The Flaw in the Sapphire. Charles M. Snyder
his closest scrutiny.
With an incredibly rapid glance he surveyed every possible inch of space, turning his head cautiously to enable his eyes to penetrate into the more distant portions.
Presently, after an amount of rummaging altogether disproportionate to the nature of his quest, Raikes succeeded in finding a lucifer, which flared with a reluctance characteristic of the surroundings.
The Sepoy, availing himself of its blaze, deposited the remainder of the stick, with elaborate carefulness, upon the table, as if urged by the thought that his companion might convert it to further uses.
As Raikes resumed his chair, the Sepoy, recalling his glances from their mysterious foray, directed them, with curious obliqueness, upon his companion.
In no instance that Raikes could recall had the Sepoy looked upon him directly save in fleeting flashes.
At such moments Raikes was conscious of a strange tremor, a vanishing fascination, that he vainly sought to duplicate by attracting the other’s attention, in order to analyze its peculiar influence.
“May I ask,” he ventured after a few inhalations of his vicarious smoke, “may I ask the nature of your business?”
“Surely,” replied the other. “I am a collector.”
“Of what?” inquired Raikes, dissatisfied with the ambiguity of the answer.
“Sapphires,” said the Sepoy.
“Ah!” cried Raikes.
“Yes,” continued the other, regarding the kindling glance of the avaricious Raikes with a quick, penetrating look that was not without its effect upon the latter; “yes, and I have had many beautiful specimens in my time.”
“But where is your establishment?” asked Raikes.
“Wherever I chance to be,” was the reply.
“Still,” ventured Raikes, astonished at this curious rejoinder, “you have some safe depository for such valuables.”
“Doubtless,” replied the other drily; “but I have a few in my room now, and, by the way, they are pretty fair specimens.”
“Ah!” cried Raikes. “May I see them?”
“Why not?” assented the Sepoy. “In the meantime,” he continued, as he inserted his hand in his waistcoat pocket, “what do you think of this?” and describing a glittering semicircle in the air with some brilliant object he held in his grasp, he deposited upon the table a sapphire of such extraordinary size and beauty, that Raikes, able as he was to realize the great value of this gleaming condensation, stared stupidly at it for a moment, and then, with a cry of almost gibbering avarice, caught the gem in his trembling hands and burglarized it with his greedy eyes.
As Raikes, oblivious of all else, continued to gaze upon the brilliant with repulsive fascination, a peculiar change transformed the face of the Sepoy.
He directed upon the unconscious countenance of his companion a glance of terrible intensity, moving his hands the while in a weird, sinuous rhythm, until presently, satisfied with the vacant expression which had replaced the eager look of the moment before in the eyes of the tremulous Raikes, the Sepoy began, with an indescribably easy, somnolent modulation, the following strange recital:
(To be continued on Dickey No. 2.)
“Thunder and lightning!” cried Dennis as he reached the exasperating announcement in italics at the bottom of the dickey back:
“Continued on Dickey No. 2.”
“What th’ div—now, what do you think of that? An’ it’s me crazy to hear what that meerschaum-colored divil was a-goin’ to say. ‘Dickey No. 2.’ Why, that’s the one I have to wear to-day, an’ to think the story’s on the back of it.”
Truly was Dennis harassed.
He had been in many a pickle before, but never in one quite so exasperating.
Tantalized, in the first place, by the uncertainty surrounding his prospective employment, he was now confronted by a predicament which threatened to jeopardize a vital adjunct to his personal appearance.
A native curiosity, to which this outrageous tale appealed so strenuously, prompted him to detach bosom No. 2 regardless.
An equally characteristic thrift warned him against such an inconsiderate procedure.
Finally his good judgment prevailed, and with desperate haste he adjusted the remaining bosoms of the dickey to his waistcoat, plunged into his coat, clapped his hat on his head and rushed from the room.
All that day Dennis continued to receive his instalments of that bitter instruction in the ways of heedless employers and suspicious subordinates which, eased by a native good humor, conclude in the philosopher, or, unrelieved by this genial mollient, develop the cynic.
By evening he was compelled to admit, as he retraced his steps to The Stag, that he had not advanced in any way.
As he was about to pass under one of the dripping extensions of the elevated, a great splotch of grease detached itself from the ironwork and struck, with unerring precision, directly in the center of dickey No. 2.
“Ah!” exclaimed Dennis as he realized the nature of his mishap, “that settles it; I’ll know what the Sepoy said to-night.” A remark which proved conclusively that the philosophical element was still uppermost in the mind of this young Irishman.
After a brief exchange of courtesies with his countryman behind the bar, and a dinner so modest in the rear room as to arouse the suspicion and encourage the displeasure of the waiter, Dennis hastened up the stairway, divested himself of his upper garments, ripped off dickey bosom No. 2, and began.
CHAPTER III
As the Sepoy proceeded, Raikes leaned forward in an attitude, the discomfort and unbalance of which he seemed to be entirely unaware.
His only means of maintaining his rigid poise was in the arm which lay, with tense unrest, upon the table.
From his hand, the fingers of which had released their clutch, the stone had rolled and gleamed an unregarded invitation into the eyes of the drawn face above it.
The sickly grin of a long-delayed relaxation beguiled the extremities of his mouth, the grim lips had relaxed their ugly partnership, and his entire figure seemed upon the verge of collapse.
Raikes was listening as never before.
The clink of coin, the dry rattle and abrasion of brilliants, the rustle of bank notes could not have fascinated him more than the even, somnolent modulations of the speaker.
Every word found easy lodgment in his consciousness. There was not a sound or motion to divert, and the tale was a strange one.
“Ram Lal,” said the Sepoy, “was a native merchant, trading between Meerut and Delhi, who decided to sacrifice the dear considerations of caste for the grosser conditions of gain.
“From the performance of mean and illy-rewarded services to his patron, Prince Otondo, Ram Lal had developed, with the characteristic patience and dangerous silence of the true Oriental, to a figure of some importance, whom it was a satisfaction for the prince to contemplate with a view to future exaction and levy as occasion demanded.
“His royal master resided in the Kutub, a palace situated not far from Delhi on the road to Meerut.
“This pretentious edifice, which had been established in the thirteenth century and which still presented, in some of its unrepaired portions, curious features of the bizarre architecture of that period, had been the dwelling place of a long line of ancient moghuls.
“Its