bon Repos, that the Russian should part
+from him with regret, and nothing be wanting to secure another
+invitation to the same roof in time to come. These exertions were not
+without their reward--a more immediate reward than he had ventured to
+hope for. On the morning of the day but one before that of his
+departure, as he and Platzoff were sitting together in a summerhouse
+that overlooked the lake, said the captain, after a pause in the
+conversation:--"Three days hence, instead of having this pleasant
+scene to gaze upon at will, I shall have nothing but London's dusty
+streets with which to solace my eyes. But, in any case, I shall have a
+store of pleasant recollections to take back with me."
+
+"Is the time of your leaving me so near?" said the Russian. "In the
+pleasure of your society I had almost forgotten that such a time must
+necessarily come. But why go, _cher ami?_ Why not extend your visit
+till--till you are tired of us and our quiet life, if, indeed, you are
+not that already?"
+
+Captain Ducie shook his head. "My sojourn at Bon Repos has been a very
+pleasant one," he said, "and I am by no means tired of it. But other
+engagements claim my attention, and I am afraid that I dare not make
+any longer stay here."
+
+"See, then. You can do this to oblige an old man," said Platzoff. "Of
+late I have not been well--in fact, I have never quite got over that
+accident on the railway. My doctor down here does not seem to
+understand what ails me, and I have had some thought of going up to
+London for the sake of better advice. I cannot, however, go for three
+weeks: there are certain matters that must be attended to before I can
+leave Bon Repos even for a few days. See, now. You shall put off your
+journey for three weeks, and then we will go up to town together. _Que
+dites vous?_"
+
+Of course Captain Ducie could do nothing but accede as gracefully as
+possible to his host's request. He was, in truth, very well pleased to
+accede to it, even although the three weeks in question might do
+nothing towards the accomplishment of his secret hopes. Bon Repos was
+decidedly preferable to two stuffy rooms in a London back street,
+especially at a season of the year when the hegira of the fashionable
+world was just setting in. He would stay where he was as long as it
+was possible to do so.
+
+There had been no conversation between Ducie and Platzoff respecting
+the Diamond since the night they two had visited the cavern together.
+Ducie had tried to broach the subject once or twice, but Platzoff had
+fought so shy of it that the captain had not ventured to proceed, but
+had turned the conversation into other channels. It seemed to Ducie as
+if Platzoff half repented having taken him so fully into his
+confidence. It was evidently not his intention to enlighten him any
+further in the matter.
+
+The first week of the three had come to an end. According to custom,
+Ducie and Platzoff were sitting together on a certain evening in the
+smoke-room. It was one of the Russian's drashkil nights. He had been
+smoking hard and fast, and was already in a state of coma, lost to all
+outward influences. Ducie looked at his watch, debating within himself
+whether it would not be wiser on his part to go off to bed than to
+sit there any longer with his unconscious host. And yet it was only
+half-past ten--rather early for bed. He sat staring at his host, and
+toying absently with his watch-guard, when, clear and vivid as a shaft
+of lightning, there flashed across his brain a thought that struck him
+breathless for one moment, and the next startled him into the most
+intense life. He rose noiselessly to his feet, and stood for a full
+minute with his fingers pressed to his eyes, thinking, so it seemed to
+him, as he had never thought before.
+
+That one minute sufficed to elaborate the scheme that had come to him
+as suddenly and as startlingly as a veritable inspiration of genius.
+Had his thoughts clothed themselves in words, they would have
+expressed themselves somewhat after this fashion:--
+
+"It is only half-past ten o'clock, and Platzoff has smoked himself
+into a state of unconsciousness. On no account is he ever disturbed by
+his valet till the clock strikes twelve: ergo, I have an hour and a
+half before me safe from interruption. Platzoff always carries about
+with him a silver pass-key that will open every door in the house,
+unless it be those of the bedrooms of his guests and his servants.
+Suppose I possess myself of that pass-key for the time being, and
+penetrate by its assistance into the library. Once in the library with
+a clear hour and a half to call my own, it will be strange if I cannot
+succeed in making some discovery that will prove of service to me."
+
+The first thing to be done was to satisfy himself that Platzoff was
+really and truly unconscious. Taking him by the arm, he shook him,
+gently at first, and then with greater violence. But the Russian only
+uttered a low, inarticulate moan of protest. Then Ducie ventured to
+lift up one of his eyelids. The glazed, fishy look of the eye below it
+was sufficient to convince him that from Platzoff himself he had
+nothing to fear. Then with a light-fingered dexterity that would not
+have discredited a professional pickpocket he began to search for the
+silver key. He was not long in finding it. There it was, in a small
+inner pocket of Platzoff's vest. He drew it out with a heart that beat
+a little faster than common. So far all was well. He stood for a few
+moments with the key in his fingers, listening intently. Not a sound
+of any kind inside the house or out. As he stood thus, he bethought
+himself of a little brass bolt on the inside of the door that, opened
+into the corridor. By means of this bolt Platzoff could at will secure
+himself even against the intrusion of Cleon. This bolt Ducie now shot
+noiselessly into its socket. If Cleon--or rather Jasmin, now that
+Cleon was ill--were inadvertently to come before his proper hour, he
+would have to wait till the door was opened for him from within.
+Having thus secured himself against any possible interruption, Ducie,
+after taking a last glance at his host, walked boldly across the room,
+and applying the key, opened the inner door and passed forward into
+the dressing-room. From the dressing-room he gained access to the
+bedroom, and from thence into the library. The latter room being in
+entire darkness, he had to go back into the bedroom for a candle, two
+of which were always lighted there at dusk and kept burning till M.
+Platzoff went to bed.
+
+As already stated, the library had two doors opening into it, one that
+gave from the bedroom, and another that faced you as you went in. A
+brown curtain fixed by means of rings on a brass rod hung before this
+second door. Ducie never remembered having seen this curtain more than
+three parts drawn, leaving visible a small portion of the door. In
+fact, it appeared to him, considering the matter, as though the
+curtain were never touched, its exact position seemed so unaltered
+from time to time. His first idea on his first visit to the library
+after his sight of the Diamond, had been that through this second door
+lay the secret entrance to the cavern. But it was an idea that found
+no resting place in his mind. The Russian was not the sort of man to
+adopt such a palpable expedient as an ordinary door to mark the
+entrance to the secret staircase. Ducie had felt convinced at the time
+that behind those ponderous bookshelves lay the hidden entrance, and
+he was equally convinced of it to-night. Therefore, instead of taking
+any notice of the second door, he at once proceeded, candle in hand,
+to make an examination of the shelves.
+
+They were made of mahogany, substantial and old-fashioned, with
+elaborate flutings between each compartment, and were crowned with
+carved bosses of fruit and flowers intermixed. Every shelf was
+completely filled with books, none of which were dummies, as Captain
+Ducie took care to verify. Beginning at the right-hand corner, he went
+completely round the room. The fireplace, too, came in for an amount
+of critical examination such as had probably never been bestowed on it
+before. The window that gave light to the library was in the outer
+wall of the house, and looked on to the lawn. Like all the windows in
+M. Platzoff's private suite it was crossed and recrossed by some
+half-dozen iron bars artfully let into the woodwork so as not to be
+visible from without. The outside walls of Bon Repos were of an
+antique thickness, as though they had been built to last a thousand
+years. They were, in fact, quite thick enough to allow of a narrow
+staircase being hollowed out of their substance. It seemed, therefore,
+to Ducie just as necessary to examine carefully that side of the room
+as it did to examine the inner side.
