Books: Ranson\'s Folly
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Richard Harding Davis >> Ranson\'s Folly
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In the discussion which followed the conclusion of the story of the
Naval Attache, the gentleman with the pearl took no part. Instead, he
arose, and, beckoning a servant to a far corner of the room,
whispered earnestly to him until a sudden movement on the part of Sir
Andrew caused him to return hurriedly to the table.
"There are several points in Mr. Sears's story I want explained," he
cried. "Be seated, Sir Andrew," he begged. "Let us have the opinion
of an expert. I do not care what the police think, I want to know
what you think."
But Sir Andrew rose reluctantly from his chair.
"I should like nothing better than to discuss this," he said. "But it
is most important that I proceed to the House. I should have been
there some time ago." He turned toward the servant and directed him
to call a hansom.
The gentleman with the pearl stud looked appealingly at the Naval
Attache. "There are surely many details that you have not told us,"
he urged. "Some you have forgotten."
The Baronet interrupted quickly.
"I trust not," he said, "for I could not possibly stop to hear them."
"The story is finished," declared the Naval Attache; "until Lord
Arthur is arrested or the bodies are found there is nothing more to
tell of either Chetney or the Princess Zichy."
"Of Lord Chetney, perhaps not," interrupted the sporting-looking
gentleman with the black tie, "but there'll always be something to
tell of the Princess Zichy. I know enough stories about her to fill a
book. She was a most remarkable woman." The speaker dropped the end
of his cigar into his coffee-cup and, taking his case from his
pocket, selected a fresh one. As he did so he laughed and held up the
case that the others might see it. It was an ordinary cigar-case of
well-worn pig-skin, with a silver clasp.
"The only time I ever met her," he said, "she tried to rob me of
this."
The Baronet regarded him closely.
"She tried to rob you?" he repeated.
"Tried to rob me of this," continued the gentleman in the black tie,
"and of the Czarina's diamonds." His tone was one of mingled
admiration and injury.
"The Czarina's diamonds!" exclaimed the Baronet. He glanced quickly
and suspiciously at the speaker, and then at the others about the
table. But their faces gave evidence of no other emotion than that of
ordinary interest.
"Yes, the Czarina's diamonds," repeated the man with the black tie.
"It was a necklace of diamonds. I was told to take them to the
Russian Ambassador in Paris, who was to deliver them at Moscow. I am
a Queen's Messenger," he added.
"Oh, I see," exclaimed Sir Andrew, in a tone of relief. "And you say
that this same Princess Zichy, one of the victims of this double
murder, endeavored to rob you of--of--that cigar-case."
"And the Czarina's diamonds," answered the Queen's Messenger,
imperturbably. "It's not much of a story, but it gives you an idea of
the woman's character. The robbery took place between Paris and
Marseilles."
The Baronet interrupted him with an abrupt movement. "No, no," he
cried, shaking his head in protest. "Do not tempt me. I really cannot
listen. I must be at the House in ten minutes."
"I am sorry," said the Queen's Messenger. He turned to those seated
about him. "I wonder if the other gentlemen--" he inquired,
tentatively. There was a chorus of polite murmurs, and the Queen's
Messenger, bowing his head in acknowledgment, took a preparatory sip
from his glass. At the same moment the servant to whom the man with
the black pearl had spoken, slipped a piece of paper into his hand.
He glanced at it, frowned, and threw it under the table.
The servant bowed to the Baronet.
"Your hansom is waiting, Sir Andrew," he said.
"The necklace was worth twenty thousand pounds," began the Queen's
Messenger, "It was a present from the Queen of England to celebrate--
" The Baronet gave an exclamation of angry annoyance.
"Upon my word, this is most provoking," he interrupted. "I really
ought not to stay. But I certainly mean to hear this." He turned
irritably to the servant. "Tell the hansom to wait," he commanded,
and, with an air of a boy who is playing truant, slipped guiltily
into his chair.
The gentleman with the black pearl smiled blandly, and rapped upon
the table.
"Order, gentlemen," he said. "Order for the story of the Queen's
Messenger and the Czarina's diamonds."
