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Page 89
"Eighteen hundred dollars?" she said. "That's absurd,
ridiculous! I'm willing to pay you five hundred dollars."
The American did not undertake to argue the matter with her.
"We don't handle any sale for a less commission," he said.
Then he explained that he could not act as any sort of agent in
the matter; that the only thing he could do would be to buy the
jewels outright and resell them to her. His house would not make
any sale for a less profit than ten per cent. Hargrave did not
propose to be involved in any but a straight-out transaction. He
was quite willing to buy the sapphires for eighteen thousand
dollars. There was five thousand dollars' profit in them on any
market. He was perfectly safe either way about. If Mrs.
Farmingham made the repurchase there was a profit of ten per
cent. If not, there was five thousand dollars' profit in the
bargain under any conditions.
They were Siamese stones, and the cutting was of an old design.
They were not from any stock in Europe. Hargrave knew what
Europe held of sapphires. These were from some Oriental stock.
And everybody bought an Oriental stone wherever he could get it.
How the seller got it did not matter. Nobody undertook to verify
the title of a Siamese trader or a Burma agent.
Mrs. Farmingham walked about for several minutes, saying over to
herself as she had said before:
"Now what shall I do?"
Then like the big, dominant, decisive nature that she was she
came to a conclusion.
"All right," she said, "bring in the money in the morning and get
the sapphires. I'll take them up in a day or two. Good-by,
major; come along, Mr. Hargrave." And she went out of the room.
The American stopped at the door to bow to the old Rumanian
officer who was standing up beside the table before the heap of
sapphires. They got into the carriage at the curb before
Blackwell's Hotel. Mrs. Farmingham put Hargrave down at the
Empire Club, and the carriage passed on, across Piccadilly Circus
toward the Ritz.
The following morning Hargrave got the sapphires from Major
Mikos, and paid him eighteen thousand dollars in English
sovereigns for them. He wanted gold to carry back with him for
the jewels that he had brought out of the kingdom of Rumania. He
seemed a simple, anxious person. He wished to carry his
treasures with him like a peasant. The sapphires looked better
in the daylight. There ought to have been seven thousand
dollars' profit in them, perhaps more; seven thousand dollars, at
any rate, that very day in the London market. Hargrave took them
to the Empire Club and put them in a sealed envelope in the
steward's safe.
The thin drift of yellow remained in the city; that sulphurous
haze that the blanket of sea fog, moving over London, presses
down into her streets. It was not heavy yet; it was only a mist
of saffron; but it threatened to gather volume as the day
advanced.
At luncheon Hargrave got a note from Mrs. Farmingham, a line
scrawled on her card to say that she would call for him at three
o'clock. Her carriage was before the door on the stroke of the
hour, and she explained that the money to redeem the jewels had
arrived. The Credit Lyonnais had sent it over from Paris. She
seemed a bit puzzled about it. She had telegraphed the Credit
Lyonnais yesterday to send her eighteen thousand dollars. And
she had expected that the French banking house would have
arranged for the payment of the money through its English
correspondent. But its telegram directed her to go to the United
Atlantic Express Company and receive the money.
A few minutes cleared the puzzle. The office of the company is
on the Strand above the Savoy. Mrs. Farmingham went to the
manager and showed him a lot of papers she had in an
official-looking envelope. After a good bit of official pother
the porters carried out a big portmanteau, a sort of heavy
leather traveling case, and put it into the carriage. Mrs.
Farmingham came to Hargrave where he stood by the door.
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