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The Gem Collector

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The darkness began to tear at her nerves. She felt along the wall for
the switch, and flooded the room with light.

Jimmy laid down the lantern, and stood for a moment, undecided. He
looked at Molly, and suddenly there came over him an overwhelming
desire to tell her everything. He had tried to stifle his conscience,
to assure himself that the old days were over, and that there was no
need to refer to them. And for a while he had imposed upon himself.
But lately the falseness of his position had come home to him. He
could not allow her to marry him, in ignorance of what he had been. It
would be a villainous thing to do. Often he had tried to tell her, but
had failed. He saw that it must be done, here and now.

He lifted the lid of the jewel box, and dangled the necklace before
her eyes.

She drew back.

"Jimmy! You were--stealing them?"

"No, I was putting them back."

"Putting them back?"

"Listen. I'm going to tell you the truth, Molly--I've been trying to
for days, but I never had the pluck. I wasn't stealing this necklace,
but for seven years I lived by this sort of thing."

"By----"

"By stealing. By breaking into houses and stealing. There. It isn't
nice, is it? But it's the truth. And whatever happens, I'm glad you
know."

"Stealing!" said Molly slowly. "You!"

He took a step forward, and laid his hand on her arm. She shrank away
from him. His hand fell to his side like lead.

"Molly, do you hate me?"

"How could you?" she whispered. "How could you?"

"Molly, I want to tell you a story. Are you listening? It's the story
of a weak devil who was put up to fight the world, and wasn't strong
enough for it. He got a bad start, and he never made it up. They sent
him to school, the best school in the country; and he got expelled.
Then they gave him a hundred pounds, and told him to make out for
himself. He was seventeen, then. Seventeen, mind you. And all he knew
was a little Latin and Greek, a very little, and nothing else. And
they sent him out to make his fortune."

He stopped.

"It will be much simpler to tell it in the first person," he said,
with a short laugh. "I arrived in New York--I was seventeen, you will
remember--with ninety pounds in my pocket. It seemed illimitable
wealth at the time. Two pounds was the most I had ever possessed
before. I could not imagine its ever coming to an end. In dollars it
seemed an inconceivable amount of money. I put up at the Waldorf. I
remember, I took a cab there. I gave the man three dollars."

He laughed again.

"You can guess how long my ninety pounds lasted. Within a month I had
begun to realize that my purse was shallower than I had thought. It
occurred to me that work of some sort would be an advantage. I went
round and tried to get some. My God! Remember, I was seventeen, and
absolutely ignorant of every useful trade under the sun."

"Go on."

"One day I was lunching at the Quentin, when a man came and sat down
at the same table, and we got into conversation. I had spent the
morning answering want advertisements, and I was going to break my
last twenty-dollar bill to pay for my lunch. I was in the frame of
mind when I would have done anything, good or bad, that would have
given me some money. The man was very friendly. After lunch, he took
me off to his rooms. He had a couple of parlor rooms in Forty-fifth
Street. Then he showed his hand. He was a pretty scoundrel, but I
didn't care. I didn't care for anything, except that there seemed to
be money to be had from him. Honesty! Put a man in New York with
nineteen dollars and a few cents in his pockets, and no friends, and
see what happens! It's a hell for the poor, in New York. An iron,
grinding city. It frightens you. It's so big and hard and cruel. It
takes the fight out of you. I've felt it, and I know."

He stopped, and gave a little shiver. Nine years had passed since that
day, but a man who has all but gone under in a big city does not
readily forget the nightmare horror of it.

"Stone--that was the man's name--was running a tapless wire-tapping
game. You've read about the trick, I expect. Every one has known about
it since Larry Summerfield was sent to Sing Sing. But it was new then.
There are lots of ways of doing it. Stone's was to hire a room and fix
it up to look like a branch of the Western Union Telegraph Company. He
would bring men in there and introduce them to a man he called the
manager of the branch, who was supposed to get racing results ten
minutes before they were sent out to the pool rooms. The victim would
put up the money for a bet, and Stone and his friends got it at once.
Stone was looking for an assistant. He wanted a man who looked like a
gentleman. To inspire confidence! I looked older than I was, and he
took me on. It was a filthy business, but I was in a panic. I was with
Stone eight months. Then I left him. It was too unsavory--even for me.

