Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, The (30 page)

  'And is it so difficult to do this? Cannot money be spent without limit?'

  'Yes; but unlimited evil follows such a course. This is sufficient to indicate to you that I am ever in search of a legitimate means of spending my income, provided that I may do good thereby. If I can do this, and at the same time afford myself pleasure, I claim that I am making the best use of my money. Now I happen to be so constructed, that the most interesting studies to me are social problems, and of these I am most entertained with the causes and environments of crime. Such a problem as the one you brought to me today is of immense attractiveness to me, because the environment is one which is commonly supposed to preclude rather than to invite crime. Yet we have seen that despite the wealth of all concerned, someone has stooped to the commonest of crimes – theft.'

  'But what has this to do with your collection of jewels?'

  'Everything! Jewels – especially those of great magnitude – seem to be a special cause of crime. A hundred-carat diamond will tempt a man to theft, as surely as the false beacon on a rocky shore entices the mariner to wreck and ruin. All the great jewels of the world have murder and crime woven into their histories. My attention was first called to this by accidentally overhearing a plot in a ballroom to rob the lady of the house of a large ruby which she wore on her breast. I went to her, taking the privilege of an intimate friend, and told her enough to persuade her to sell the stone to me. I fastened it into my scarf, and then sought the presence of the plotters, allowing them to see what had occurred. No words passed between us, but by my act I prevented a crime that night.'

  'Then am I to understand that you buy jewels with that end in view?'

  'After that night I conceived this idea. If all the great jewels in the world could be collected together, and put in a place of safety, hundreds of crimes would be prevented, even before they had been conceived. Moreover, the search for, and acquirement of, these jewels would necessarily afford me abundant opportunity for studying the crimes which are perpetrated in order to gain possession of them. Thus you understand more thoroughly why I am anxious to pursue this problem of the Azteck opal.'

  Several hours later Mr Mitchel and Mr Barnes were sitting at a quiet table in the comer of the dining-room at Mr Mitchel's club. On board the yacht Mr Mitchel had acted rather mysteriously. He had been closeted a while with Mr Gray, after which he had had an interview with two or three of the others. Then when Mr Barnes had begun to feel neglected, and tired of waiting alone on deck, Mr Mitchel had come towards him, arm-in-arm with Mr Gray, and the latter said:

  'I am very much obliged to you, Mr Barnes, for your services in this affair, and I trust the enclosed cheque will remunerate you for your trouble.'

  Mr Barnes, not quite comprehending it all, had attempted to protest, but Mr Mitchel had taken him by the arm, and hurried him off. In the cab which bore them to the club the detective asked for an explanation, but Mr Mitchel only replied:

  'I am too hungry to talk now. We will have dinner first.'

  The dinner was over at last, and nuts and coffee were before them, when Mr Mitchel took a small parcel from his pocket, and handed it to Mr Barnes, saying:

  'It is a beauty, is it not?'

  Mr Barnes removed the tissue paper, and a large opal fell on the tablecloth, where it sparkled with a thousand colours under the electric lamps.

  'Do you mean that this is – ,' cried the detective.

  'The Azteck opal, and the finest harlequin I ever saw,' interrupted Mr Mitchel. 'But you wish to know how it came into my possession? Principally so that it may join the collection and cease to be a temptation to this world of wickedness.'

  'Then Mr Gray did not steal it?' asked Mr Barnes, with a touch of chagrin in his voice.

  'No, Mr Barnes! Mr Gray did not steal it. But you are not to consider yourself very much at fault. Mr Gray tried to steal it, only he failed. That was not your fault, of course. You read his actions aright, but you did not give enough weight to the stories of the others.'

  'What important point did I omit from my calculation?'

  'I might mention the bare arms which Mrs Gray said she felt round her neck. It was evidently Mr Gray who looked for the opal on the neck of his sister-in-law, but as he did not bare his arms, he would not have done so later.'

  'Do you mean that Miss Livingstone was the thief?'

  'No! Miss Livingstone being hysterical, she changed her seat without realizing it, but that does not make her a thief. Her excitement when with you was due to her suspicions, which, by the way, were correct. But let us return for a moment to the bare arms. That was the clue from which I worked. It was evident to me that the thief was a man, and it was equally plain that in the hurry of the few moments of darkness, no man would have rolled up his sleeves, risking the return of the attendants with lamps, and the consequent discovery of himself in such a singular disarrangement of costume.'

  'How do you account for the bare arms?'

  'The lady did not tell the truth, that is all. The arms which encircled her neck were not bare. Neither were they unknown to her. She told you that lie to shield the thief. She also told you that her husband wished to sell the Azteck opal to me, but that she had refused. Thus she deftly led you to suspect him. Now, if she wished to shield the thief, yet was willing to accuse her husband, it followed that the husband was not the thief.'

  'Very well reasoned, Mr Mitchel. I see now where you are tending, but I shall not get ahead of your story.'

  'So much I had deduced, before we went on board the yacht. When I found myself alone with Gray I candidly told him of your suspicions, and your reasons for harbouring them. He was very much disturbed, and pleadingly asked me what I thought. As frankly I told him that I believed that he had tried to take the opal from his wife – we can scarcely call it stealing since the law does not – but that I believed he had failed. He then confessed; admitted emptying the lamps, but denied running the boat on the sand-bar. But he assured me that he had not reached his wife's chair when the lamps were brought in. He was, therefore, much astonished at missing the gem. I promised him to find the jewel upon condition that he would sell it to me. To this he most willingly acceded.'

