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Show DIAMOND W&i CUT DIAMOND ' f & Jane Bunker Copyright-Tho Pobba Marrill Co St' "'7 "WHY, WOMAN, THEY'RE DIAMONDS, BLOOD-RED DIAMONDS!" Synopnls. Whiln In the little French town of Vevay, where the "staid, proper Mpin.HU-r" w!io tells the atory is spending a vacation, she is asked to allow a yount K'rl, Claire de itavenol, to bo her companion back to the United Stales. Although forming an attachment to the girl, the heroine takes a dislike to Monsieur de Ravenul, Claire's father, and declines. On the boat she finds Claire In the care of a casual acquaintance, Mrs. Delario, whom she had met while each was purchasing a pair of slippers, exactly alike, which llyure largely In subsequent events. When they reach New York, where Claire was to have been met by her mother, the latter does not appear, and Claire perforce goes to Mrs. lJelai'in's home. In the confusion at the custom house, the spinster carries off one of Mrs. llelarlo's slippers. Through that happening she learns later that some one unknown to her has made an entry into her fiat. I .L i CHAPTER II Continued. 3 I suppose I'll be set down as a perfect per-fect fool, but I actually turned sick all over, and it required positive courage on my part tr pick up the slippers and examine them. Which taught me nothing, noth-ing, of course, and I may as well t'onfess all my folly I set thera back heel to the wall and actually sat there and watched to see if they'd turn about of their own accord. But nothing noth-ing happened, and there they stayed, heel to the wall, till morning. That same evening, however, an-olber an-olber thing happened that annoyed though it didn't alarm me. I was awakened about half past two by the sound of a key in the front door someone was trying to get in. I bounced out of bed and looked to see that the chain holt was on that was all that worried me; fori had a neighbor neigh-bor on a lloor below who came home frequently at that hour of the night in so elateil a condition that he never stopped ascending stairs until he reached the top. and as my flat directly corresponded with his on the lower floor he tried to get in with his key, and sometimes threatened to smash the door in If "Minnie" didn't open it. So hearing the familiar key now fumbling, I looked at the chain-bolt, and then merely "hollered" through the door my usual, "You're trying to get in the wrong flat yours is downstairs." down-stairs." The key slid out of the lock and there wasn't another sound. I stood there shivering In my nightie, waiting for the usual colloquy that would convince con-vince Mr. Man I wasn't his Minnie, but as he didn't favor me with so much as an oath of recognition, I went back to bed after a few moments and fell asleep. It never entered my head that the person at the other end of the latchkey wasn't the high-spirited Mr. Man that I knew and was prepared for, but another Mr. Man I didn't know anything about. I went to sleep dreaming about slippers slip-pers ; I waked up to wonder about slippers. They were just as I'd left them which gave me real disappointment. disappoint-ment. I was out nearly all day, and when I cnnie home my first , look was to see if the slippers had been making any more "manifestations." ALL THREE SLIPPERS WERE GONE. CHAPTER III. Mrs. Delario's Diamonds. To Siiy I was astonished when I beheld be-held that neat row of footgear with three teeth knocked out simply doesn't express it. I was flabbergasted. It wasn't only the mysteriousness of that particular theft if theft it were and why all three slippers had been taken and not one slipper, or one pair; it was that nothing so far as I could observe ob-serve had been touched in the flat but just the particular objects that the day before had turned and toed the wall. Now- they had walked off and left me. Well, the end of all my puzzling was that I had my choice between two explanations ex-planations (1) that some person, name, age and sex unknown, motive impossible to guess, had entered my flat with a duplicate key and stolen the slippers; or (2) that Mrs. Delario had worked a "physical manifestation" to get her slipper home and had taken all three at once to be on the safe side. One explanation seemed about as possible as the other, for I didn't see how anyone could have a duplicate key even the janitor does not have a pass key to the flats in this house and I didn't see how magic could carry off three slippers. But whatever way I put it I had still the unpleasant task of explaining the loss to Mrs. Delario. I remembered she'd said when w e were buying them that they were more than she could afford, but she just must have them and wo.ild go without something some-thing else, and I was particularly mystified mys-tified because of it. If I could in any way have replaced the slipper I'd have done so and never said a w ord about it. Meantime I remembered that I hadn't communicated with Mrs. Delario Dela-rio since my return though I had the slipper all that time. Then came a letter asking me would I do her a great, a very jireat favor would I come to her house that Sunday evening eve-ning at eight o'clock? The letter arrived ar-rived on Sunday morning, spetla.1 delivery I went, but I never once mentioned the slippers slippers were the last things in my mind as I rang the bell. Mrs. Delario herself admitted me, apologizing that her maid was away for her Sunday evening out, and what between welcoming handshakes and