"It was after that that I became a cracksman. I wanted money. It was
no use hoping for work. I couldn't get it, and I couldn't have done it
if I had got it. I was a pirate, and fit for nothing except piracy.
One night I met a man in a Broadway rathskeller. I knew him by sight.
I had seen him about at places. 'You're with Stone, aren't you?' he
said, after we had talked about racing and other things for a while. I
stared at him in surprise. I was frightened, too. 'It's all right', he
said, 'I know all about Stone. You needn't be afraid of me. Aren't you
with him?' 'I was', I said. 'You left him? Why?' I told him. 'You seem
a bright kid', he said. 'Join me if you feel like it.' He was a
cracksman. I never found out his real name. He was always called Bob.
A curious man. He had been at Harvard, and spoke half a dozen
languages. I think he took to burglary from sheer craving for
excitement. He used to speak of it as if it were an art. I joined him,
and he taught me all he knew. When he died--he was run over by a
car--I went on with the thing. Then my uncle died, and I came back to
England, rich.

"When I left the lawyer's office, I made up my mind that I would draw
a line across my life. I swore I would never crack another crib. And
when I met you I swore it again."

"And yet----"

"No. It isn't as bad as you think. When I was in London I fell in with
a man named Mullins, who used to work with me in the old days. He was
starving, so I took him in, and brought him along here with me, to
keep him out of mischief. To-night he came to me with this necklace.
He had been in here, and stolen it. I took it from him, and came to
put it back. You believe me, don't you, Molly?"

"Yes," said she simply.

He came a step nearer.

"Molly, don't give me up. I know I've been a blackguard, but I swear
that's all over now. I've drawn a line right through it. I oughtn't
to have let myself love you. But I couldn't help it. I couldn't,
dear. You won't give me up, will you? If you'd only take me in hand,
you could make what you liked of me. I'd do anything for you. Any
mortal thing you wanted. You can make me just anything you please.
Will you try? Molly!"

He stopped. She held out both her hands to him.

The next moment she had gone.




CHAPTER XVIII.


With a wonderful feeling of light-heartedness, Jimmy turned once more
to the jewel box. He picked up the lamp and switched off the electric
light. He had dropped the necklace to the floor, and had knelt to
recover it when the opening of the door, followed by a blaze of light
and a startled exclamation, brought him to his feet with a bound,
blinking but alert.

In the doorway stood Sir Thomas Blunt. His face expressed the most
lively astonishment. His bulging eyes were fixed upon the pearls in
Jimmy's hand.

"Good evening," said Jimmy pleasantly.

Sir Thomas stammered. It is a disquieting experience to find the floor
of one's dressing room occupied by a burglar.

"What--what--what--" said Sir Thomas.

"Out with it," said Jimmy.

"What----"

"I knew a man once who stammered," said Jimmy. "He used to chew dog
biscuit while he was speaking. It cured him. Besides being
nutritious."

"You--you blackguard!" said Sir Thomas.

Jimmy placed the pearls carefully on the dressing table. Then he
turned to Sir Thomas, with his hands in the pockets of his coat. It
was a tight corner, but he had been in tighter in his time, and in
this instance he fancied that he held a winning card. He found himself
enjoying the interview.

"So--so it's you, is it?" said Sir Thomas.

"Who told you?"

"So you're a thief," went on the baronet viciously, "a low thief."