+
+He examined both the sides and the ends, carefully, thoroughly; but
+the result of his examination was that he was exactly as wise when he
+left off as when he began. Not a crevice, not a cranny, not a
+discoloration of the wood, not the faintest trace of a secret spring
+was anywhere to be found. He tapped each panel and compartment
+separately with his knuckles, but he was unable to trace any
+difference in the dull dead sound given out by each and all. Then
+he went down on his knees to examine the carpet. It was a sombre
+velvet pile, and was nailed down at the edges with a number of small
+tin-tacks driven through it into the floor. The corners of the carpet
+had not been carefully swept, and the tiny indentations in it where it
+was pressed down by the heads of the tacks were full of dust. "Now,"
+argued Captain Ducie with himself, "if the entrance to the cavern
+where the Diamond is hidden is through an opening in the floor of this
+room, then, in order to reach that opening this carpet or a portion of
+it must be taken up. Is it likely that M. Platzoff, who by his own
+account visits his Diamond at least once a week, would take up and
+nail down his carpet every time he wishes to look on his wonderful
+gem? Further: if the carpet had been lately taken up, the indentations
+caused by the heads of the nails would not be full of dust as they are
+now. The nails now in have not been touched for a month at the least."
+
+Captain Ducie rose from his unwonted position, and put down his candle
+on the table with a muttered oath. He was baffled at every turn. He
+felt ready to knock his head against the wall, so eaten up was he with
+inward rage and mortification. But it was the cunning of the serpent
+and not the rage of the lion that was needed in his case. He flung
+himself into a chair, and in a few minutes had cooled down
+sufficiently to consider what his next step ought to be. Was any other
+step possible to him? he asked himself.
+
+And then he answered himself with a lugubrious shake of the head. Only
+one thing remained to be tried, and that was the second door. It might
+be just as well to ascertain, if it were possible to do so, on what
+part of the house it opened. He had no recollection of having seen
+such a door in his perambulations about the interior of Bon Repos.
+
+The brown curtain that hung before the second door was only half
+drawn. Captain Ducie drew it impatiently on one side and inserted his
+pass-key into the lock. It turned without difficulty, but on trying to
+push open the door, he found that it stuck and did not readily give
+way. This fact, slight as it seemed, proved to the captain that the
+road to the hiding-place of the Diamond did not lie through that door.
+The door when opened revealed a narrow and gloomy corridor thickly
+carpeted with dust. One side of this corridor was formed by a bare
+unbroken wall. On the opposite side, at intervals of a few feet, were
+four doors, all now locked. There was yet another door at the end of
+the corridor opposite to that by which Ducie had entered. This last
+door was not merely locked but was further secured by some half-dozen
+large screws drawn through the inner side and wormed deep into the
+massive posts.
+
+When he had so far completed his examination, Captain Ducie turned to
+the four side doors. In the case of these also he found his pass-key
+available. Still carrying the light in his hand, he opened the first
+door and found himself in a gloomy and shuttered bedroom which had
+evidently not been occupied for a very long time. From this an inside
+door opened into a dressing-room, also shuttered and thick with dust.
+The second door in the corridor led also into this dressing-room. The
+third door in the corridor opened into another bedroom, and the fourth
+into its adjoining dressing-room. These two latter rooms, like the
+first two, had apparently not been entered for years.
+
+To Captain Ducie it seemed plain enough why these rooms were kept
+untenanted, and the door at the extreme end of the corridor nailed up.
+M. Platzoff evidently did not choose that any one should come into too
+close proximity to the room within which lay the secret of the hidden
+door. For that the hidden door was in the library everything he had
+discovered that night went indisputably to prove. He relocked the four
+rooms, and went back to the library musing upon all he had seen. He
+was just about to shut and fasten the curtained door when a sudden
+thought struck him and caused him to pause. He stood musing for a few
+moments, his face gradually brightening the while, and then taking up
+his candle, he retraced his way to the fourth room in the corridor. He
+went in, put down his light, and succeeded after some difficulty in
+unfastening the shutters, which were strongly barred with iron. This
+done, he shut up his candle for a while in an empty wardrobe, and then
+proceeded to fold back the shutters. The night was a fine one, and the
+stars afforded him sufficient light for what he wanted to do next.
+Between the shutters and the window was a faded green blind, at
+present drawn up about three parts of the way to the top. From this
+blind depended a green cord that ended in a tassel. In this cord
+Captain Ducie tied a simple slip knot. When this was done, he unhasped
+the window, and tried whether the lower sash would work up and down
+readily and without too much noise. Finding that the window worked
+satisfactorily, he left it unfastened, and then proceeded to put back
+the shutters, which also he left unbolted. Then he took his candle out
+of its hiding-place and went back to the library, closing behind him
+both the door that led into the corridor and the curtained door, but
+leaving them both unlocked.
+
+Midnight was now close at hand, and it was necessary that he should
+get back to the smoke-room. But even with more time at his command,
+he could have done nothing more to-night. When he got back to the
+smoke-room, he found Platzoff to all appearance precisely as he had
+left him. He put back the pass-key into the pocket from which he had
+taken it, and unbolted the outer door. Ten minutes later Jasmin, the
+new valet, acting temporarily in place of Cleon, coming into the room,
+found Captain Ducie quietly smoking beside the comatose body of his
+master.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+AT THE CURTAINED DOOR.
+
+
+At an early hour next morning, in fact long before M. Platzoff was out
+of bed, Captain Ducie, cigar in hand, took a ramble round the exterior
+of Bon Repos. While exploring the four rooms on the preceding evening
+he was struck with the recollection of having on one occasion seen
+their shuttered windows from the outside. A day or two after his
+arrival at Bon Repos he had gone on an exploring expedition about the
+grounds, and it was on that occasion that he had seen them. He had
+taken them as ordinary unused chambers, and had had no further
+curiosity respecting them. He remembered now that they looked--or
+would have looked if their shutters had been open--into a very thick
+bit of shrubbery, so dense, in fact, as to be all but impenetrable,
+and looking as if it had not been pruned for years. And yet this
+very bit of shrubbery was within a few feet of the delicious little
+flower-studded lawn on to which the windows of Platzoff's private
+rooms opened; indeed, the four shut-up rooms were merely a
+continuation of the same wing in which the private rooms were situate.
+It was evident that since the four rooms had been disused the
+shrubbery outside them had been allowed to grow as thick and wild as
+it chose, as though it were Platzoff's wish to screen them as much as
+possible from observation.
+
+Captain Ducie having pierced this shrubbery, found himself within
+sight of the four windows, and saw that he had not been mistaken as to
+their position. Through the dusty panes of the last window of the four
+he could just make out the knotted cord as he had left it over night.
+He took a few quiet observations, unseen by any one, and then went
+back indoors.
