Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 295, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 December 1919 — Diamond Cut Diamond [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Diamond Cut Diamond

By JANE BUNKER

C<myriKht by the Bobbs-Merrill Comogwr CHAPTER V. More Trouble. And I did. For the only time—as far as I remember —in the whole of this adventure into which I’d been dragged to save a friend, the expected happened. I slept and overslept and waked up feeling drugged and cold and with a dull wonder if I’d dreamed it the *night before, and as I came out of my bedroom I saw the box of diamonds just where l’d left it and it gave me a thrill. But I let it lie and took my bath and dressed without going near it. Then I lifted the lid with the feeling that I was bound to find the box empty. And there lay the seven diamonds, just as I had put them back. At this point something dangerously like suspicions of Mrs. Delarlo began to trickle through my mind. She’d smuggled the diamonds, but how did I know she hadn’t stolen them, too? These stones, by the looks of them, never belonged to any uncle or relative Mrs. Delario had in her life —they sever belonged to anything less than a grand duke or a prince, and the fact that she had no idea of their real value was proof that she’d come by them in some surreptitious way. Why had I ever brought the things home? Yet how in common humanity could I have helped it? It was just one of those things you’ve got to do — when you do it. But by the time I’d finished breakfast I had decided that the risks I ran and the responsibility—to say nothing of the mystery—were one too many for me and I’d wash my hands of the whole thing. So without waiting to hear from her I put on my wraps, staffed the box in my sto&ing and went straight to her house. A wild-eyed Swedish girl let me in and showed me to the reception room, saying that her mistress was “giving a reading and would be out soon,” but I waited a good half-hour, ticked off by an ugly, expensive mantel clock, before I heard the seance room door open and the rustle of skirts that told me the sitter was leaving. Mrs. Delario showed her out and then came into the reception room,, looking pasty and unnatural. I held the box in my hand, ready for her. When she saw me—and it—l thought she would faint. “No —no —don’t I” she cried, as I attempted to give it, to her. She struggled for breath for a few minutes, but regaining her composure she apologized for the way she’d acted, saying that the shock of the night before had left her unstrung and that seeing the stones again in the house, when she thought they were safe, had been too much for her; and then she told me how she’d foiled the thief the night before and had afterward rushed to the telephone and warned her son—who was spending the evening with hisfisncee—-aottn-eemeAieme,butto go to a hotel under an assumed name. Which she hoped he’d done, but didn’t know. “Oh, if I could only see—if I could only see for myself and my dear ones,” she burst out. “Like the doctor, I can help others hut not myself,” and she sank down on the sofa, murmuring: “If I could only see —if it were somebody else — “No,” she said, “people don’t understand: —except professionals—that it’s almost impossible for clairvoyants to get anything for themselves, or those very near to them. I can’t even read for sitters after I come to know them very well. There’s something—a kind of a veil —Comes up—’’ she broke off in her explanation and went to the front door and looked Out. “I’m nervous and all unstrung,” she excused, coming back and sitting down. I made a motion to give her the box, only to see her draw back with the same frightened look and protesting gesture. ® “Yen aren’t going to desert me, are you?” she cried. “Oh, please—l beg you—l implore you—keep them just a little longer—” , “Haven’t you some way of hiding them? Really I don’t see how I can take the responsibility—suppose I’m robbed!” “You won’t be.” “But you don’t know. I may have been followed home last night.” “You were not —that man was working alone.” It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her my real reason was that I didn’t like being mixed up in a smuggling affair; but out of pity—and cbm"mon human decency for a woman in trouble —I refrained, and she hurried on, “You needn’t fear about losing them —I see the word ‘safe’ In yellow letters over your head and I know, absolutely—they’ll be safe with you.” To me that wasn’t convincing, and I made a last effort to rid myself of the incubus and suggested, “Your son — couldn’t he find means tn bjds