"Dash it all--I say, come now," protested Jimmy. "Not low. You may not
know me, over here, but I've got a big American reputation. Ask
anybody. But----

"And, I say," added Jimmy, "I know you don't mean to be offensive, but
I wish you wouldn't call me a thief. I'm a cracksman. There's a world
of difference between the two branches of the profession. I mean,
well, suppose you were an actor-manager, you wouldn't like to be
called a super, would you? I mean--well, you see don't you? An
ordinary thief, for instance, would use violence in a case like this.
Violence--except in extreme cases; I hope this won't be one of
them--is contrary to cracksmen's etiquette. On the other hand, Sir
Thomas, I should like to say that I have you covered."

There was a pipe in the pocket of his coat. He thrust the stem of this
earnestly against the lining. Sir Thomas eyed the protuberance
apprehensively, and turned a little pale.

"My gun, as you see, is in my pocket. It is loaded and cocked. It is
pointing straight at you at the present moment, and my finger is on
the trigger. I may add that I am a dead shot at a yard and a half. So
I should recommend you _not_ to touch that bell you are looking at."

Sir Thomas' hand wavered.

"Do, if you like, of course," said Jimmy agreeably. "In any case, I
shan't fire to kill you. I shall just smash your knees. Beastly
painful, but not fatal."

He waggled the pipe suggestively. Sir Thomas blanched. His hand fell
to his side.

"How are the theatricals going?" asked Jimmy. "Did you like the
monologue?"

Sir Thomas had backed away from the bell, but the retreat was merely
for the convenience of the moment. He understood that it might be
inconvenient to press the button just then; but he had recovered his
composure by this time, and he saw that the game must be his. Jimmy
was trapped, and he hastened to make this clear to him.

"How, may I ask," he said, "do you propose to leave the abbey?"

"I suppose they'll let me have the automobile," said Jimmy. "They can
hardly ask me to walk. But I wasn't thinking of leaving just yet."

"You mean to stop!"

"Why not? It's a pretty place."

"And what steps, if I may ask, do you imagine I shall take?"

"Waltz steps. They're going to have a dance after the show, you know.
You ought to be in that."

"You wish me, in fact, to become a silent accomplice? To refrain from
mentioning this little matter?"

"You put things so well."

"And do you propose to keep my wife's jewels, or may I have them?"

"Oh, you may have those," said Jimmy.

"Thank you."

"I never touch paste."

Sir Thomas failed to see the significance of this remark. Jimmy
repeated it, with emphasis.

"I never touch paste," he said, "and Lady Blunt's necklace is, I
regret to say, made of that material."

Sir Thomas grew purple.

"Mind you," said Jimmy, "it's very good paste. I'll say that for it. I
didn't see through it till I had it in my hands. Looking at the
thing--even quite close--I was taken in for a moment."

The baronet made strange, gurgling noises.

"Paste!" he said, speaking with difficulty. "Paste! Paste! Damn your
impertinence, sir! Are you aware that that necklace cost forty
thousand pounds?"

"Then whoever paid that sum for it wasted a great deal of money. Paste
it is, and paste it always will be."

"It can't be paste. How do you know?"

"How do I know? I'm an expert. Ask a jeweler how he knows diamonds
from paste. He can feel them. He can almost smell them."

"Let me look. It's impossible."

"Certainly. I don't know the extent of your knowledge of pearls. If it
is even moderate, I think you will admit that I am right."

Sir Thomas snatched the necklace from the table and darted with it to
the electric light. He scrutinized it, breathing heavily. Jimmy's
prophecy was fulfilled. The baronet burst into a vehement flood of
oaths, and hurled the glittering mass across the room. The unemotional
mask of the man seemed to have been torn off him. He shook with futile
passion.

Jimmy watched him in interested silence.

Sir Thomas ran to the jewels, and would have crushed them beneath his
feet, had not Jimmy sprang forward and jerked him away from them.

"Be quiet," he said. "Confound you, sir, will you stop that noise?"

Sir Thomas, unaccustomed to this style of address, checked the flood
for a moment.