II
"The necklace was a present from the Queen of England to the Czarina
of Russia," began the Queen's Messenger. "It was to celebrate the
occasion of the Czar's coronation. Our Foreign Office knew that the
Russian Ambassador in Paris was to proceed to Moscow for that
ceremony, and I was directed to go to Paris and turn over the
necklace to him. But when I reached Paris I found he had not expected
me for a week later and was taking a few days' vacation at Nice. His
people asked me to leave the necklace with them at the Embassy, but I
had been charged to get a receipt for it from the Ambassador himself,
so I started at once for Nice. The fact that Monte Carlo is not two
thousand miles from Nice may have had something to do with making me
carry out my instructions so carefully.
"Now, how the Princess Zichy came to find out about the necklace I
don't know, but I can guess. As you have just heard, she was at one
time a spy in the service of the Russian Government. And after they
dismissed her she kept up her acquaintance with many of the Russian
agents in London. It is probable that through one of them she learned
that the necklace was to be sent to Moscow, and which one of the
Queen's Messengers had been detailed to take it there. Still, I doubt
if even that knowledge would have helped her if she had not also
known something which I supposed no one else in the world knew but
myself and one other man. And, curiously enough, the other man was a
Queen's Messenger, too, and a friend of mine. You must know that up
to the time of this robbery I had always concealed my despatches in a
manner peculiarly my own. I got the idea from that play called 'A
Scrap of Paper.' In it a man wants to hide a certain compromising
document. He knows that all his rooms will be secretly searched for
it, so he puts it in a torn envelope and sticks it up where anyone
can see it on his mantle-shelf. The result is that the woman who is
ransacking the house to find it looks in all the unlikely places, but
passes over the scrap of paper that is just under her nose. Sometimes
the papers and packages they give us to carry about Europe are of
very great value, and sometimes they are special makes of cigarettes,
and orders to court-dressmakers. Sometimes we know what we are
carrying and sometimes we do not. If it is a large sum of money or a
treaty, they generally tell us. But, as a rule, we have no knowledge
of what the package contains; so to be on the safe side, we naturally
take just as great care of it as though we knew it held the terms of
an ultimatum or the crown-jewels. As a rule, my confreres carry the
official packages in a despatch-box, which is just as obvious as a
lady's jewel-bag in the hands of her maid. Everyone knows they are
carrying something of value. They put a premium on dishonesty. Well,
after I saw the 'Scrap-of-Paper' play, I determined to put the
government valuables in the most unlikely place that anyone would
look for them. So I used to hide the documents they gave me inside my
riding-boots, and small articles, such as money or jewels, I carried
in an old cigar-case. After I took to using my case for that purpose
I bought a new one, exactly like it, for my cigars. But, to avoid
mistakes, I had my initials placed on both sides of the new one, and
the moment I touched the case, even in the dark, I could tell which
it was by the raised initials.
"No one knew of this except the Queen's Messenger of whom I spoke. We
once left Paris together on the Orient Express. I was going to
Constantinople and he was to stop off at Vienna. On the journey I
told him of my peculiar way of hiding things and showed him my cigar-
case. If I recollect rightly, on that trip it held the grand cross of
St. Michael and St. George, which the Queen was sending to our
Ambassador. The Messenger was very much entertained at my scheme, and
some months later when he met the Princess he told her about it as an
amusing story. Of course, he had no idea she was a Russian spy. He
didn't know anything at all about her, except that she was a very
attractive woman. It was indiscreet, but he could not possibly have
guessed that she could ever make any use of what he told her.
"Later, after the robbery, I remembered that I had informed this
young chap of my secret hiding-place, and when I saw him again I
questioned him about it. He was greatly distressed, and said he had
never seen the importance of the secret. He remembered he had told
several people of it, and among others the Princess Zichy. In that
way I found out that it was she who had robbed me, and I know that
from the moment I left London she was following me, and that she knew
then that the diamonds were concealed in my cigar-case.
"My train for Nice left Paris at ten in the morning. When I travel at
night I generally tell the chef de gare that I am a Queen's
Messenger, and he gives me a compartment to myself, but in the
daytime I take whatever offers. On this morning I had found an empty
compartment, and I had tipped the guard to keep everyone else out,
not from any fear of losing the diamonds, but because I wanted to
smoke. He had locked the door, and as the last bell had rung I
supposed I was to travel alone, so I began to arrange my traps and
make myself comfortable. The diamonds in the cigar-case were in the
inside pocket of my waistcoat, and as they made a bulky package, I
took them out, intending to put them in my hand-bag. It is a small
satchel like a bookmaker's, or those hand-bags that couriers carry. I
wear it slung from a strap across my shoulders, and, no matter
whether I am sitting or walking, it never leaves me.
