“The diamonds, you must know, have been ever so long in our family. It is said they were brought from India, in the time of Marco Polo, by an ancestor of mine. But that is neither here nor there; and sure enough they were only put into their present shape quite recently. I can remember when half of them were uncut, or cut in some barbarous oriental manner, picturesque enough, but not fashionable. And some were mounted as nose-rings, some as clasps, some in the hilts of daggers, and in all sorts of other ways. When I was a child, I was sometimes allowed to play with some of the loose ones, as a treat; until, at last, I contrived to lose one of the biggest. You may not believe it, but the governor actually horsed me and gave me a birching; and the diamonds were locked up from that day. It was only a few years ago that my dear mother, now no more, got them out, and insisted upon their being made up into a regular set by some skilful jeweller. We were thinking of going to Rome at the time, to spend six or eight months, and the first idea was to give the job to Castellani. But then it appeared that my mother had got her eye fixed upon a certain man in Paris, whom she had been told was the first lapidary in Europe. He, and none but he, should set our diamonds. You know my mother generally had her way; and she had it in this case. The fellow certainly did understand his business; his work was well done, as you may have noticed this evening. A queer, pale, nervous little chap he was; not a Frenchman at all, but a Saxon, born in Dresden, I believe, or some village in that neighbourhood. His name was Rudolph — Heinrich Rudolph. He lived and worked in a little dark shop in the Latin Quarter.
“He and I became quite intimate. You see, I had been commissioned to attend to this diamond business, and to remain in Paris until it was done. I was to watch it through all its stages, and be sure that my mother’s directions regarding the style of the setting were accurately followed. When all was finished, I was to pay the bill and bring the diamonds on to Rome, where the family would by that time be established. Well, I was a young fellow, and probably I was not so much cast down at the prospect of spending a month or two alone in Paris as you might suppose. But I doubt whether I should have attended to my ostensible business so faithfully as I actually did, had I not been so greatly taken with my little friend Rudolph. He and I twigged one another, as boys say, from the first. I used to sit and watch him work for hours at a time; and as he worked, he would talk; and very queer captivating talk a good deal of it was. He was a thorough artist and enthusiast, and seemed to care for nothing outside of his profession. He did not appear to me to be in the way of making much money, and it occurred to me that it might be acceptable were I, in an unobtrusive way, to introduce him to some wealthy customers. I knew few people in Paris; but there was a Mr. Birchmore, an American gentleman, staying at my hotel, with whom I had forgathered over a cup of coffee and a cigar once or twice: he was a handsome middle-aged man, with an atmosphere of refined affluence about him such as would have befitted a duke. Not a bit like your traditional Yankee; in fact, I’m not sure that I should have suspected him, if I hadn’t seen his address —‘Fifth Avenue, New York City, U.S.A.’— in the hotel register, about a week after my arrival. He was an agreeable man enough, though not at all the sort to take liberties with; however, I made up my mind that I would get him to Rudolph’s on the first pretext that offered.
“Well, I had an excellent pretext before long. Mr. Birchmore came into the café one afternoon, with rather an annoyed look, and made some inquiries of the waiter. Fran?ois raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders; there was some further conference, and then he and Mr. Birchmore began searching about the floor of the room. It presently transpired that he had lost a diamond out of his ring, which had contained three matched brilliants. It was nowhere to be found.
“‘I don’t mind the loss of the stone itself,’ said Mr. Birchmore at last, sitting down near my table; ‘but it’s one of a set, matched with great difficulty, and I’m afraid I may never replace it.’
