The Orange-Yellow Diamond by J. S. Fletcher (best novels of all time .TXT) 📗

Li protested that he had but some fifty or sixty pounds in gold available—but he promised to have the rest of the thousand ready on the following evening. Finally, he handed Parslett fifty pounds, arranged that he should call the next night—and then invited him to take a drink. Parslett pocketed the money and accepted the invitation—and Yada, from his hiding-place, saw Chen Li go to the sideboard, mix whisky and soda and pour into the mixture a few drops from a phial which he took from his waistcoat pocket. Parslett drank off the contents of the glass—and Chen Li went down to the gate with him.

Yada followed to the front door and, through a slight opening, watched. The garden was fairly well lighted by the moon, which had recently risen. He saw Chen Li let the man out. He saw him turn from the gate and slowly come back towards the house. And then he saw something else—the sudden spring, from behind a big laurel bush, of a man—a short-statured, slight-figured man, who leapt on Chen Li with the agility of a panther. He saw the flash of a knife in the moonlight—he heard a muffled cry, and startled groan—and saw Chen Li pitch forward and lie evidently lifeless, where he fell. He saw the assailant stoop, seize his victim by the shoulders and drag him behind the shrubbery. Then, without further delay, the murderer hurried to the gate. Evidently assured himself that there was no one about, let himself out, and was gone.

By all the solemn oaths that he could think of, Yada swore that this was true. Of another thing he was certain—the murderer was a Chinese.

Now began his own career of crime. He was just then very hard up. He had spent much more than his allowance—he was in debt at his lodgings and elsewhere. Somewhere, he felt sure, there was, in that house, the money which Chen Li had evidently stolen from old Multenius. He immediately set to work to find it. But he had no difficulty—the bank-notes were in the drawer from which he had seen Chen Li take the gold which he had given to the blackmailer, Parslett. He hurriedly transferred them to his own pocket, and got away from the house by the door at the back of the garden—and it was not until late that night, in the privacy of his own rooms, that he found he had nearly eighty thousand pounds in his possession.

For some days, said Yada, he was at a loss what to do with his booty. He was afraid of attempting to change five hundred pound notes. He made cautious enquiries as to how that could be done—and he began to think that the notes were so much waste paper to him. And then Ayscough called on him—and for the first time, he heard the story of the orange-yellow diamond.

That gave him an idea. He had a very accurate knowledge of Chinese habits and characteristics, and he felt sure that Chen Li would have hidden that diamond in his pig-tail. So he took advantage of his possession of the detective's card to go to the mortuary, to get a minute or two alone with the body, and to slip his hand underneath the dead man's silk cap. There he found the diamond—and he knew that whether the bank-notes were to be of any value to him or not, the diamond would be if he could only escape to the Continent.

But—he wanted funds; wanted them badly. He thereupon conceived the bold idea of getting a reward for his knowledge. He went to the police-station with a merely modest motive in his mind—fifty pounds would carry him to Vienna, where he knew how to dispose of the diamond at once, with no questions asked. But when he found the owners of the diamond and the bank-notes present he decided to play for higher stakes. He got what he asked for—and, if it had not been for that little Jew, he said malevolently, he would have got out of England that eventful afternoon. But—it was not so written—and the game was up. Only—what he had said was true. Now let them do what they could for him—but let them search for Chen Li's murderer.

* * * * *

The folk who had been chiefly concerned about the orange-yellow diamond and the eighty thousand pounds' worth of Bank of England notes were not so much troubled about proving the truth of Yada's strange story as Yada himself was—the main point to them was that they had recovered their property. Naturally they felt remarkably grateful to Melky Rubinstein for his astuteness in circumventing Yada at what might have been the last moment. And one day, at that portion of it when business was slack and everybody was feeling comfortable after dinner, Melky called on Mrs. Goldmark and became confidentially closeted with her in a little parlour behind her establishment which she kept sacred to herself. Mrs. Goldmark, who had quick eyes, noticed that Melky was wearing his best clothes, and a new silk hat, and new gloves, and had put his feet into patent-leather boots which she secretly and sympathizingly—felt to be at least a size too small for him. He sighed as he sat near her on the sofa—and Mrs. Goldmark looked at him with concern.

"Such a time you have lately, Mr. Rubinstein, don't you?" she said feelingly. "Such worries—such troubles! And the risk you ran taking that wicked young man all by yourself—so brave of you! You'd ought to have one of these medals what they give to folks, so!"

"You think that?" responded Melky, brightening suspiciously. "Oh, Mrs. Goldmark, your words is like wine—all my life I been wishing some beautiful woman would say them things to me! Now I feel like I was two foot taller, Mrs. Goldmark! But I don't want no medals—not me. Mr. Levendale and Mr. Purvis, they came to me and say they must give me a reward—handsome reward, you understand, for getting back their goods. So I say no—I won't have nothing for myself—nothing. But, I say, just so—there is one that should be rewarded. Mrs. Goldmark!—do you know what? I think of you when I say that!"

Mrs. Goldmark uttered a feeble scream, clasped her hands, and stared at
Melky out of her melting eyes.

"Me?" she exclaimed. "Why—I ain't done nothing, Mr. Rubinstein!"

"Listen to me," persisted Melky. "What I says to Mr. Levendale is this here—if Mrs. Goldmark hadn't had her eating establishment, and if Mr. Purvis hadn't gone into it to eat a chop and to drop his platinum solitaire on the table, and if Mrs. Goldmark hadn't taken care of that platinum solitaire, and if things hadn't sprung from it—eh, what then, I should like to know? So Mrs. Goldmark is entitled to whatever little present there is!—that's how I put it, Mrs. Goldmark. And Mr. Levendale and Mr. Purvis, they agreed with me—and oh, Mrs. Goldmark, ain't you going to be nice and let me put this round your beautiful neck?"

Mrs. Goldmark screamed again as Melky produced a diamond necklace, lying in a blue velvet bed in a fine morocco case. The glitter of the diamonds turned both beholders hoarse with emotion.

"Do you know what, Mrs. Goldmark!" whispered Melky. "It cost a thousand guineas—and no error! Now you bend your lovely head, and I puts it on you—oh, ain't you more beautiful than the Queen of Sheba! And ain't you Melky's queen, Mrs. Goldmark—say you was!"

"Lor', Mr. Rubinstein!" said Mrs. Goldmark, coyly. "It's as if you was proposing to me!"

"Why, ain't I?" exclaimed Melky, gathering courage. "Don't you see I'm in all my best clothes? Ain't it nothing but weddings, just now? There's Mr. Lauriston a-going to marry Zillah, and Mr. Purdie's a-fixing it up with Levendale's governess, and—oh, Mrs. Goldmark, ain't I worshipped you every time I come to eat my dinner in your eating house? Ain't you the loveliest woman in all Paddington. Say the word, Mrs. Goldmark—don't you see I'm like as if I was that hungry I could eat you?"

Then Mrs. Goldmark said the word—and presently escaped from Melky's embrace to look at herself and her necklace in the mirror.

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's The Orange-Yellow Diamond, by J. S. Fletcher