“Eugene!" Her face ciouaeo with fear. “I' don’t even know where he is this morning—he hasn't telephoned me, or anything, since I telephoned him last night to hide—and every I think of him I get the impression of ‘trouble.’ There isn’t a - living soul I. can appeal to now but you. Oh, please—a day—two days—until I can decide what to do. Help me now, and I swear to you that I will explain everything—» The telephone bell suddenly rang out from the upper hall. Her hands flew to her heart, as they had the night before When the house bell rang; but without a word she hastened upstairs to answer the call. , ~ While she was gone I had a few minutes to think, and I took my stand, once for all: rd help her through thick and thin. I therefore slipped the box back where I’d taken it from, and was preparing to leave with it as soon as I could say goodby to her, when she reeled into the room, looking as if she’d had the shock of dreadful news. “Eugene. My son!” she gasped, almost with a scream. “He’s been kidnaped!” and with that she fainted. I caught her as she fell and let her slide to the floor as gently as my strength would allow, and I was considering whether to try to find the 'bathroom upstairs and get some water, or to search the lower regions for the wild-eyed Swede and send her for the nearest doctor, when I heard Mrs. Delario’s voice: “Save my diamonds — save my son. Go —go at once!” I didn’t go—in fact she held me so I couldn’t- —and somehow, between us, she managed to get up on the sofa, where she released my hands, imploring me to save the diamonds. “Those men are coming,” she urged. "In five minutes it may be too late — you’ll be caught—l’ll lose everything—my future —Lila’s future —you’re safe if you go instantly—■” It was incoherent, but rapid ; terribly earnest. She gave me a feeble push, And, hardly knowing what I did, I fled the house —for the second time in twenty-four hours with a million dollars’ worth of diamonds in my stocking. I had dashed down the steps expecting to encounter —and escape from-r-a pair of dark-browed villains; I actually did encounter a delivery boy hopping off his wagon, who almost knocked me over with his basket and then berated me soundly for getting in his road and not looking where I was going. My bumping into the grocery boy dislocatedthealarminwldch I had left Mrs. Delario, and it didn’t seem to occur to me on the return trip that I might be followed, or that I should fate at least some small precautions to elude a possible shadow. My mind was so engrossed with Mrs. Delario and what had happened to her son that I really quite forgot I had the diamonds myself! I bought a bunch of hyacinths at a florist’s and left an order at the grocer’s, and it wasn’t till I was inside my flat that the thought

really struck me, ‘Tm the on a who Is ■ in danger—l have the diamonds I” and it was too late for me to find out’ if Pd been shadowed home or not; However, my depression was presently succeeded by a mood of elation — at last I Was living things! I was enjoying the game for its own sake. On with the dance, Mr. Robbers —let’s see if you can get the diamonds! Which only goes to show what fools some women can be, sometimes. For if I meant to hide the diamonds where they’d be safe, why didn’t I take them instantly to my bank and put them in a safe-deposit box? A mere man would have done it on the spur of the moment without stopping to think about it; and the idea never entered my head. So I let slip my one chance of something brilliant , and did what ninety-nine out of a hundred other women would have done under the same circumstances: I HID THEM IN MY FLAT. And in that one act I pitted myself against the most subtle intelligence, amazing complications and overwhelming odds that a quiet, respectable gentlewoman of my profession ever had to reckon with outside of the ink bottle. I got both a revolver and a dagger ready for me — only I didn’t know it at the time. I have: always prided myself on the way I hid those diamonds—since I was stupid enough to do It at all. As I say, I had bought a* hunch of hyaclnths—Roman Jbyaclnths—when after sittinz in my bi* chair for • znod half-