"I took the cigar-case which held the necklace from my inside pocket
and the case which held the cigars out of the satchel, and while I
was searching through it for a box of matches I laid the two cases
beside me on the seat.
"At that moment the train started, but at the same instant there was
a rattle at the lock of the compartment, and a couple of porters
lifted and shoved a woman through the door, and hurled her rugs and
umbrellas in after her.
"Instinctively I reached for the diamonds. I shoved them quickly into
the satchel and, pushing them far down to the bottom of the bag,
snapped the spring-lock. Then I put the cigars in the pocket of my
coat, but with the thought that now that I had a woman as a
travelling companion I would probably not be allowed to enjoy them.
"One of her pieces of luggage had fallen at my feet, and a roll of
rugs had landed at my side. I thought if I hid the fact that the lady
was not welcome, and at once endeavored to be civil, she might permit
me to smoke. So I picked her hand-bag off the floor and asked her
where I might place it.
"As I spoke I looked at her for the first time, and saw that she was
a most remarkably handsome woman.
"She smiled charmingly and begged me not to disturb myself. Then she
arranged her own things about her, and, opening her dressing-bag,
took out a gold cigarette-case.
"'Do you object to smoke?' she asked.
"I laughed and assured her I had been in great terror lest she might
object to it herself.
"'If you like cigarettes,' she said, 'will you try some of these?
They are rolled especially for my husband in Russia, and they are
supposed to be very good.'
"I thanked her, and took one from her case, and I found it so much
better than my own that I continued to smoke her cigarettes
throughout the rest of the journey. I must say that we got on very
well. I judged from the coronet on her cigarette-case, and from her
manner, which was quite as well bred as that of any woman I ever met,
that she was someone of importance, and though she seemed almost too
good-looking to be respectable, I determined that she was some grande
dame who was so assured of her position that she could afford to be
unconventional. At first she read her novel, and then she made some
comment on the scenery, and finally we began to discuss the current
politics of the Continent. She talked of all the cities in Europe,
and seemed to know everyone worth knowing. But she volunteered
nothing about herself except that she frequently made use of the
expression, 'When my husband was stationed at Vienna,' or 'When my
husband was promoted to Rome.' Once she said to me, 'I have often
seen you at Monte Carlo. I saw you when you won the pigeon-
championship.' I told her that I was not a pigeon-shot, and she gave
a little start of surprise. 'Oh, I beg your pardon,' she said; 'I
thought you were Morton Hamilton, the English champion.' As a matter
of fact, I do look like Hamilton, but I know now that her object was
to make me think that she had no idea as to who I really was. She
needn't have acted at all, for I certainly had no suspicions of her,
and was only too pleased to have so charming a companion.
"The one thing that should have made me suspicious was the fact that
at every station she made some trivial excuse to get me out of the
compartment. She pretended that her maid was travelling back of us in
one of the second-class carriages, and kept saying she could not
imagine why the woman did not come to look after her, and if the maid
did not turn up at the next stop, would I be so very kind as to get
out and bring her whatever it was she pretended she wanted.
"I had taken my dressing-case from the rack to get out a novel, and
had left it on the seat opposite to mine, and at the end of the
compartment farthest from her. And once when I came back from buying
her a cup of chocolate, or from some other fool-errand, I found her
standing at my end of the compartment with both hands on the
dressing-bag. She looked at me without so much as winking an eye, and
shoved the case carefully into a corner. 'Your bag slipped off on the
floor,' she said. 'If you've got any bottles in it, you had better
look and see that they're not broken.'
"And I give you my word, I was such an ass that I did open the case
and looked all through it. She must have thought I WAS a Juggins. I
get hot all over whenever I remember it. But, in spite of my dulness,
and her cleverness, she couldn't gain anything by sending me away,
because what she wanted was in the hand-bag, and every time she sent
me away the hand-bag went with me.
"After the incident of the dressing-case her manner changed. Either
in my absence she had had time to look through it, or, when I was
examining it for broken bottles, she had seen everything it held.
"From that moment she must have been certain that the cigar-case, in
which she knew I carried the diamonds, was in the bag that was
fastened to my body, and from that time on she probably was plotting
how to get it from me.
