XXII
“It was high noon in the city of Antwerp. From slender
steeples floated the mellow music of the Flemish bells, and in the spire
of the great cathedral across the square the cracked chimes clashed discords
until my ears ached.
“When the fiend in the cathedral had jerked the last tuneless clang from
the chimes, I removed my fingers from my ears and sat down at one of the
iron tables in the court. A waiter, with his face shaved blue, brought
me a bottle of Rhine wine, a tumbler of cracked ice, and a siphon.
“‘Does monsieur desire anything else?’ he inquired.
“‘Yes—the head of the cathedral bell-ringer; bring it with vinegar and
potatoes,’ I said, bitterly. Then I began to ponder on my great-aunt and
the Crimson Diamond.
“The white walls of the Hôtel St. Antoine rose in a rectangle around
the sunny court, casting long shadows across the basin of the fountain.
The strip of blue overhead was cloudless. Sparrows twittered under the
eaves the yellow awnings fluttered, the flowers swayed in the summer breeze,
and the jet of the fountain splashed among the water-plants. On the sunny
side of the piazza the tables were vacant; on the shady side I was lazily
aware that the tables behind me were occupied, but I was indifferent as
to their occupants, partly because I shunned all tourists, partly because
I was thinking of my great-aunt.
“Most old ladies are eccentric, but there is a limit, and my great-aunt
had overstepped it. I had believed her to be wealthy—she died bankrupt.
Still, I knew there was one thing she did possess, and that was the famous
Crimson Diamond. Now, of course, you know who my great-aunt was.
“Excepting the Koh-i-noor and the Regent, this enormous and unique stone
was, as everybody knows, the most valuable gem in existence. Any ordinary
person would have placed that diamond in a safe-deposit. My great-aunt
did nothing of the kind. She kept it in a small velvet bag, which she carried
about her neck. She never took it off, but wore it dangling openly on her
heavy silk gown.
“In this same bag she also carried dried catnip-leaves, of which she was
inordinately fond. Nobody but myself, her only living relative, knew that
the Crimson Diamond lay among the sprigs of catnip in the little velvet
bag.
“‘Harold,’ she would say, ‘do you think I’m a fool? If I place the Crimson
Diamond in any safe-deposit vault in New York, somebody will steal it,
sooner or later.’ Then she would nibble a sprig of catnip and peer cunningly
at me. I loathed the odor of catnip and she knew it. I also loathed cats.
This also she knew, and of course surrounded herself with a dozen. Poor
old lady! One day she was found dead in her bed in her apartments at the
Waldorf. The doctor said she died from natural causes. The only other occupant
of her sleeping-room was a cat. The cat fled when we broke open the door,
and I heard that she was received and cherished by some eccentric people
in a neighboring apartment.
“Now, although my great-aunt’s death was due to purely natural causes,
there was one very startling and disagreeable feature of the case. The
velvet bag containing the Crimson Diamond had disappeared. Every inch of
the apartment was searched, the floors torn up, the walls dismantled, but
the Crimson Diamond had vanished. Chief of Police Conlon detailed four
of his best men on the case, and, as I had nothing better to do, I enrolled
myself as a volunteer. I also offered $25,000 reward for the recovery of
the gem. All New York was agog.
“The case seemed hopeless enough, although there were five of us after
the thief. McFarlane was in London, and had been for a month, but Scotland
Yard could give him no help, and the last I heard of him he was roaming
through Surrey after a man with a white spot in his hair. Harrison had
gone to Paris. He kept writing me that clews were plenty and the scent
hot, but as Dennet, in Berlin, and Clancy, in Vienna, wrote me the same
thing, I began to doubt these gentlemen’s ability.
“‘You say,’ I answered Harrison, ‘that the fellow is a Frenchman, and that
he is now concealed in Paris; but Dennet writes me by the same mail that
the thief is undoubtedly a German, and was seen yesterday in Berlin. To-day
I received a letter from Clancy, assuring me that Vienna holds the culprit,
and that he is an Austrian from Trieste. Now, for Heaven’s sake,’ I ended,
‘let me alone and stop writing me letters until you have something to write
about.’
“The night-clerk at the Waldorf had furnished us with our first clew. On
the night of my aunt’s death he had seen a tall, grave-faced man hurriedly
leave the hotel. As the man passed the desk he removed his hat and mopped
his forehead, and the night-clerk noticed that in the middle of his head
there was a patch of hair as white as snow.
“We worked this clew for all it was worth, and, a month later, I received
a cable despatch from Paris, saying that a man answering to the description
of the Waldorf suspect had offered an enormous crimson diamond for sale
to a jeweller in the Palais Royal. Unfortunately the fellow took fright
and disappeared before the jeweller could send for the police, and since
that time McFarlane in London, Harrison in Paris, Dennet in Berlin, and
Clancy in Vienna had been chasing men with white patches on their hair
until no gray-headed patriarch in Europe was free from suspicion. I myself
had sleuthed it through England, France, Holland, and Belgium, and now
I found myself in Antwerp at the Hôtel St. Antoine, without a clew
that promised anything except another outrage on some respectable white-haired
citizen. The case seemed hopeless enough, unless the thief tried again
to sell the gem. Here was our only hope, for, unless he cut the stone into
smaller ones, he had no more chance of selling it than he would have had
if he had stolen the Venus of Milo and peddled her about the Rue de Seine.
