The pair entered the mews and approached the deserted house. The solicitor's clerk knocked and then tried the door; it was locked. They both went to the window and looked in. Had Philip hanged himself, as he intended, they would have been somewhat surprised by the spectacle that would have met their eyes. As it was, they only saw a small room of utmost wretchedness, with a mattress lying on the floor in front of the fireplace. An empty tin and a bundle of old letters rested on a rickety chair, and a piece of sacking was thrust through two broken panes in the small window opposite.
"Not much there, eh?" laughed the policeman.
"Not much, indeed. The floor is all covered with dirt, and if it were not for the bed, one would imagine that the house was entirely deserted. Are you sure Mrs. Anson is dead?"
"Oh, quite sure. Hers was rather a hard case, some one told me. I remember now; it was the undertaker. He lives near here."
"And the boy. Has he gone away?"
"I don't know. I haven't seen him lately."
Each of these men had read all the reports concerning Philip and his diamonds. Large numbers of tiny, white pebbles were lying on the floor beneath their eyes, but the window was not clean, and the light was far from good, as the sky was clouded. Yet they were visible enough. The clerk noticed them at once, but neither he nor the policeman paid more heed to the treasures almost at their feet than was given by generations of men to the outcrop of the main reef at Johannesburg. At last they turned away. The clerk gave the policeman a cigar with the remark:
"I will just ask the undertaker to give me a letter, stating the facts about Mrs. Anson's death. I suppose the boy is in the workhouse?"
"Who knows! It often beats me to tell what becomes of the kids who are left alone in London. Poor, little devils, they mostly go to the bad. There should be some means of looking after them, I think."
Thus did Philip, bravely sustaining his heart in the solitude of a prison, escape the greatest danger that threatened the preservation of his secret, and all because a scheming woman was too clever to tell her solicitors the exact reason for her anxiety concerning the whereabouts of Mrs. Anson and her son.
The boy passed a dolorous Saturday night and Sunday. Nevertheless, the order, the cleanliness, the comparative comfort of a prison, were not wholly ungrateful to him. His meals, though crude, were wholesome, luxurious, even, compared with the privations he had endured during the previous fortnight. The enforced rest, too, did him good, and, being under remand, he had nothing to do but eat, take exercise, read a few books provided for him, and sleep.
With Monday came a remarkable change in his fare. A pint of first-rate cocoa and some excellent bread and butter for breakfast evoked no comment on his part, but a dinner of roast beef, potatoes, cabbage and rice pudding was so extremely unlike prison diet that he questioned the turnkey.
"It's all right, kid," came the brief answer. "It's paid for. Eat while you can, and ask no questions."
"But——"
The door slammed, and at the next meal Philip received in silence a cup of tea and a nice tea cake. This went on during three days. The good food and rest had already worked a marvelous change in his appearance. He entered the prison looking like a starved dog. When he rose on the Thursday morning and washed himself, no one would have recognized him as the same boy were it not for his clothes.
After dinner, he was tidying his cell and replacing the plates and the rest on a tin tray, when the door was suddenly flung open and a warder cried:
"Come along, Morland. You're wanted at the court."
"At the court!" he could not help saying. "This is only Thursday."
"What a boy you are for arguing. Pick up your hat and come. Your carriage waits, my lord. I hope you will like your quarters as well when you come back. A pretty stir you have made in the papers the last five days."
Philip glanced at the man, who seemed to be in a good humor.
"I will not come back," he said, quietly, "but I wish you would tell me who supplied me with food while I have been here."
They were passing along a lofty corridor, and there was no superior officer in sight. The warder laughed.
"I don't know, my lord," he said, "but the menoo came from the Royal Star Hotel, opposite."
Philip obtained no further news. He passed through an office, a voucher was signed for him, and he emerged into the prison yard, where the huge prison van awaited him. He was the only occupant, just as on the first memorable ride in that conveyance. When he came to the prison from the police court he had several companions in misery. But they were "stretched." His case was the only "remand."
During the long drive Philip endeavored to guess the cause of this unexpected demand for his presence. Naturally, he assumed that Johnson's Mews no longer held safe the secret of his meteor. Such few sensational romances as he had read credited detectives with superhuman sagacity. In his mind, Johnson's Mews was the center of the world. It enshrined the marvelous—how could it escape the thousands of prying eyes that passed daily through the great thoroughfare of the East End, but a few yards away? Judging from the remark dropped by the warder, all London was talking about him. A puzzling feature was the abundant supply of good food sent to him in the prison. Who was his unknown friend—and what explanation was attached to the incident?
Philip's emotions were no more capable of analysis than a display of rockets. Immured in this cage, rattling over the pavements, he seemed to be advancing through a tunnel into an unknown world.
At last the van stopped, and he was led forth into the yard of the police court. He followed the same route as on the previous Saturday, but when he ascended into the court itself he discovered a change. The magistrate, a couple of clerks, and some policemen alone were present. The general public and the representatives of the press were not visible.
He had scarcely faced the bench when the magistrate said:
"You are set at liberty. The police withdraw the charge against you."
Philip's eyes sparkled and his breast heaved tumultuously. For the life of him he could utter no word, but Mr. Abingdon helped him by quietly directing the usher to permit the lad to leave the dock and take a seat at the solicitors' table.
Then, speaking slowly and with some gravity, he said:
"Philip Morland—that is the only name by which I know you—the authorities have come to the conclusion that your story is right. You have unquestionably found a deposit of diamonds, and although this necessarily exists on some person's property, there is no evidence to show whose property it is. It may be your own. It may be situated beyond the confines of this kingdom. There are many hypotheses, each of which may be true; but, in any event, if others lay claim to this treasure trove—and I warn you that the Crown has a right in such a matter—the issue is a civil and not a criminal one. Therefore, you are discharged, and your property is now handed back to you intact."