+
+That night, as usual, Captain Ducie accompanied his host to the
+smoke-room. Drashkil was not introduced, and the two friends passed a
+pleasant evening, smoking and conversing. As midnight struck, Jasmin
+entered. Ducie rose, shook hands with Platzoff, bade him good night,
+and retired. Having reached his own room, he locked the door. Then he
+proceeded to dress himself in a suit of dark gray tweed. On his feet
+he put a pair of Indian moccasins. His next proceeding was to produce
+a coil of strong rope from one of his trunks, one end of which he tied
+firmly to the top bar of the fire-grate. This done, he blew out the
+candle, drew up the blind, and opened the window. The night was fine,
+but overcast, and rather cold for the time of year. Having waited till
+he heard the clock strike one, he lowered the other end of the rope
+out of the open window. After listening intently for full two minutes
+he let himself quietly down, sailor fashion, and landed safely on the
+turf below. Then he paused again to listen. That part of the grounds
+in which he now found himself was very quiet and secluded even by day,
+but neither there nor in any other part of the little demesne was
+there any likelihood that his proceedings would be observed at that
+uncanny hour. The rule at Bon Repos was that all the servants, except
+Cleon, should go to bed, and the house be finally closed, at half-past
+eleven, and the time was now ten minutes past one. Still, Captain
+Ducie was not a man to neglect any precaution that presented itself to
+his mind. Keeping well under the deeper shadow of the trees, and
+walking lightly on the soft turf, he was not long before he found
+himself close under the window with the knotted cord. He had scanned
+Platzoff's windows anxiously in passing, but they were so closely
+shuttered and curtained that it was impossible to tell whether or no
+the Russian had yet retired to rest.
+
+As previously stated, the whole of Platzoff's private rooms were on
+the ground floor: equally as a matter of course, the four rooms that
+opened out of the corridor were on the same level. A slight spring
+sufficed to place Captain Ducie on the window-sill of the room he
+wished to enter. Despite all his care, he could not prevent the
+creaking of the window as he pushed up the sash; but he trusted to the
+remoteness of Platzoff's bedroom not to be overheard. Then he pushed
+open the shutters and stepped lightly down into the dark room. He had
+noted the position of the furniture when there the previous night, and
+he knew that there was a clear course to the door. Another pause, to
+listen; then noiselessly across the floor; out by way of the door left
+unlocked last night, and so into the corridor; then forward, silent as
+a shadow, to the curtained door that opened into Platzoff's room.
+
+Captain Ducie was far from being a nervous man, yet it is quite
+certain that his pulses beat by no means so equably as on ordinary
+occasions as he stood in the dark corridor, all his senses on the
+alert, his fingers on the handle of the door; dreading to take the
+next step, which must yet be taken or all that he had hitherto done be
+rendered nugatory; and stubbornly determined in his inmost heart that
+it should be taken, happen what might. An indrawing of the breath, a
+moment's pause, a turn of the handle, and almost before he knew that
+he was there he found himself standing behind the curtain and on the
+threshold of M. Platzoff's private rooms.
+
+Not the faintest sound of any kind. Ducie stretched forth a hand, and
+little by little drew back the curtain sufficiently to enable him to
+peer into the room. It was dark and empty; but he could see that a
+faint light was burning in the bedroom beyond. Now that the curtain
+was partly drawn aside he could hear the low, regular breathing of M.
+Platzoff as that gentleman lay asleep in bed. Ducie knew what a light
+sleeper Platzoff was when not under the influence of his favourite
+drug, and he durst not venture a step beyond the spot where he was now
+standing. Indeed, there was no reason why he should so venture. There
+was nothing whatever to be gained by such a rash proceeding. It was
+Platzoff's habit (so the Russian himself had given Ducie to
+understand) to visit the Diamond once, sometimes twice a week. These
+visits generally took place during the small hours of the morning when
+Platzoff awoke, restless and uneasy, from his first sleep. All,
+therefore, that Ducie had now to do was to wait quietly for one of
+these occasions, and take advantage of it when it should come, in such
+a way as might seem advisable to him at the time.
+
+This was the reason why Captain Ducie did not stir from his
+hiding-place behind the curtain. This was the reason why he stood
+there for two full hours to-night as patiently as if he had been
+cast in bronze. But on this occasion his waiting was in vain. When he
+had been there about an hour and a half, M. Platzoff woke up, took a
+pinch of snuff, sneezed, spoke a few words aloud in some language
+which Ducie did not understand, and then addressed himself to sleep
+again. Ducie waited a full half-hour longer without stirring. Then
+he went quietly back by the way he had come, shutting behind him the
+two doors, the shutters, and the window, but leaving them all
+unfastened--indeed, he had no means of fastening them, even had he
+been so minded. He got back unseen to his own room.
+
+The same hour next night saw Captain Ducie behind the curtained door.
+He knew that several nights might elapse before Platzoff should visit
+the Diamond, and he was quite prepared to wait there night after night
+till his perseverance should be crowned with success. It was just as
+well, perhaps, that he had made up his mind to play a waiting game,
+seeing that five nights passed one after another, on no one of which
+did he fail in his watch at the curtained door, before Platzoff,
+taking counsel with himself, made up his mind to again visit the
+cavern.
+
+It was on a certain night--or rather morning, being about three
+a.m.--after one of his drashkil debauches, that the Russian so made up
+his mind. Ducie was in patient waiting. From his hiding-place behind
+the curtain he heard Platzoff get out of bed. When he saw him put on
+his dressing-gown and light a small lamp--the same that the Russian
+had made use of on the night that Ducie accompanied him--then the
+latter knew that his patience was about to be rewarded.
+
+As Platzoff advanced into the library, Ducie shrank back, and
+noiselessly closed the door that led into the corridor. He thought it
+just possible that Platzoff might lift the curtain to make sure that
+there was no one in hiding. Standing with his hand on the door, and
+listening intently, Ducie could hear Platzoff moving about the
+library. Then he heard the click of a spring or bolt, and a sound like
+the rolling back of a door or panel. Then all was still.
+
+After waiting for a couple of minutes, during which the silence
+remained unbroken, Ducie slowly opened the door, and moved forward
+till his face nearly touched the curtain. He could hear nothing save
+the beating of his own heart. Drawing the curtain an inch or two on
+one side, he peeped. The library was empty, and the secret door was
+open.
+
+For a few seconds he felt like a man in a dream; he could hardly
+believe in the reality of what he saw before him. But the thought that
+in ten or twelve minutes at the farthest M. Platzoff would be back
+again, and that now or never was his opportunity, quickened him into
+action. His object tonight was to take such accurate note of the
+position of the secret door, and the means by which it was opened and
+shut, as would enable him in time to come to find it again without
+much difficulty. Platzoff was in the cavern below, and till the sound
+of his returning footsteps could be heard Ducie knew that he was safe.
+
+Moving noiselessly forward into the room, he went down on one knee,
+and proceeded to make a careful examination of the secret door. Then
+he took a measuring-tape out of his pocket, and proceeded to measure
+the exact distance of the opening from the upper end of the room. Then
+he took his penknife and cut away a couple of threads out of the
+carpet close to the book-case, at those points precisely where the
+secret door fitted into it when shut. Not less carefully did he
+examine the spring, and the mode by which it was acted on when the
+door was closed. There was nothing very complicated about it now that
+its mechanism was laid bare. A very slight examination sufficed to
+show Ducie its method of working, and where and how it was opened from
+without.
+
+A faint noise from below warned him that his time was up. He glided
+back as noiselessly as he had come, and disappeared behind the curtain
+just as M. Platzoff began to ascend the steps that led from the
+cavern.
