Jewel Mysteries from a Dealer's Note Book Read online

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  JEWEL MYSTERIES

  "He had turned the pistol to his head and blown hisbrains out."

  --_Page 27_]

  Jewel Mysteries

  From a Dealer's Note Book

  BY MAX PEMBERTON

  _Author of "The Garden of Swords," "Kronstadt," "The Iron Pirate," etc., etc._

  R. F. FENNO & COMPANY _9 & 11 East Sixteenth Street, New York City: 1904_

  CONTENTS.

  PAGE

  THE OPAL OF CARMALOVITCH 9

  THE NECKLACE OF GREEN DIAMONDS 33

  THE COMEDY OF THE JEWELED LINKS 57

  TREASURE OF WHITE CREEK 79

  THE ACCURSED GEMS 109

  THE WATCH AND THE SCIMITAR 133

  THE SEVEN EMERALDS 157

  THE PURSUIT OF THE TOPAZ 187

  THE RIPENING RUBIES 217

  MY LADY OF THE SAPPHIRES 245

  THE OPAL OF CARMALOVITCH.

  THE OPAL OF CARMALOVITCH.

  Dark was falling from a dull and humid sky, and the lamps were beginningto struggle for brightness in Piccadilly, when the opal of Carmalovitchwas first put into my hand. The day had been a sorry one for business:no light, no sun, no stay of the downpour of penetrating mist which hadbeen swept through the city by the driving south wind from the late dawnto the mock of sunset. I had sat in my private office for six longhours, and had not seen a customer. The umbrella-bearing throng whichtrod the street before my window hurried quickly through the mud and theslush, as people who had no leisure even to gaze upon precious stonesthey could not buy. I was going home, in fact, as the one sensibleproceeding on such an afternoon, and had my hand upon the great safe toshut it, when the mirror above my desk showed me the reflection of acurious-looking man who had entered the outer shop, and stood already atthe counter.

  At the first glance I judged that this man was no ordinary customer. Hisdress was altogether singular. He had a black coat covering him from hisneck to his heels--a coat half-smothered in astrachan, and one whichcould have been made by no English tailor. But his hands were ungloved,and he wore a low hat, which might have been the hat of an office boy. Icould see from the little window of my private room, which gives my eyecommand of the shop, that he had come on foot, and for lack of anyumbrella was pitiably wet. Yet there was fine bearing about him, and hewas clearly a man given to command, for my assistant mounted to my roomwith his name at the first bidding.

  "Does he say what he wants?" I asked, reading the large card upon whichwere the words--

  "STENILOFF CARMALOVITCH";

  but the man replied,--

  "Only that he must see you immediately. I don't like the look of him atall."

  "Is Abel in the shop?"

  "He's at the door."

  "Very well; let him come to the foot of my stairs, and if I ring asusual, both of you come up."

  In this profession of jewel-selling--for every calling is a professionnowadays--we are so constantly cheek by jowl with swindlers that thecoming of one more or less is of little moment in a day's work. At myown place of business the material and personal precautions are soorganized that the cleverest scoundrel living would be troubled to getfree of the shop with sixpenny-worth of booty on him. I have two armedmen ready at the ring of my bell--Abel is one of them--and a privatewire to the nearest police-station. From an alcove well hidden on theright hand of the lower room, a man watches by day the large cases wherethe smaller gems are shown, and by night a couple of special guards havecharge of the safe and the premises. I touch a bell twice in my room,and my own detective follows any visitor who gives birth in my mind tothe slightest doubt. I ring three times, and any obvious impostor isheld prisoner until the police come. These things are done by mostjewelers in the West End; there is nothing in them either unusual orfearful. There are so many professed swindlers--so many would-besnappers up of unconsidered and considerable trifles--that precautionssuch as I have named are the least that common sense and common prudencewill allow one to take. And they have saved me from loss, as they havesaved others again and again.

  I had scarce given my instructions to Michel, my assistant--a rarereader of intention, and a fine judge of faces--when the shabby-genteelman entered. Michel placed a chair for him on the opposite side of mydesk, and then left the room. There was no more greeting between thenewcomer and myself than a mutual nodding of heads; and he on his partfell at once upon his business. He took a large paper parcel from theinside pocket of his coat and began to unpack it; but there was so muchpaper, both brown and tissue, that I had some moments of leisure inwhich to examine him more closely before we got to talk. I set him downin my mind as a man hovering on the boundary line of the middle age, aman with infinite distinction marked in a somewhat worn face, and withsome of the oldest clothes under the shielding long coat that I haveever looked upon. These I saw when he unbuttoned the enveloping cape toget at his parcel in the inner pocket; and while he undid it, I couldobserve that his fingers were thin as the talons of a bird, and that hetrembled all over with the mere effort of unloosing the string.

