The Argosy | Page 2

[Illustration: "BEHOLD!"]

THE ARGOSY.
APRIL, 1891.

THE FATE OF THE HARA DIAMOND.
CHAPTER XIV.
DRASHKIL-SMOKING.
"It must and shall be mine!"
So spoke Captain Ducie on the spur of the moment as he wrote the last
word of his translation of M. Platzoff's MS. And yet there was a keen
sense of disappointment working within him. His blood had been at
fever heat during the latter part of his task. Each fresh sentence of the
cryptogram as he began to decipher it would, he hoped, before he
reached the end of it, reveal to him the hiding-place of the great
Diamond. Up to the very last sentence he had thus fondly deluded
himself, only to find that the abrupt ending of the MS. left him still on
the brink of the secret, and left him there without any clue by which he
could advance a single step beyond that point. He was terribly
disappointed, and the longer he brooded over the case the more entirely
hopeless was the aspect it put on.
But there was an elasticity of mind about Captain Ducie that would not
allow him to despair utterly for any length of time. In the course of a
few days, as he began to recover from his first chagrin, he at the same
time began to turn the affair of the Diamond over and over in his mind,
now in one way, now in another, looking at it in this light and in that;

trying to find the first faint indications of a clue which, judiciously
followed up, might conduct him step by step to the heart of the mystery.
Two questions naturally offered themselves for solution. First: Did
Platzoff habitually carry the Diamond about his person? Second: Was it
kept in some skilfully-devised hiding-place about the house? These
were questions that could be answered only by time and observation.
So Captain Ducie went about Bon Repos like a man with half-a-dozen
pairs of eyes, seeing, and not only seeing but noting, a hundred little
things such as would never have been observed by him under ordinary
circumstances. But when, at the end of a week, he came to sum up and
classify his observations, and to consider what bearing they had upon
the great mystery of the hiding-place of the Diamond, he found that
they had no bearing upon it whatever; that for anything seen or heard
by him the world might hold no such precious gem, and the Russian's
letter to Signor Lampini might be nothing more than an elaborate hoax.
When the access of chagrin caused by the recognition of this fact had in
some degree subsided, Ducie was ready enough to ridicule his own
foolish expectations. "Platzoff has had the Diamond in his possession
for years. For him there is nothing of novelty in such a fact. Yet here
have I been foolish enough to expect that in the course of one short
week I should discover by some sign or token the spot where it is
hidden, and that too after I knew from his own confession that the
secret was one which he guarded most jealously. I might be here for
five years and be not one whit wiser at the end of that time as regards
the hiding-place of the Diamond than I am now. From this day I give
up the affair as a bad job."
Nevertheless, he did not quite do that. He kept up his habit of seeing
and noting little things, but without any definite views as to any ulterior
benefit that might accrue to him therefrom. Perhaps there was some
vague idea floating in his mind that Fortune, who had served him so
many kind turns in years gone by, might befriend him once again in
this matter--might point out to him the wished-for clue, and indicate by
what means he could secure the Diamond for his own.
The magnitude of the temptation dazzled him. Captain Ducie would not

have picked your pocket, or have stolen your watch, or your horse, or
the title-deeds of your property. He had never put another man's name
to a bill instead of his own. You might have made him trustee for your
widow or children, and have felt sure that their interests would have
been scrupulously respected at his hands. Yet with all this--strange
contradiction as it may seem--if he could have laid surreptitious fingers
on M. Platzoff's Diamond, that gentleman would certainly never have
seen his cherished gem again. But had Platzoff placed it in his hands
and said, "Take this to London for me and deposit it at my bankers',"
the commission would have been faithfully fulfilled. It seemed as if the
element of mystery, of deliberate concealment, made all the difference
in Captain Ducie's unspoken estimate