Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 285, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 November 1919 — Page 2

Diamond Cut Diamond

By JANE BUNKER

by the Bobba-Merrill Coeinaae I tbink this rather hurt her, for she answert J a little tartly, “You may not be Interested now—hut you will be. The occult is comlag into your Life and you can’t prevent it. You’ll get manifestations that will—at least that may —drive you almost insane if you’re not prepared for-them aßd don’t know how to handle the forces that are already at work about you.” And with that parting shot —that, of course, anybody might fire into you in self-defense or just to be a little nasty—she went away to Claire. And I’m going to confess right here that In spite of my skepticism I felt creepy. I also felt clearer in toy own mind on many little things I’d noticed about Claire: her coming to my stateroom ' that time; her constant hanging about me, even when she must have seen it was inconvenient for me to have, her; and the way she seemed so much of the latter part of the voyage to be trying to keep away from Mrs. Delarlo, staying by herself in her state-

I Stuffed It In Among Some Clothes.

room. Had there been manifestations occurring in the stateroom? Or had Mrs. Delario been telling Claire things till she got the child so nervous the doctor was really serious over her? Mm Delario was not at dinner that night and Claire left the table after the soup, and as I was busy packing I saw neither of them until morning, when all was bustle and excitement, for we’d passed the Statue of Liberty and were steaming up the bay and would be on dry land almost before we knew it And then we were hanging over the rail and looking down at the friends of the passengers on the dock, and I heard Claire, in an agonized voice: “Mamma isn’t meeting me!" Claire began to cry, not boisterously but in a dreadfully pathetic, lost-child way, into a very beautiful French embroidered handkerchief, and all the cnstoms Inspectors gathered about her aad she asked them each in turn if he’d seen mamma and described mamma, and he shook his head and told her he’d help her look for mamma in a minute as soon as he got the baggage Inspected; and Mrs« Delario and I got our suitcases opened and made Claire open her bags and her trunk and we implored the inspectors to look at our meager belongings in a hurry and the Inspectors were all too busy asking Claire what her mother looked. like and what hotel*she stayed at; and Claire would use her exquisite handkerchief on her more exquisite eyes and say she supposed it was Hotel d’Angleterre—they always stopped at d’Angieterres when they traveled. Finally I managed to induce an inspector to take his eyes off Claire for a minute and devote them to the baggage of a middle-aged person—myself —and he cast a glance over my suitcase and Mrs. Delario’s, which was open on a bench beside mine, and said, “That’s all right Where does the young lady come from, and isn’t it awfnl her mother isn’t here, and maybe she’s met, with an accident on the way and been killed.” Claire heard him —and almost fainted into Mrs. Delario’s arms. Now just a moment before he said these words I noticed that one of the two pairs of turquoise-studded slippers had fallen between the two suitcases. I picked it up and I was on the point of pairing Mrs. Delario if it belonged to her when Claire collapsed, and three seconds later I saw my cousin, who ihonid have met me, coming up on the trot He made the first sensible suggestion that had been offered —that as Mrs. Delario had Claire in charge she’d better take the child home with her and cable to the father for instruc-