A clerk placed before Philip his parcel of diamonds, his key, the rusty knife, the pieces of string, and the two buttons—truly a motley collection. The boy was pale, and his voice somewhat tremulous as he asked:
"May I go now, sir?"
Mr. Abingdon leaned back in his chair and passed his hand over his face to conceal a smile.
"I have something more to say to you," he answered. "It is an offense against the law to withhold your name and address. I admit the powerful motives which actuated you, so I make the very great concession that your earlier refusal will be overlooked if you privately tell me that which you were unwilling to state publicly."
Philip instantly decided that it would be foolish in the extreme to refuse this offer. He pocketed his diamonds, looked the magistrate straight in the face, and said:
"I will do that, sir. As the information is to be given to you alone, may I write it?"
The policemen and other officials sniggered at this display of caution, but the magistrate nodded, and Philip wrote his name and address on a sheet of foolscap, which he folded before handing it to the usher.
To his great surprise, Mr. Abingdon placed the paper in a pocketbook without opening it.
"I will make no use of this document unless the matter comes before me again officially. I wish to point out to you that I have brought you from prison at the earliest possible moment, and have spared you the publicity which your movements would attract were your case settled in open court. You are not aware, perhaps, that you figure largely in the eyes of the public at this moment. There are newspapers which would give a hundred pounds to get hold of you. There are thieves who would shadow your every movement, waiting for a chance to waylay and rob you—murder you, if necessary. I have taken precautions, therefore, to safeguard you, at least within the precincts of this court, but I cannot be responsible beyond its limits. May I ask what you intend to do?"
Philip, proud in the knowledge that he was cleared of all dishonor, was at no loss for words now.
"First, I wish to thank you, sir," he said. "You have acted most kindly toward me, and, when I am older, I hope to be permitted to acknowledge your thoughtfulness better than is possible to-day. I will endeavor to take care of myself. I am going now to see Mr. Isaacstein. I do not expect that he will send for a policeman again. If he does, I will bring him before you."
The magistrate himself laughed at this sally.
"You are a strange boy," he said. "I think you are acting wisely. But—er—you have no money—that is, in a sense. Hatton Garden is some distance from here. Let me—er—lend you a cab fare."
"Thank you, sir," said Philip, and Mr. Abingdon, unable to account for the interest he felt in the boy, quite apart from his inexplicable story, gave him five shillings and shook hands with him.
Outside the police court, Philip drew as invigorating a breath of fresh air as the atmosphere of Clerkenwell permitted. He knew that an inspector of police and a couple of constables were gazing at him curiously through an office window, and the knowledge quickened his wits.
It was worth even more than his liberty to realize that, in all reasonable probability, his meteor was safe as yet. The police had failed in their quest; whom else had he to fear? The company had informed his mother that her tenancy of Johnson's Mews would not be disturbed before the thirty-first. Of course, her death was known to the firm, but their written promise to her was verbally confirmed to Philip by the manager. It was now the twenty-fifth. He had five clear days, perhaps six, in which to make all his arrangements. The forced seclusion of the prison had helped him in one way—it gave him a program, a detailed plan. Each step had been carefully thought out, and Isaacstein's office was the first stage in the campaign.
A prowling hansom passed. Philip whistled.
"Where's the fare?" demanded the cabman, angrily, looking up and down the street.
"Drive me to Holborn Viaduct, quick," said the boy, with his foot on the step.
Cabby eyed him with scorn.
"What's the gyme?" he growled. "D'yer tyke me for a mug, or what?"
"Oh, don't talk so much," cried Philip, impatiently. "Are you afraid I won't pay you? See! If you lose no more time, I will give you this," and he held up a two-shilling piece for the cabman's edification.
It is difficult to surprise your true Cockney whip. The man carefully folded the evening paper he had been reading, stuffed it under the strap which held his rug and cape, and chirruped to his horse:
"Kim up, lazy bones! We've got a millionaire crossin'-sweeper inside. What, ho! Any bloomin' perfession is better'n drivin' a keb."
The run was shorter than Philip anticipated, but, true to his promise, he proffered the two shillings.
The cabman looked at him. Something in the boy's face seemed to strike him as curious, and, notwithstanding Philip's rags, his skin was scrupulously clean.
"Gow on," he cried. "I'll make yer a present of that trip. 'Ope it'll giv yer a fresh stawt in the world. Kim up, will yer!" And the hansom swung away into the traffic, leaving the boy standing on the pavement on the north side of the viaduct. He made a mental note of the cab's number. It was easy to remember—three 8's and a 9—and walked on toward Hatton Garden.
Meanwhile the cabman, after varying luck, drove to his yard, changed horses, secured a fare to a theater, and joined the Haymarket rank while he took a meal in the cabmen's shelter.
"What's to-day's bettin' on the National?" he asked a friend.
The evening paper was passed and he cast an eye over its columns. Suddenly he rapped out a string of expressions that amazed his companions.
"What's the matter, Jimmie? Missed a twenty to one chance at Lincoln?"
"Great Scott! I thought he'd lift the roof off."
"Go easy, mate. There's lydies outside."
But the cabman still swore and gazed round-eyed at the sheet. And this is what he read:
"The boy, Philip Morland, whose possession of a collection of meteoric diamonds of great value has created so much sensation, was brought up on remand to-day at the Clerkenwell Police Court, and released. Mr. Abingdon thought fit to hear the case in camera, so this ragged urchin is wandering about London again with a pocketful of gems. He was last seen entering a cab in the neighborhood of the police court, and inquiry by our representative at the Hatton Garden offices of Mr. Isaacstein, the diamond merchant, whose name has figured in connection with the case, elicited the information that Morland called there about 3 P.M. Mr. Isaacstein positively refused to make any further statement for publication, but it is probable that developments in this peculiar and exciting affair will take place at any moment."
In a word, the journalistic world was exceedingly wroth with both Mr. Abingdon and the Jew for balking it of a very readable bit of news. No effort would be spared to defeat their obvious purpose. Philip must be discovered by hook or by crook, and badgered incessantly until he divulged the secret of the meteor.