  The operation lasted some minutes. He spoke no word during that time,but when he had reduced the coil of brown paper to a tiny square ofwash-leather, I asked him,--

  "Have you something to show me?"

  He looked up at me with a pair of intensely, ridiculously blue eyes, andshrugged his shoulders.

  "Should I undo all these papers if I had not?" he responded; and I sawat once that he was a man who, from a verbal point of view, stoodobjectionably upon the defensive.

  "What sort of a stone is it?" I went on in a somewhat uninterested toneof voice; "not a ruby, I hope. I have just bought a parcel of rubies."

  By way of answer he opened the little wash-leather bag, and taking up myjewel-tongs, which lay at his hand, he held up an opal of suchprodigious size and quality that I restrained myself with difficultyfrom crying out at the sight of it. It was a Cerwenitza stone, I saw ata glance, almost a perfect circle in shape, and at least four inches indiameter. There was a touch of the oxide in its color which gave it thefaintest suspicion of black in the shade of its lights; but for wealthof hue and dazzling richness in its general quality, it surpassed anystone I have ever known, even that in the imperial cabinet at Vienna.So brilliant was it, so fascinating in the ever-changing play of itsamazing variegations, so perfect in every characteristic of the finestHungarian gem, that for some moments I let the man hold it out to me,and said no word. There was running through my mind the question whichmust have arisen under such circumstances: Where had he got it from? Hehad stolen it, I concluded at the first thought; and again, at thesecond, How else could a man who wore rags under an astrachan coat havecome to the possession of a gem upon which the most commercial instinctwould have hesitated to set a price?

  I had fully determined that I was face to face with a swindler, when hisexclamation reminded me that he expected me to speak.

  "Well," he said, "are you frightened to look at it?"

  He had been holding out the tongs, in which he gripped the stonelightly, for some seconds, and I had not yet ventured to touch them,sitting, I do not doubt, with surprise written all over my face. Butwhen he spoke, I took the opal from him, and turned my strong glass uponit.


  "You seem to have brought me a fine thing," I said as carelessly as Icould. "Is it a stone with a history?"

  "It has no history--at least, none that I should care to write."

  "And yet," I continued, "there cannot be three larger opals in Europe;do you know the stone at Vienna?"

  "Perfectly; but it has not the black of this, and is coarser. This is anolder stone, so far as the birth of its discovery goes, by a hundredyears."

  I thought that he was glib with his tale for a man who had such a poorone; and certainly he looked me in the face with amazing readiness. Hehad not the eyes of a rogue, and his manner was not that of onecriminally restless.

  "If you will allow me," I said, when I had looked at the stone for a fewmoments, "I will examine this under the brighter light there; perhapsyou would like to amuse yourself with this parcel of rubies."

  This was a favorite little trick of mine. I had two or three parcels ofstones to show to any man who came to me laboring under a sorry andpalpably poor story; and one of these I then took from my desk andspread upon the table under the eyes of the Russian. The stones were allimitation, and worth no more than sixpence apiece. If he were a judge,he would discover the cheat at the first sight of them; if he were aswindler, he would endeavor to steal them. In either case the test wasuseful. And I took care to turn my back upon him while I examined theopal, to give him every opportunity of filling his pockets should hechoose.

  When I had the jewel under the powerful light of an unshadedincandescent lamp I could see that it merited all the appreciation I hadbestowed upon it at first sight. It was flawless, wanting the demerit ofa single mark which could be pointed to in depreciation of its price.For play of color and radiating generosity of hues, I have already saidthat no man has seen its equal. I put it in the scales, called Michelto establish my own opinions, tried it by every test that can be appliedto a gem so fragile and so readily harmed, and came to the onlyconclusion possible--that it was a stone which would make a sensation inany market, and call bids from all the courts in Europe. It remained forme to learn the history of it, and with that I went back to my desk andresumed the conversation, first glancing at the sham parcel of rubies,to find that the man had not even looked at them.