lions. ~ The slipper was nil this white in my limit, and without giving it another tiiot'glH—ifideotl,’ * hardly belli ■! conscious what 1 di l—l stufied it In an King some clothes in my own suitease and shut tlie iid and away we went. Wasn't It, under the circumstances, a perfectly natural thing .to do? Well, the moral is “don’t” —don’t every carry off nn old slipper unless you’re sure it’s yours. That old slipper nearly cost ine my sanity and my life! Now, when I unpacked I found the slipper, hut even then it didn’t occur "to me that it wasn’t m 1 ne—l mere 1 y wornl.-rod how I’d lost the mat e. and 11 was a couple of davs before I got to the trottom of the other suitcase and found my own pair neatly done up in tissue paper. Of course I knew instantly that the old slipper was Mrs. Pelario's. and remembered their how Pd carried It off; but 1 didn’t have a box suitable for sending it through the mail to her. so 1 -••t it on a chest where I’d he sure to see it and not let it get mixed wi th mine, meaning to take it down to the house as soon as I could find time, for it. And thus several more days went by, and 1 forgot the slipper and that Mrs. Jimmson was coming to clean. I somehow assumed that Mrs. Jimmson had sense enough to see It was an odd slipper and leave it on the chest where she found it, hut you never can tell what anybody will do —perhaps she'd have done just the same if I’d told her uot to: for she mixed those slippers up and set them in a row beside my bed along with oxford ties and hath slippers. It win on the day that Mrs. Jimmson cleaned that Claire came tripping up to see me and tell me thaf her father had arrived. It was.the first time I’d seen her - since we’d pailcd ul Hu 1 cable Officer mid of course I haflto spare” her a few minutes and hear what she had to say. She was staying with her father at a hotel—mamma hadn"t yet come, because grandpapa was dying every day and she didn’t dare to leave him. And then she suddenly wished to know ts all Americans lived the way Mrs. Delario did, and did American ladies work ? I had to ask her what she meant, and she explained that everything at Mrs. Delario’s was “so unlike the way they lived abroad;” that Mrs. Delario never left her bedroom unlocked for a single minute; that all the upstairs rooms were locked; that she.made her —Claire —keep her door locked, “hecause,’* she said, “you never can tell;” "that people, most of whom were strangers, were coming to the house all day from nine till five. Mrs. Delario called them “sitters” and gave them “readings” in an awfully queer room where the shutters weren’t ever opened; and she Claire —believed that Mrs. Delario took money for these readings, though she never would say what she read; and If shfe took money how could she be a lady? Though she was very nice and kind and papa wanted her to keep her — Claire —till her mother arrived, and Mrs. Delario wouldn’t on account of her work, and what sort of work could it possibly he? I saw by that that Mrs. Delario hadn’t taken Claire much into her confidence—Claire said even her father couldn’t guess what Mrs. Delario did, exactly, though he thought he knew’ a little, only he didn't know that ladies did it in America. While I was considering what I’d hotter say the clock struck and I bounced out of ray chair in a hurry — It was tlie hour of an appointment, and here I was five miles away, gosJ told Claire I To rnn, and she followed me to my bedroom while 1 got my coat, and it was she who exclaimed, “Why. there’s Mrs. Delario’s slipper! She’s hunted everywhere for it. You picked it up at the customs house and put it in your suitcase.” “I’m the thief," I laughed, slipping on my coat. Claire took a couple of steps toward the slippers and said, “I’ll take it hack to her." “No, my deaf —just leave it. I don’t know which is hers- —I see Mrs. Jimrason has mixed them all up—and I time. jaam*" ■ - - “Oh. I can soon tell,” and Claire was about to pounce on them, but I headed h'er off. “That’S a matter for me to attend to, Claire, and entirely between Mrs. Delario and myself.” By this time I had on my veil and gloves, and hearing the- elevator stopping at the floor, I shooed Claire and bolted for it. Now I'd looked at the slippers as Claire spoke, and they were standing | HEEL TO THE WALL, between a paid of oxford ties and a pair of I bath slippers that were toe to the wall, as were all the rest but these | three slippers; and I noticed this particularly and remembered it later com- | ing home In the cars when the incident i recurred to me, and I wondered why—--1 since Claire was no longer with Mrs. Delario —she had been so anxious to take the slipper back, and if she needi ed an excuse —possibly —to her father for going to the house to see her friend, and how if it hadn’t been for Mrs. Jimmson I could have let her take the slipper and been glad to have her do it; and how Mrs. Jimmson must have pleased herself in placing the slippers just that way, backs to the wall, so they’d show off to best advantage as works of ant and decofate the room at large with their beauty; and how it must have puzzled her to find three slippers all alike in my room-/-not two, not four, but three; and why three? And what would the good creature say if I told her I’d stolen -jthe

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, IND.

odd one? , These thoughts may seem tso trivial to mention, 1 but the point Is that I thought them and they were so obviously suggested by the way Jimmson placed the slippers, heel to the wall. But here’s the uncanny thing that happened; When I got home one hour after seeing them that way and turned on the light my eyes fell upon the slippers—THEY WERE ALL TOEING THE WALL, It gave me such a shock that I sat flop down on the bed. So far as I knew not a human soul had entered during my absence of one hour and pome minutes, nor was there any evF dence that anything else In the place had been touched —the other shoes stood toe to the wall just as I’d seen them when I went out with Claire. I suppose I’ll be set down as a perfect fool, but I actually turned sick all over, and it required positive courage oft my part to pick up the slippers and examine them. Which taught me nothing, of course, and —I may as well confess all my folly—l set them back heel to the wall and actually sat there and watched to see if they’d turn about of their own accord. But nothing happened, and there they stayed, heel to the wall, till morning. That same evening, however, another thing happened that annoyed though it didn’t alarm me. 4 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 bolt was on—that was all that worried me; sor v a neighbor on a floor below who came home frequently at that hour of the nigh’ In so elated a condition that he m -. -r Btopped ascending stairs tint' 1 » reached the top, and as my flat directly corresponded with his on the lowet floor he tried to get in with his key, -and sometimes -threatened to smash the-door in If ’-Mtnnle’’ didn’t open It. So hearing the familiar key now fumbling, I looked a-t the chain-bolt, and then merely “hollered” through the door my usual, “You’re trying to get In the wrong flat —yours Is downstairs.” 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 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. TUaii 1 didn’t know anything about. I went to sleep dreaming about slippers ; I waked up to wonder about slippers. They were just as I’d left them —which gave me real disappointment. I was out nearly all day, and when I came home my first look was to see If the slippers had been making any more “manifestations.” ALL THREE SLIPPERS WERE GONE.