"Her anxiety became most apparent. She dropped the great-lady manner,
and her charming condescension went with it. She ceased talking, and,
when I spoke, answered me irritably, or at random. No doubt her mind
was entirely occupied with her plan. The end of our journey was
drawing rapidly nearer, and her time for action was being cut down
with the speed of the express-train. Even I, unsuspicious as I was,
noticed that something was very wrong with her. I really believe that
before we reached Marseilles if I had not, through my own stupidity,
given her the chance she wanted, she might have stuck a knife in me
and rolled me out on the rails. But as it was, I only thought that
the long journey had tired her. I suggested that it was a very trying
trip, and asked her if she would allow me to offer her some of my
cognac.
"She thanked me and said, 'No,' and then suddenly her eyes lighted,
and she exclaimed, 'Yes, thank you, if you will be so kind.'
"My flask was in the hand-bag, and I placed it on my lap and, with my
thumb, slipped back the catch. As I keep my tickets and railroad-
guide in the bag, I am so constantly opening it that I never bother
to lock it, and the fact that it is strapped to me has always been
sufficient protection. But I can appreciate now what a satisfaction,
and what a torment, too, it must have been to that woman when she saw
that the bag opened without a key.
"While we were crossing the mountains I had felt rather chilly and
had been wearing a light racing-coat. But after the lamps were
lighted the compartment became very hot and stuffy, and I found the
coat uncomfortable. So I stood up, and after first slipping the strap
of the bag over my head, I placed the bag in the seat next me and
pulled off the racing-coat. I don't blame myself for being careless;
the bag was still within reach of my hand, and nothing would have
happened if at that exact moment the train had not stopped at Arles.
It was the combination of my removing the bag and our entering the
station at the same instant which gave the Princess Zichy the chance
she wanted to rob me.
"I needn't say that she was clever enough to take it. The train ran
into the station at full speed and came to a sudden stop. I had just
thrown my coat into the rack, and had reached out my hand for the
bag. In another instant I would have had the strap around my
shoulder. But at that moment the Princess threw open the door of the
compartment and beckoned wildly at the people on the platform.
'Natalie!' she called, 'Natalie! here I am. Come here! This way!' She
turned upon me in the greatest excitement. 'My maid!' she cried. 'She
is looking for me. She passed the window without seeing me. Go,
please, and bring her back.' She continued pointing out of the door
and beckoning me with her other hand. There certainly was something
about that woman's tone which made one jump. When she was giving
orders you had no chance to think of anything else. So I rushed out
on my errand of mercy, and then rushed back again to ask what the
maid looked like.
"'In black,' she answered, rising and blocking the door of the
compartment. 'All in black, with a bonnet!'
"The train waited three minutes at Arles, and in that time I suppose
I must have rushed up to over twenty women and asked, 'Are you
Natalie?' The only reason I wasn't punched with an umbrella or handed
over to the police was that they probably thought I was crazy.
"When I jumped back into the compartment the Princess was seated
where I had left her, but her eyes were burning with happiness. She
placed her hand on my arm almost affectionately, and said, in a
hysterical way, 'You are very kind to me. I am so sorry to have
troubled you.'
"I protested that every woman on the platform was dressed in black.
"'Indeed, I am so sorry,' she said, laughing; and she continued to
laugh until she began to breathe so quickly that I thought she was
going to faint.
"I can see now that the last part of that journey must have been a
terrible half-hour for her. She had the cigar-case safe enough, but
she knew that she herself was not safe. She understood if I were to
open my bag, even at the last minute, and miss the case, I would know
positively that she had taken it. I had placed the diamonds in the
bag at the very moment she entered the compartment, and no one but
our two selves had occupied it since. She knew that when we reached
Marseilles she would either be twenty thousand pounds richer than
when she left Paris, or that she would go to jail. That was the
situation as she must have read it, and I don't envy her her state of
mind during that last half-hour. It must have been hell.
"I saw that something was wrong, and, in my innocence, I even
wondered if possibly my cognac had not been a little too strong. For
she suddenly developed into a most brilliant conversationalist, and
applauded and laughed at everything I said, and fired off questions
at me like a machine-gun, so that I had no time to think of anything
but of what she was saying. Whenever I stirred, she stopped her
chattering and leaned toward me, and watched me like a cat over a
mouse-hole. I wondered how I could have considered her an agreeable
travelling-companion. I thought I would have preferred to be locked
in with a lunatic. I don't like to think how she would have acted if
I had made a move to examine the bag, but as I had it safely strapped
around me again, I did not open it, and I reached Marseilles alive.