At last the cabman became lucid.
"I'm done," he groaned. "My brains are a fuzzball. 'Ere! Some one drink my beer. I'm goin' in fer cow-cow. I 'ad this young spark in my keb to-d'y an' didn't know it. 'E offered me two bob, 'e did, an' I stood 'im a drive as a treat, 'e looked sich a scarecrow."
"Who's next?" cried a raucous voice at the door.
"I am," roared the disappointed one.
"Well, look sharp. There's a hold gent a-wavin' 'is humbreller like mad——"
"Keep 'im. Don't let 'im go. I'll be there in 'arf a tick. Who knows! P'raps it's Rothschild."
Meanwhile Philip did not hesitate an instant once he reached Isaacstein's office. A new note in his character was revealing itself. Always resolute, fearless and outspoken, now he was confident. He pushed open the swing door with the manner of one who expects his fellows to bow before him. Was he not rich—able to command the services of men—why should he falter? He forgot his rags, forgot the difficulties and dangers that might yet beset his path, for in very truth he had achieved but little actual progress since he first entered that office five days earlier.
But he had suffered much since then, and suffering had strengthened him. Moreover, he had taken the measure of Isaacstein. There was a score to be wiped off before that worthy and he entered into amicable business relations.
The instant the immature Jew behind the grille set eyes on Philip, he bounded back from the window and gazed at him with a frightened look. Had this young desperado broken out of prison and come to murder them all?
"Help! help!" he shouted. "Murder!"
Clerks came running from the inner office, among them the elderly man who interfered in Philip's behalf on the last occasion.
"Make that idiot shut up," said Philip, calmly, "and tell Mr. Isaacstein I am here."
The office boy was silenced, and the excitement calmed down. Yes, the diamond merchant was in. If Philip would walk upstairs to the waiting room, his presence would be announced.
"Thank you," he said; "but kindly see that this urchin does not let others know I am here. I don't want a crowd to be gathered in the street when I come out."
Such cool impudence from a ragamuffin was intolerable, or nearly so. But Isaacstein ruled his minions with a rod of iron, and they would fain wait the little man's pleasure ere they ventured their wrath on the boy. Besides, they were afraid of Philip. Like most people in London, they had read the newspaper reports of the police court proceedings, and they were awed by his strangely incomprehensible surroundings.
So he was silently ushered upstairs, and soon he caught the thick-voiced order of Isaacstein:
"Show him in."
The Jew, however, dived into his private sanctum before Philip entered the general office. The boy found him there, seated at his table.
The duel began with questions:
"How did you get out so soon? You were remanded for a week."
"Are you going to send for a policeman?"
"Don't be rude, boy, but answer me."
"I am not here to satisfy your curiosity, Mr. Isaacstein. I have called simply on a matter of business. It is sufficient for you to know that Mr. Abingdon has set me at liberty and restored my property to me. Do you wish to deal with me or not?"
The diamond merchant tingled with anger. He was not accustomed to being browbeaten even by the representatives of the De Beers Company, yet here was a callow youngster addressing him in this outrageous fashion, betraying, too, an insufferable air of contempt in voice and manner. He glared at Philip in silent wrath for an instant.
The boy smiled. He took from his pocket the paper of diamonds and began to count them. The action said plainly:
"You know you cannot send me away. If I go to your trade rivals you will lose a magnificent opportunity. You are in my hands. No matter how rude I am to you, you must put up with it."
Nevertheless, the Jew made an effort to preserve his tottering dignity.
"Do you think," he said, "that you are behaving properly in treating a man of my position in such a way in his own office?"
In his own office—that was the sting of it.
The head of the firm of Isaacstein & Co., of London, Amsterdam and Kimberley, to be bearded in such fashion in his own particular shrine! Why, the thing was monstrous!
Philip looked him squarely in the eyes.
"Mr. Isaacstein," he said, calmly, "have you forgotten that you caused me to be arrested as a thief and dragged, handcuffed, through the open streets by a policeman? I have spent five days in jail because of you. At the moment when I was praising your honesty you were conveying secret signals to your clerks in the belief that I was something worse than a pickpocket. Was your treatment of me so free from blame at our first meeting as to serve as a model at the second?"
The chair was creaking now continuously; the Jew swung from side to side during this lecture. He strove hard to restrain himself, but the feverish excitement of Saturday returned with greater intensity than ever. He jumped up, and Philip imagined for a second that robbery with violence was imminent.
"Confound it all, boy!" yelled the merchant, "what was I to do when a ragged loafer like you came in and showed me a diamond worth a thousand pounds and told me he had dozens, hundreds, more like it? Did you expect me to risk standing in the dock by your side? Who could have given fairer evidence in your behalf than I did? Who proved that you could not have stolen the stones? Whom have you to thank for being at liberty now, but the expert who swore that no such diamonds had been seen before in this world?"
Philip waited until the man's passion had exhausted itself. Then he went on coolly:
"That is your point of view, I suppose. Mine is that you could have satisfied yourself concerning all those points without sending me to prison. However, this discussion is beside the present question. Will you buy my diamonds?"
Isaacstein recovered his seat. He wiped his face vigorously, but the trading instinct conquered his fury.
"Yes," he snapped. "How much do you want for them?"
"I notice that their value steadily increases. The first time you saw this diamond"—and he held up the stone originally exhibited to the Jew—"you said it was worth six or seven hundred pounds. To-day you name a thousand. However, I will take your own valuation for this unimportant collection, and accept fifty thousand pounds."
"Oh, you will, will you! And how will you have it, in notes or gold?"
He could not help this display of cheap sarcasm. The situation was losing its annoyance; the humor of it was beginning to dawn on him. When his glance rested more critically on Philip, the boy's age, the poverty of his circumstances, the whole fantastic incongruity of the affair, forced his recognition.