CHAPTER lit Mrs. Delarlo’s Diamonds. To say I was astonished when I beheld that neat row of footgear with three teeth knocked out simply doesn’t esepress 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 had been touched in the flat but just the particular objects that the day before had turned and toed the wall. N<J* they had walked off arid left me. Well, the end of all my puzzling was that I had my choice between two explanations name, age and sex unknown, motive impossible to guess, had entered nay flat with a duplicate key and stolen the slippers; or (2)*that Mrs. Delario had worked a “physical jnanifestation” 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 stitt the unpleasant task of explaining the loss to Mrs. Delario. 1 remembered she’d said when we were buying them that they were more than she could afford, but she just must have them and would go without something else, and I was particularly mystified because of it. If I could in any way have replaced the slipper I’d have done so and never said a word about it. Meantime I remembered that I hadn’t communicated with Mrs. Delario 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 great favor —would I come to her house that Sunday evening at eight o’clock? The letter arrived on Sunday morning, special 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 Vas away for Her Sunday evening out. and what between welcoming handshakes- and Mrs. Delario’s taking off my coat and Insisting on toy taking 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 at seeing it, slippers didn’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 in my mind was the soundlesswtt of the olacs. It awaked •»

mine irum me ousuing lire or rne great city In the midst of which it was as if it bad been in* the heart of a desert Bat Mrs. Delario left me bat little time for observation; merely remarking that this was th > seance room,4he asked if Pd seen 4 laire and what I thought of her. Well —I thought a great deal of her

Mrs. Delario Herself Admitted Me.

and many things about her, and while I was considering my answer Mrs. Delario propounded a question that fairly stunned 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 cadre before me. I could as soon have thought my own sister a thief. Nevertheless I was soon at a loss to explain the episodes Mrs. Delario told me^ On the steamer, for instance, she had twice caught Claire turning over things in her —Mrs. Delario’s —suitcase. Claire excused it once by saying 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 for a reading, and she had hastily to her room for change, and returning had left her bedroom door ajar and a quantity of bills lying on the bureau which she hadn’t s< opped to put back into her purse. The moment she had shown the sitter out she went 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, 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 flvedollar bills—a lot of twos and ones andseveral 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 takdn the two fives —a five instead of a two — and give them to the lady. She didn’t look at them. Anyway, the other five was gpne. ,> ~ It was this sort of thing about her that made me like Mrs. Delario so willingness to excuse and to wait for final proofs of people’s delinquencies. 'She hadn’t even mentioned 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, 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 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, *Tm very greatly in of money.’* I fear I must have drawn back suddenly—l actually thought she was trying 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 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 i by a great-nncle 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 was examined. But don’t you see that was why I could sell them at a bargain _ . _

‘T 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 to go on? I haven’t an idea how valuable they are.” “Take them to Tiffany’s,” I suggested. - ~ —~~ “I’m afraid to take them anywbere, to fell you the truth. Eugene took them to a place on Maiden lane yesterday and the people acted so queerly. Eugene—he’s very psychic—got the impression that they were going to accuse, him of smuggling them or something of the kind —stealing the rubies, perhaps from them —and he pat them in Ms pocket mid 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?” I interrupted. “If the stones are yours—” She stopped jane 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—l hate no money to hire a lawyer 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. ‘Shaves 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 houfee much as a minister has his parsonage. If there were ever any scandal —if they turned me out from here —I’d be practically penniless. I couldn’t make a fresh start with that hanging over me. And then my son !” I said, “Well, get the stones and Til 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 box she’d come back with, fastened with a common little elastic. She slipped the elastic and placed the box in my hand. I Taised the lid. I gave one look at the contents, emptied out the stones into my hand and —nearly fell off my chair I , 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 bloodred diamonds, absolutely flawless, firstwater gems, and perfectly matched to the last facet, the last gleam and twinkle’ in their radiant depths. I held them, almost frightened, and really didn’t hear what she was saying till she remarked something about, their being matched. Matched! Well, they were matched this way: If an absolutely perfect mechanical mind with an absolutely perfect mechanical tool, working on absolutely perfect substance can -he ceived, the mind ahd the tool, working without variation, might have produced those seven stones. Yes—l should say they were matched! “I remember you told me once,” she was prattling, “that the larger the stones the more individual they became and the harder they were to match. If they were worth five thousand dollars apiece couldn’t I get—say—forty thousand dollars for the seven ?” “Forty thousand dollars!” I gasped, looking a| her now for the first time since I’d looked at the stones. An expression crossed her face, an<Lof 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 ’fiat size worth even that?” “RUBIES!” I must have simply shouted the word at bpv

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•Ana aren't they rubies? Oh. don’t tell me they’re only paste!” She looked ready to cry with disappointment and mortification. “PASTE 1” I know I yelled that word so the walls echoed. “Why, woman, they’re DIAMONDS I—bloodred1 —bloodred diamonds —the most valuable stone in the world.” She clasped her hands about my arm and gave out a long “00-oh! Then

She Gave Out a Long O-o-oh!

they’re worth fortythousand doUara . at the very least I” __ _ “Mrs. Delario,”„ I §aid soberly, “I can give you only a rough ''estimate, for those stones are far beyond'-tny range,— but in my honest opinion fhpy are worth at least a million dollars.” Silence fell on us—my words had sort of stunned us both; for until I had Bpoken them aloud the full meaning 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. 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 l A million dollars I” She had evidently taken my word with implicit 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 as though she had been shot. “My God —it’s come!” she gasped, and the color left her, face. (TO BE CONTINUED)

..... —... SaytltjWith Flowers Holden’s Greenhouse