+
+Captain Ducie stood with his hand on the door of the corridor for a
+full hour before he ventured to take another step in retreat. Then
+judging that Platzoff, who had gone to bed again, could not fail to be
+asleep, he went quietly back by the way he had come.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+THE LITTLE PACKET FROM LONDON.
+
+
+Next morning, immediately after breakfast, Captain Ducie shut himself
+up in his own room on the plea of having several important letters to
+write. The letters resolved themselves into one note, of no great
+length, addressed to a friend in London--to the same friend, in fact,
+to whom he had applied for a translation of the stolen cryptogram.
+Although the note did not contain more than a dozen lines, Captain
+Ducie was unusually particular as to its composition. He corrected and
+re-wrote it several times before he was satisfied. Then he sealed and
+directed it, and went down into the village and posted it himself.
+Then he set himself to wait patiently for a reply.
+
+A reply came on the fifth day by post, in the shape of a tiny square
+packet. Captain Ducie received the packet from Jasmin with apparent
+indifference, but he did not open it till he was alone. The contents
+consisted of a brief note from his friend, inside which was a small
+square box made of very thin wood, which proved to be filled with some
+dark, fatty-looking substance, from which exhaled a faint, sickly
+odour that was far from pleasant. The following is a copy of the
+note:--
+
+
+"My dear Ducie,--I send you a small quantity of the drug you ask for.
+I daresay there will be enough to serve your purpose. It is an
+exceedingly powerful narcotic, and very little of it must be used at
+one time. I greatly question the advisability of using it at all in
+the case of neuralgic pains such as you describe, but I presume you
+are acting under advice.
+
+"Glad to hear that you are enjoying yourself so thoroughly. Town is
+anything but pleasant at this time of the year, and to be strolling on
+the banks of Windermere would suit much better the idiosyncrasy of
+
+     "Your perspiring but devoted friend,
+
+                           "Geo. Bexell."
+
+
+Captain Ducie, after taking one whiff at the contents of the box, put
+it carefully away under lock and key. Nothing further could be done
+till the next evening that his host might devote to drashkil-smoking.
+For that occasion he had not long to wait.
+
+Ducie was now so far familiar with the process of drashkil-smoking and
+its results, that from the first evening of Cleon's absence he had
+taken upon himself the office of preparing M. Platzoff's pipe. This he
+did in that easy good-natured way which sat so gracefully on him, and
+made his simplest acts seem better than greater things done by
+another. On the first "big smoke night" after his receipt of the tiny
+packet from London, Ducie did not fail to proffer his services as
+usual, and Platzoff was glad to accept them. This evening as he
+charged the pipe out of the little silver box in which the preparation
+was always kept, he turned his back on the Russian, who was lazily
+reclining on the low cushioned seat that ran round the room, and
+seemed longer than usual in filling it to his mind. Platzoff was not
+heeding him at all, but was gazing with half-shut eyes on the lamp, of
+Oriental workmanship, by which the room was lighted.
+
+"What strange patterns or weavings of life we often get," he said,
+speaking more to himself than to Ducie, "when we are asleep, or in a
+fever, or in any other state in which the vagaries of the brain are no
+longer controlled by the force of reason, or no longer restrained by
+what you would call the trammels of common sense. It is like looking
+at life through a kaleidoscope--a strange jumble of many-coloured
+differently shaped fragments, which yet shake themselves into curious
+and unlooked for patterns that have oftentimes a beauty and coherence
+of their own such as we seldom see in real life. Singular, too, that
+behind many of these brain-weavings which at first sight seem so
+purposeless and absurd there lurks an idea, sometimes a very subtle
+one, and wholly dissociated from any waking thought that we can
+remember. It is as if such an idea had found its way by chance into
+one's brain, and was determined to make its presence known by
+scratching a few quaint characters on the walls of its new domicile."
+
+"You fly too high for me to follow you," said Ducie, with a laugh. "It
+is time you were ballasted with a pipe of your favourite drug. You
+have a lot of cobweb fancies in your brain that want clearing away.
+To-morrow you will be as practical and business-like as any Englishman
+of us all."
+
+"I hope not. That is a level to which I do not aspire," answered
+Platzoff. "There is not sufficient _far niente_ in the character of
+you English. You lack repose, and the grace of inaction. You are the
+world's plough-horses. It is your place to do the hard work of the
+universe. Beyond that you are good for little. _Mais donnez-moi ma
+pipe, monsieur, s'il vous plait. Voilà ma consolation pour tons les
+defauts du monde_."
+
+He took the amber mouthpiece between his lips, and Ducie applied an
+allumette to the bowl. Spirals of thick white smoke, emitted from the
+Russian's mouth, began to ascend slowly in languid viperous wreaths
+towards the roof. Soon a dull drowsy film began to thicken in his eyes
+and to quench their light. Soon the muscles of his face began to
+relax, and all expression save one of vacuous self-enjoyment, to fade
+out of his features as daylight dies slowly out of a landscape at set
+of sun. Ducie had filled for himself a pipe of cavendish, and now sat
+down a yard or two removed from his host.
+
+"Ducie, _mon petit_," said Platzoff, speaking already in tones that
+were strangely unlike his own, "there is a peculiar flavour about my
+pipe to-night, such as I never remember to have experienced before. I
+cannot understand it."
+
+"Is it a flavour that you like, or one that you dislike?"
+
+"I don't altogether dislike it," answered Platzoff. "But why is it
+there at all?"
+
+"Can't say, I am sure," replied Ducie in his quiet way. "I filled your
+pipe this evening out of a fresh lot of drashkil that Cleon mixed for
+you this morning. Perhaps your taste is out of order."
+
+"Perhaps so. Anyway, the pipe is delicious, but terribly strong. I can
+talk no more. _Bon soir, ami_, and pleasant dreams."
+
+"In another ten minutes he will be as firm as a rock," murmured Ducie
+to himself. He looked at his watch. It was just eleven o'clock.
+
+Ducie sat smoking his cavendish and watching his host stealthily from
+under his thick eyebrows. He had put a very small portion of the
+contents of the little packet from London into Platzoff's pipe, and he
+was curious to see how it would act. His intention was simply to send
+Platzoff into a sounder sleep than usual, and so make sure that he
+would not be disturbed by the unexpected waking of the Russian later
+in the night. For he had made up his mind that this night of all
+others he would steal the Great Mogul Diamond. In his own thoughts he
+did not use such an ugly word as _steal_ in connexion with the affair.
+He merely remarked as it were casually to himself, that to-night he
+must appropriate the Diamond. He would retire at twelve o'clock as
+usual. Later on, when the last sitter-up could hardly fail to be
+asleep, he would come back as he had come so many times of late,
+letting himself down by means of the rope from his own window; and so,
+by way of No. 4 room and the corridor, reach M. Platzoff's private
+rooms. Once there, he could easily deprive the unconscious Russian of
+his pass-key, and now that he knew the secret of the hidden door, he
+would have no difficulty in making his way direct into the cavern;
+after which, to appropriate the Diamond would be the most natural
+thing in the world. Returning by the way he had come, he would
+carefully re-lock the cavern doors and shut the secret door. He would
+replace the pass-key in Platzoff's pocket, and retire unseen to his
+own room. Not improbably days would elapse before Platzoff again went
+to look at his Diamond, and when he should find that it was gone--what
+then? Why should he, Ducie, be suspected of stealing it any more than
+any one else who might happen to be in the house? And even granting
+the worst--that Platzoff suspected him of stealing the Diamond, even
+charged him with stealing it? For the suspicion he did not care one
+groat, and the charge was one that could not be proved. The only
+result would be a quarrel between himself and M. Platzoff, and a
+premature departure from Bon Repos. All this would not be difficult to
+bear. The fact of the Diamond being his at last would act as a salve
+for all the minor ills of life.