As we drew into the station she shook hands with me and grinned at me
like a Cheshire cat.
"'I cannot tell you,' she said, 'how much I have to thank you for.'
What do you think of that for impudence?
"I offered to put her in a carriage, but she said she must find
Natalie, and that she hoped we would meet again at the hotel. So I
drove off by myself, wondering who she was, and whether Natalie was
not her keeper.
"I had to wait several hours for the train to Nice; and as I wanted
to stroll around the city I thought I had better put the diamonds in
the safe of the hotel. As soon as I reached my room I locked the
door, placed the hand-bag on the table, and opened it. I felt among
the things at the top of it, but failed to touch the cigar-case. I
shoved my hand in deeper, and stirred the things about, but still I
did not reach it. A cold wave swept down my spine, and a sort of
emptiness came to the pit of my stomach. Then I turned red-hot, and
the sweat sprung out all over me. I wet my lips with my tongue, and
said to myself, 'Don't be an ass. Pull yourself together, pull
yourself together. Take the things out, one at a time. It's there, of
course, it's there. Don't be an ass.'
"So I put a brake on my nerves and began very carefully to pick out
the things, one by one, but, after another second, I could not stand
it, and I rushed across the room and threw out everything on the bed.
But the diamonds were not among them. I pulled the things about and
tore them open and shuffled and rearranged and sorted them, but it
was no use. The cigar-case was gone. I threw everything in the
dressing-case out on the floor, although I knew it was useless to
look for it there. I knew that I had put it in the bag. I sat down
and tried to think. I remembered I had put it in the satchel at Paris
just as that woman had entered the compartment, and I had been alone
with her ever since, so it was she who had robbed me. But how? It had
never left my shoulder. And then I remembered that it had--that I had
taken it off when I had changed my coat and for the few moments that
I was searching for Natalie. I remembered that the woman had sent me
on that goose-chase, and that at every other station she had tried to
get rid of me on some fool-errand.
"I gave a roar like a mad bull, and I jumped down the stairs, six
steps at a time.
"I demanded at the office if a distinguished lady of title, possibly
a Russian, had just entered the hotel.
"As I expected, she had not. I sprang into a cab and inquired at two
other hotels, and then I saw the folly of trying to catch her without
outside help, and I ordered the fellow to gallop to the office of the
Chief of Police. I told my story, and the ass in charge asked me to
calm myself, and wanted to take notes. I told him this was no time
for taking notes, but for doing something. He got wrathy at that, and
I demanded to be taken at once to his Chief. The Chief, he said, was
very busy, and could not see me. So I showed him my silver greyhound.
In eleven years I had never used it but once before. I stated, in
pretty vigorous language, that I was a Queen's Messenger, and that if
the Chief of Police did not see me instantly he would lose his
official head. At that the fellow jumped off his high horse and ran
with me to his Chief--a smart young chap, a colonel in the army, and
a very intelligent man.
"I explained that I had been robbed, in a French railway-carriage, of
a diamond-necklace belonging to the Queen of England, which her
Majesty was sending as a present to the Czarina of Russia. I pointed
out to him that if he succeeded in capturing the thief he would be
made for life, and would receive the gratitude of three great powers.
"He wasn't the sort that thinks second thoughts are best. He saw
Russian and French decorations sprouting all over his chest, and he
hit a bell, and pressed buttons, and yelled out orders like the
captain of a penny-steamer in a fog. He sent her description to all
the city-gates, and ordered all cabmen and railway-porters to search
all trains leaving Marseilles. He ordered all passengers on outgoing
vessels to be examined, and telegraphed the proprietors of every
hotel and pension to send him a complete list of their guests within
the hour. While I was standing there he must have given at least a
hundred orders, and sent out enough commissaires, sergeants de ville,
gendarmes, bicycle-police, and plain-clothes Johnnies to have
captured the entire German army. When they had gone he assured me
that the woman was as good as arrested already. Indeed, officially,
she was arrested; for she had no more chance of escape from
Marseilles than from the Chateau D'If.
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