Not unprepared for such a retort, Philip gathered the stones together, and twisted the ends of the paper. Evidently the parcel was going back into his pocket. He glanced at a clock, too, which ticked solemnly over the office door.
"Here, what are you doing?" cried Isaacstein.
"Going to some one who will deal with me in a reasonable manner. It is not very late yet. I suppose there are plenty of firms like yours in Hatton Garden, or I can go back to Mr. Wilson——"
"Sit down. Sit down," growled the Jew, vainly striving to cloak his nervousness by a show of grim jocosity. "I never saw such a boy in my life. You are touchy as gunpowder. I was only joking."
"I am not joking, Mr. Isaacstein. Your price is my price—fifty thousand pounds."
"Do you think I carry that amount of money in my purse?" demanded Isaacstein, striving desperately to think out some means whereby he could get Philip into more amiable mood, when, perchance, the true story of the gems might be revealed.
"No," was the answer. "Even if you gave it to me I should not take it away. I want you to advance, say fifty pounds, to-day. I require clothes—and other things. Then, to-morrow, you can bring me to a bank, and pay a portion of the purchase price to my credit, giving me at the same time a written promise to pay the remainder within a week, or a month—any reasonable period, in fact."
The diamond merchant was quickly becoming serious, methodical, as he listened. This business-like proposal was the one thing needed to restore his bewildered faculties.
"Tell me, boy," he said, "who has been advising you?"
"No one."
"Do you mean to say you came here to-day to trade with me without consulting any other person?"
"I certainly told Mr. Abingdon I was coming, and I feel that I can always return to him for any advice if I am in a difficulty, but the offer I have just made is my own."
Watching Isaacstein's face was an interesting operation to Philip. Under ordinary conditions he might as well expect to find emotion depicted in a pound of butter as in that oily countenance, with its set expression molded by years of sharp dealings. But to-day the man was startled out of all the accustomed grooves of business. He was confronted with a problem so novel that his experience was not wide enough to embrace it.
So Philip caught a gleam of resentment at the introduction of the magistrate's name, and he instantly resolved to see Mr. Abingdon again at the earliest opportunity.
"Oh, he treated you kindly to-day, did he?" snarled Isaacstein.
"Yes, most kindly."
"You don't drink, I suppose?" broke in the other, abruptly.
"No. I am only a boy of fifteen, and do not need stimulants."
He was favored with a sharp glance at this remark, but he bent over his diamonds again and began to examine them, one by one. He knew that the action was tantalizing to his companion, and that is why he did it.
Isaacstein went to a sideboard and poured out a stiff glass of brandy. He swallowed it as an ordinary person takes an oyster.
"That's better," he said, returning to his desk. "Now we can get to close quarters. Hand over the stones."
Philip did nothing of the sort.
"Why?" he inquired, blandly. "You know all about them. You can hardly want to examine them so frequently."
"Confound it!" cried Isaacstein, growing red with renewed impatience, "what more can I do than agree to your terms?"
"I asked you for an advance of fifty pounds. I said nothing about leaving the diamonds in your charge. Please listen to me. I make no unreasonable demands. If you wish to keep the stones now you must first write me a letter stating the agreement between us. If it is right I will give you the diamonds. If it is not according to my ideas you must alter it."
"Do you think I mean to swindle you?"
"I have no views on that point. I am only telling you what my conditions are."
Isaacstein sat back in his chair and regarded Philip fixedly and with as much calmness as he could summon to his aid. A ray of sunshine illumined a bald patch on the top of his head, and the boy found himself idly speculating on developments in the Jew's future life. The man, on his part, was seeking to read the boy's inscrutable character, but the fixity of Philip's gaze at his denuded crown disconcerted him again.
"What are you looking at?" he demanded, suddenly.
"I was wondering how you will look when you go to heaven, Mr. Isaacstein," was the astounding reply.
For some reason it profoundly disturbed his hearer. He wobbled for a little while, and finally seemed to make up his mind, though he sighed perplexedly. The Jew was not a bad man. In business he was noted for exceeding shrewdness combined with strict commercial honesty. But the case that now presented itself contained all the elements of temptation. No matter how clever this boy might be, he was but a boy, and opportunities for cheating him must arrive. If not he, Isaacstein, there were others. The boy possessed a large store, possibly a very large store, of rough gems, and in dealing with them his agents could rob him with impunity. Yet, in answer to an unguarded question, this extraordinary youth admitted that Isaacstein might merit eternal bliss. Such an eventuality had not occurred to the Jew himself during unrecorded years. Now that it was suggested to him it disturbed him.
"You imagine then that I may deal fairly with you?" he said at last.
"Oh, yes. Why should you rob me? You can earn more money than you can ever need in this world by looking after my interests properly. If only you will believe this statement it will save you much future worry, I assure you."
"Were you in earnest when you said that you have an abundance of stones like those in your hands?"
"So many, Mr. Isaacstein, that you will have some trouble in disposing of them. I have diamonds as big, as big—let me see—as big as an egg."
The wonder is that the Jew did not faint.
"My God!" he gurgled, "do you know what you are saying? Where are they, boy? You will be robbed, murdered for their sake. Where are they? Let me put them in some safe place. I will deal honestly by you. I swear it, by all that I hold sacred. But you must have them taken care of."
"They are quite safe; be certain of that. Reveal my secret I will not. I have borne insult and imprisonment to preserve it, so it is not likely I will yield now to your appeals."
Philip's face lit up with a strange light as this protest left his lips. The meteor was his mother's bequest. She gave it to him, and she would safeguard it. Had she failed hitherto? Was not all London ringing with the news of his fortune, yet what man or woman had discovered the whereabouts of his treasure? In his pocket he felt the great iron key of No. 3, Johnson's Mews, and he was as certain now that his hiding place was unknown as that his mother's spirit was looking down on him from heaven, and directing his every movement.