“Here was my opportunity. I set forth the wisdom, skill, and resources of my little Saxon friend in glowing colours; mentioned the work he was doing for me, and declared that if any man in Europe could help Mr. Birchmore to repair his loss, Rudolph was he. Mr. Birchmore at first paid little heed to my representations; but finally I induced him to accompany me to the Latin Quarter, and at least make the attempt. The next morning, accordingly, we set forth; and as we sauntered along the wide pleasant boulevards, our conversation became more free and affable than it had been hitherto. I found my companion could be exceedingly entertaining when he chose it, and had a vast fund of experience and adventure to draw upon. He had been almost everywhere; he had made himself familiar with all varieties of civilised and uncivilised men; as a matter of course, too, he was a versatile linguist. The only direction in which he gave any evidence of comparative deficiency was in that of literature and the fine arts. His life had been essentially an active one; he cared little for Tennyson and Swinburne, for Matthew Arnold and Carlyle. He had, however, read and appreciated ‘Macbeth,’ and some others of Shakespeare’s plays; and he was well acquainted with several of the romances of ‘Unabashed Defoe.’ I did not discover all this in the course of that one stroll over to the Latin Quarter, but it leaked out during our subsequent acquaintance, which was destined to become more intimate and prolonged than I had any idea of then. As I have intimated, Mr. Birchmore was quite frank and open in his talk, except upon one topic — himself. Of his inner life and circumstances I could learn nothing. Though he never was obtrusively reticent, yet he contrived never to refer to his own private affairs. I could not satisfy myself whether he were married or single, whether he were a Catholic or Atheist — hardly whether he were rich or poor. Some shadow of grief, some incubus of fear or calamity, seemed to overwhelm him, and impose silence. The most I could do was to draw inferences; and my inference was that he was a bachelor, a millionaire, a sceptic, and a man who, at some period of his life, had committed, either deliberately or by force of circumstances, a terrible crime! You will see presently how far my estimate was from the truth, or how near to it.
“However, I am anticipating, as it is. We arrived in due time at Rudolph’s little shop, and I introduced him to Birchmore. I had previously told the latter about my diamonds, and now I made Rudolph produce them. The man of the world examined the gems with evident interest, and with a knowledge of their value and qualities which surprised me, and caused the little jeweller to eye my friend with a jealous keenness.
“‘These are all Indian stones,’ was Birchmore’s first remark. ‘There is not an American among them — or stay! What is this? neither an American nor an Indian! An African, I declare, and one of the finest I have seen!’
“‘Der Herr hat recht!’ muttered Rudolph, with a glance at me. ‘Er versteht ja alles.’
“‘You know German?’— he says, ‘What you don’t know about diamonds isn’t worth knowing,’ I put in. Birchmore nodded with a half smile.
“‘I ought to know something about precious stones,’ he said. ‘I spent three years in a diamond mine, for one thing.’ He seemed on the point of saying more, but checked himself, and went on scrutinising the stones, most of which were already in their new setting. ‘A costly parure that,’ he remarked at length. ‘It wouldn’t sell for a penny under thirty thousand pounds.’
“‘Five hundred eighty-five thousand francs, with the setting,’ replied Rudolph, to whom the words had been addressed. ‘Monsieur’s estimate would have been correct, but that this stone here is a little off colour, and this one has a slight flaw, which is now in part concealed by the setting.’
“‘You travel under proper precautions, I trust?’ said Birchmore, after a pause, turning gravely to me. ‘I know the confidence you young fellows have in your courage and cleverness; but a dozen or a score of thieves might conspire together for such a prize as this, and against their skill and address no single man would stand a chance. Ah! I know something of it. I was robbed once.’
“‘Do tell me about it!’ I exclaimed, with an impulsive betrayal of interest that made me smile the next moment.
“‘Another time,’ said he, shaking his head; and presently he added: ‘You will pardon me for presuming to counsel you?’
“‘My dear sir, I am much obliged to you. My idea is that the simplest precautions are the best. I shall carry the stones in an inner pocket, and I shall go armed. No one will suspect me; and if I am attacked, I shall make a good defence at all events.’
“Mr. Birchmore said nothing more, and indeed seemed scarcely to listen to my remarks. I now suggested to him that he might show Rudolph his ring. He put his hand to his waistcoat pocket, and gave a half-suppressed ejaculation of disappointment and annoyance. He had left the ring at home!
“‘No matter; I will call to-morrow, Herr Rudolph,’ he observed. ‘I’ve no doubt I shall find what I want here, if anywhere. Good-morning — that is, if you are ready, Mr. Gainsborough. By the way, Rudolph, I suppose you put your treasures in a safe at night?’
