The Datchet Diamonds (Thriller Novel). Richard Marsh
I'm done."
"How done?"
"I shall be done, because it will be for reasons, good, strong, solid reasons, the last deal I shall ever make on the London Stock Exchange."
There was silence. Then she spoke again--
"You will lose. You always do lose!"
"Thanks."
"It will be almost better for you that you should lose. I am beginning to believe, Cyril, that you never will do any good till you have touched bottom, till you have lost all that you possibly can lose."
"Thank you, again."
She drew herself up, drawing herself away from the railing against which she had been leaning. She gave a gesture which was suggestive of weariness.
"I too am tired. This uncertainty is more than I can stand; you are so unstable, Cyril. Your ideas and mine on some points are wide apart. It seems to me that if a girl is worth winning, she is worth working for. As a profession for a man, I don't think that what you call 'punting' on the Stock Exchange is much better than pitch-and-toss."
"Well?"
The word was an interrogation. She had paused.
"It appears to me that the girl who marries a man who does nothing else but 'punt' is preparing for herself a long line of disappointments. Think how many times you have disappointed me. Think of the fortunes you were to have made. Think, Cyril, of the Trumpit Gold Mine--what great things were to come of that!"
"I am quite aware that I did invest every penny I could beg, borrow, or steal in the Trumpit Gold Mine, and that at present I am the fortunate possessor of a trunkful of shares which are not worth a shilling a-piece. The reminder is a pleasant one. Proceed--you seem wound up to go."
Her voice assumed a new touch of sharpness.
"The long and the short of it is, Cyril--it is better that we should understand each other!--if your present speculation turns out as disastrously as all your others have done, and it leaves you worse off than ever, the relations, such as they are, which exist between us must cease. We must be as strangers!"
"Which means that you don't care for me the value of a brass-headed pin."
"It means nothing of the kind, as you are well aware. It simply means that I decline to link my life with a man who appears incapable of keeping his own head above water. Because he insists on drowning himself, why should I allow him to drown me too?"
"I observe that you take the commercial, up-to-date view of marriage."
"What view do you take? Are you nearer to being able to marry me than ever you were? Are you not farther off? You have no regular income--and how many entanglements? What do you propose that we should live on--on the hundred and twenty pounds a year which mother left me?"
There came a considerable silence. He had not moved from the position he had taken up against the railing, and still looked across the waveless sea towards the glimmering lights of Worthing. When he did speak his tones were cold, and clear, and measured--perhaps the coldness was assumed to hide a warmer something underneath.
"Your methods are a little rough, but perhaps they are none the worse on that account. As you say so shall it be. Win or lose, to-morrow evening I will meet you again upon the pier--that is, if you will come."
"You know I'll come!"
"If I lose it will be to say goodbye. Next week I emigrate."
She was still, so he went on--
"Now, if you don't mind, I'll see you to the end of the pier, and say goodbye until tomorrow. I'll get something to eat and hurry back to town."
"Won't you come and see Charlie?"
"Thank you, I don't think I will. Miss Wentworth has not a sufficiently good opinion of me to care if I do or don't. Make her my excuses."
Another pause. Then she said, in a tone which was hardly above a whisper--
"Cyril, I do hope you'll win."
He stood, and turned, and faced her.
"Do you really mean that, Daisy?"
"You know that I do."
"Then, if you really hope that I shall win--the double event!--as an earnest of your hopes--there is no one looking!--kiss me."
She did as he bade her.
CHAPTER II
OVERHEARD IN THE TRAIN
It was with a feeling of grim amusement that Mr. Paxton bought himself a first-class ticket. It was, probably, the last occasion on which he would ride first-class for some considerable time to come. The die had fallen; the game was lost--Eries had dropped more than one. Not only had he lost all he had to lose, he was a defaulter. It was out of his power to settle, he was going to emigrate instead. He had with him a Gladstone bag; it contained all his worldly possessions that he proposed to take with him on his travels. His intention was, having told Miss Strong the news, and having bidden a last farewell, to go straight from Brighton to Southampton, and thence, by the American line, to the continent on whose shores Europe dumps so many of its failures.
The train was later than are the trains which are popular with City men. It seemed almost empty at London Bridge. Mr. Paxton had a compartment to himself. He had an evening paper with him. He turned to the money article. Eries had closed a point lower even than he had supposed. It did not matter. A point lower, more or less, would make no difference to him--the difference would be to the brokers who had trusted him. Wishing to do anything but think, he looked to see what other news the paper might contain. Some sensational headlines caught his eye.
"ROBBERY OF THE DUCHESS OF DATCHET'S DIAMONDS!
"AN EXTRAORDINARY TALE."
The announcement amused him.
"After all that is the sort of line which I ought to have made my own--robbing pure and simple. It's more profitable than what Daisy says that I call 'punting.'"
He read on. The tale was told in the usual sensational style, though the telling could scarcely have been more sensational than the tale which was told. That afternoon, it appeared, an amazing robbery had taken place--amazing, first, because of the almost incredible value of what had been stolen; and, second, because of the daring fashion in which the deed had been done. In spite of the desperate nature of his own position--or, perhaps, because of it--Mr. Paxton drank in the story with avidity.
The Duchess of Datchet, the young, and, if report was true, the beautiful wife of one of England's greatest and richest noblemen, had been on a visit to the Queen at Windsor--the honoured guest of the Sovereign. As a fitting mark of the occasion, and in order to appear before Her Majesty in the splendours which so well became her, the Duchess had taken with her the famous Datchet diamonds. As all the world knows the Dukes of Datchet have been collectors of diamonds during, at any rate, the last two centuries.
The value of their collection is fabulous--the intrinsic value of the stones which the duchess had taken with her on that memorable journey, according to the paper, was at least £250,000--a quarter of a million of money! This was the net value--indeed, it seemed that one might almost say it was the trade value, and was quite apart from any adventitious value which they might possess, from, for instance, the point of view of historical association.
Mr. Paxton drew a long breath as he read:
"Two hundred and fifty thousand pounds--a quarter of a million! I am not at all sure that I should not have liked to have had a finger in such a pie as that. It would be better than punting at Eries."
The diamonds, it seemed, arrived all right at Windsor, and the duchess too. The visit passed off with due éclat.