+
+So ran Captain Ducie's thoughts as he sat smoking and watching M.
+Platzoff's faculties fade gradually out, like those of a very old man
+who has outlived his proper age. To-night the process was swifter than
+usual, thanks to the narcotic which he had put unseen into the
+Russian's pipe. He looked on with a complacent smile, caressing his
+moustache now and again.
+
+Platzoff passed quickly from stage to stage of the process, till, in
+no long time, complete coma supervened, and he lived no longer save in
+the opium-smoker's fantastic world. The light in his pipe died out,
+the amber mouthpiece slipped from between his lips, his fingers
+relaxed their hold on the stem, his head drooped, his jaw fell
+slightly, a thin dark line marked the space between his imperfectly
+closed eyelids. He sighed gently twice, and was gone.
+
+To all these signs Captain Ducie was now well accustomed, and he
+regarded them entirely as a matter of course. He refilled his pipe,
+and lay back, with his hands clasped under his head, gazing up at the
+gaudy ceiling, and building pleasant castles in the air. As the clock
+struck twelve, Cleon or Jasmin would enter, and he himself would go to
+roost for a couple of hours. Then would come the time for his great
+enterprise.
+
+He had been thus quietly engaged with his second pipe, for a space of
+five or six minutes, when, finding that it did not draw to his mind,
+he sat up with the view of ascertaining what was the matter with it.
+In the act of opening his knife, he turned his eyes unthinkingly on M.
+Platzoff. In the face of the silent man sitting opposite to him there
+was something that caused his own face to blanch in a moment, as
+though he had seen some unmentionable horror. He rose to his feet as
+though moved by some invisible agency. Great beads of sweat burst out
+on his brow; his lips turned blue; in his eyes was a terror
+unspeakable. He staggered forward with a groan, and lifted the cold
+hand that would never grasp his again.
+
+"My God! I have killed him!"
+
+He sank on his knees, and buried his face in his hands. He knew as
+well as if twenty doctors had told him so, that M. Paul Platzoff, of
+Bon Repos, was dead. On his forehead was stamped the Great Angel's
+ineffaceable seal. Death had whispered in his ears, and he was deaf
+for ever.
+
+That one minute which Ducie spent on his knees was, perhaps, the
+bitterest of his life. What his feelings were he himself could not
+have told. "As heaven is my witness, I did not intend to do this
+thing!" he exclaimed aloud, as he rose to his feet.
+
+Then, in spite of the certainty which possessed him that Platzoff was
+beyond all earthly aid, he bared one of the Russian's arms, and
+pricked a vein with his penknife. But no blood followed, and with
+another groan Ducie let go the fingers that were already growing cold
+and stiff.
+
+His next impulse was to ring for assistance. But in the very act of
+pulling the bell-rope he paused. For a minute or two the very
+existence of such a bauble as the Great Mogul Diamond had passed
+entirely out of his thoughts. But as his fingers touched the rope,
+there came a whisper in his ear, "Now or never the Diamond must become
+yours!" He paused, and sat down for a moment to think.
+
+Platzoff was gone past recovery. Of all men living he, Ducie, was
+probably the only one to whom the existence of the Diamond was known;
+or, at least, the place where it was hidden. Dead men tell no tales.
+If he were to make the Diamond his,--and had he not a right to do so,
+having paid such a tremendous price for it--who in all the wide world
+would be one bit the wiser? If, on the contrary, he were to leave it
+untouched, it might remain undiscovered in its dark home for
+centuries, perhaps even till the end of time. Or if Platzoff's friend,
+Signor Lampini, were sufficiently instructed where to find it, of
+what use would it be to him except as a means for the propagation of
+red-hot revolutionary ideas, among which, for aught he knew to the
+contrary, assassination might be looked upon as a cardinal virtue? He
+would be worse than a fool not to seize the last chance that would
+ever be offered him of making the precious gem his own for ever.
+
+Once more he looked at his watch. It wanted exactly a quarter to
+twelve. He had fifteen clear minutes that he could call his own, and
+not one minute more. No suspicion would attach to him with regard to
+the death of Platzoff; he felt no uneasiness on that score. But after
+that event should be discovered, the pass-key would be claimed by
+Cleon, and all access to the rooms denied him. Now or never was his
+time.
+
+He hesitated no longer. With a shudder he put his hand into the dead
+man's pocket, and drew forth the silver key. It was the work of a
+moment to light the little hand-lamp, and pass forward into the
+library. Then he went down on his knees to look for the marks he had
+made on the carpet which were to point out to him the exact position
+of the secret door. Having found them, together with an almost
+invisible scratch which he had made on a particular part of the
+polished panelling of the bookcase, he was guided at once to the
+spring by which the secret door was acted upon, and in another moment
+the narrow stone staircase opened darkly at his feet. Down the stairs
+he went without pause or hesitation, carrying the lighted lamp in one
+hand and the pass-key in the other. The door at the bottom of the
+staircase opened without difficulty, and he found himself in the low
+vaulted chamber at the further end of which was the door that opened
+into the rock. The second door was passed as readily as the first,
+and before him appeared the narrow passage that led to the cavern.
+To-night the cold moist atmosphere of the place struck upon him with a
+chill that made him shudder. He had trodden that passage but once
+before, and then it was in company with the man who now lay cold and
+dead in the room above. He gave a backward glance over his shoulder
+half expecting to see the shade of Platzoff following silently in his
+footsteps. But there was nothing save his own distorted shadow dogging
+him like some monster at once ugly and grotesque. With a sneer at his
+own timidity he entered the passage in the rock. In three minutes more
+the great prize would be his.
+
+Slowly and cautiously he threaded the tortuous pathway that led to the
+heart of the hill. He reached the end of it in safety, and the cavern
+loomed dim and vast before him. He paused for a moment, and held the
+lamp high above his head. There, fixed in the middle of the sandy
+floor he could just make out the vague outlines of the Indian idol.
+The great gem that flashed in its forehead caught a ray from the
+feeble lamp held by Ducie, and flung it back intensified a
+thousandfold. Dude saw the flash; and his breath came thick and fast.
+
+He advanced one step--a second. Then, before he knew what had
+happened, he found himself stretched on the floor of the cave and in
+utter darkness. He had stumbled over some inequality in the floor, and
+had dropped his lamp in falling. Bruised and bleeding, and with a
+curse on his lips, he rose to his feet.
+
+The predicament in which he now found himself was anything but a
+pleasant one. That he could find the idol even in the dark, and make
+himself master of the Diamond, he did not doubt. But the question was,
+whether if he wandered so far away from the narrow passage by which
+access was had to the cavern, he could find it again, and so get back
+to the library before the clock struck twelve. If that could be done
+all might yet be well. If it could not be done--but he would not stop
+to argue the point. He would make a bold dash for the Diamond. He
+would risk everything in one final throw, and trust that the good
+fortune which had so far befriended his enterprise would not desert
+him in this great crisis of his fate.