"Now," said Jimmy, "you see the situation. At present, you and I are
the only persons alive, to the best of our knowledge, who know about
this. Stay, though, there must be one other. The real necklace must
have been stolen. It is impossible to say when. Years ago, perhaps.
Well, that doesn't affect us. The thief, whoever he is, is not likely
to reveal what he knows. So here you have it in a nutshell. Let me go,
and don't say a word about having found me here, and I will do the
same for you. No one will know that the necklace is not genuine. I
shall not mention the subject, and I imagine that you will not. Very
well, then. Now, for the alternative. Give me up, give the alarm, and
I get--well, whatever they give me. I don't know what it would be,
exactly. Something unpleasant. But what do you get out of it? Lady
Blunt, if I may say so, is not precisely the sort of lady, I should
think, who would bear a loss like this calmly. If I know her, she will
shout loudly for another necklace, and see that she gets it. I should
fancy you would find the expense unpleasantly heavy. That is only one
disadvantage of the alternative. Others will suggest themselves to
you. Which is it to be?"

Sir Thomas suspended his operation of glaring at the paste necklace to
glare at Jimmy.

"Well?" said Jimmy. "I should like your decision as soon as it's
convenient to you. They will be wanting me on the stage in a few
minutes. Which is it to be?"

"Which?" snapped Sir Thomas. "Why, go away, and go to the devil!"

"All in good time," said Jimmy cheerfully. "I think you have chosen
wisely. Coming downstairs?"

Sir Thomas made no response. He was regarding the necklace moodily.

"You'd better come. You'll enjoy the show. Charteris says it's the
best piece there's been since 'The Magistrate'! And he ought to know.
He wrote it. Well, good-by, then. See you downstairs later, I
suppose?"

For some time after he had gone Sir Thomas stood, motionless. Then he
went across the room and picked up the necklace. It occurred to him
that if Lady Blunt found it lying in a corner, there would be
questions. And questions from Lady Blunt ranked among the keenest of
his trials.

* * * * *

"If I had gone into the army," said Jimmy complacently to himself, as
he went downstairs, "I should have been a great general. Instead of
which I go about the country, scoring off dyspeptic baronets. Well,
well!"




CHAPTER XIX.


The evening's entertainment was over. The last of the nobility and
gentry had departed, and Mr. McEachern had retired to his lair to
smoke--in his shirt sleeves--the last and best cigar of the day, when
his solitude was invaded by his old New York friend, Mr. Samuel Galer.

"I've done a fair cop, sir," said Mr. Galer, without preamble,
quivering with self-congratulation.

"How's that?" said the master of the house.

"A fair cop, sir. Caught him in the very blooming act, sir. Dark it
was. Oo, pitch. Fair pitch. Like this, sir. Room opposite where the
jewels was. One of the gents' bedrooms. Me hiding in there. Door on
the jar. Waited a goodish bit. Footsteps. Hullo, they've stopped!
Opened door a trifle and looked out. Couldn't see much. Just made out
man's figure. Door of dressing room was open. Showed up against
opening. Just see him. Caught you at it, my beauty, have I? says I to
myself. Out I jumped. Got hold of him. Being a bit to the good in
strength, and knowing something about the game, downed him after a
while and got the darbies on him. Took him off and locked him in the
cellar. That's how it _was_, sir."

"Good boy," said Mr. McEachern approvingly. "You're no rube."

"No, sir."

"Put one of these cigars into your face."

"Thank you, sir. Very enjoyable thing, a cigar, sir. 'Specially a good
un. I have a light, I thank you, sir."

"Well, and who was he?"

"Not the man you told me to watch, for. 'Nother chap altogether."

"That red-headed----"

"No, sir. Dark-haired chap. Seen him hanging about, suspicious, for a
long time. Had my eye on him."

Mr. Galer chuckled reminiscently.

"Rummest card, sir, _I_ ever lagged in my natural," he said.

"How's that? inquired Mr. McEachern amiably.

