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Page 7
"This man is an impostor," whispered Le Coq to Hawkshaw.
"I've known that all along by the mole on his left wrist," returned
Hawkshaw, contemptuously.
"I suspected it the minute I saw he was not disguised," returned Le Coq,
knowingly. "I have observed that the greatest villains latterly have
discarded disguises, as being too easily penetrated, and therefore of no
avail, and merely a useless expense."
"Silence!" cried Confucius, impatiently. "How can the gentleman proceed,
with all this conversation going on in the rear?"
Hawkshaw and Le Coq immediately subsided, and the stranger went on.
"It was in this way that I treated the strange case of the lost tiara,"
resumed the stranger. "Mental concentration upon seemingly insignificant
details alone enabled me to bring about the desired results in that
instance. A brief outline of the case is as follows: It was late one
evening in the early spring of 1894. The London season was at its height.
Dances, f�tes of all kinds, opera, and the theatres were in full blast,
when all of a sudden society was paralyzed by a most audacious robbery. A
diamond tiara valued at �50,000 sterling had been stolen from the Duchess
of Brokedale, and under circumstances which threw society itself and every
individual in it under suspicion--even his Royal Highness the Prince
himself, for he had danced frequently with the Duchess, and was known to
be a great admirer of her tiara. It was at half-past eleven o'clock at
night that the news of the robbery first came to my ears. I had been
spending the evening alone in my library making notes for a second volume
of my memoirs, and, feeling somewhat depressed, I was on the point of
going out for my usual midnight walk on Hampstead Heath, when one of my
servants, hastily entering, informed me of the robbery. I changed my mind
in respect to my midnight walk immediately upon receipt of the news, for I
knew that before one o'clock some one would call upon me at my lodgings
with reference to this robbery. It could not be otherwise. Any mystery of
such magnitude could no more be taken to another bureau than elephants
could fly--"
"They used to," said Adam. "I once had a whole aviary full of winged
elephants. They flew from flower to flower, and thrusting their
probabilities deep into--"
"Their what?" queried Johnson, with a frown.
"Probabilities--isn't that the word? Their trunks," said Adam.
"Probosces, I imagine you mean," suggested Johnson.
"Yes--that was it. Their probosces," said Adam. "They were great
honey-gatherers, those elephants--far better than the bees, because they
could make so much more of it in a given time."
Munchausen shook his head sadly. "I'm afraid I'm outclassed by these
antediluvians," he said.
"Gentlemen! gentlemen!" cried Sir Walter. "These interruptions are
inexcusable!"
"That's what I think," said the stranger, with some asperity. "I'm having
about as hard a time getting this story out as I would if it were a
serial. Of course, if you gentlemen do not wish to hear it, I can stop;
but it must be understood that when I do stop I stop finally, once and for
all, because the tale has not a sufficiency of dramatic climaxes to
warrant its prolongation over the usual magazine period of twelve months."
"Go on! go on!" cried some.
"Shut up!" cried others--addressing the interrupting members, of course.
"As I was saying," resumed the stranger, "I felt confident that within an
hour, in some way or other, that case would be placed in my hands. It
would be mine either positively or negatively--that is to say, either the
person robbed would employ me to ferret out the mystery and recover the
diamonds, or the robber himself, actuated by motives of self-preservation,
would endeavor to direct my energies into other channels until he should
have the time to dispose of his ill-gotten booty. A mental discussion of
the probabilities inclined me to believe that the latter would be the
case. I reasoned in this fashion: The person robbed is of exalted rank.
She cannot move rapidly because she is so. Great bodies move slowly. It is
probable that it will be a week before, according to the etiquette by
which she is hedged about, she can communicate with me. In the first
place, she must inform one of her attendants that she has been robbed. He
must communicate the news to the functionary in charge of her residence,
who will communicate with the Home Secretary, and from him will issue the
orders to the police, who, baffled at every step, will finally address
themselves to me. 'I'll give that side two weeks,' I said. On the other
hand, the robber: will he allow himself to be lulled into a false sense of
security by counting on this delay, or will he not, noting my habit of
occasionally entering upon detective enterprises of this nature of my own
volition, come to me at once and set me to work ferreting out some crime
that has never been committed? My feeling was that this would happen, and
I pulled out my watch to see if it were not nearly time for him to arrive.
The robbery had taken place at a state ball at the Buckingham Palace.
'H'm!' I mused. 'He has had an hour and forty minutes to get here. It is
now twelve twenty. He should be here by twelve forty-five. I will wait.'
And hastily swallowing a cocaine tablet to nerve myself up for the
meeting, I sat down and began to read my Schopenhauer. Hardly had I
perused a page when there came a tap upon my door. I rose with a smile,
for I thought I knew what was to happen, opened the door, and there stood,
much to my surprise, the husband of the lady whose tiara was missing. It
was the Duke of Brokedale himself. It is true he was disguised. His beard
was powdered until it looked like snow, and he wore a wig and a pair of
green goggles; but I recognized him at once by his lack of manners, which
is an unmistakable sign of nobility. As I opened the door, he began:
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