Mrs. Delario's taking off my coat and insisting on my tnking off my hat and "being -comfy," and my declining, and her leading me into the seance room Claire had told me about, and my astonishment as-tonishment at seeing it, slippers didu't occur to me and the chance to speak of them went by. The seance room was as queer to my eye as it seemed to have been to Claire's. I think the impression uppermost upper-most in my mind was the soundless-ness soundless-ness of the place. It seemed as remote re-mote from the bustling life of the great city in the midst of which it was as if it had been in the heart of a desert. But Mrs. Delario left me but little time for observation ; merely remarking remark-ing that this was the seance room, she asked if I'd seen Claire and what I thought of her. Well I thought a great deal of her and many things about her, 'and while I w-as considering my answer Mrs. Delario propounded a question that fairly stunned me : "Do you think the girl could be a thief?" "Oh, never never in the world. What Claire !" I cried hotly, and the picture of the high-bred girl came be- Jill illill 'tin ' i Mrs. Delario Herself Admitted Me. fore me. I could as soon have thought my own sister a thief. Nevertheless I was soon at a loss to explain the episodes epi-sodes Mrs. Delario told me. On the steamer, for Instance, she had twice -caught Claire turning over things in her Mrs. Delario's suitcase. suit-case. Claire excused it once by saying say-ing she'd accidentally put some of her own toilet articles in it by mistake while she "was too sick to notice." But what finally brought about the crisis was this : A sitter had given Mrs. Delario a ten-dollar bill in payment pay-ment for a reading, and she had gone hastily to her room for change, and returning had left her bedroom door ajar and a quanity of bills lying on the bureau which sbe hadn't stopped to put back into her purse. The moment she had shown the sitter out she weat back to replace her purse and found Claire in her room. Claire was in the act of closing the wardrobe door and said she was looking for her muff! And why her muff in Mrs. Delario's wardrobe? "But did she steal any money?" I demanded, almost in fear of the reply. Mrs. Delario took some time to answer, an-swer, and this is what she said : "You know I'm so fond of the child I'd rather think I made a mistake than that she robbed me. I had two live-dollar live-dollar bills a lot of twos and ones and several tens and what I think I did was to take a five and a two seven dollars and rush downstairs. But what I might have done was taken the two fives a five instead of a t.v.i and give them to the lady. he didn't look at them. Anyway, the other five was gone. It was this sort of thing about her that made me like Mrs. Delario so much her willingness to excuse and to wait for final proofs of people's delinquencies. de-linquencies. She hadn't even mentioned men-tioned her suspicion to Claire; at the same time the Incident decided her that she could on no account keep the child longer in the house, the worry of looking after her was too great, and she had told Claire this and that if her father didn't arrive by Monday Claire would have to go to a boarding school for safekeeping till he did. Monsieur le pere opportunely arrived next morning and took Claire away. That was Thursday the day before she called on me and Claire had been with Mrs. Delario just since Monday. Very naturally, then, in all the story I never once thought of the slipper and that Mrs. Delario might be suspecting Claire of taking it also. But having, so to speak, settled Claire in saying that she had left on Thursday afternoon, after-noon, Mrs. Delario quickly switched the conversation on the real subject of my visit. She introduced it by saying that Lila who was still in a boarding school near Philadelphia was breaking break-ing down and might have to be sent abroad for treatment she seemed to be developing spinal trouble, though the doctors here really didn't seem to know what ailed the child; and then the sentence I clearly remember was, "I'm vry greatly in need of money." I fear I must have drawn back suddenly sud-denly I actually thought she was trying try-ing to borrow of me for she smiled and answered my unspoken words: "I don't mean I want to borrow anything. I have some property I want to dispose dis-pose of. I want to sell some rubies." "Why, Mrs. Delario, I'm not a dealer," I replied quickly. "I know you're not that's why I thought you could help me better than anyone else. The stones were left me by a great-uncle in France, and I may as well confess it now they came in duty free " "Smuggled !" I interjected. "Well, a friend brought them over and they weren't found when the baggage bag-gage was examined. But don't you see that was why I could sell them at a bargain?" "I don't know anybody who deals in smuggled gems." "Of course but you needn't tell that you don't actually know how they got in you are selling them for a friend. It's because you don't know that that you can sell them better than I can. At least you wouldn't mind looking at the stones and telling me what they're worth so I'll have something some-thing to go on? I haven't an idea how valuable they are." "Take them to Tiffany's," I suggested. sug-gested. 