Chapter II

“Not only did this daring burglary cause a great deal of excitement,” continued the man in the corner, “but it also roused a good deal of sympathy in the public mind for the King and Queen of ‘Bohemia’ who thus found their hope of raising half a million sterling suddenly dashed to the ground. The loss to them would, of course, be irreparable.

“Matters, were, however, practically at a standstill, all enquiries from enterprising journalists only eliciting the vague information that the police ‘held a clue.’ We all know what that means. Then all at once a wonderful rumour got about.

“Goodness only knows how these rumours originate—sometimes solely in the imagination of the man in the street. In this instance certainly, that worthy gentleman had a very sensational theory. It was namely rumoured all over London that the clue which the police held pointed to no less a person than Mr. Wilson himself.

“What had happened was this: Minute enquiries on the part of the most able detectives of Scotland Yard had brought to light the fact that the burglary at Eton Chase must have occurred precisely between ten minutes and a quarter past eleven; at every other moment of the entire evening somebody or other had observed either the terrace or the dining-room windows.

“I told you that until ten o’clock some of Their Majesties’ guests were walking up and down the terrace; between ten and half-past servants were clearing away in the dining-room, and here it was positively ascertained beyond any doubt that no burglar could have slung a rope-ladder and climbed up it immediately outside those windows, for one or other of the six servants engaged in clearing away the dinner must of necessity have caught sight of him.

“At half-past ten John Lucas, the head gardener, was walking through the gardens with a dog at his heels, and did not get back to the lodge until just upon eleven. He certainly did not go as far as the terrace, and as that side of the house was in shadow he could not say positively whether the ladder was there or not, but he certainly did assert most emphatically that there was no burglar about the _grounds_ then, for the dog was a good watch-dog and would have barked if any stranger was about. Lucas took the dog in with him and gave him a bit of supper, and only fastened him to his kennel outside at a quarter-past eleven.

“Surmising, therefore, that at half-past ten, when John Lucas started on his round, the deed was not yet done, that quarter of an hour would give the burglar the only possible opportunity of entering the premises _from the outside_, without being barked at by the dog. Now, during most of that same quarter of an hour, His Majesty the King of ‘Bohemia’ himself had retired into a small library with his private secretary, in order to glance through certain despatches which had arrived earlier in the evening.

“The window of this library was immediately next to the one outside which the ladder was found, and both the secretary and His Majesty himself think that they would have seen something or heard a noise if the rope-ladder had been slung while they were in the room. They both, however, returned to the drawing-room at ten minutes past eleven.

“And here,” continued the man in the corner, rubbing his long, bony fingers together, “arose the neatest little complication I have ever come across in a case of this kind. His Majesty had, it appears, privately made up his mind to accept Mr. Wilson’s bid, but the transaction had not yet been completed. Mr. Wilson and his wife came down to stay at Eton Chase on 29th June, and directly they arrived many of those present noticed that Mr. Wilson was obviously repenting of his bargain. This impression had deepened day by day, Mrs. Wilson herself often throwing out covert hints about ‘fictitious value’ and ‘fancy prices for merely notorious trinkets.’ In fact, it became obvious that the Wilsons were really seeking a loophole for evading the conclusion of the bargain.

“On the memorable evening of the 5th July, Mrs. Wilson had been forced to retire to her room early in the evening, owing, she said, to a bad headache; her room was in the west wing of the Chase, and opened out on the same corridor as the apartments of Her Majesty the Queen. At half-past eleven Mrs. Wilson rang for her maid—Mary Pritchard, who, on entering her mistress’s room, met Mr. Wilson just coming out of it, and the girl heard him say: ‘Oh, don’t worry! I’ll have the whole reset when we get back.’

“The detectives, on the other hand, had obtained information that two or three days previously Mr. Wilson had sustained a very severe loss on the ’Change, and that he had subsequently remarked to two or three business friends that the Black Diamonds had become a luxury which he had no right to afford.

“Be this as it may, certain it is that within a week of the notorious burglary the rumour was current in every club in London that James S. Wilson, the reputed American millionaire, having found himself unable to complete the purchase of the Black Diamonds, had found this other very much less legitimate means of gaining possession of the gems.

“You must admit that the case looked black enough against him—all circumstantial, of course, for there was absolutely nothing to prove that he had the jewels in his possession; in fact no trace of them whatever had been found, but the public argued that Mr. Wilson would lie low with them for a while, and then have them reset when he returned to America.

“Of course, ugly rumours of that description don’t become general about a man without his getting some inkling of them. Mr. Wilson very soon found his position in London absolutely intolerable: his friends ignored him at the club, ladies ceased to call upon his wife, and one fine day he was openly cut by Lord Barnsdale, an M.F.H., in the hunting field.

“Then Mr. Wilson thought it high time to take action. He placed the whole matter in the hands of an able if not very scrupulous solicitor who promised within a given time to find him a defendant with plenty of means, against whom he could bring a sensational libel suit, with thundering damages.

“The solicitor was as good as his word. He bribed some of the waiters at the Carlton, and so laid his snares that within six months, Lord and Lady Barnsdale had been overheard to say in public what everybody now thought in private, namely, that Mr. James S. Wilson, finding himself unable to purchase the celebrated Black Diamonds, had thought it more profitable to steal them.

“Two days later Mr. James S. Wilson entered an action in the High Courts for slander against Lord and Lady Barnsdale, claiming damages to the tune of £50,000.”