The Jew, in spite of his own great lack of composure, saw the fleeting glimpse of spirituality in the boy's eyes. Puzzled and disturbed though he was, he made another violent effort to pull his shattered nerves into order.
"There is no need to talk all day," he said, doggedly. "Now I am going to tell you something you don't know. If your boast is justified—if you really own as many diamonds, and as good ones, as you say you own—there must be a great deal of discretion exercised in putting them on the market. Diamonds are valuable only because they are rare. There is a limit to their possible purchasers. If the diamond mines of the world were to pour all their resources forthwith into the lap of the public, there would be such a slump that prices would drop fifty, sixty, even eighty per cent. Do you follow me?"
"Yes," nodded Philip.
A week earlier he would have said, "Yes, sir," but his soul was bitter yet against Isaacstein.
"Very well. It may take me months, years, to realize your collection. To do it properly I must have some idea of its magnitude. If there are exceptionally large stones among it, they will be dealt with separately. They may rival or eclipse the few historical diamonds of the world, but their worth can only be measured by the readiness of some fool to pay hundreds of thousands for them. See?"
"Yes," nodded Philip again. His sententiousness brought the man to the point.
"Therefore you must take me into your confidence. What quantity of stones do you possess, and what are their sizes? I must know."
Isaacstein, cooler now, pursed his lips and pressed his thumbs together until they appeared to be in danger of dislocation. It was his favorite attitude when engaged in a deal. It signified that he had cornered his victim. Philip, appealed to in this strictly commercial way, could not fail to see it was to his own interest to tell his chosen expert the exact facts, and nothing but the facts.
The boy, singularly unflurried in tone and manner, hazarded an inquiry.
"What amount of ordinary diamonds, in their money value I mean, can you dispose of readily in the course of a year, Mr. Isaacstein?"
"Oh, two or three hundred thousand pounds' worth; it is a matter largely dependent on the condition of trade generally. But that may be regarded as a minimum."
"And the bigger stones, worth many thousands each?"
"It is impossible to say. Taking them in the lump, at values varying from a thousand each to fancy figures, perhaps fifty thousand pounds' worth."
"It would be safe to reckon on a quarter of a million a year, all told?"
"Quite safe."
"Then, Mr. Isaacstein, I will supply you with diamonds of that value every year for many years."
The Jew relaxed the pressure on his thumbs. Indeed he passed a tremulous hand across his forehead. He was beaten again, and he knew it—worsted by a gutter snipe in a war of wits.
The contest had one excellent effect. It stopped all further efforts on Isaacstein's part to wrest Philip's secret from him. Thenceforth he asked for, and obtained, such diamonds as he needed, and resolutely forbade himself the luxury of questioning or probing the extent of his juvenile patron's resources.
But there was a long pause before he found his tongue again. His voice had lost its aggressiveness when he said:
"In the police court I valued the diamonds you produced at fifty thousand pounds. It does not necessarily follow that I am prepared to give such a sum for them at this moment. I might do so as a speculation, but I take it you do not want me to figure in that capacity. It will be better for you, safer for me, if I become your agent. I will take your stones to Amsterdam, have them cut sufficiently to enable dealers to assess their true worth, and sell them to the best advantage. My charge will be ten per cent, and I pay all expenses. To-day I will give you fifty pounds. To-morrow I will take you to a bank and place five thousand to your credit. Meanwhile, I will give you a receipt for thirty stones, weighing, in the rough, so many carats, and you, or anyone you may appoint, can see the sale vouchers subsequently, when I will hand you the balance after deducting £5,050 and my ten per cent. The total price may exceed fifty thousand, or it may be less, but I do not think I will be far out in my estimate. Are you agreeable?"
Some inner monitor told Philip that the Jew was talking on sound business lines. There was a ring of sincerity in his voice. Apparently he had thrust temptation aside, and was firmly resolved to be content with his ten per cent.
And this might well be. Twenty-five thousand pounds a year earned by a few journeys to the Continent—a few haggling interviews in the Hatton Garden office! What a gold mine! Moreover, he would be the head man in the trade. He was that now, in some respects; but under the new conditions none could gainsay his place at the top. Even the magnates of Kimberley would be staggered by this new source of supply. What did it matter if the boy kept to his rags and amazed the world, so long as the diamonds were forthcoming? It was no silk-hatted gentleman who first stumbled across the diamond-laden earth of South Africa. Isaacstein had made up his mind. Fate had thrust this business into his lap. He would be a fool to lose it out of mere curiosity.
"Yes," said Philip. "I agree to that."
"Samuel!" yelled Isaacstein.
"Coming, sir," was the answering shout, and a flurried clerk appeared.
"Bring in the scales, Samuel."
The scales were brought, and a level space cleared for them on the desk. Philip, of course, had never before seen an instrument so delicately adjusted. A breath would serve to depress the balance.
The boy held forth his paper, and poured the contents into the tiny brass tray of the scales. Samuel's mouth opened and his eyes widened. It was his first sight of the diamonds.
"Four ounces, eight pennyweights, five grains—six hundred and twenty-nine carats in thirty stones. Oh, good gracious me!" murmured the clerk.
Isaacstein checked the record carefully.
"Right!" he said. "Put them in the safe."
Philip raised no protest this time. He knew that the Jew would keep his word. Indeed, Isaacstein told Samuel to bring him fifty sovereigns, and ere the man returned he began to write on a sheet of letter paper:
"Received from——Here! what's your name?" he broke in.
"Philip."
"Philip what?"
"That will do to-day, thank you. The next time I call I will give you my full name and address."
"Please yourself. I am no judge in this matter," and he wrote on:
"Received from Philip, a boy who refuses any other name, but the same whom I saw in this office on the twentieth inst., and again at the Clerkenwell Police Court on that date, thirty meteoric diamonds weighing in the gross six hundred and twenty-nine carats. I hereby agree to dispose of the same, and to render true account of sales to the said Philip or his agents. My commission to be ten per cent.; the expenses payable by me. I have to-day handed the said Philip fifty pounds in gold, and undertake to place five thousand pounds to his credit to-morrow with my bankers.
