Артур Дойл - The Doings of Raffles Haw

“It is perhaps hardly fair to dignify it by the name of a museum,” said Raffles Haw. “It consists merely of a few elegant trifles which I have picked up here and there. Gems are my strongest point. I fancy that there, perhaps, I might challenge comparison with any private collector in the world. I lock them up, for even the best servants may be tempted.”

He took a silver key from his watch chain, and began to unlock and draw out the drawers. A cry of wonder and of admiration burst from Robert McIntyre, as his eyes rested upon case after case filled with the most magnificent stones. The deep still red of the rubies, the clear scintillating green of the emeralds, the hard glitter of the diamonds, the many shifting shades of beryls, of amethysts, of onyxes, of cats’-eyes, of opals, of agates, of cornelians seemed to fill the whole chamber with a vague twinkling, many-coloured light. Long slabs of the beautiful blue lapis lazuli, magnificent bloodstones, specimens of pink and red and white coral, long strings of lustrous pearls, all these were tossed out by their owner as a careless schoolboy might pour marbles from his bag.

“This isn’t bad,” he said, holding up a great glowing yellow mass as large as his own head. “It is really a very fine piece of amber. It was forwarded to me by my agent at the Baltic. Twenty-eight pounds, it weighs. I never heard of so fine a one. I have no very large brilliants – there were no very large ones in the market – but my average is good. Pretty toys, are they not?” He picked up a double handful of emeralds from a drawer, and then let them trickle slowly back into the heap.

“Good heavens!” cried Robert, as he gazed from case to case. “It is an immense fortune in itself. Surely a hundred thousand pounds would hardly buy so splendid a collection.”

“I don’t think that you would do for a valuer of precious stones,” said Raffles Haw, laughing. “Why, the contents of that one little drawer of brilliants could not be bought for the sum which you name. I have a memo. here of what I have expended up to date on my collection, though I have agents at work who will probably make very considerable additions to it within the next few weeks. As matters stand, however, I have spent – let me see-pearls one forty thousand; emeralds, seven fifty; rubies, eight forty; brilliants, nine twenty; onyxes – I have several very nice onyxes-two thirty. Other gems, carbuncles, agates – hum! Yes, it figures out at just over four million seven hundred and forty thousand. I dare say that we may say five millions, for I have not counted the odd money.”

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