  'But how could you be sure that you would recover the opal?'

  'Partly by my knowledge of human nature, and partly because of my inherent faith in my own abilities. I sent for Mrs Gray, and noted her attitude of defence, which, however, only satisfied me the more that I was right in my suspicions. I began by asking her if she knew the origin of the superstition that an opal brings bad luck to its owner. She did not, of course, comprehend my tactics, but she added that she "had heard the stupid superstition, but took no interest in such nonsense". I then gravely explained to her that the opal is the engagement stone of the Orient. The lover gives it to his sweetheart, and the belief is that should she deceive him even in the most trifling manner, the opal will lose its brilliancy and become cloudy. I then suddenly asked her if she had ever noted a change in her opal. "What do you mean to insinuate?" she cried out angrily. "I mean," said I, sternly, "that if an opal has changed colour in accordance with the superstition this one should have done so. I mean that though your husband greatly needs the money which I have offered him you have refused to allow him to sell it, and yet you have permitted another to take it from you tonight. By this act you might have seriously injured if not ruined Mr Gray. Why have you done it?"'

  'How did she receive it?' asked Mr Barnes, admiring the ingenuity of Mr Mitchel.

  'She began to sob, and between her tears she admitted that the opal had been taken by the man I suspected, but she earnestly declared that she had harboured no idea of injuring her husband. Indeed, she was so agitated in speaking upon this point, that I believe that Gray never thoroughly explained to her why he wished to sell the gem. She urged me to recover the opal if possible, and purchase it, so that her husband might be relieved from his pecuniary embarrassment. I then sent for the thief, Mrs Gray told me his name; but would you not like to hear how I had picked him out before we went aboard? I still have that bit of paper upon which I wrote his name, in confirmation of what I say.'

  'Of course, I know now that you mean Mr Livingstone, but would like to hear your reasons for suspecting him.'

  'From your account Miss Livingstone suspected some one, and this caused her to be so agitated that she was unaware of the fact that she had changed her seat. Women are shrewd in these affairs, and I was confident that the girl had good reason for her conduct. It was evident that the person in her mind was either her brother or her sweetheart. I decided between these two men from your account of your interviews with them. Moore impressed you as being honest, and he told you that one of the ladies suspected him. In this he was mistaken, but his speaking to you of it was not the act of a thief. Mr Livingstone, on the other hand, tried to throw suspicion upon Mr Gray.'

  'Of course that was sound reasoning after you had concluded that Mrs Gray was lying. Now tell me how you recovered the jewel?'

  'That was easier than I expected. I simply told Mr Livingstone when I got him alone, what I knew, and asked him to hand me the opal. With a perfectly imperturbable manner, understanding that I promised secrecy, he quietly took it from his pocket and gave it to me, saying:

  '"Women are very poor conspirators. They are too weak."'

  'What story did you tell Mr Gray?'

  'Oh, he would not be likely to enquire too closely into what I should tell him. My cheque was what he most cared for. I told him nothing definitely, but I inferred that his wife had secreted the gem during the darkness, that he might not ask her for it again; and that she had intended to find it again at a future time, just as he had meant to pawn it and then pretend to recover it from the thief by offering a reward.'

'One more question. Why did Mr Livingstone steal it?'

  'Ah! The truth about that is another mystery worth probing, and one which I shall make it my business to unravel. I will venture two prophecies. First – Mr Livingstone did not steal it at all. Mrs Gray simply handed it to him in the darkness. There must have been some powerful motive to lead her to such an act; something which she was weighing, and decided impulsively. This brings me to the second point. Livingstone used the word conspirator, which is a clue. You will recall what I told you that this gem is one of a pair of opals, and that with the other, the two would be as interesting as any jewels in the world. I am confident now that Mr Livingstone knows where that other opal is, and that he has been urging Mrs Gray to give or lend him hers, as a means of obtaining the other. If she hoped to do this, it would be easy to understand why she refused to permit the sale of the one she had. This, of course, is guesswork, but I'll promise that if any one ever owns both it shall be your humble servant, Leroy Mitchel, jewel collector.'

G
UY BOOTHBY WAS born in South Australia, came to England with his mother and brothers to attend school in the West Country and then returned to his native land to work as a clerk in Adelaide. His earliest ambitions were directed towards the theatre and he wrote plays and opera libretti which were performed but attracted little attention. His first successes came with a travel book, about his journeys in South-East Asia and Australia, and with his debut novel,
In Strange Company
, published in 1894. Moving back to England, Boothby became one of the most productive and most financially successful novelists of his time. In the decade before his death of pneumonia at the age of only thirty-seven, he published nearly fifty books. His most popular creation was Dr Nikola, a Mephistophelean supercriminal who appeared in five books, but he also wrote stories featuring an array of other rogues, detectives and private investigators. Klimo, likened to Sherlock Holmes in the first paragraph of 'The Duchess of Wiltshire's Diamonds', has been described as an 'anti-detective'. Certainly the story, first published in
Pearson's Magazine
in February 1897, is one of the most unusual crime tales of its period and Klimo one of the most memorable characters.

T
O THE REFLECTIVE mind the rapidity with which the inhabitants of the world's greatest city seize upon a new name or idea and familiarise themselves with it, can scarcely prove otherwise than astonishing. As an illustration of my meaning let me take the case of Klimo – the now famous private detective, who has won for himself the right to be considered as great as Lecocq, or even the late lamented Sherlock Holmes.