"Reuben Isaacstein."
After completing this acknowledgment he scribbled something else.
"There," he said, with a sigh of relief, "that is not a very formal document, but it will suffice. You can get it stamped to-morrow at Somerset House. Just sign this receipt for fifty pounds."
Philip took the two papers and read them carefully. Isaacstein's handwriting was a scrawl, but legible enough. The boy reached for a pen and signed his Christian name. He was on the point of adding his surname in an unguarded moment, but he felt the Jew's eye on him. So he simply wrote "Philip" across the stamp at the foot of the receipt.
Isaacstein fully appreciated the incident, and knew that his own eagerness defeated the chance, all the more powerful because it was involuntary, of ascertaining the name of this marvelous youth.
Philip gathered up his gold, not without counting the coins. They felt strangely heavy in his pocket, much heavier than the stones they replaced. Yet they formed but a thousandth part of the value of those flintlike pebbles. What a queer problem it was, this ratio of worth between a few stones and the bright, minted sovereigns.
"What time shall I call to-morrow?" he asked, standing, cap in hand, ready to take his departure.
"At eleven. But wait one moment. Have you no friends to look after you? See what trouble you may get into. Why, the mere possession of so much gold by a boy like you may——"
"I can take care of myself, Mr. Isaacstein. I will be here at eleven. Good-afternoon."
It was four o'clock in the afternoon of a fine, but chilly March day when Philip regained Holborn with fifty pounds making a lump in his pocket, and Isaacstein's letter safely lodged in his coat. The mere weight of the gold suggested an unpleasant possibility. His clothes were so worn that the frail calico might give way and every golden coin rattle forth to the pavement.
So with one of Mr. Abingdon's shillings he made his first purchase, a capacious tobacco pouch with a snap mouth, for which he paid ninepence. Then he adjourned to an aërated bread shop and ordered some refreshments. While the waitress was bringing his cup of tea and piece of cake he contrived to slip all the sovereigns but one into the tobacco pouch.
He did this with his hand in the pocket itself, and more than once there was a pleasant clink as the coins fell into their novel receptacle.
A man sitting near caught the sound, and looked up suspiciously. Philip, whose senses were very much on the alert to-day, realized that his action was somewhat careless. Without even glancing at his neighbor, he took out his remaining couple of shillings and the three pennies, and affected to count them with a certain degree of astonishment, as if some were missing. The ruse was satisfactory. The man gave him no further heed, and soon quitted the restaurant.
Philip tendered the odd sovereign in payment of his bill. The girl cashier seemed to be surprised that such a ragged youth should own so large a sum.
"All silver, please," said Philip, when she began to count his change.
He would take no more risks if he could avoid them. Not a single policeman in London would have failed to arrest him at that moment were his store of gold revealed by any chance. Yet Philip was rich honestly, and there were men driving away from the city at that hour whose banking accounts were plethoric with stolen money. For their carriages the policemen would stop the traffic. In neither instance could the guardians of the peace be held blameworthy; such is the importance of mere appearances.
The boy, during his short and terribly sharp tussle with London life, had already grasped this essential fact, and with great skill and method he set about the task of altering his own shabby exterior.
In a side street leading out of Gray's Inn Road, he found a secondhand clothes shop. Here he purchased a worn, but decent, blue serge suit for eight shillings six pence, a pair of boots for five shillings, a cap for ninepence, a woolen shirt for two shillings, and a linen collar for threepence.
He haggled sufficiently over the bargain to suit the needs of a scanty purse.
"I've cut 'em dahn low enough," said the shopkeeper, mournfully. "Things isn't wot they was in the ole clo' line, let me tell yer. Not but what you do want a new rig-aht."
"Yes," said Philip. "I've got a job, and can't keep it unless I look decent."
For the life of him he could not burlesque the Cockney accent, and although he used the simplest phraseology, the man glanced at him sharply.
"Where are yer workin'?" he said.
"At Isaacstein's in Hatton Garden." The words had not left his lips ere he regretted them.
"Wot is 'e?"
"A Jew," and Philip laughed. This quip atoned for the error of the admission.
"Bli-me, you won't get a lot aht of 'im."
"No. It cost me some trouble to get an advance, I can assure you."
Philip rattled all his silver and coppers onto the counter. He counted out sixteen shillings sixpence.
"Not much left, is there?" he said.
"Well, look 'ere," said the man. "Gimme fifteen bob. You're a sharp lad. You'll myke yer w'y all right. Nex' time you want some duds come to me an' I'll treat you fair."
"Thank you very much," said Philip, considerably surprised by this generous act. "I certainly will not forget you."
"You can change in my little back room if you like. That lot you've got on ain't worth tykin' 'ome."
"I am obliged for your kindness, but I must be off now. It is late, and I have a long way to go."
"Where to? Holloway?"
"No, cityward."
The clothes and boots were made up in a parcel by this time. Philip hurried away, glad to escape further questioning.
"Queer sort o' kid, that," mused the shopkeeper. "My, but 'e must ha' bin 'ard up afore 'e took on wiv' a Jew. Wot did 'e s'y 'is nyme was? Isaacstein? I've seen that somewhere or other. Now where was it?"
He knew two hours later, for he, too, read the evening paper.
Philip sprang into a 'bus for the Bank. At the Royal Exchange he would catch a green 'bus for the Mile End Road.
It was almost dark when he reached the Bank. Thus far the omnibuses going east were not crowded. Now the situation had changed.
The human eddy in that throbbing center of life was sending off its swirls to all points of the compass, and the eastbound vehicles were boarded by an eager crowd almost before the passengers arriving at the terminus could descend.
