The Sleuth of St. James's Square by Melville Davisson Post (black authors fiction txt) 📕

Europe held of sapphires. These were from some Oriental stock. And everybody bought an Oriental stone wherever he could get it. How the seller got it did not matter. Nobody undertook to verify the title of a Siamese trader or a Burma agent.

Mrs. Farmingham walked about for several minutes, saying over to herself as she had said before:

“Now what shall I do?”

Then like the big, dominant, decisive nature that she was she came to a conclusion.

“All right,” she said, “bring in the money in the morning and get the sapphires. I'll take them up in a day or two. Good-by, major; come along, Mr. Hargrave.” And she went out of the room.

The American stopped at the door to bow to the old Rumanian officer who was standing up beside the table before the heap of sapphires. They got into the carriage at the curb before Blackwell's Hotel. Mrs. Farmingham put Hargrave down at the Empire Club, and the carriage passed on, across Piccadilly Circus toward the Ritz.

The following morning Hargrave got the sapphires from Major Mikos, and paid him eighteen thousand dollars in English sovereigns for them. He wanted gold to carry back with him for the jewels that he had brought out of the kingdom of Rumania. He seemed a simple, anxious person. He wished to carry his treasures with him like a peasant. The sapphires looked better in the daylight. There ought to have been seven thousand dollars' profit in them, perhaps more; seven thousand dollars, at any rate, that very day in the London market. Hargrave took them to the Empire Club and put them in a sealed envelope in the steward's safe.

The thin drift of yellow remained in the city; that sulphurous haze that the blanket of sea fog, moving over London, presses down into her streets. It was not heavy yet; it was only a mist of saffron; but it threatened to gather volume as the day advanced.

At luncheon Hargrave got a note from Mrs. Farmingham, a line scrawled on her card to say that she would call for him at three o'clock. Her carriage was before the door on the stroke of the hour, and she explained that the money to redeem the jewels had arrived. The Credit Lyonnais had sent it over from Paris. She seemed a bit puzzled about it. She had telegraphed the Credit Lyonnais yesterday to send her eighteen thousand dollars. And she had expected that the French banking house would have arranged for the payment of the money through its English correspondent. But its telegram directed her to go to the United Atlantic Express Company and receive the money.

A few minutes cleared the puzzle. The office of the company is on the Strand above the Savoy. Mrs. Farmingham went to the manager and showed him a lot of papers she had in an official-looking envelope. After a good bit of official pother the porters carried out a big portmanteau, a sort of heavy leather traveling case, and put it into the carriage. Mrs. Farmingham came to Hargrave where he stood by the door.

“Now, what do you think!” she said. “Of all the stupid idiots, give me a French idiot to be the stupidest; they have actually sent me eighteen thousand dollars in gold!”

“Well,” said Hargrave, “perhaps you asked them to send you eighteen thousand dollars in gold.”

She closed her mouth firmly for a moment and looked him vacantly in the face.

“What did I do?” she said, in the old manner of addressing an inquiry to herself. “The major wanted gold and perhaps I said gold. Why, yes, I must have said I wanted eighteen thousand dollars in gold. Well, at any rate, here's the money to pay you for the sapphires. I'll telegraph the Credit Lyonnais to send me your eighteen hundred, and you can come around to the Ritz for it in the morning.”

She wished Hargrave to see that the telegram was properly worded, so the stupid French would not undertake to ship another bag of coin to her. He wrote it out, so there could be no mistake, and sent it from Charing Cross on the way back to the club.

Hargrave had to get two porters to carry the leather portmanteau into his room at the Empire Club. Mrs. Farmingham did not wait to receive the sapphires. She said he could bring them over to the Ritz after he had counted the money. She wanted a cup of tea; he could come along in an hour.

It took Hargrave the whole of the hour to verify the money. The case had been shipped, the straps were knotted tight and the lock was sealed. He had to get a man from the outside to break the lock open. The man said it was an American lock and he hadn't any implement to turn it.

There were eighteen thousand dollars in American twenty-dollar gold pieces packed in sawdust in the bag. The Credit Lyonnais had followed Mrs. Farmingham's directions to the letter. Such is the custom of the stupid French! She had asked for eighteen thousand dollars in gold, and they had sent her eighteen thousand dollars in gold. Hargrave put one of the pieces into his waistcoat pocket. He wanted to show Mrs. Farmingham how strangely the stupid French had made the blunder of doing precisely what she asked. Then he strapped up the portmanteau, pushed it under the bed, went out and locked the door. He asked the chief steward to put a man in the corridor to see that no one went into his room while he was out. Then he got the sapphires out of the safe and went over to the Ritz.

He met Mrs. Farmingham in the corridor coming out to her carriage.

“Ah, Mr. Hargrave,” she said, “here you are. I just told the clerk to call you up and tell you to bring the sapphires over in the morning when you came for the draft. I promised Lady Holbert last night to come out to tea at five. Forgot it until a moment ago.”

She took Hargrave along out to the carriage and he gave her the envelope. She tore off the corner, emptied the sapphires into her hand, glanced at them, and dropped them loose into the pocket of her coat.

“Was the money all right?” she said.

“Precisely all right,” replied the American. “The Credit Lyonnais, with amazing stupidity, sent you precisely what you asked for in your telegram.” And he showed her the twenty-dollar gold piece.

“Well, well, the stupid darlings!” Then she laughed in her big, energetic manner. “I'm not always a fool. Come in the morning at nine. Good-night, Mr. Hargrave.”

And the carriage rolled across Piccadilly into Bond Street in the direction of Grosvenor Square and Lady Holbert's.

The fog was settling down over London. Moving objects were beginning to take on the loom of gigantic figures. It was getting difficult to see.

It must have taken Hargrave half an hour to reach the club. The first man he saw when he went in was Sir Henry, his hands in the pockets of his tweed coat and his figure blocking the passage.

“Hello, Hargrave!” he cried. “What have you got in your room that old Ponsford won't let me go up?”

“Not nine hundred