  "It is a remarkable opal," I said; "the finest ever put before me. Youhave come here to sell it, I presume?"

  "Exactly. I want five thousand pounds for it."

  "And if I make you a bid you are prepared to furnish me with the historyboth of it and of yourself?"

  He shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. "If you think that I havestolen it we had better close the discussion at once. I am not preparedto tell my history to every tradesman I deal with."

  "In that case," said I, "you have wasted your time. I buy no jewels thatI do not know all about."

  His superciliousness was almost impertinent. It would have been quite soif it had not been dominated by an absurd and almost grotesque pride,which accounted for his temper. I was sure then that he was either anhonest man or the best actor I had ever seen.

  "Think the matter over," I added in a less indifferent tone; "I amcertain that you will then acquit me of unreasonableness. Call hereagain in a day or two, and we will have a chat about it."

  This softer speech availed me as little as the other. He made no sort ofanswer to it, but packing his opal carefully again, he rose abruptly andleft the shop. As he went I touched my bell twice, and Abel followed himquietly down Piccadilly, while I sent a line to Scotland Yard informingthe Commissioners of the presence of such a man as the Russian inLondon, and of the Gargantuan jewel which he carried. Then I went homethrough the fog and the humid night; but my way was lighted by a memoryof the magnificent gem I had seen, and the hunger for the opal wasalready upon me.

  The inquiry at Scotland Yard proved quite futile. The police telegraphedto Paris, to Berlin, to St. Petersburg, to New York, but got no tidingseither of a robbery or of the man whom mere circumstances pointed at asa pretender. This seemed to me the more amazing since I could notconceive that a stone such as this was should not have made a sensationin some place. Jewels above all material things do not hide their lightunder bushels. Let there be a great find at Kimberley or in the Burmesemines; let a fine emerald or a perfect turquoise be brought to Europe,and every dealer in the country knows its weight, its color, and itsvalue before three days have passed. If this man, who hugged this smallfortune to him, and without it was a beggar, had been a worker atCerwenitza, he would have told me the fact plainly. But he spoke of theopal being older even than the famous and commonly cited specimen atVienna. How came it that he alone had the history of such an ancientgem? There was only one answer to such a question--the history of hispossession of it, at any rate, would not bear inquiry.

  Such perplexity was not removed by Abel's account of his journey afterCarmalovitch. He had followed the man from Piccadilly to Oxford Circus;thence, after a long wait in Regent's Park, where the Russian sat for atleast an hour on a seat near the Botanical Gardens entrance, to a smallhouse in Boscobel Place. This was evidently a lodging-house, offeringthat fare of shabbiness and dirt which must perforce be attractive tothe needy. There was a light burning at the window of the pretentiouslypoor drawing-room when the man arrived, and a girl, apparently not morethan twenty-five years of age, came down into the hall to greet him, thepair afterwards showing at the window for a moment before the blindswere drawn. An inquiry by my man for apartments in the house elicitedonly a shrill cackle and a negative from a shuffling hag who answeredthe knock. A tour of the little shops in the neighborhood provided thefurther clue "that they paid for nothing." This suburban estimation ofpersonal worth was a confirmation of my conclusion drawn from the ragsbeneath the astrachan coat. The Russian was a poor man; except for thepossession of the jewel he was near to being a beggar. And yet he hadnot sought to borrow money of me, and he had put the price of L5,000upon his property.

  All these things did not leave my mind for the next week. I was indaily communication with Scotland Yard, but absolutely to no purpose.Their sharpest men handled the case, and confessed that they could makenothing of it. We had the house in Boscobel Place watched, but, so faras we could learn, Carmalovitch, as he called himself, never left it.Meanwhile, I began to think that I had betrayed exceedingly poorjudgment in raising the question at all. As the days went by I sufferedthat stone hunger which a student of opals alone can know. I began tobelieve that I had lost by my folly one of the greatest possessions thatcould come to a man in my business. I knew that it would be an act ofchildishness to go to the house and re-open the negotiations, for Icould not bid for that which the first telegram from the Continent mightprove to be feloniously gotten, and the embarkation of such a sum as wasasked was a matter not for the spur of the moment, but for the closestdeliberation, to say nothing of financial preparation. Yet I would havegiven fifty pounds if the owner of it had walked into my office again;and I never heard a footstep in the outer shop during the week followinghis visit but I looked up in the hope of seeing him.

