Max Pemberton - Murder Mysteries Boxed-Set - 40+ Books in One Edition

"M. le Comte," said he, "I do not leave this hotel without my diamond or the money for it."

He spoke the words slowly and firmly—but, to me hearing them, they came like a thunderclap. It was just as if he had snatched five thousand pounds from my hands and pitched them out of the window. What to do, what to say, I could not think. I simply stood and stared, imitating my master, whose tongue seemed stuck to his mouth. Meanwhile, Lobmeyr was beginning to work himself up—he raised his voice until you might have heard him on the "third" of the hotel.

"I say that I will not leave the stone," he repeated. "Return it to me or pay me! I will wait here until I receive the money: I will not be put off——"

He went on like this, just as foreigners will, and really, at one time, I thought he would send for the police on the spot. What with his talk and the talk of Sir Nicolas, who argued and pleaded until he was black in the face, we might have been in a brawl at a fair. But the hullaballoo saved us, for they were in the very middle of it when the idea came to me—

"Offer him a check on the Bank of England," whispered I to Sir Nicolas in a pause; "he'll take that quick enough—a check to be cashed this day week, if we buy."

I said the words, and acting upon them, I pulled out my check-book—for we always had a bit of an account at the Bank—and wrote a check for ten thousand pounds, signing it "Nicolas Babbington Steele," my master's full name. Then I passed it over, without comment, to Lobmeyr.

But I knew that he would take it, for an Englishman's check is still as good as gold in Vienna; and five minutes after the idea came to me, he was out of the hotel, and my master was capering about the room like a village lad with a sugar-stick.

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The next stage in the story of the great white diamond carries me to the seventh day after the dinner at the Métropole. The situation brought about by the events of that night was a very simple one. King had gone off to Buda-Pesth with the diamond, promising to let us have his answer within the week; Lobmeyr had gone off with a worthless check on the Bank of England, which he was not to cash until seven days had passed. During the between-time we were safe enough, and could go about Vienna as we pleased. But on the seventh morning the danger-bell rang, suddenly and in a way we had never looked for. To put it short, King wrote saying that his return to the Métropole was delayed for five days, but that he would give us a definite answer about the Mazarin directly he was back.

"Hildebrand," said Sir Nicolas, when he read this note, "the game is just up, don't you think? Lobmeyr will never wait another week. And he'll be learning that the check's froth before then. It couldn't have happened worse."

Truth to tell, I was inclined to side with him. I had no fancy to see the shape of an Austrian prison; and yet to clear out of Vienna and leave ten thousand pounds behind us seemed a cruel thing indeed.

"Look here, sir," said I, "the first thing to do is to lie low, and to keep out of our rooms in the Singer Strasse. If the police do get enquiring about us, we may as well have the start of them. I'll take your traps up to that little French hotel by the arsenal during the morning; and after breakfast I'll call on Lobmeyr and see if he won't wait five days. It's strange if he's in all that hurry."

Well, he agreed to this, though he was very gloomy about it; and when I had engaged a room for him at the Hotel Henri IV., booking him as Mr. Winstanley of London, I went down to the Graben, meaning to call upon Lobmeyr. I can remember the events of that morning as if the whole thing happened yesterday—the biting cold, the snow shining crisp in the sun, the hurry-scurry of all who shopped. Nor shall I ever forget the creeping feeling which came over me, when, and just as I was ten yards from Lobmeyr's house, I saw two policemen get out of a cab and go straight in at the door.

Now, if you're engaged on a bit of shaky business,—if for days past you have been saying to yourself, "This will bring me into a law-court or a cell,"—the last thing you care to see is a policeman. I can tell you that for five minutes after I watched those two men get out of the cab and go into Lobmeyr's place, I stood stock still, as if they had glued me to the pavement.

"Good God!" said I to myself, "here's the end of your ten thousand, Bigg, any way. And if you're not precious smart, here's the end of your public engagements for months to come. What's brought those men there, you can't say. Perhaps he's heard that the real Comte de Laon is in Paris; perhaps he's tried to cash the check and got it back again. That don't concern you—what you've got to do is to show your heels and quick about it."

True enough, my first impulse was to run for it, and not stop until Sir Nicolas and I were inside a train for the frontier. A second thought held me back. How was I to be sure, just because I had seen two policemen enter Lobmeyr's shop, that those two policemen were concerned in my fortunes? And it might be, I said, that we could cheat them, even if they were. Once King came back to Vienna, the game was ours. And if we could keep out of the clutches of enquiring busybodies for five days, we might, at the end of that time, tell them to go to the devil or stay at home, just as they pleased.

All this passed through my mind like a flash of lightning while I stood gaping with astonishment at the sight of the policemen. And no sooner had I weighed the matter up than I saw the light through it. Next door to Lobmeyr's there was a meerschaum-pipe shop. A big wooden partition divided the two houses, and to step behind this was the work of a second. But scarce was I in the cover when the two sergeants of police were back again in the cab, and the direction they had given to the coachman was ringing in my ears:

"Singer Strasse Sechzehn."

The gift to gabble in German is not among my acquirements, as you may learn from the story; but German or no German, I don't want any one to tell me what "Singer Strasse Sechzehn" meant.

"They're going straight to our shop to search it," said I to myself; "and that's just the worst thing that could happen to us. They'll find we're missing, and then the fun will begin. Oh, Nicky, Nicky! the devil himself took the tickets when we set out on this job."

You see my mind turned to Nicky at once, for though I had left him snug at the hotel by the Arsenal, I could not say but that he had gone up to his old rooms for the letters, and in that case, the Lord only knew what would follow. I saw that the police might have him even while I was running like a madman to the Hôtel Henri IV. Spurred on by the fear, I flew over the ground like one bewitched. When at last I reached the hotel, he met me on the steps of it, and I nearly knocked him down in my excitement.

"Thank God for this, sir!" said I; and then I told him.

"Ye don't mean to say that," cried he, turning very white.

"Indeed and I do; I saw the cab start with the pair of them inside. There's nothing to be done now but to lie as low as moles. The odds are that they'll search the railway stations and the big hotels; but they'll hardly come to a shop like this."

"That's true," said he; "and yet to think that we wanted only five days of winning! Oh, if King would only come back!"

It was all very well for him to say, "Oh, if King would only come back!" and, for the matter of that, I could almost have prayed for the same thing. King alone could save us. If he turned up, we could pay Lobmeyr or return him his diamond. But King was in Buda-Pesth, and we might as well have prayed for the moon. Meanwhile the police were in the Singer Strasse!

This was how the thing stood—then and for the next three days. The life we lived is not to be told here. Sufficient to say that the pair of us started at every shadow we saw; turned pale every time a waiter entered the room. It's well enough to read in books about haunted men; but I've no fancy myself to play the rôle , nor ever had. What I went through at that little Hotel Henri IV. I would not go through again for a thousand pounds, and that's saying something. So badly did the thing wear me, so strangely did it act on my nerves, lying boxed up there like a rat and not knowing from minute to minute whether I was free or a prisoner, that on the third afternoon, at dark, I made up my mind to do something; and I left the hotel while my master was asleep on his bed, worn out with the anxiety and the watching.