A poor woman, greatly hampered by a baby, was struggling with others to obtain a seat in the Mile End Road 'bus. Philip, coming late on the scene, saw her swept ruthlessly aside by a number of men and boys. The conductor jerked the bell-rope several times. There was no more room.
The woman, white-faced and disappointed, looked around with a woe-begone expression. Philip, who would have gladly paid for a cab to take her to her destination, dared do nothing of the sort. But he said:
"Keep close to me. I will get you a seat in the next 'bus."
"Oh, I wish you would," she said, with a wan smile. "I am so tired. I have walked here from Shepherd's Bush."
"That's a long way to carry a baby."
"What could I do? People won't take care of children without payment. I heard I could get work in a laundry there, so I went to look after it. There's nothing to be had down our way, is there?"
"Things turn up suddenly," said Philip.
"Not for the poor, my lad. I fear you know that without my telling you. But you are young, and will soon be a man."
Her wistful tone went to his heart.
"Didn't you succeed at the laundry?" he inquired.
"Yes; I ought to be thankful. I can earn nine shillings a week there. I start on Monday."
"Isn't your husband at work?"
"He is dead. Poor fellow, he caught cold last Christmas, and was buried in January. God only knows how I have lived since. If it wasn't for the kindness of neighbors, baby and I would have starved. I can ill afford this tuppence, but I can't walk any further."
"Well, look out now," he said, cheerily. "Here's our 'bus."
As the vehicle drew up he caught the brass rail with his left hand, and warded off assailants with the bundle under his right arm.
"Quick," he said to the woman, as soon as the people inside had descended. "Jump in."
She essayed to do so, but was rudely thrust aside by a young man who had paused on the roof to light a cigarette. Philip sprang onto the step and butted the young gentleman in the stomach with his parcel, causing the other to sit down heavily on the stairs. The boy caught the woman's arm with his disengaged hand and pulled her up. He dived in after her.
"You young——" roared the discomfited smoker.
"'Ere! Come orf of it," said the conductor. "Why didn't ye git dahn before? D'ye want a lift?"
Others hustled the protesting one out of the way.
"Confound the East End, I say," he growled, as he crossed to the Mansion House. "What the deuce Lady Louisa Morland wants to keep on sending me to that wretched mews for I can't imagine. Anyway, I can tell her this time that the place is empty, and will be pulled down next week."
And thus it was that Philip collided with Messrs. Sharpe & Smith's clerk, detailed by the anxious Lady Morland to discover his whereabouts. They met and bumped into each other in the whirlpool of London just as two ships might crash together by night in mid-Atlantic, and draw apart with ruffled feelings, or scraped paint, which is the same thing, without the slightest knowledge of each other's identity.
Within the omnibus the woman was volubly grateful. She had a kindly heart, and timidly essayed questions as to Philip's relatives, hoping that she might make their acquaintance.
"I'll be bound, now," she said, "that you have a good mother. You can always tell what the parents are like when you see the children."
"My mother was, indeed, dear to me," he replied sadly, again driven out of himself by the mournful recollections thus suddenly induced, "but she is dead, lost to me forever."
Some people in the 'bus ceased talking. They were attracted by the strong, clear voice of this unkempt boy, whose diction and choice of words were so outrageously opposed to his garments. Luckily, the silence warned him, or his new friend's sympathy might have brought about an embarrassing position.
"Poor thing! And is your father dead, too?"
"Yes. He died long ago."
"Where do you live now?"
"Oh," he said, "I have been staying in North London, but will leave there soon, and I have not settled anything definitely at present. Where is the laundry you spoke of? I will call some day, if I may, and learn how you are getting on."
"I will be so pleased. It is a little place in James Street—the only one there. Ask for Mrs. Wrigley."
"It is lucky you understand laundry work, or things might go hard with you."
She laughed pitifully.
"I don't! They asked me if I was a washer or an ironer. I thought washing required least experience, so I said I was a washer. I am quick to learn, and will watch the other women. If they find me out I may be discharged."
"Oh, cheer up," he said, pleasantly. "I don't suppose you'll find it very hard."
Her voice sank almost to a whisper.
"It is not the work I dread, but the surroundings. I was a school teacher before my marriage. My husband was an electrical engineer. We put all our savings into a little business, and then—the end came."
"Not quite the end. I am only a boy, but I've had ups and downs enough to know that the beginning of next week may be a very different affair to the end of this. Good-by."
They were passing the London Hospital, and he thought it prudent to alight at some distance from Johnson's Mews.
"Well, God bless you, anyhow," she said, earnestly.
"'E's got 'is 'ead screwed on tight, that lad," commented a man sitting next to her.
"Better than that, he has a good heart," said Mrs. Wrigley. Most fortunate Mrs. Wrigley—to have encountered Philip in that hour, which she deemed the blackest in her life.
He hastened through the familiar bustle of the busy thoroughfare with heightened expectancy, it is true, but devoid of the least fear that his meteor had been discovered. His mother would take good care of it. Why, the mere chance remark of the woman he had befriended showed that her gentle spirit watched over him wherever he went. Here was a stranger, a sad toiler among the millions, who went out of her way to praise the goodness of one she had never seen. He laughed joyously. Mrs. Wrigley should have further cause to bless his mother's memory.
He passed O'Brien's shop. He saw the old man seated behind the counter. Should he go in? No. Better keep wholly to himself at present. Yet he hesitated. Which was the more judicious course—to remain hidden, unknown, or to drop quietly into the groove where he was recognized? With rare perspicacity for one so young, he reflected that only five days had elapsed since he last saw the old pensioner. The period bulked largely in Philip's life; in O'Brien's it would be as naught.
Yielding to the second thought, he entered the shop.
"Glory be to God, Phil, but it's miself is glad to see ye," cried his old friend. "Where have ye bin to, at all at all? Have yez heard what the murtherin' War Office is afther doin' to me? I haven't had a sowl to sphake to about the throuble they've put on me in me owld age."