  A fortnight passed, and I thought that I had got to the beginning andthe end of the opal mystery, when one morning, the moment after I hadentered my office, Michel told me that a lady wished to see me. I hadscarce time to tell him that I could see no one for an hour when thevisitor pushed past him into the den, and sat herself down in the chairbefore my writing-desk. As in all business, we appreciate, and listento, impertinence in the jewel trade; and when I observed the magnificentimpudence of the young lady, I asked Michel to leave us, and waited forher to speak. She was a delicate-looking woman--an Italian, I thought,from the dark hue of her skin and the lustrous beauty of her eyes--butshe was exceedingly shabbily dressed, and her hands were ungloved. Shewas not a woman you would have marked in the stalls of a theater as thefit subject for an advertising photographer; but there was greatsweetness in her face, and those signs of bodily weakness and want ofstrength which so often enhance a woman's beauty. When she spoke,although she had little English, her v
oice was well modulated andremarkably pleasing.

  "You are Monsieur Bernard Sutton?" she asked, putting one hand upon mytable, and the other between the buttons of her bodice.

  I bowed in answer to her.

  "You have met my husband--I am Madame Carmalovitch--he was here, it isfifteen days, to sell you an opal. I have brought it again to you now,for I am sure you wish to buy it."

  "You will pardon me," I said, "but I am waiting for the history of thejewel which your husband promised me. I rather expected that he wouldhave sent it."

  "I know! oh, I know so well; and I have asked him many times," sheanswered; "but you can believe me, he will tell of his past to no one,not even to me. But he is honest and true; there is not such a man inall your city--and he has suffered. You may buy this beautiful thingnow, and you will never regret it. I tell you so from all my heart."

  "But surely, Madame," said I, "you must see that I cannot pay such aprice as your husband is asking for his property if he will not eventell me who he is, or where he comes from."

  "Yes, that is it--not even to me has he spoken of these things. I wasmarried to him six years now at Naples, and he has always had the opalwhich he offers to you. We were rich then, but we have known suffering,and this alone is left to us. You will buy it of my husband, for you inall this London are the man to buy it. It will give you fame and money;it must give you both, for we ask but four thousand pounds for it."

  I started at this. Here was a drop of a thousand pounds upon the priceasked but fifteen days ago. What did it mean? I took up the gem, whichthe woman had placed upon the table, and saw in a moment. The stone wasdimming. It had lost color since I had seen it; it had lost, too, Ijudged, at least one-third of its value. I had heard the old woman'stales of the capricious changefulness of this remarkable gem, but it wasthe first time that I had ever witnessed for myself such anunmistakeable depreciation. The woman read the surprise in my eyes, andanswered my thoughts, herself thoughtful, and her dark eyes touched withtears.

  "You see what I see," she said. "The jewel that you have in your hand isthe index to my husband's life. He has told me so often. When he iswell, it is well; when hope has come to him, the lights which shinethere are as the light of his hope. When he is ill, the opal fades; whenhe dies, it will die too. That is what I believe and he believes; it iswhat his father told him when he gave him the treasure, nearly all thatwas left of a great fortune."

  This tale astounded me; it betrayed absurd superstition, but it was thefirst ray of coherent explanation which had been thrown upon the case. Itook up the thread with avidity and pursued it.

  "Your husband's father was a rich man?" I asked. "Is he dead?"

  She looked up with a start, then dropped her eyes quickly, and mumbledsomething. Her hesitation was so marked that I put her whole story fromme as a clever fabrication, and returned again to the theory of robbery.

  "Madame," I said, "unless your husband can add to that which you tellme, I shall be unable to purchase your jewel."

  "Oh, for the love of God don't say that!" she cried; "we are so poor, wehave hardly eaten for days! Come and see Monsieur Carmalovitch and heshall tell you all; I implore you, and you will never regret thiskindness! My husband is a good friend; he will reward your friendship.You will not refuse me this?"