'Tm afraid to take them anywhere, to tell you the truth. Eugene took them to a place on Maiden lane yesterday yes-terday and the people acted so queerly. Eugene he's very psychic got the impression that they were going to accuse ac-cuse him of smuggling them or something some-thing of the kind stealing the rubies, perhaps from them and he put them in his pocket and ran out. He thinks he was followed, but he couldn't make sure. Don't you see how easy it would be for anyone to accuse a lone woman of theft " "But how would they prove anything?" any-thing?" I interrupted. "If the stones are yours " She stopped me with a bitter laugh. "Can't you see that the mere public accusation that I'd stolen jewels would ruin me professionally? It would put me instantly under suspicion of fraud in all my dealings. Oh, you don't know; you haven't a conception of what this life means," she went on a little wildly. "You don't know the struggle just to make one's daily bread. A lawsuit would ruin me financially finan-cially I have no money to hire a lawyer law-yer to defend me." I felt myself give in to her then, as a friend. Yes, I'd help her in every reasonable way. "You mustn't labor under any false impressions about me," she went on. "I have a little property not enough to support two people and what I earn. I live here rent free they pay the rent the circle that meets here twice a week. I have the house much as a minister has his parsonage. If there were ever any scandal if they turned me out from here I'd be practically prac-tically penniless. I couldn't make a fresh start with that hanging over me. And then my son !" I said, "Well, get the stones and I'll look at them if you care to have me do that." She left me with a grateful smile, but returned so quickly that I rather guessed she had the stones on her person. It was a dingy little pasteboard paste-board box she'd come back with, fastened fas-tened with a common little elastic. She slipped the elastic and placet! the box in my hand. I raised the lid. I gave one look at the contents, emptied out the stones into my hand and nearly fell off my chair ! THE STONES I HELD WERE BLOOD-RED DIAMONDS ! And there were seven of them a stone you don't see one of in a year, perhaps. Why. I didn't know there were such stones in the heavens or the earth or the waters under the earth ! Seven blood-red blood-red diamonds, absolutely flawless, first-water first-water gems, and perfectly matched to the last facet, the last gleam and twinkle in their radiant depths. I helil them, almost frightened, and really didn't hear what she was saying till she remarked something about th"ir being matched, ; Matched ! Well, they were matched ' this way: If an absolutely perfect mc-! mc-! chaniral mind with an absolutely por-!V(. por-!V(. t mc-hri n 'cal tool, working on a'oso- I lutely perfect substance can t conceived, con-ceived, tie mind and the tool, work- i ing without variation, might have produced pro-duced those seven stones. Yes I should say they were matched! "I remember you told me once," she was prattling, "that the larger the stones the more individual they became be-came and the harder they were to match. If they were worth five thousand thou-sand dollars apiece couldn't I get say forty thousand dollars for the seven?" "Forty thousand dollars !" I gasped, looking at her now for the first time since I'd looked at the stones. An expression of disappointment crossed her face, and of chagrin too. at having committed herself before an expert as she kindly regarded me. "Couldn't I get as much as twenty thousand for them, don't you think?" she faltered. "Aren't rubies that size worth even that?" "RUBIES !" I must have simply shouted the word at her. "And aren't they rubies? Oh. don't tell me they're only paste!" She looked ready to cry with disappointment disappoint-ment and mortification. "PASTE!" I know I yelled that word so the walls echoed. "Why, woman, they're DIAMONDS! blood-red blood-red diamonds the most valuable stone in the world." She clasped her hands about my arm and gave out a long "O-o-oh! Then wMm She Gave Out a Long O-o-oh 1 they're worth forty thousand dollars at the very least!" "Mrs. Delario," I said soberly, "I can give you only a rough estimate, for those stones are far beyond my range, but in my honest opinion they are worth at least a million dollars." Silence fell on us my words had sort of stunned us both ; for until I had spoken them aloud the full meaning mean-ing of the diamonds hadn't come home to me, and that I sat there, casually holding a million dollars in my hand. It all at once seemed a solemn thing to be doing an immense responsibility. responsibil-ity. I dropped them back In their box, put the lid on and handed them to her. Her own first words showed the timid woman. "And I've all this right here in the house with me !" I felt sorry for her. I was glad I didn't have them in the house with me. I saw her apprehension when her eyes roved over the room as if for a possible hiding place. When her eyes returned to the box she muttered under her breath, "A million dollars ! And I asked only a little for Lila's sake. What confidence they must have had in me! A million dollars!" She had evidently taken my word with implicit im-plicit trust that I was right, though I was almost doubting it myself. My thoughts were chasing one another, and the silence between us was such you could have heard a pin drop. And in that silence the front bell pealed through the house. Mrs. Delario's hands flew to her bosom bo-som as though she had been shot. "My God it's come !" she gasped, and the color left her'faee. "Put it in your stocking and run!" (TO BE CONTINUED.) |