"Why," grinned Mr. Galer, "you'll hardly believe it, sir, but he had
the impudence, the gall, if I may use the word, the sauce to tell me
he was in my own line of business. A detective, sir! Said he was going
into the room to keep guard. I said to him at the time, I said, it's
too thin, cocky. That's to say----"

Mr. McEachern started.

"A detective!"

"A detective, sir," said Mr. Galer, with a chuckle. "I said to him at
the time----"

"The valet!" cried Mr. McEachern.

"That's it, sir. Sir Thomas Blunt's valet, he was. That's how he got
into the house, sir."

Mr. McEachern grunted despairingly.

"The man was right. He is a detective. Sir Thomas brought him down
from London. He niver travels without him. Ye've done it. Ye've
arristed wan of the bhoys."

Mr. Galer's jaw dropped slightly.

"He was? He really was----"

"Ye'd better go straight to where it was ye locked him up, and let him
loose. And I'd suggest ye hand him an apology. G'wan, mister. Lively
as you can step."

"I never thought----"

"That's the trouble with you fly cops," said his employer caustically.
"Ye niver do think."

"It never occurred to me----"

"G'wan!" said the master of the house. "Up an alley!"

Mr. Galer departed.

"And I asked them," said Mr. McEachern, "I asked them particularly not
to send me a rube!"

He lit another cigar, and began to brood over the folly of mankind.

He was in a very pessimistic frame of mind when Jimmy curveted into
the room, with his head in the clouds and his feet on air.

"Can you spare me a few minutes, Mr. McEachern?" said Jimmy.

The policeman stared heavily.

"I can," he said slowly. "What is ut?"

"Several things," said Jimmy, sitting down. "I'll take them in order.
I'll start with our bright friend, Galer."

"Galer!"

"Of New York, according to you. Personally, I should think that he's
seen about as much of New York as I have of Timbuctoo. Look here,
McEachern, we've known each other some time, and I ask you, as man to
man, do you think it playing the game to set a farmer like poor old
Galer to watch me? I put it to you?"

The policeman stammered. The question chimed in so exactly with the
opinion he had just formed, on his own account, of the human
bloodhound who was now in the cellar making the peace with his injured
fellow worker.

"Hits you where you live, that, doesn't it?" said Jimmy. "I wonder you
didn't have more self-respect, let alone consideration for my
feelings. I'm surprised at you."

"Ye're----"

"In fact, if you weren't going to be my father-in-law, I doubt if I
could bring myself to forgive you. As it is, I overlook it."

The policeman's face turned purple.

"Only," said Jimmy, with quiet severity, taking a cigar from the box
and snipping off the end, "don't let it occur again."

He lit the cigar. Mr. McEachern continued to stare fixedly at him. So
might the colonel of a regiment have looked at the latest-joined
subaltern, if the latter, during mess, had offered to teach him how to
conduct himself on parade.

"I'm going to marry your daughter," said Jimmy.

"You are going to marry me daughter!" echoed Mr. McEachern, as one in
a trance.

"I am going to marry your daughter."

The purple deepened on Mr. McEachern's face.

"More," said Jimmy, blowing a smoke ring. "_She_ is going to marry
me. We are going to marry each other," he explained.

McEachern's glare became frightful. He struggled for speech.

"I must congratulate you," said Jimmy, "on the way things went off
tonight. It was a thorough success. Everybody was saying so. You're
the most popular man in the county. What would they say of you at
Jefferson Market, if they knew? By the way, do you correspond with any
of the old set? Splendid fellows, they were. I wish we had some of
them here tonight."

Mr. McEachern's emotions found relief in words. He rose, and waved a
huge fist in Jimmy's face. His great body was shaking with rage.

"You!" shouted the policeman. "You!"

The fist was within an inch of Jimmy's chin.