  It is hard to deny a pretty woman; it is harder still when she pleadswith tears in her voice. I told her that I would go and see her husbandon the following evening at nine o'clock, and counseled her to persuadehim in the between time to be frank with me, since frankness alone couldavail him. She accepted my advice with gratitude, and left as she hadcome, her pretty face made handsomer by its look of gloom andpensiveness. Then I fell to thinking upon the wisdom, or want of wisdom,in the promise I had given. Stories of men drugged, or robbed, ormurdered by jewel thieves crowded upon my mind, but always with therecollection that I should carry nothing to Boscobel Place. A man whohad no more upon him than a well-worn suit of clothes and a Swiss leverwatch in a silver case, such as I carry invariably, would scarce bequarry for the most venturesome shop-hawk that the history of knaveryhas made known to us. I could risk nothing by going to the house, I wassure; but I might get the opal, and for that I longed still with a feverfor possession which could only be accounted for by the beauty of thegem.

  Being come to this determination, I left my own house in a hansom-cab onthe following evening at half-past eight o'clock, taking Abel with me,more after my usual custom than from any prophetic alarm. I had moneyupon me sufficient only for the payment of the cab; and I took theextreme precaution of putting aside the diamond ring that I had beenwearing during the day. As I live in Bayswater, it was but a short driveacross Paddington Green and down the Marylebone Road to Boscobel Place;and when we reached the house we found it lighted up on the drawing-roomfloor as Abel had seen it at his first going there. But the hall wasquite in darkness, and I had to ring twice before the shrill-voiced dameI had heard of answered to my knock. She carried a frowsy candle in herhand; and was so uncanny-looking that I motioned to Abel to keep a watchfrom the outside upon the house before I went upstairs to that which wasa typical lodging-house room. There was a "tapestry" sofa against onewall; half a dozen chairs in evident decline stood in hilariousattitudes; some seaweed, protected for no obvious reason by shades ofglass, decorated the mantelpiece, and a sampler displayed the obviouslyaggravating advice to a tenant of such a place, "Waste not, want not."But the rickety writing-table was strewn with papers, and there was halfa cigar lying upon the edge of it, and a cup of coffee there had growncold in the dish.

  The aspect of the place amazed me. I began to regret that I had set outupon any such enterprise, but had no time to draw back before theRussian entered. He wore an out-at-elbow velvet coat, and the rest ofhis dress was shabby enough to suit his surroundings. I noticed,however, that he offered me a seat with a gesture that was superb, andthat his manner was less agitated than it had been at our first meeting.

  "I am glad to see you," he said. "You have come to buy my opal?"

  "Under certain conditions, yes."

  "That is very good of you; but I am offering you a great bargain. Myprice for the stone now is L3,000, one thousand less than my wifeoffered it at yesterday."

  "It has lost more of its color, then?"

  "Decidedly; or I should not have lowered my claim--but see foryourself."

  He took the stone from the wash-leather bag, and laid it upon thewriting-table. I started with amazement and sorrow at the sight of it.The glorious lights I had admired not twenty days ago were half gone; adull, salty-red tinge was creeping over the superb green and thescintillating black which had made me covet the jewel with such longing.Yet it remained, even in its comparative poverty, the most remarkablegem I have ever put hand upon.

  "The stone is certainly going off," I said in answer to him. "Whatguarantee have I that it will not be worthless in a month's time?"

  "You have my word. It is a tradition of our family that he who owns thatheirloom when it begins to fade must sell it or die--and sell it at itsworth. If I continue to possess it, the tradition must prove itself, forI shall die of sheer starvation."

  "And if another has it?"

  "It will regain its lights, I have no doubt of it, for it has gone likethis before when a death has happened amongst us. If you are content totake my word, I will return to you in six months' time and make good anyloss you have suffered by it. But I should want some money now,to-night, before an hour--could you let me have it?"

  "If I bought your stone, you could have the money for it; my man, who isoutside, would fetch my check-book."

  At the word "man," he went to the window, and saw Abel standing beneaththe gas-lamp. He looked fixedly at the fellow for a moment, and thendrew down the blinds in a deliberate way which I did not like at all.

  "That servant of yours has been set to watch this house for ten days,"he said. "Was that by your order?"

  I was so completely taken aback by his discovery that I sat for
a momentdumfounded, and gave him no answer. He, however, seemed trembling withpassion.

  "Was it by your orders?" he asked again, standing over me and almosthissing out his words.

  "It was," I answered after a pause; "but, you see, circumstances weresuspicious."

  "Suspicious! Then you _did_ believe me to be a rogue. I have shot menfor less."