This was not strictly accurate. O'Brien had pestered the whole neighborhood with the story of his withheld pension and the preposterous claim made on him by some red-tape enthusiast in Pall Mall. But his plaint effectually stopped all further reference to Philip's disappearance. As to the "bit o' shtone," that was "naythur alum nor lime," he hadn't a word to say.
Philip borrowed a spade, a small sweeping brush and a strong sack without evoking the slightest comment from the pensioner, who discoursed incessantly on the iniquity of the "Govermint," and whose farewell remark dealt with the attempt to rob him of "a hundred gowlden sov'rins."
Decidedly the boy was in luck's way. He had secured some necessary implements without attracting any attention. Watching a favorable opportunity, he slipped unseen into the gloom of Johnson's Mews. He tried the door of No. 3. It was locked. He inserted the key and entered. The darkness within was that of utter blindness, but he dumped his impedimenta on the floor and locked the door behind him.
Then he groped his doubtful path to the mantelpiece where he had left a candle and a box of matches. His boots crunched, as he went, on what he knew to be mostly diamonds, and he stumbled over the mattress in front of the fireplace. Yes, the candle was there. Soon he had a light. The tiny gleam lifted the black curtain, and he surveyed his domain. A single glance showed him that all things remained exactly as he left them on Saturday morning. The packet of letters rested on the broken chair, the old sack was stuffed into the window, and the rope—that never-to-be-forgotten rope—dangled from the hook to which he had fastened it.
The sight brought a lump into his throat. He sank to his knees, pressed down, he felt, by some superior power.
"Mother!" he said, humbly, "forgive me, and ask God to forgive me, for what I would have done were you not watching over me."
In the spiritual exaltation of the moment he almost expected to find that sweet face peering at him benignantly from out the dim background. But he could not see her, and he rose, revivified by this spoken communion with her. He had no shadow of doubt as to her presence. God to him was the universe, and his mother the unquestionable means of communication with the Providence that governed his life. He would die rather than abandon that belief. Were it dispelled from his mind he was quite certain that his wealth would vanish with it. It was no haphazard accident which had sent the diamond-laden meteor headlong from the sky. He was despairing, dying; his mother appealed for him; and, behold! the very elements that control the world obeyed a mighty behest.
He began to work methodically. In the first place, he lit a fire, for the evening was chilly. Then he shook his mattress and swept the floor, gathering into a heap all the tiny particles with which it was littered. These he collected in a piece of newspaper, and folded them into a parcel, which again he inclosed in a stouter sheet of brown paper, finally tying the whole with a yard of string he carried in his pocket.
There were hundreds of tiny diamonds in that insignificant package, and not a few the size of small peas. As a matter of fact, he discovered subsequently that the net result of his sweeping brought him in over a thousand pounds.
Having examined every nook and crevice of the apartment by the aid of the candle, he satisfied himself that naught remained which would indicate to the most curious eye any event out of the common having occurred in that humble dwelling.
It was typical of Philip's implicit faith that he did not unlock the back door until his interior task was ended. He knew that his meteor was untouched.
There was no wind without. The candle, feeble as its rays were, illuminated the small yard sufficiently to reveal its débris of white stones and darker lumps of metal. Beginning at the doorway, he swept vigorously but with minutest care, until he had formed four good-sized piles on the flagstones.
He could not afford to differentiate between the débris of the damaged pavement and the fragments of the meteor. It was easy to distinguish the larger pieces of broken glass from the window inside the house—in the yard he had neither the time nor the light to select the bits of shattered stone. All must go together, to be sorted with leisured care subsequently.
He scrutinized the external window sills, the door posts, the chinks of the small coal-house door at the further end of the yard, even the rough surfaces of the walls, and removed every speck of loose material. More newspaper was requisitioned, but, after utilizing the twine on his parcel of clothing, he ran short of string.
He coolly went up the stairs, unfastened the rope with which he had intended to hang himself and loosened its stiff strands. Soon he had an abundance of strong cord, and four bulky packages were added to the first small one.
They were heavy, too, weighing several pounds each. In placing them side by side close to the wall beneath the front window, he suddenly realized an unforeseen difficulty.
If these shreds of matter—the mere husk, as it were, of the meteor—were so ponderous, what would be the weight of the meteor itself? How could he hope to lift it from the hole in which it lay—how convey it from Johnson's Mews to a new and safer habitation? He might as well endeavor to move an unwilling elephant.
The thought chilled him. For the first time since his parting interview with Mr. Abingdon, Philip experienced a dread of failure. With something of panic in his blood, he snatched the candle and ran hastily into the yard. He knelt and held the light low in the excavation. Then he cried aloud:
"What! Am I so ready to lose faith in mother?"
For the huge metallic mass—so big that it would not enter the bore of the largest cannon known to modern gunnery—was split asunder in all directions. Its fissures gaped widely as if to mock at him. The rain and steam had done their work well. It was even possible that he would not need the spade, but would be able to pick out each separate chunk with his hand.
Instantly he put the thought into execution, and succeeded in lifting several pieces to the yard level. He noted that they were gorged with the dull white pebbles, some being the size of pigeon's eggs. He could not help comparing them in his mind's eye with the collection now lodged in Isaacstein's safe. If those were worth fifty thousand pounds, these must be of fabulous value.
Any other person in the wide world might have been excused if he pinched himself, or winked furiously, or took out the gold-filled tobacco pouch for careful inspection, to assure himself that he was not dreaming. Not so, Philip. The only dominant feeling in his brain was one of annoyance that he should have doubted, for one single instant, that means would be given him to secure absolute and undisputed control of his treasure.
But there remained the problem of weight. His original idea was to wrap the actual body of the meteor in the stout sack he obtained from O'Brien, and then inclose all his valuables in a tin trunk which he would purchase next morning. Any ordinary trunk would certainly be spacious enough, but its phenomenal weight would unquestionably evoke more comment than he desired, and it would need two strong men to lift it.