Outwardly calm, inwardly very much alive to the fact that at any
moment the primitive man in him might lead his prospective
father-in-law beyond the confines of self-restraint, Jimmy sat still
in his chair, his eyes fixed steadily on those of his relative-to-be.
It was an uncomfortable moment. Mr. McEachern, if he made an assault,
might regret it subsequently. But he would not be the first to do so.
The man who did that would be a certain James Pitt. If it came to
blows, the younger man could not hope to hold his own with the huge
policeman.

"You!" roared McEachern. Jimmy fancied he could feel the wind of
moving fist. "You marry me daughter! A New York crook. The sweepings
of the Bowery. A man who ought to be in jail. I'd like to break your
face in."

"I noticed that," said Jimmy. "If it's all the same to you, will you
take your fist out of my mouth? It makes it a little difficult to
carry on a conversation. And I've several things I should like to
say."

"Ye'll listen to me!"

"Certainly. You were saying?"

"Ye come here. Ye worm yourself into my house, crawl into it----"

"I came by invitation, and in passing, not on all fours. Mr.
McEachern, may I ask one question?"

"What is ut?"

"If you didn't want me, why did you let me stop here?"

The policeman stopped as if he had received a blow. There came
flooding back into his mind the recollection of his position. In his
wrath, he had forgotten that Jimmy knew his secret. And he looked on
Jimmy as a man who would use his knowledge.

He sat down heavily.

Jimmy went on smoking in silence for a while. He saw what was passing
in his adversary's mind, and it seemed to him that it would do no harm
to let the thing sink in.

"Look here, Mr. McEachern," he said, at last, "I wish you could listen
quietly to me for a minute or two. There's really no reason on earth
why we should always be at one another's throats in this way. We might
just a well be friends, as we should be if we met now for the first
time. Our difficulty is that we know too much about each other. You
knew me in New York, and you know what I did there. Naturally, you
don't like the idea of my marrying your daughter. You can't believe
that I'm not simply an ordinary yegg, like the rest of the crooks you
used to know. I promise you, I'm not. Can't you see that it doesn't
matter what a man has been? It's what he is and what he means to be that
counts. Mr. Patrick McEachern, of Corven Abbey, isn't the same as
Constable McEachern, of the New York police. Well, then, I have
nothing to do with the man I was when you knew me first. I have
disowned him. He's a back number. I am an ordinary English gentleman
now. My uncle has left me more than well off. I am a baronet. And is
it likely that a baronet--_with_ money, mind you--is going to carry
on the yegg business as a side line? Be reasonable. There's really no
possible objection to me now. Let's shake, and call the fight off.
Does that go?"

The policeman was plainly not unmoved by these arguments. He drummed
his fingers on the table, and stared thoughtfully at Jimmy.

"Is Molly--" he said, at length, "does Molly----"

"Yes," said Jimmy. "And I can promise you I love her. Come along, now.
Why wait?"

McEachern looked doubtfully at Jimmy's outstretched hand. He moved his
own an inch from the table, then let it fall again.

"Come on," said Jimmy. "Do it now. Be a sport."

And with a great grunt, which might have meant anything, from
resignation to cordiality, Mr. McEachern capitulated.




CHAPTER XX.


The American liner, _St. Louis_, lay in the Empress Dock, at
Southampton, taking aboard her passengers. All sorts and conditions of
men flowed in an unceasing stream up the gangway.

Leaning over the second-class railing, Jimmy Pitt and Spike Mullins
watched them thoughtfully.

Jimmy looked up at the Blue Peter that fluttered from the foremast,
and then at Spike. The Bowery boy's face was stolid and
expressionless. He was smoking a short wooden pipe, with an air of
detachment.

"Well, Spike," said Jimmy. "Your schooner's on the tide now, isn't it?
Your vessel's at the quay. You've got some queer-looking fellow
travellers. Don't miss the two Cinghalese sports, and the man in the
turban and the baggy breeches. I wonder if they're air-tight. Useful
if he fell overboard."

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