B. Sedley, at the conclusion of this remarkable evidence, ‘that Mr Vanderdellen bought those diamonds in perfect good faith. He would never have wittingly subjected his wife to the indignity of being seen in public with stolen jewels round her neck. If after 5th July he did happen to hear that a parure of black diamonds had been stolen in England at the date, he could not possibly think that there could be the slightest connection between these and those he had purchased more than three months ago.’
“And, amidst indescribable excitement, Mr Albert V. B. Sedley stepped back into his place.
“That he had spoken the truth from beginning to end no one could doubt for a single moment. His own social position, wealth, and important commercial reputation placed him above any suspicion of committing perjury, even for the sake of a dead friend. Moreover, the story told by Vanderdellen at the dinner in Paris was corroborated by Mr Cornelius R. Shee in every point.
“But there! a dead man’s words are not evidence in a court of law. Unfortunately, Mr Vanderdellen had not shown the diamonds to his friends at the time. He had certainly drawn enormous sums of money from his bank about the end of June and beginning of July, amounting in all to just over a million sterling; and there was nothing to prove which special day he had paid away a sum of £500,000, whether before or after the burglary at Eton Chase.
“He had made extensive purchases in Paris of pictures, furniture, and other works of art, all of priceless value, for the decoration of his new palace in Fifth Avenue, and no diary of private expenditure was produced in court. Mrs Vanderdellen herself had said that after her husband’s death, as all his affairs were in perfect order, she had destroyed his personal and private diaries.
“Thus the counsel for the plaintiff was able to demolish the whole edifice of the defence bit by bit, for it rested on but very ephemeral foundations: a story related by a dead man.
“Judgment was entered for the plaintiff, although everyone’s sympathy, including that of judge and of jury, was entirely for the defendant, who had so nobly determined to vindicate her husband’s reputation.
“But Mrs Vanderdellen proved to the last that she was no ordinary everyday woman. She had kept one final sensation up her sleeve. Two days after she had legally been made to give up the Black Diamonds, she offered to purchase them back for £500,000. Her bid was accepted, and during last autumn, on the occasion of the last Royal visit to London and the consequent grand society functions, no one was more admired, more fêted and envied, than beautiful Mrs Vanderdellen as she entered a drawing-room exquisitely gowned, and adorned with the parure, of which an empress might have been proud.”
The man in the corner had paused, and was idly tapping his fingers on the marble-topped table of the ABC shop.
“It was a curious story, wasn’t it?” said the funny creature after a while. “More like a romance than a reality.”
“It is absolutely bewildering,” I said.
“What is your theory?” he asked.
“What about?” I retorted.
“Well, there are so many points, aren’t there, of which only one is quite clear, namely, that the parure of Black Diamonds disappeared from Eton Chase, Chislehurst, on 5th July 1902, and that the next time they were seen they were on the neck and head of Mrs Vanderdellen, the widow of one of the richest men of modern times, whilst the story of how her husband came by them was, to all intents and purposes, legally disbelieved.”
“Then,” I argued, “the only logical conclusion to arrive at in all this is that the Black Diamonds, owned by His Majesty the King of ‘Bohemia’, were not unique, and that Mr Vanderdellen bought some duplicate ones.”
“If you knew anything about diamonds,” he said irritably, “you would also know that your statement is an absurdity. There are no such things as ‘duplicate’ diamonds.”
“Then what is the only logical conclusion to arrive at?” I retorted, for he had given up playing with the photos and was twisting and twining that bit of string as if his brain was contained inside it and he feared it might escape.
“Well, to me,” he said, “the only logical conclusion of the affair is that the Black Diamonds which Mrs Vanderdellen wore were the only and original ones belonging to the Crown of ‘Bohemia’.”
“Then you think that a man in Mr Vanderdellen’s position would have been fool enough to buy gems worth £500,000 at the very moment when there was a hue and cry for them all over Europe?”
“No, I don’t,” he replied quietly.
“But then –” I began.
“No?” he repeated once again, as his long fingers completed knot number one in that eternal piece of string. “The Black Diamonds which Mrs Vanderdellen wore were bought by her husband in all good faith from the my sterious vendor in Vienna in March 1902.”
“Impossible!” I retorted. “Her Majesty the Queen of ‘Bohemia’ wore them regularly during the months of May and June, and they were stolen from Eton Chase on July the 5th.”
“Her Majesty the Queen of ‘Bohemia’ wore a parure of Black Diamonds during those months, and those certainly were stolen on July the 5th,” he said excitedly; “but what was there to prove that those were the genuine stones?”
“Why! –” I ejaculated.
“Point No. 2,” he said, jumping about like a monkey on a stick; “although Mr Wilson was acknowledged to be innocent of the theft of the diamonds, isn’t it strange that no one has ever been proved guilty of it?”
“But I don’t understand –”
“Yet it is simple as daylight. I maintain that His Majesty the King of ‘Bohemia’ being short, very short, of money, decided to sell the celebrated Black Diamonds; to avoid all risks the stones were taken out of their settings, and a trusted and secret emissary is then deputed to find a possible purchaser; his choice falls on the multimillionaire Vanderdellen, who is travelling in Europe, is a noted collector of rare jewellery, and has a beautiful young wife – three attributes, you see, which make him a very likely purchaser.
“The emissary then seeks him out, and offers him the diamonds for sale. Mr Vanderdellen at first hesitates, wondering how such valuable gems had come in the vendor’s possession, but the bargain suggested by the latter – the three months during which the gems are to be held on trust by the purchaser – seems so fair and above-board, that Mr Vanderdellen’s objections fall to the ground; he accepts the bargain, and three months later completes the purchase.”
“But I don’t understand,” I repeated again, more bewildered than before. “You say the King of ‘Bohemia’ sold the loose gems originally to Mr Vanderdellen; then, what about the parure worn by the queen and offered for sale to Mr and Mrs Wilson? What about the theft at Eton Chase?”
“Point No. 3,” he shrieked excitedly, as another series of complicated knots went to join its fellows. “I told you that the King of ‘Bohemia’ was very short of money, everyone knows that. He sells the Black Diamonds to Mr Vanderdellen, but before he does it, he causes duplicates of them to be made, but this time in exquisite, beautiful, perfect Parisian imitation, and has these mounted into the original settings by some trusted man who, you may be sure, was well paid to hold his tongue. Then it is given out that the parure is for sale; a purchaser is found, and a few days later the false diamonds are stolen.”
“By whom?”
“By the King of ‘Bohemia’s’ valued and trusted friend, who has helped in the little piece of villainy throughout; it is he who drops a rope ladder through Her Majesty’s bedroom window on to the terrace below, and then hands the imitation parure to his Royal master, who sees to its complete destruction and disappearance. Then there is a hue and cry for the real stones, and after a year or so they are found on the person of a lady, who is legally forced to give them up. And thus His Majesty the King of ‘Bohemia’ got one solid million for the Black Diamonds, instead of half that sum, for if Mrs Vanderdellen had not purchased the jewels, someone else would have done so.”
And he was gone, leaving me to gaze at the pictures of three lovely women, and wondering if indeed it was the Royal lady herself who could best solve the mystery of who stole the Black Diamonds.
V
1
“You must admit,” said the man in the corner to me one day, as I folded up and put aside my Daily Telegraph, which I had been reading with great care, “that it would be difficult to find a more interesting plot, or more thrilling situations, than occurred during the case of Miss Pamela Pebmarsh.
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