soar tninxing, i gm. up to put taem In water, the brilliant Idea came to me to hide the diamonds there. Water wouldn’t hurt the diamonds; but who would ever think that anyone would be silly enough to put them In it? So I got a glass—a common white glass that would show the steins—set the hyacinths in the middle of the table and poked thedlamonds down among the stems. The raffia string held everything in place, and — there you are! My real trouble was in disposing of the box. I could have burned it and been done with it, but to keep it was so much more sportsmanlike: to enjoy my game—as I was feeling it just then—l saw I must, above everything, be sportsmanlike. To this end, therefore, I must disguise the box, put it where Mr. Thief —or Mr. Detective—or Mr. Chief of Police, when he came, might take it In his hated and cast it from him as a thing of naught in his search for Mrs. Delarlo’s diamonds. With an odd bit of shiny blue paper I happened to find In the drawer where I keep odds and ends of paper, and my scissors and library paste, I transformed that box so the fairies wouldn’t know it. After that I filled it up with pens and set It conspicuously on the tray with my pencils, penholders and other things of the sort I set it so you could not help seeing it if you triad! As a last touch—which it seemed to require for art’s sake—l cut a part of a pen advertisement out of a magazine and pasted it on the lid. For the first time, then, I took note of the clock —it was twenty minutes past two—l’d frittered away almost an entire day on some one else’s affairs instead of my own bread and butter, and there lay the pile of proof, not half done, that I had hoped to have off by night. I hastily made a cup of chocolate, slapped together a few sandwiches, and, reading ag I munched, I tried to make up for lost time; and it was not till I had finished eating that I remembered to put away my coat and hat that I had thrown off on the divan. I carried them to my bedroom and pulled open the wardrobe door. In the bottom of it lay the three tur-quoise-beaded slippers! My coat and hat fell out of my hands on the floor and I sank down on the bed. I was not merely mystified— I was frightened. How had they come there? —and when? They were not there when I took out the coat in the morning to go to Mrs. Delarlo’s —to that I knew I could swear, for in my hurry to be rid of her diamonds I had snatched the coat out and dropped it, and I couldn’t have missed seeing the slippers then, any more than I had missed seeing them now. Now, under ordinary circumstances, finding the three slippers in my wardrobe wouldn’t have upset me—l should yery likely have thought it a lapse of memory and let it go at that; but I was by way of keeping tab on them and I knew I couldn’t have put them in the wardrobe, because the last thing I knew of them they were gone out of the flat entirely. I could only stare and feel horribly creepy. If this were not a manifestation, then somebody had access to my flat. But who? And why slippers? I jumped up at this thought and began digging into my bureau drawer —I had five hundred dollars cash buried there that had been paid over to me In the settlement of an estate and I’d not had a minute to take it to the bank. The cash was safe. Everything else was safe, as far as I could see; not a chair'was out of place; nothing had been moved or touched since I left the flat—only three slippers. And why slippers? The more I thought the •more disturbed I became, it was all so uncanny. One thing was- clear to me, though—whoever came in to monkey with the slippers came while I was out. ‘Til get a new lock as my next move in the game,” said I; and this I prepared to do immediately, not by going out and leaving the diamonds—oh, no! —I was too really scared by the slippers to leave the diamonds now Alone in the flat —but by finding a locksmith in the telephone book and Inviting him to call; and I was diligently pursuing him thus when my telephone rang and I threw down the book to answer it And in response to my *heßo” I recognized the voice of Mon* . sieur de RavenoL “Why, how do you do, monsieur?” I exclaimed, thinking instantly he had some scheme on for getting me to take charge of Claire for him, since Mrs. Delario wouldn’t keep her. ‘T am as always, sank you, but it is our friend, Madame Delario, I wish to speak wis you about” “Mrs. Delario!” I cried, thrown off my guard by this unexpected name. “What about her?” “She meets wis an accident and wishes to see you immediately.” “An accident’’! I was dismayed and thought “Poor woman, what next for her?” but I called back, “What sort of an accident?” and before he could tell me I added, “When did it happen?” “My daughter and I are just now calling on her to pay our respects and madame faints and falls, striking se verely her head. I call at once ze physician antj he says zere may be neces sary an operation. She refuses—until she can speak wis you about some private matters, I shall tell her you will come?” For a moment I wondered if she had given him a hint of the “private matters,” and I asked him point blank, “Do you know what she wishes to see me for?" “She asks only sat I send for-you immediately, and I obey her instructions. I tell you only what zd doctor have told me—and irtmeto aand far

mena. HQe say it is yourself and she must see you. You will come immediately?” "Yes—lmmediately. Hl be there hl about twenty'minutes.” I rushed to her, buttoning my coat as I ran downstairs, and it was not until I had taken my seat in the subway that I remembered I had left her diamonds in my flat!

“Oh Please Keep Them Just a Little Longer."