“‘Oh, by all means, Herr,’ replied the little Saxon. ‘And I have a watchman also, who guards all night long.’
“‘A prudent fellow: yes, that will do,’ murmured Mr. Birchmore, in an undertone to himself. Then, with a parting nod and smile, to which the jeweller did not respond, he sauntered out, I following him. We walked back to the hotel. I did not see him again until after dinner, when he offered me a cigar; and when we had smoked together awhile in silence, he said abruptly:
“‘I’ve found that stone.’
“I looked at him inquiringly.
“‘The diamond out of my ring. In my trouser pocket, of all places in the world! Fell out while I was groping for my keys, I suppose. Sorry to have raised false hopes in your friend Rudolph. By the way, he’ll have finished that job of yours before very long?’
“‘In about a week, I fancy. I shall be sorry to leave Paris.’
“‘Yes? Well, it is a nice place; but one gets tired of the nicest places in time. I do. I like to be moving.’
“‘I shall have a month to spend on my way to Rome. This is almost my first experience of the Continent. I wish I had some travelling companion who knew the ropes.’ This hint I let fall in the hope that he might propose to join me; but as he made no rejoinder, I at length ventured to put it more plainly. I gave a rough sketch of the route I proposed to follow, asked his opinion upon it, and finally said that, should his inclination lead him also in that direction, I should be very glad of his company.
“‘Well, sir, I’m obliged to you,’ replied Mr. Birchmore, after a pause of some moments. ‘You couldn’t pay a man a better compliment than to ask him to travel with you; and I would accept your offer as frankly and fearlessly as you make it, only — well, the fact is, I’m not so entirely at my own disposal as I may appear to you to be. I have been through a good many experiences in life, and some of the consequences are upon me still. When you have reached my age — if you ever do reach it — you will understand me better. I suppose I may be fifteen years your senior; well, fifteen years means a good deal — a good deal.’ He puffed a meditative cloud or two, and then added, ‘You’re not hurt? You see how it is? I would really like to accompany you — but I can’t.’
“Of course, I warmly disavowed all resentment and felt inwardly ashamed of having forced him, by the freedom of my advances, into making this explanation. Meanwhile, I could not help liking him better than ever, and feeling more than ever interested, not to say curious, about him. It was now certain that some mystery or other attached to him. I cast covert glances at him, in the vain attempt to read something of his secret through his outward aspect. But he was inscrutable, or rather, there was nothing especially noticeable in him. His face, as I have said, was handsome in its contours; he wore a heavy moustache and a short pointed beard on his chin. His forehead was wide across the temples, but low; and dark brown hair, rather stiff, and streaked here and there with gray, grew thickly over his head. His hands were large, and hairy up to the second joints of the fingers, but they were finely and powerfully formed, and the fingers tapered beautifully, with nails smoothly cut and polished. In figure he was above the medium size, and appeared strongly built, though he had complained to me more than once of rheumatism or some other bodily failing. In walking, he took rather short steps for a tall man, and without any swaying of the shoulders; his hands being generally thrust in the side pockets of his coat, and his face inclined towards the ground. But his eyes, large, bright, and restless, were his most remarkable feature. They appeared to take note of everything: they were seldom fixed and never introspective. Compared with the general immobility of the rest of his countenance, these eyes of Mr. Birchmore seemed to have a life of their own — and a very intense and watchful one. Whenever they met mine fully (which was but seldom, and then only for a moment at a time) I was conscious of a kind of start or thrill, as if a fine spray of icy water had swept my face. What had those eyes looked upon? or what was it that lurked behind them?
“‘We may run across each other again — hope we may,’ said Mr. Birchmore, when he shook hands with me at parting, a few days later. ‘Glad to have met you, Mr. Gainsborough — very glad, sir.’
“‘Thanks; I am glad to have met you. Your acquaintance has profited me not a little.’
“‘Oh, as to that,’ said Mr. Birchmore, with a smile, and one of those startling straightforward glances into my eyes, ‘as to that, the profit will have been mutual, to say the least of it. Good-bye!’