Even were he to cut up the stone, no respectable gem collector or jeweller
would buy a crimson diamond without first notifying me; for although a
few red stones are known to collectors, the color of the Crimson Diamond
was absolutely unique, and there was little probability of an honest mistake.
“Thinking of all these things, I sat sipping my Rhine wine in the shadow
of the yellow awnings. A large white cat came sauntering by and stopped
in front of me to perform her toilet, until I wished she would go away.
After a while she sat up, licked her whiskers, yawned once or twice, and
was about to stroll on, when, catching sight of me, she stopped short and
looked me squarely in the face. I returned the attention with a scowl,
because I wished to discourage any advances towards social intercourse
which she might contemplate; but after a while her steady gaze disconcerted
me, and I turned to my Rhine wine. A few minutes later I looked up again.
The cat was still eying me.
“‘Now what the devil is the matter with the animal,’ I muttered; ‘does
she recognize in me a relative?’
“‘Perhaps,’ observed a man at the next table.
“‘What do you mean by that?’ I demanded.
“‘What I say,’ replied the man at the next table.
“I looked him full in the face. He was old and bald and appeared weak-minded.
His age protected his impudence. I turned my back on him. Then my eyes
fell on the cat again. She was still gazing earnestly at me.
“Disgusted that she should take such pointed public notice of me, I wondered
whether other people saw it; I wondered whether there was anything peculiar
in my own personal appearance. How hard the creature stared! It was most
embarrassing.
“‘What has got into that cat ?’ I thought. ‘It’s sheer impudence. It’s
an intrusion, and I won’t stand it!’ The cat did not move. I tried to stare
her out of countenance. It was useless. There was aggressive inquiry in
her yellow eyes. A sensation of uneasiness began to steal over me—a sensation
of embarrassment not unmixed with awe. All cats looked alike to me, and
yet there was something about this one that bothered me—something that
I could not explain to myself, but which began to occupy me.
“She looked familiar—this Antwerp cat. An odd sense of having seen her
before, of having been well acquainted with her in former years, slowly
settled in my mind, and, although I could never remember the time when
I had not detested cats, I was almost convinced that my relations with
this Antwerp tabby had once been intimate if not cordial. I looked more
closely at the animal. Then an idea struck me—an idea which persisted and
took definite shape in spite of me. I strove to escape from it, to evade
it, to stifle and smother it; an inward struggle ensued which brought the
perspiration in beads upon my cheeks—a struggle short, sharp, decisive.
It was useless—useless to try to put it from me—this idea so wretchedly
bizarre, so grotesque and fantastic, so utterly inane—it was useless to
deny that the cat bore a distinct resemblance to my great-aunt!
“I gazed at her in horror. What enormous eyes the creature had!
“‘Blood is thicker than water,’ said the man at the next table.
“‘What does he mean by that?’ I muttered, angrily, swallowing a tumbler
of Rhine wine and seltzer. But I did not turn. What was the use?
“‘Chattering old imbecile,’ I added to myself, and struck a match, for
my cigar was out; but, as I raised the match to relight it, I encountered
the cat’s eyes again. I could not enjoy my cigar with the animal staring
at me, but I was justly indignant, and I did not intend to be routed. ‘The
idea! Forced to leave for a cat!’ I sneered. ‘We will see who will be the
one to go!’ I tried to give her a jet of seltzer from the siphon, but the
bottle was too nearly empty to carry far. Then I attempted to lure her
nearer, calling her in French, German, and English, but she did not stir.
I did not know the Flemish for ‘cat.’
“‘She’s got a name, and won’t come,’ I thought. ‘Now, what under the sun
can I call her?’
“‘Aunty,’ suggested the man at the next table.
“I sat perfectly still. Could that man have answered my thoughts?—for I
had not spoken aloud. Of course not—it was a coincidence—but a very disgusting
one.
“‘Aunty,’ I repeated, mechanically, ‘aunty, aunty—good gracious, how horribly
human that cat looks!’ Then, somehow or other, Shakespeare’s words crept
into my head and I found myself repeating: ‘The soul of my grandam might
haply inhabit a bird; the soul of— nonsense!’ I growled—’it isn’t printed
correctly! One might possibly say, speaking in poetical metaphor, that
the soul of a bird might haply inhabit one’s grandam—’ I stopped short,
flushing painfully. ‘What awful rot!’ I murmured, and lighted another cigar.
The cat was still staring; the cigar went out. I grew more and more nervous.
‘What rot!’ I repeated. ‘Pythagoras must have been an ass, but I do believe
there are plenty of asses alive to-day who swallow that sort of thing.’
“‘Who knows?’ sighed the man at the next table, and I sprang to my feet
and wheeled about. But I only caught a glimpse of a pair of frayed coat-tails
and a bald head vanishing into the dining-room. I sat down again, thoroughly
indignant. A moment later the cat got up and went away.
Go to Chapter
Twenty Three.....