+
+A few seconds sufficed for him to weave these thoughts in his brain,
+and almost before he had decided on what he would do he was advancing
+deeper into the cavern; advancing slowly, step by step, with
+outstretched arms, in the direction of the idol. By the light of his
+lamp he had noted its position, and now that he was in the dark he
+went to it nearly in a straight line. Suddenly it seemed as though the
+idol had risen noiselessly from the ground. The palm of his left hand
+smote its flat cold forehead. He lost not an instant in feeling for
+the Diamond. The moment his fingers touched it he thrilled from head
+to foot.
+
+The Diamond was held in its place in the forehead of the idol by a
+small gold clasp which worked in the hollow of the skull. It occupied
+Ducie some three or four minutes, first to find the clasp, and
+afterwards to unfasten it. At length he succeeded in opening it, and
+the Diamond dropped into his palm. His own at last!
+
+With a great sigh of relief and thankfulness he drew back his arm, and
+having first kissed the gem, he put it carefully away into a safe
+pocket, and then turned to retrace his steps. Taking the nose of the
+idol as his starting-point, he calculated that a straight line from it
+to the wall of the cavern would not land him very wide of the
+entrance. But the difficulty was to keep a straight line in the dark,
+and the darkness of the cavern was something that might almost be
+felt. But there was no time for hesitation. If midnight had not struck
+already it must be close on the point of doing so. The delay of a
+single minute might be the cause of his discovery either by Cleon or
+Jasmin. What the result would be in such a case he did not pause to
+ask himself. Instead, he set himself with his back to the face of the
+idol and stepped out slow and steady for the side of the cave.
+
+He had got about half way across the intervening space when a sound
+fell on his ear that brought him on the instant to a dead stand. It
+was the noise made by some one descending the stone stairs that led
+into the vaulted room. All had been discovered, then! The death of
+Platzoff, the secret door standing wide open, and his, Ducie's,
+disappearance. The intruder must be either Cleon or Jasmin. Was either
+of them aware of the existence of the Diamond, and that it had been
+hidden in the cave? If not, then his presence there could be easily
+excused on the score of simple curiosity to see so strange a place. If
+they knew of the existence of the Diamond, they would suspect at once
+that he had taken it, and would doubtless try to dispossess him of it
+by force. Well: they should not take it from him without taking his
+life also: on that point he was fully determined. Presently a thin ray
+of light which cut the darkness like a sword, shone through the narrow
+entrance to the cave. It broadened and brightened quickly. As it drew
+nearer, Captain Ducie advanced to meet it. His face was pale, but
+very set and determined. His eyes shone from under his heavy brows
+with a light that boded no good to the intruder whoever he might be.
+He was not left long in doubt. Another half-minute brought into view
+the gaunt figure of Cleon, newly-risen from his sick bed. With haggard
+face and bloodshot eyes, and with a snarl of the lips that showed his
+long narrow teeth, the mulatto advanced slowly and warily. In one hand
+he carried a lamp, held high above his head; in the other a gleaming
+dagger. Ducie advanced towards him haughtily, with folded arms. As
+Cleon emerged from the into the cave his eyes fell on the captain's
+tall figure. He smiled a ghastly smile, and slowly nodded his head
+twice.
+
+"Thief and villain! I have found you at last," he said. "Your heart's
+blood shall dye the floor of this cave."
+
+He set down his lamp on a projection of the rock, and deliberately
+turned back the cuffs of his coat. Captain Ducie said never a word in
+reply, but kept his eyes fixed unswervingly on Cleon, as he would have
+done on a tiger or other beast of prey. He was without a defensive
+weapon of any kind, and was obliged to trust to the quickness of his
+eye and the strength of his muscles for safety in the coming attack.
+
+Cleon's onslaught was exactly like that of a wild beast. It was a yell
+and a spring, and it would in all probability have been fatal to Ducie
+had not the latter been fully prepared for something of the kind. But
+the very instant Cleon sprang at his throat, out went Ducie's right
+arm, straight and true, like a sledge hammer, full in the mulatto's
+face. Cleon dropped before it as though he had been shot through the
+brain. But next instant he was on his feet again, his face streaked
+with blood, and now looking more ghastly than before. He said
+something Ducie could not understand, but if murder ever lurked in a
+man's eyes, it peeped out of the mulatto's at that moment. He was not
+at all daunted by his mishap: only rendered more wary. He made several
+feints and false moves before he ventured on a second dash at the
+captain. At last he thought he saw his chance, and in the twinkling of
+an eye he had struck his dagger into the captain's shoulder. He had
+aimed at the heart, but his enemy had proved too quick for him. His
+dagger pricked into Ducie's shoulder, and Ducie's arms went round him
+like a vice. The mulatto was active and sinewy, but in a close
+struggle he was no match for the great strength of his opponent. His
+arms were pinned to his sides, but his head was at liberty, and with
+his long sharp teeth he fastened on Ducie's cheek and bit it through.
+This roused Ducie's blood as half a dozen pricks with the dagger could
+not have done. Lifting Cleon bodily up, he swung him once round, and
+then dashed him with all his might against the side of the cave. The
+mulatto rebounded from the rock, and came to the floor with a dull
+heavy thud. He groaned twice, and then all was still except the heavy
+beating of Ducie's heart.
+
+Ducie bent over the body for a moment. "His fate be on his own head!"
+he muttered. Then, having made sure that the Diamond was still safe in
+his possession, he took up the lamp and passed out of the cave. He
+shut and locked the two doors behind him, and when he got back to the
+library he also closed the secret door through the bookcase. As he
+passed through the smoke-room he gave one hasty shuddering glance at
+the dead body of Platzoff. The half-open eyes seemed to fix him with a
+look of terrible reproach. He fancied that he saw the pallid lips
+move. "Ingrate!" they seemed to say, "was it for this I took thee to
+my bosom and called thee friend?"
+
+Ducie put his hand to his eyes and strode on. He found the door that
+led into the corridor half open as it had probably been left by Cleon
+in the horror of the sudden discovery he had made on entering the
+smoke-room. Ducie closed it carefully behind him. That door locked up
+a double secret, and it behoved him to get clear away from Bon Repos
+before it could be brought to light. He carried his treasure with him,
+and that would compensate for everything.
+
+The moment he turned into the corridor to go towards his own rooms he
+began to feel faint from loss of blood. The first great excitement was
+over, and now his wounds began to make themselves felt. Great heavens!
+if he were to lose his senses at such a critical moment and be found
+by the servants! They would perceive that he was wounded, and would
+probably strip him, and then how would it fare with the Diamond? Just
+as this thought was in his mind Jasmin came suddenly round a corner
+and started back in alarm at sight of his pale face all streaked with
+blood.
+
+"Sir--Captain Ducie--what is the matter? Are you wounded?" he cried.
+
+"A slight accident--a mere scratch," gasped the captain. "Lend me your
+arm as far as my room, and--and don't leave me yet awhile."
+
+
+The first message sent by the telegraph clerk at Oxenholme station
+when he went on duty next morning, was as under: "From J. M.,
+Windermere, to Solomon Madgin, Tydsbury, Midlandshire.
+
+"Address no more letters to B.R. till you hear from me again. A grand
+fracas. The Captain and I are on our way to town. Unless I am greatly
+mistaken, we carry the G.M.D. with us."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+MADGIN JUNIOR'S THIRD REPORT.