  I attempted to explain, but he would not hear me. He had lost command ofhimself, stalking up and down the room with great strides until thetemper tautened his veins, and his lean hands seemed nothing but wireand bones. At last, he took a revolver from the drawer in his table, anddeliberately put cartridges into it. I stood up at the sight of it andmade a step towards the window; but he pointed the pistol straight atme, crying,--

  "Sit down, if you wish to live another minute--and say, do you stillbelieve me to be a swindler?"

  The situation was so dangerous, for the man was obviously but half sane,that I do not know what I said in answer to him; yet he pursued mywords fiercely, scarce hearing my reply before he continued,--

  "You have had my house watched, and, as I know now, you have branded myname before the police as that of a criminal; you shall make atonementhere on the spot by buying that opal, or you do not leave the roomalive!"

  It was a desperate trial, and I sat for some minutes as a man on theborderland of death. Had I been sensible then and fenced with him in hiswords I should now possess the opal; but I let out the whole of mythoughts--and the jewel went with them.

  "I cannot buy your stone," I said, "until I have your history and yourfather's----" But I said no more, for at the mention of his father hecried out like a wounded beast, and fired the revolver straight at myhead. The shot skinned my forehead and the powder behind it blackened myface; but I had no other injury, and I sprang upon him.

  For some moments the struggle was appalling. I had him gripped about thewaist with my left arm, my right clutching the hand wherein he held thepistol. He, in turn, put his left hand upon my throat and threw hisright leg round mine with a sinewy strength that amazed me. Thus wewere, rocking like two trees blown in a gale, now swaying towards thewindow, now to the door, now crashing against the table, or hurling thepapers and the ink and the ornaments in a confused heap, as, fightingthe ground foot by foot, we battled for the mastery. But I could not cryout, for his grip about my neck was the grip of a maniac; and as ittightened and tightened, the light grew dim before my eyes and I feltthat I was choking. This he knew, and with overpowering fury pressed hisfingers upon my throat until he cut me with his nails as with knives.Then, at last, I reeled from the agony of it; and we fell withtremendous force under the window, he uppermost.

  Of that lifelong minute that followed, I remember but little. I knowonly that he knelt upon my chest, still gripping my throat with his lefthand, and began to reach out for his revolver, which had dropped beneaththe table in our struggle. I had just seen him reach it with hisfinger-tips, and so draw it inch by inch towards him, when a fearfulscream rang out in the room, and his hand was stayed. The scream wasfrom the woman who had come to Piccadilly the day before, and it wasfollowed by a terrible paroxysm of weeping, and then by a heavy fall, asthe terrified girl fainted. He let me go at this, and stood straight up;but at the first step towards his wife he put his foot upon the greatopal, which we had thrown to the ground in our encounter, and he crushedit into a thousand fragments.

  When he saw what he had done, one cry, and one alone, escaped from him;but before I could raise a hand to stay him, he had turned the pistol tohis head, and had blown his brains out.

  * * * * *

  The story of the opal of Carmalovitch is almost told. A long inquiryafter the man's death added these facts to the few I had alreadygleaned. He was the son of a banker in Buda-Pesth, a noble Russian, whohad emigrated to Hungary and taken his wealth with him to embark it inhis business. He himself had been educated partly in England, partly inFrance; but at the moment when he should have entered the great firm inBuda-Pesth, there came the Argentine crash, and his father was one ofthose who succumbed. But he did more than succumb, he helped himself tothe money of his partners, and being discovered, was sentenced as acommon felon, and is at this moment in a Hungarian prison.

  Steniloff, the son, was left to clear up the estate, and got from it,when all was settled, a few thousand pounds, by the generosity of thefather's partners. Beyond these he had the opal, which the family hadpossessed for three hundred years, buying it originally in Vienna. Thispossession, however, had been, for the sake of some absurd tradition,always kept a profound secret, and when the great crash came, the manwhose death I had witnessed took it as his fortune. For some years hehad lived freely at Rome, at Nice, at Naples, where he married; but hismoney being almost spent, he brought his wife to England, and thereattempted to sell the jewel. As he would tell nothing of his history,lest his father's name should suffer, he found no buyer, and dragged onfrom month to month, going deeper in the byways of poverty until he cameto me. The rest I have told you.

  Of the opal which I saw so wofully crushed in the lodging-house inBoscobel Place, but one large fragment remained. I have had that set ina ring, and have sold it to-day for fifty pounds. The money will go toMadame Carmalovitch, who has returned to her parents in Naples. She hassuffered much.

  THE NECKLACE OF GREEN DIAMONDS.