+
+
+     "Button's Hotel.
+        "St. Helier, Jersey.
+
+
+"My dear Dad,--My telegram from Oxenholme, followed by my brief note
+from London, will have prepared you in part for the strange events
+that have happened since the date of my last report. I now purpose
+giving you, as succinctly as possible, a narrative of those events
+from the point where my last report broke off. You will then
+understand how it happens that my present communication is dated from
+this pleasant little isle.
+
+"After the conclusion of Report No. 2 nothing of consequence happened
+for a few days--nothing that would allow me to imagine that the
+discovery of the secret door in the library would further our views in
+any way. M. Platzoff was confined to his bed for a couple of days
+after the fit in which I found him. After that time he got up as
+usual, and everything at Bon Repos went on as before. Captain Ducie
+was still with us. I understood from Cleon that he had been invited by
+M. Platzoff to extend his visit. The health of Cleon kept improving
+from day to day, and about a week after M. Platzoff's sudden attack he
+announced to me that from that date he would resume those personal
+duties about his master which during his illness had been delegated to
+me. Then farewell to my last chance of ever seeing the Great Diamond,
+I said to myself when he told me.
+
+"And truly, at that moment I despaired utterly of ever advancing one
+step nearer the object that had brought me to Bon Repos. I was on the
+point of giving notice there and then of my intention to leave, and of
+writing you by the next post to inform you of what I had done.
+Besides, I was getting tired of my occupation--tired of Bon Repos and
+all in it. I began to hanker after my old way of life, in which a
+fictitious character is never assumed for more than four hours at a
+stretch. I had been acting the part of valet for more weeks than I
+cared to count, and I was heartily tired of the assumption. However,
+on second thoughts, I determined to delay giving notice for another
+week. I would wait seven more days, and if nothing turned up during
+that time to further our views, I decided that I would throw up the
+situation without further delay and go back to town. Never had the
+hunt after the Great Mogul Diamond seemed to me a more wildgoose
+affair than it did at that moment.
+
+"It was in the afternoon that Cleon spoke to me. The evening was to be
+devoted by M. Platzoff to drashkil-smoking--Cleon had been preparing a
+fresh supply of the drug that very morning--and Cleon's resumption of
+his duties was to commence at midnight, at which hour M. Platzoff
+would doubtless require carrying to bed, and the mulatto decided that
+that duty should be performed by himself.
+
+"Cleon had not yet felt himself well enough to resume his custom,
+interrupted by illness, of going out every evening to smoke a pipe
+with the landlord of the village inn. (Both the house and the landlord
+will be well remembered by you.) This evening he had invited me into
+his little sitting-room to smoke a cigar and join him over a glass of
+grog--a most unusual condescension on his part. We were still sitting
+over our tumblers when the timepiece chimed twelve. Cleon rose at
+once. 'Had you not better let me go to-night?' I said. 'You are far
+from strong yet, and M. Platzoff will most probably want carrying to
+bed.'
+
+"'No no,' he said, 'I will go myself. I feel quite equal to the task.
+Await my return here, and we will have one more weed before parting
+for the night.'
+
+"He went, and I lighted a fresh cigar. I think he must have been gone
+about ten minutes when he came back all in a hurry. His face was
+livid, but whether from fear or some other emotion I could not tell. I
+started to my feet and was about to question him, but he motioned me
+back. 'Ask no questions,' he said, 'and do not stir from this place
+till I come back--unless,' he added as a second thought, 'unless you
+hear M. Platzoff's bell. In that case come without a moment's delay.'
+
+"I saw he was in no mood to be questioned, so I sat down quietly and
+resumed my cigar. From a number of weapons that hung on the wall over
+his mantelpiece he selected a long and ugly-looking Malay creese. He
+felt its point with a grim smile, whispering something to himself as
+he did so, and then he hurriedly left the room.
+
+"Now, it was all very well for Master Cleon to tell me to sit still
+and await his return. I had no intention of doing anything of the
+kind. I had a deeper interest in all that happened under that roof
+than he suspected.
+
+"When he had been gone about a minute and a half, I laid down my cigar
+and quietly followed him down the long corridor leading to M.
+Platzoff's rooms. I had on the thin slippers which I usually wore in
+the house. M. Platzoff liked all the arrangements at Bon Repos to be
+as noiseless as possible.
+
+"The corridor ends in a landing: on this landing are several doors
+that open into different rooms, one of them being the door that gives
+access to M. Platzoff's private suite. The corridor and the landing
+were both in darkness.
+
+"Much to my astonishment, on approaching M. Platzoff's door I saw by
+the stream of light that poured from it that it was only partially
+closed. I drew near on tiptoe and listened, ready at the slightest
+sound of an approaching footstep to vanish into one of the empty rooms
+on the opposite side of the landing. But no sound of any kind broke
+the death-like silence. I listened till I was tired of listening, and
+then I ventured to push open the door a few inches further, and look
+in. The room was lighted as usual, and was filled with the faint,
+sickly odour of drashkil, to which by this time I had become
+accustomed. But Cleon was not there. There, however, was M. Platzoff,
+not half sitting, half reclining, on the divan as was his custom when
+in one of his opium sleeps, but stretched out at full length on the
+cushions.
+
+"He lay with his eyes half open, and at the first glance it seemed to
+me that he was watching me in that quiet, cynical way that I knew so
+well, and I started like one suddenly detected in the commission of
+some great offence. A second glance showed me that in those half-open
+eyes there was no light nor knowledge of earthly things. I thought
+that he had been taken with another fit, and without further
+hesitation I pushed open the door and went in.
+
+"I took the inanimate body up in my arms, and was about to carry it to
+bed, when something in the fall of the limbs and the expression of the
+face struck a sudden chill to my heart, and I laid it gently down
+again. I sought for the pulse, but could not find it; I laid my hand
+on the heart, but it was still.
+
+"M. Platzoff was stone-dead!
+
+"How or by what means his fate had come thus suddenly upon him I had no
+means of judging. Poor Platzoff! At that moment I could not help
+feeling sorry for him. But presently came the thought--where is Cleon?
+and for what purpose did he fetch that dagger from his room? There
+were no tokens of murder about the dead man: he seemed to have died as
+calmly as an infant might have done.
+
+"I pressed forward into the bedroom, which, as usual, was lighted up by
+a pair of wax candles. I took one of these and went onward into the
+library. I could scarcely believe my eyes  when I saw the secret door
+in the book-case standing wide open. It opened on to a steep and
+narrow staircase, at the bottom of which was another door, also open.
+Further than that the faint light of my candle would not penetrate.
+
+"'Does this staircase lead to the hiding-place of the Diamond?' was the
+question that flashed across my mind. Now or never was the time to
+answer it. But to venture down that dismal staircase into the unknown
+depths beyond was a task I did not care for. Suppose that, while I
+were down there, someone were to come and lock me up. I might scream
+and call for help till I died, yet never be heard by living man.
+Besides, after all, the Diamond might not be hidden there. The game
+was not worth the candle.
+
+"I turned to go back, but at that moment the silence was shivered by a
+yell so utterly fiendish and unlike anything I had ever heard before,
+that my blood chilled at the sound, and all the stories that I had
+ever heard or read of Indian cunning and ferocity came rushing into my
+mind.
+
+"I stood motionless, with the candle still in my hand, listening for a
+repetition of the terrible cry. But none came. Instead, in a little
+while I heard the noise of approaching footsteps. Then indeed I fled.
+Anxious as I was to know the meaning of what I had seen and heard, I
+had no desire to risk my life for the sake of gratifying my curiosity.
+
+"Leaving my candle where I had found it, I passed quickly through the
+suite of rooms, and did not halt till I reached the dark corridor
+outside. Here I waited and listened till I heard the footsteps coming
+through the rooms. Then I turned up the corridor, waited behind the
+first angle, and watched to see who should come out of the smoke-room.
+I expected to see none other than Cleon. Instead, I saw Ducie come
+staggering out, carrying a small lighted lamp in his hand, and having
+his face all smeared with blood. Some weird tragedy had just been
+enacted, and I should not have been my father's son if I had not
+wanted to get to the bottom of it.
+
+"I retired a few paces, and then, calculating my time, I stepped
+briskly forward as Ducie came up the corridor. We met face to face at
+the corner, and we both started back in mutual surprise. There was a
+wildness in the captain's eyes, and he looked as if he were about to
+faint.
+
+"'Sir! Captain Ducie!' I exclaimed, 'what is the matter? Are you
+wounded?'
+
+"'A slight accident, that's all: a mere scratch,' he gasped out. 'Lend
+me your arm as far as my room.'
+
+"I assisted him to his dressing-room, and once there, he sank down on
+the sofa with a deep sigh.
+
+"'Get me some brandy,' he whispered. 'Before you go, let me tell you,'
+he added, 'that should I faint you must on no account summon any
+further assistance, neither must you remove any of my clothes. Bear
+those two points in mind, and also that you are not to leave me, nor
+let anyone else approach me till I come round. Now go, and get back as
+quickly as possible.'
+
+"I had only to go as far as Cleon's room for what I wanted. I found the
+room just as I had left it. Cleon had not yet returned. 'Would he ever
+return?' was the question I now asked myself. Had there not been some
+terrible encounter between him and Ducie, and had not the mulatto had
+the worst of it? Yet why should there be any encounter between the
+two, if it were not to determine which of them should obtain
+possession of the Diamond?
+
+"That the death of M. Platzoff was known to both of them could not be
+doubted. Supposing, then, that the existence of the Diamond, and the
+place where it was hidden, were equally well known, what more likely
+than that there should be a struggle between the two, ending fatally
+for one of them, for possession of the Diamond? Supposing Captain
+Ducie to have been the victor in such an encounter, was it at all
+unlikely that the Diamond was now about his person? Such a supposition
+would account reasonably enough for the curious injunctions he laid
+upon me just before I quitted his room.
+
+"Full of this great thought, I hurried back with the brandy. True
+enough, the captain had fainted. He lay at full length on the sofa,
+with not an atom of sense left in him. But the singularity of the
+thing lay in the fact that Captain Ducie's right hand was deeply
+buried inside his vest, and there grasped some small substance--I
+could not tell what--with a tenacity that could not have been
+surpassed had his hand not been opened for twenty years. So much I
+discovered before I proceeded to apply any of the remedies usual on
+such occasions. After a few minutes he came to his senses sufficiently
+to know where he was and what I was about. But before his mind had
+become quite clear on all points, he withdrew his clenched hand from
+his waistcoat, stared at it wonderingly for a second or two, but
+without opening it; then like a flash it seemed to come across his
+mind what was hidden there, and with a deep 'Ha!' he thrust back his
+hand, only to withdraw it, open and empty, half a minute later. 'He
+has hidden away the Diamond in some inner pocket,' I said to myself.
+From that moment I never doubted that the wondrous gem was in his
+possession, and I could not help admiring the cool patience and the
+indomitable pluck he must have displayed before he could call it his
+own. All the same, I determined to try all I knew to cause it to
+change hands once more.
+
+"The brandy revived Captain Ducie, and in a few minutes he was able to
+sit up and tell me what he wanted. He told me that he had been wounded
+accidentally in the shoulder, and bade me assist him off with his coat
+and vest. The coat he flung carelessly aside. The vest he doubled up,
+laid it on the sofa and sat down on it. Then I cut open his shirt and
+laid bare the wound on his shoulder. It was not very deep, but there
+had been a good deal of hemorrhage. With the coolness and knowledge of
+an old campaigner the captain instructed me how to bathe the wound and
+dress it with some salve which he produced from his dressing-case.
+Then he put on some clean linen, washed the smears from his face, hid
+the ugly gash in his cheek with a strip of court-plaster, and dressed.
+All this was done with a silence and celerity that astonished me.
+
+"'So far, so good,' said Captain Ducie. 'I want you next to pack my
+small portmanteau. Put into it my dressing-case and all my papers, and
+as many of my clothes as it will hold. Then go and pack up a few
+things of your own. I want you to go with me, and in ten minutes I
+shall expect you to be ready to start.'
+
+"I made some faint objections on the score of leaving M. Platzoff in
+such an unceremonious way.
+
+"'I will take the entire responsibility on my own shoulders,' he said.
+'Your excuses to M. Platzoff shall be made by me. You have nothing to
+fear on that score. As my shoulder is now, it is quite impossible for
+me to go up to town alone. You need only be away forty-eight hours,
+and I shall not forget to remunerate you for your trouble.'
+
+"In ten minutes I was ready to start. 'If Captain Ducie has got the
+Diamond about him, as I fully believe he has,' I said to myself, 'then
+is my occupation at Bon Repos gone, and I care not if I never see the
+place again. My duty is evidently to accompany the gallant captain.'
+
+"When I had packed my own little valise, I stole quietly into Cleon's
+room. It was still empty: the mulatto had not returned. Then I went
+softly down the corridor, pushed open the door of the smoke-room and
+looked in. No hand had touched the body of M. Platzoff since I left it
+last. I whispered 'Farewell,' covered up the white face, and left the
+room. I had one thing more to do. Taking a lighted candle in my hand I
+went into the little gallery that opens out of the drawing-room. In
+this gallery were several cases containing old coins, old china, rare
+fossils, and various other curiosities natural and artificial. It was
+one of these curiosities that I was in quest of. I knew where the key
+was kept that opened the cases. I got it and opened the case in which
+lay the object I was in search of. This object, to all appearance, was
+nothing more than a bit of green glass, except that its shape was
+rather uncommon. There was a small label near it, and this label I had
+one day been at the trouble of deciphering. The writing was so minute
+as almost to require a magnifying glass to read it by. After much
+difficulty I had succeeded in making out these words:
+
+"'Model in paste of the G.M.D. by Bertolini of Paris.'
+
+"M. Platzoff was dead; Cleon, for aught I knew to the contrary, was
+dead too. I was about to leave Bon Repos for ever--to leave it with
+the man who had stolen the genuine Diamond from the man who had stolen
+it from its rightful owner. Why should not I take possession of the
+paste Diamond? As a simple curiosity it might be a gratification to
+Lady P. to possess it. More than that: it seemed to me not impossible
+that certain eventualities might arise in which the possession of an
+exact model of the Diamond might be of service to us. Anyhow, I
+dropped it quietly into my pocket."
+
+
+
+
+END OF VOL. II.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Under Lock and Key, Volume II (of 3), by 
+T. W. Speight
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 57295 ***